Xing stood her ground not moving back and decided to wait for the other carriage that had the Imperial Emblem to back off and Chenglei patiently waited with Xing too."Is she allowed to use the Imperial Emblem? Has the thousand year rules of the Palace changed this much in the past three years, Lord Li?", Xing asked with a sneer and Chenglei had a irked expression in his face.
Chenglei never liked the Chu family and let them be as his brother seemed to be more forgiving towards his wife. If it was someone else, they"d be nowhere to be found by now. He"d been asking his brother to depose the Empress but his brother firmly disagreed everytime he brought up this issue. He also knew that Chu Yixin is planning to get his younger daughter to marry him and that thought made him retch.
What a bunch of irksome humans!
Xing saw Chenglei"s expression and realised he didnt have much opinion about Chu family either. So how come they try to dominate the city?
Chu Zhilan saw the carriage that stopped her and knew it was the new woman in the city who had caught the eyes of the great Lord Li. She was there in the restaurant where Lord Li shamed the Liang family just for that woman and she even heard that he searched for that woman the entire day only to find her in the Zhong Manor spending time merrily with Lord Zhong.
What a vixen seducing everyone!
Chu Zhilan had decided the moment her sister became Empress that she would marry someone of an equal status as their family who is the in-laws of the Emperor.
Who else would suit her status other than Lord Li who holds almost the same power in the capital city as the Emperor?
So Chu Zhilan patiently waited to get a chance to get close to Lord Li who never looked at a woman even as a glance, using her sister"s status as the Empress and getting the help of the Emperor who only loves her sister. She knew the Emperor only sleeps with her sister and so he must really love her sister, right?
So she knew if she urges the Emperor to arrange her marriage with Lord Li whom he considers as a brother, he"d have no qualms about it.
But as if someone splashed cold water on her warm dreams, that dark-haired woman had to appear. Her sister mentioned that, that woman didn"t even respect her and she is even trying to seduce the Emperor.
How dare she! True, she"s a bit beautiful... But that doesn"t mean anyone should be better than the Chu sisters!
The impa.s.se lasted for a while when the entire street became congested with traffic of the carriages of the women going to the palace for the banquet.
The situation got much worse as more time pa.s.sed when the other carriage"s driver threatened them to run over their carriage of they didn"t step back.
General Zhong got there as his wife was stuck in the traffic behind Chu Zhilan and Huang MingXue wanted that woman who is a threat to her friend to be shamed.
"Who"s in there?", General Zhong knocked at Xing"s carriage and Chenglei tried to interfere but Xing stopped him.
Xing got down and stood with her chin up high surprising General Zhong. He heard this woman was too chummy with his brother, sister-in-law and his mother even. But seeing her wearing purple he was flabbergasted. But as he wasn"t so sure about her status, he let it pa.s.s.
"Miss Táng, there is a big line behind the other carriage. So please move your carriage back to let them pa.s.s. Those Ladies are late for the banquet", he spoke rather politely.
"If I let every carriage in that side pa.s.s, won"t I be late for the banquet?", Xing asked back and General Zhong knew she is looking for trouble and tried hard to diffuse the situation. It had rained that morning and the stone paved road was all wet and dirty and the image was a bit chilly too.
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Xing stood there arguing with General Zhong when the women in the other carriages got down one by one and asked Xing to move back and the problem got escalated with Xing refusing to budge. Xing asked the other carriage to get back.
"How dare you wear purple for this banquet my sister arranged?", Chu Zhilan was the one who got down from the carriage at last.
Soon all the other women started to discuss it and in the streets, Xing was in one side with the other women in the other side arguing and a commotion ensued.
" Miss Táng... Seems like you are wearing the wrong colour as the Ladies say. I"ll ask you to retreat or else I"ll have you escorted back", General Zhong had lost all his patience. Those other ladies are of higher status as they were invited for the banquet and they cannot be made to wait unlike this mysterious Miss Táng, his wife hates and his family loves for some reason.
"What do you mean by escorted back?", Xing pursed her lips and knitted her brows showing her anger.
"Arrest her, General Zhong! Isn"t impersonating a Royal a capital offence?", Chu Zhilan spoke with only her eyes visible from behind a silk fan she was holding.
"Impersonating? Me? How about you Miss Chu? Why are you using a carriage with the Imperial Emblem? I know your sister is the Empress but you are a mere Lady, aren"t you? So why aren"t you get arrested? ", Xing said with a sneer.
"The Empress sent me this carriage... How dare you blame her highness?", Chu Zhilan curled her lips. Isn"t she related to the Imperial family by her sister? If she cannot ride a carriage with the Imperial Emblem, who else can? This insolent woman is wagging her tongue too much.
" Then.... The fault is with the Empress. Doesn"t she know the rules of the Palace? Is she abusing her power? What a brazen act! Or, is the Chu family trying to rebel against the throne?", Xing curled her lips to a smirk, "Why aren"t you saying anything, General Zhong?", Xing looked at General Zhong who looked like he"d rather be anywhere but there.
Everyone knows the Empress" sister always uses the carriage with the Imperial Emblem and no one else have complained about it till now.
"How dare you? Everyone knows how much the Chu family has done for the sake of the kingdom. What does someone like you would know?",Xing saw Kei Takano walking towards her, "Slap her in the mouth!", she ordered her maid.
The maid just followed her mistress" words and raised her hands to slap Xing and Xing with no second thoughts and with a smirk, walked dodging the maid as swift as the wind and walked towards Kei Takano and slapped her hard, she flew on the dirty road with a couple of her hairpins falling on the ground dishevelling her hair and there was fresh blood dropping from the corners of her mouth. The entire crowd gasped seeing someone slap the wife of the Foreign Affairs Minister openly out in the street. Takano"s maid felt her knees weak and knelt on the ground and crawled towards her mistress to help her compose.
Even Chenglei who was watching everything from inside the carriage was flabbergasted by that resounding slap. He never thought she"d slap a woman in public like this.
She really is an amazing person, he thought. When he saw her protecting her maid in the morning he felt like in the future, all he had to do is protect her and she"d protect everything else valuable to him. Now he could see not only she protects, she"d avenge for those who are close to her heart.
I need to marry her before someone else steals her from me! But how is she going to escape slapping a Minister"s wife in public? Should I interfere?
Xing felt like a little of her resentment towards Takano reduce. Her breathing got a bit erratic as her pent up frustration got released a bit. She"d been wanting to slap her silly ever since she learnt she"d been poisoning her father.
I"m still not satisfied!
"Miss Táng!", Chu Zhilan who was short and had a baby face screamed and tried to slap Xing and Xing pulled out the white tiger token out of her pockets and showing it to General Zhong commanded, "Arrest her for raising her hand against royalty!", while slapping Chu Zhi Lan"s hand off.
"What impertinace?", Chu Zhilan tried to grab Xing by the hair when General Zhong drew his sword,
"Stop, Miss Chu! I cannot let you harm the holder of the White Tiger Token!", he stopped her.
For some reason General Zhong had a weird feeling in the pit of his stomach by the aura emitted by the woman taller than all the other woman, clad in purple with the white jade pendant with purple ta.s.sels dangling in her hands. It felt awfully similar to someone he revered in the past.
Who was it? Wait... The Empress... Empress Huang! But... It can"t be her, right? She"s dead!
"All kneel for Miss Táng JiaXing, holder of the White Tiger Token!", General Zhong announced and fixed his sword in the ground before kneeling in front of Xing herself.