It had been a long time since Li Palace had a female Master, ever since Xuan Tianyan was infatuated with Feng Fendai, all those women who had been in the palace were dismissed by him, with him putting his whole heart into Feng Fendai.
At the very beginning, the people in the palace thought this was very good. Finally outsiders would not talk behind their backs on how the Fifth Prince was an absurd prince, their Master was finally living a normal life. It was such that even the Granny who took care of him since young cried because of how moved she was……
But as time passed, the people abandoned the beautiful thoughts they had originally, even starting to miss the grand situation in Li Palace. All of this was because Feng Fendai was too unreasonable! She was really too unreasonable!
No one expected that this girl Feng Fendai was unreasonable to the extreme, time and again, round after round, she tormented the Fifth Prince until he was thrown off his feet, and he even invited ire from the Emperor because of her. This was worse than before! At least it was steady in the past, the Fifth Prince only cared about playing around and he was happy all day. But ever since there was Feng Fendai, the servants in Li Palace rarely saw Xuan Tianyan smile, he would be gloomy faced all day. Some people even heard that Feng Fendai intended to have the Fifth Prince fight for the throne because she wanted to become Empress.
The servants of Li Palace felt a lingering fear after thinking about these things, once the Fifth Prince listened to Feng Fendai, he would be doomed eternally once he made a wrong move! How big of a sin was snatching the throne? How much grudges did one have to form to snatch the throne? The Fifth Prince did not have such aptitude at all, if he was forced to go fight for it, he would only lose his life and his power in the end.
Therefore, after the initial happiness, everyone started to hope day and night that the Fifth Prince would grow tried to Feng Fendai quickly, the two of them should quickly break off their engagement, they would rather have the Li Palace in the past where they played and sung songs every night instead of having someone like Feng Fendai as the main mistress which could get Li Palace into trouble and exterminate every single one of them.
Finally, the Fifth Prince and Feng Fendai broke up, when the people heard about this, they almost bought two bunches of firecrackers and light them in front of the palace gates. There were also people who were worried that the Fifth Prince would never get up after this, but when the Fifth Prince quickly brought in a young lady and gave her the status of secondary wife, everyone felt relieved.
Talking about this new secondary wife, she did have a very beautiful appearance. It was said that she was the daughter from a merchant family. Even though she was a concubine’s daughter, because she was beautiful, that merchant valued her very much, thinking that with this daughter’s beautiful appearance, she would be able to marry to a better family, and with this momentum from the daughter, they would be able to slightly raise the status of their family. After all, Da Shun focused on scholars, farmers, artisans, then merchants. Merchants did not have any status at all.
Xuan Tianyan brought his lady in, giving her the status of secondary wife, the power of that lady’s maternal family rose as well. It was not as high as the officials in the imperial palace, but because they obtained his marriage to the Fifth Prince, it still bought them a lot of face in the merchant’s circle. And Xuan Tianyan treated that lady very well, giving her the best courtyard once she was married, even buying her a lot of good things, making the owner of the jade shop very happy.
Everyone started to spread that the Fifth Prince had grown tried of Feng Fendai and set his eyes on other women, but they did not know, in Li Palace, the days spent by that woman was completely different from what was described by the people outside and what she imagined.
Xuan Tianyan treated her well? Good, it was really very good! She was given anything she wanted, she could buy anything she wanted, and spend as much money as she wanted. Everyone in the palace listened to her, but only the person Xuan Tianyan, forget about treating her with favour, it was difficult for her to even meet him. It was as if she was only brought into the palace as a decoration for people to know that Li Palace had a secondary wife, but after almost two months in the palace, she was still a virgin, the Fifth Prince did not touch her at all.
This secondary wife did not understand the Fifth Prince’s action, but she did nto dare to ask as well, because someone in the palace told her: “Providing you with food and drink and benefits, you should just obediently be a secondary wife. Do not say anything you shouldn’t, do not ask anything you shouldn’t. For some things, you will not be able to know about them just because you want to, there are some things you do not have the right to know about as well. Rather than returning to your maternal family and continue being treated by your father as an object waiting for a right time to sell, why not be a secondary wife in name in Li Palace. At least you will have some status, and the people in your home will also have some face.”
She was also a smart woman, immediately understanding after hearing this. The Fifth Prince only wanted a secondary wife in name, not because he truly became interested in women again. And the reason for marrying her into the palace, she guessed, it was most likely to make the Fourth Miss from the Feng family angry!
In fact, this secondary wife did not guess wrong, Xuan Tianyan quickly married a woman into the palace and gave her the status of secondary wife was because he wanted to fight it out with Feng Fendai. Of course, at the beginning, it was not only because he wanted to anger Fendai, he also had thoughts of giving up. He wanted to return to the past, wanting to show Feng Fendai that he, Xuan Tianyan, could do without her. He wanted to show Feng Fendai the Li Palace which became prosperous again was so lively and his life could still be this unbridled.
But when the person was brought into the palace, when he wanted to enter the courtyard where the woman lived, he discovered that he no longer have the thoughts from before. Even if that woman was very beautiful and her brows bore some resemblance to that person in the past, he still did not have any thoughts of showing favour to her, not even willing to enter the courtyard. His mind was filled with the figure of Feng Fendai, filled with Feng Fendai’s appearance when she danced that snow plum dance in the past.
Xuan Tianyan finally understood, he had lost. During these years, he had lost without realising it. That damn girl Feng Fendai occupied his heart like this so that he did not even have any thoughts of touching other woman, what the heck was this known as?
The secondary wife in Li Palace became a decoration, becoming a measurement for Xuan Tianyan to observe Feng Fendai’s reaction. But it was almost two months, Feng Fendai did not show any reaction at all. The scout who returned to report said, every day, Feng family’s Fourth Miss would be in the courtyard playing with her younger brother, teaching her younger brother how to read. In the afternoon, then Xiao Bao slept, she would also sleep. For lunch, it was either a bowl of simple noodles or a lunch following the standard of the commoners. Meat and fish were rarely seen. She was living out her days like that of a poor citizen.
Xuan Tianyan felt some pain in his heart when he heard this. Thinking that Feng Fendai did not have much silver, what she was using was what he gave her in the past. But after that, she moved to Crystal Courtyard and he did not give that silver that much, because Feng Fendai did not need them. All the expenses for Crystal Courtyard were paid by him directly, and he also made many arrangements with regards to Feng Fendai’s clothes and accessories such that the girl never had to worry about them herself. With this, excluding the small items she bought on her own, Feng Fendai did not spend much money. As this went on, she no longer asked him for money, and as a man, it was unavoidable for him to neglect this, not thinking about giving silver to her frequently.
Thinking about it now, Feng Fendai was probably close to using up the silver she had, so using them frugally was something which could not be helped. Therefore he pondered about sending some silver to Feng Fendai, but every time he prepared the silver, he felt that there was no reason to deliver them. Sending it over without any reason, it showed that he really had no more face to preserve, so he dropped the idea.
As this went on, Feng Fendai’s life still continued to be poor.
Of course, Xuan Tianyan was angrier that Feng Fendai’s attitude, the whole capital knew that he had married a secondary wife into the palace, why was there no reaction from that girl at all? Every day, she was acting as if it did not concern her, did she really intend to not interact with him until their deaths? The engagement between them, could it really be broken off just like that? It had been so many years, that Feng Fendai did not have any feelings or lingering positive feelings for him? There was really nothing cultivated at all?
He felt gloomier the more he thought about it, but he did not know, Feng Fendai was not someone who did not have any emotions at all, for how well Xuan Tianyan treated her during these years, how could she not remember them with gratitude? It was just that she was afraid to mix in that circle again, being together with these people. It would always cause the vanity and frustration in her heart to swell up more and more, such that she would do many crazy things. It was always difficult for that heart which was raised higher than the sky to fall down.
Therefore, Feng Fendai was not emotionless, she was hiding, using the method of escape to make herself calm down.
Feng Fendai was calm, but currently, the person who was not calm had changed to Feng Yuheng. She went out on the streets every day to search for the person, sometimes brining Wang Chuan and Huang Quan, sometimes leaving the palace alone. Her footprints were left in the various corners of the big and small streets in the capital. She even entered the brothel pubs before, causing a huge commotion.
However, that woman still did not appear. It was as if she had disappeared suddenly, not surfacing regardless of how much she searched.
Wang Chuan once had the thought that the person was no longer in the capital, suggesting that they left the city to look. But Feng Yuheng could feel that the person did not go far, she was still within the boundaries of the capital and had not left the city at all. So she spread the web again, this time, she did not just use the hidden guards in the three palace manors, even having Wang Zhuo deploy part of his city guards to help search.
The weather in early winter was already very cold, the citizens changed to winter clothes. Under the arrangements of the Sixth Prince, the court also started to send resources from the capital to the various lands in Da Shun to help the disaster victims and poor citizens to successfully live through winter.
This day, Feng Yuheng walked on the streets alone, her eyes seeking around her warily. Wang Chuan and Huang Quan were arranged by her to go to other places to patrol. Even though the two young ladies were worried about having her go out alone, they could not beat Feng Yuheng’s stubbornness, thinking that the streets were now filled with the people she sent out, consisting of the city guards and hidden guards, no matter what happened wherever Feng Yuheng was, someone would definitely help at the first moment, so they felt a little more reassured.
This was not the first or second time Feng Yuheng went out on the streets on her own, but every single time, she did not gain anything. Sometimes, she almost went into a daze, thinking if she was just too sensitive, that person, hat matter did not exist at all. But today, she walked on the streets, walking though two alleys, and when she finally walked to a bustling main retail shop street, a street peddler walked past her, and spoke in a soft volume when he almost brushed shoulders with her: “Princess, please pay attention behind you, there is a scholar-like person wearing blue robes following you……”