LEGEND OF THE GOLDEN TIGRESS

The New Year Banquet starts in the evening that would end with fireworks display during midnight. Even though Xing would become twenty two years old this year, she have never watched fireworks up close till now. She was excited that she get to watch the fireworks with Chenglei for the first time.

Xing was staying in the Light Wind Courtyard, the courtyard of Empress Shu, she stayed when she was the empress. Apparently that courtyard was closed for the women in the Harem and with her stay there, ruffled the feathers of some women in the Harem who were staunch supporters of Chu Weiye. Even though she was still in the cold palace, she still had some of her supporters left who believed that this Miss Táng who is Princess Consort Jin now, was Empress Huang.

Xiao Mei was as efficient as Bai Li in collecting these details and she explained Xing everything and Xing was surprised to see her so excited. She rarely shows this enthusiasm for anything.

Guess, women like gossiping!

She also told Xing about the other rumour that she was a loose woman who seduced Lord Li and married him. Xiao Mei"s nose flared in anger as she talked about the various rumours circulating in the inner palace.

As for the other things, she was not interested and it seemed boring for her. Since when was she not accused of something?

Xiao Mei urged Xing to get dressed up and her nagging started from early noon and Xing had to comply to that difficult maid of hers.

After taking a bath, she walked to the vanity with a robe covering her and she saw the dress she was supposed to wear on the mannequin stand and stood rooted in the spot perplexed.

What is this?

Xing took her hand off her mouth and walked towards the dress. She has seen a lot of dresses from all the realms and she has always thought there aren"t much that would take her by surprise. But this dress....

Wow!

The s.h.i.+rt was blue as the summer sky and as it got lower to the skirt, the colour got deeper and deeper and the bottom part of the skirt was deeper shade of purple. It looked like the colour of the Sky from noon to night on a normal cloudless summer day.

And that was not all... The lower part of the skirt was glittering brightly. Xing went closer and took a closer look. Even the material of the skirt was different. It was made of silk but it was so soft and as she looked closer, it was brocaded with gold threads and there were many gold beads that shaped like plum blossoms and in the center there was a diamond as big as a pea. The plum blossoms are more concentrated on the lower part of the skirt as it was a little scattered in the upper part of the skirt.

In bright light, the gold will be more prominent and with the light of the torches in the night, the diamonds will be reflected as they s.h.i.+ne brightly, making them look like stars.

Just like the night sky!

Wow!

Xing saw the upper part and the s.h.i.+rt only had gold brocaded like the rays of the sun.

Xing happily changed and the dress was not that heavy as her wedding dress and she could move more freely. Definitely this is the work of Haru, she knew.

What she didn"t know was Chenglei was the one who got the diamonds from the southern kingdom and he arranged a skillful worker to make the beads before handing it over to Haru for embroidering it in her dress.
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Finished with a simple hairdo with hairpins that suit the dress and light makeup, Xing was about to leave when she noted the swing still hanging in the room. It seemed like it was a long time ago when she"d sit in the swing hugging her knees silently crying.

Xiao Mei told her to wait for sometime since it was enough for her to get to the venue just before the Emperor"s arrival.

Xing in the other hand, felt like Chenglei has arrived already and wanted to get to him. A sedan was arranged for her to get to the venue but Xing wanted to get out early and she walked to the exit of the inner palace since she knew Chenglei won"t be allowed inside the inner palace.

As she was walking out, she saw a bunch of women chatting happily, walking in front of her with their maids following them. Xing only had Xiao Mei with her since she never was a fan of walking around with a bunch of maids following her. Back when she was the Empress, she allowed it while attending official banquets as it was mandatory but now she is her own person and she wanted to follow her own rules.

But what they were saying, caught her attention. They were talking about the most extravagant wedding they"ve ever heard of but they were saying that Prince Jin was seduced by this dirty vixen and so on and so forth.

Xing was not mad about that as it is usual for those women to talk like that, out of jealousy.

But what they said afterwards made her more alert and she glared at Xiao Mei.

This kind of rumours should not be circulating...!

"There was no blood found in the white cloth and even so the phoenix Crown was placed carefully in the table. I really pity Prince Jin"

Xing got furious and Xiao Mei trembled in fright seeing her Lady mad. She rarely gets this mad at her.

"Xiao Mei, the maids who got replaced the third day of our wedding.... They weren"t caught stealing, were they? They spread gossips, right? ", Xing asked gritting her teeth.

Seeing her not replying her and her head hanging low out of guilt, Xing knew her guess is right.

" You"ve become that brazen enough to decide on my behalf, Xiao Mei? ", Xing"s time was cold.

" No, milady ", she was about to kneel but Xing stopped her.

"I wouldn"t dare...", her eyes were teary and she started sobbing immediately.

" Does he know how serious this is? ", Xing muttered rubbing the temples of her forehead.

Xing figured out the reason this didn"t reach her ears must be because of Chenglei. He might have thought that by suppressing this rumor, this would go away but not all rumours are like that.

It was just gossips if women just talked among themselves without any proof but with the white cloth as proof, this has gotten one step closer to the truth.

This rumour is implying that Xing was not a virgin which is the fact. But if the rumour spreads, it would mean that Prince Jin was cuckolded and he"d lose the respect he holds in the capital city.

But the truth was that she only slept with Chenglei and Xing didn"t like the idea of people mischaracterising her.

There might be people Who"d believe she slept with Chenglei previously, since everyone knew both of them travelled a lot together. But there would be a problem if the rumours are turned like that.

She would be characterised as a loose woman Who"d sleep with a man who is not her husband.

May be that"s why Chenglei tried to suppress the spreading if the rumour but he doesn"t understand the power of the jealousy of women.

Every woman in their Kingdom would be now jealous of Xing because she got to marry the perfect man in a perfect wedding. So it would be hard to shut their mouth from talking bad about her.

Ahh! Why didn"t we bother to spray some chicken blood in the white cloth! Xing sighed. But this can be debunked.

"Hey, ladies! ", Xing put on a bright smile as she walked closer to those women and Xing could feel them stressing up and their smile froze in their face and they"d all became pale. There was a hint of jealousy in their eyes nonetheless as they saw the astonis.h.i.+ng dress Xing was wearing.

Before Xing could say another word, those women all fell in their knees and Xing could hear the familiar footsteps from behind her.

Chenglei is here!

Suddenly Xing got an idea.

"Hubby!", she spoke in a doting voice and ran to him and wrapped her arms around his arm and looked him in the face. Her action looked like a puppy that was running towards its master, meeting him after a while.

Since when this tigress became a puppy? Chenglei wondered and seeing Xiao Mei with her eyes focusing in the floor and the other bunch of women extremely nervous, he could guess that the secret he tried to keep from her is outed.

He just wanted to keep her away from worries but it seems like in the end he really couldn"t protect her.

"What?", he asked as he gently held the back of her head and looked into her eyes. He could see she was mad. Her lips were smiling but her amber eyes were displeased looking at him.

Why? I just tried to protect her so what made her angry? He tried to get come up with a reason but he could not and he still decided to play along with her.

By now all the women have knelt and hearing the tone of Chenglei"s voice towards the woman whom they deemed unsuitable for Prince Jin, they all fisted their hands inside the sleeves of their carefully made dresses and some even trembled in anger.

"I should have listened to you when you said we should publicise our wedding years back when we first got married. Now these women think that I was...", Xing spoke like a little girl trying to apologise, poking hole in his strong arm with her forefinger.

" They dared to what?",Chenglei interjected her and his time became cold as his sharp predatory eyes focused in the women in the ground kneeling.

On the other hand, in his heart he was amazed. How come both father and daughter came up with the same solution?

He thought, suppressing the rumour would help but it spread more widely among the women and to their husbands and some men dared to look down on him. He wondered how to solve this without losses in both sides.

Only today Huang AoTian "accidentally" revealed in a "drunken stupor" that his G.o.d-daughter is married for a long time but she wanted to keep it a secret for some reasons. Also apparently there was a fall-out between the couple in the last three years and they were separated till now. But now, since they realised they are meant for each other and still deeply in love with each other, they"d decided to conduct a grand wedding.

Chenglei just now heard this beautiful story that transcends reality from AoTian. Oddly, everyone believed that. It is believable since, until three years back, no one knew about Li ChengNuo much and she was known as "Lord Tang". He was never involved with any women and she was never involved with any other men too. The last three years he came out from hiding and she came out as a woman too and still no one has seen them with any partners.

It makes sense those two were married to each other and had a slight misunderstanding that kept them separated.

This would actually stop this rumour... If they"d were actually married years back, they"d have consummated their marriage then too.

Chenglei was amazed by AoTian"s resourcefulness but what amazed him more was how his little wife pulled out the same excuse out of thin air.

Guess the apple doesn"t fall far from the tree! Does she take after her father?

His thoughts were disturbed by the women"s apologies and without caring for them he lifted Xing up startling Xing.

"You look perfect", he placed his forehead over hers and walked towards the exit.

"Let me down", Xing actually felt the burning glares of the women and she didn"t want to flame the fans of their jealousy.

"No! You might step in sh*t", he said and carefully placed his foot in the ground, where the women"s dresses weren"t sprawled on.

Did he just say our expensive dresses are sh*t? Those women"s face blackened.

As if his sharp words weren"t enough, Xing commanded the guards, " Twenty lashes to all of them for slandering a royal", she said and her hands were wrapped around Chenglei"s neck and asked Xiao Mei to follow her without heeding the apologetic voices of those women.

Xing knew nothing helps more than a little beating and she also knew that if she is gracious towards these women, she"d have to fight the rest of her life with them. It is better to prove them who has more power in the beginning so that she"d have a peaceful life in the future. From now on, everyone will think twice before gossiping about her.

As they got far from the inner palace, Xing asked Chenglei to let him down.

"You thought you were protecting me by hiding things from me, Chenglei?", she asked and he looked at her unapologetically.

He felt like he didn"t do anything wrong. Seeing his look made Xing realise the truth.

This man still doesn"t know about me!

"Look Chenglei", she held his arms and took a deep breath, " I won"t be broken by some rumours among women, okay? I"m stronger than that. I can take care of these stuff only if I know about it. So please, don"t do this again... Hiding matters from me. I"d ask for your help if I know I cannot handle it, okay? ", she looked into his eyes.

" Okay", he said but Xing could not feel him being honest. He was in this protective husband mode and Xing found it mildly offensive.

In the past Chenglei would let her know before he acted on anything since he knew she appreciated it. He always would watch her annihilating her enemies and would extend his hands when she could not handle it alone.

Well, he will learn step by step, Xing shrugged it of.

Chenglei who walked hand in hand beside Xing had a slight dark glint in his eyes.

Well, wifey! You expect me to stop hiding things from you but you are hiding your past from me too, right? Especially the one who took your heart and your first time?

Chenglei"s grip on her hands got tighter and Xing who was carelessly chatting with him missed this slight darkness emitting from him.