Chapter 686 One Never Loses Anything by Sending Gifts!
Xiao Xuanzi stood in front of the gate of Duke Xing’s Mansion, looked at the gift boxes in his hand and at Duke Xing’s Mansion in front of him, sighed helplessly and thought that now he was also sent to deliver gifts.
Well, he shouldn’t have made fun of Prince Xin in secret before. Now it was his turn to be sent to deliver gifts. Thinking of this, he felt inexplicable grievances.
He went to the gate with two little eunuchs, and one of the little eunuchs stepped forward to knock on the door. As the door was opened, a servant of Duke Xing’s Mansion came out. When he saw a little eunuch outside, he was immediately astonished and showed a flattering smile.
“Hearing that the Fifth Miss of Duke Xing’s Mansion has not fully recovered yet after saving our master Prince Chen, our master sent Eunuch Xiao Xuanzi to deliver some medicinal materials to her!” the little eunuch said in a sharp voice.
Now everyone in Duke Xing’s Mansion knew that the Fifth Miss saved Prince Chen. Both the Empress Dowager and Prince Chen gave her rewards and seemed to intend to support the Fifth Miss.
Madam of Duke Xing’s Mansion was locked up in the name of cultivating in seclusion and praying for the family in the ancestral hall. It sounded like a decent reason, but she was obviously grounded in the ancestral hall because of what she had done to the Fifth Miss, and no one knew when she would be released. The reason for this should be that the Empress Dowager and Prince Chen supported the Fifth Miss.
Now that Prince Chen sent gifts again, they, as servants, certainly did not dare to treat it lightly.
A manservant swiftly went inside to report, while the other one led Xiao Xuanzi to go inside.
When they arrived at the Piaoyun Courtyard, Xiao Xuanzi stepped forward to bow to Shao Wanru and said, “Greetings, Fifth Miss!”
“What does His Highness send you here for?” Shao Wanru asked in surprise. In fact, she had just come back.
“My master sent me to bring you gifts in return!” Xiao Xuanzi took the two gift boxes from the two eunuchs behind him, handed them forward and said with a smile.
Yujie stepped forward and took the two gift boxes.
“Why does your master suddenly send me gifts?” With her heart skipping a beat, Shao Wanru asked. The gift she sent to Chu Liuchen was taken among the gifts in her carriage at random, and she really didn’t know what it was.
Old Madam Qin and Aunt Shui gave her a lot of gifts and they were all piled up in her carriage. At that time, in order to send Chu Liuxin away, she asked him to deliver a gift for her on purpose.
“My master said that he liked your gift and would keep it properly!” Xiao Xuanzi said with a bright smile.
However, Shao Wanru was panic-stricken with her eyebrows twitching hard, wondering if she sent him something inappropriate.
“Have you seen what is in the box?” Shao Wanru asked tentatively.
“I didn’t see it, but I saw that my master carefully put it away, and then he specially sent me to bring you gifts in return. It should be something very nice. Besides, Prince Xin is also sent by my master to deliver gifts to the Empress Dowager. Before he went to the imperial palace, he asked for a beautiful maid from our mansion.”
Xiao Xuanzi said.
He wandered from the subject a little far and inexplicably mentioned Chu Liuxin, who had nothing to do with Shao Wanru.
Shao Wanru blinked several times with a trace of confusion across her bright eyes. She couldn’t follow Chu Liuchen’s thought at the moment and didn’t understand what he meant. Did he mean to remind her that Prince Xin had waited for her on purpose before? She bit her lip and somehow blushed.
“Express my grat.i.tude towards your master!”
“It’s very nice of you, Fifth Miss. Since I’ve brought the gifts here, I’ll go back now!” Xiao Xuanzi said with a smile.
“Yujie, see Xiao Xuanzi off!” Shao Wanru said with a nod.
After bowing to her again, Xiao Xuanzi turned around and went out. Yujie put the gift boxes in Qu Le’s hands and followed him out.
As the gift box above was opened, Shao Wanru looked at the handkerchiefs in it in surprise.
Yes, they were handkerchiefs, whose large size and magnificent look made them more like a man’s stuff than an ordinary young lady’s stuff.
They were made of excellent material. Shao Wanru touched one with her hand and found that they were very likely to be the works from the Qiyu Pavilion. She tilted her head and looked at the surface of the gift box. As expected, she saw the mark of Qiyu Pavilion in the corner. The handkerchiefs in the box were from the Qiyu Pavilion.
“Miss, why does Prince Chen send you such handkerchiefs? They are too large for you,” Qu Le asked in confusion, specially lifted a handkerchief and looked at it. This handkerchief was indeed more like a man’s stuff than a girl’s stuff. If her master used such a handkerchief, there might be a lot of rumors.
Shao Wanru removed the gift box above and opened the gift box below. As soon as she opened it, she was shocked by the various colors inside. It turned out to be a strand of colorful threads.
Not only were the threads of various bright colors, but there were even some golden threads that she was not supposed to use.
So he wanted her to do needlework? Thinking of the blank handkerchiefs that were obviously not for a girl, Shao Wanru understood everything. He meant to have her embroider those handkerchiefs for him rather than give her those handkerchiefs as a gift.
…
“Miss, Prince Chen wants you to embroider the handkerchiefs for him!” Qu Le also understood at this time and said with a smile.
Shao Wanru felt uneasy and that her face was burned. She took out the list of the gifts from Shui Ruolan after closing the box in her hand, and asked Qu Le to check the list.
After checking the list, Qu Le finally found the gift Shao Wanru gave away. Seeing the gift ticked by Qu Le, Shao Wanru blushed.
She finally realized what Chu Liuchen meant by sending her these threads and handkerchiefs for her to embroider!
Shui Ruolan got several pieces of nice cloth before, so Shui Ruolan measured her size last time when going up the mountain to visit her and later made several clothes for her.
Shui Ruolan, who was a careful person, knew that Duke Xing’s Mansion would not prepare any clothes for Shao Wanru. Besides, Shao Wanru had said that she would probably come down the mountain before the Spring Festival, so Shui Ruolan made several clothes for Shao Wanru in advance, including both the outer clothes and the underclothes.
However, for fear that Shao Wanru didn’t like the look and style of the underclothes embroidered by her, Shui Ruolan just made some rough underclothes which actually hadn’t been completed in detail. In addition, she put some colorful threads in the box so that Shao Wanru could complete the underclothes and embroider some patterns she liked on them.
Unexpectedly, Shao Wanru took the gift box casually at that time and gave it away. Now when she thought of it, she felt her face was still burned. It was really shameful to give such a private thing away, although they should technically be considered semi-finished underclothes rather than real underclothes.
But even so, they were sent to Chu Liuchen by her.
Shao Wanru bit her lip, threw the gift list on the table in embarra.s.sment and anger, and then turned around and went into the inner room. As she thought about it, she became increasingly annoyed and embarra.s.sed.
Qu Le couldn’t help laughing. Since she began to serve her master, she had never seen her master so embarra.s.sed and annoyed like a young lady in her best years. In the past, although her master was calm and wise, she always thought that her master lacked some pa.s.sion of a young lady and looked too indifferent.
The maids all thought that Shao Wanru had suffered too many grievances caused by Madam Di and Qin Yuru, so she grew up into a person alienating herself from others. However, they didn’t know that Shao Wanru had died miserably and in despair in the last life. So in this life, this kind of affection an unmarried young lady longed for was not what she was after.
Shao Wanru had no expectation for marriage.
“What’s so funny?” Yujie lifted the curtain and came in. When she saw that only Qu Le was laughing from ear to ear in the room and didn’t find Shao Wanru after looking inside, she asked softly.
Qu Le shook her head and pointed to the inner room, indicating that Shao Wanru had entered the inner room in shame and anger.
“Yujie, come in!” When Yujie, who did not fully understand what Qu Le meant, was about to ask again, she suddenly heard Shao Wanru’s calm voice come from the inner room.
“Yes, Miss!” Yujie answered, pushed the door open and walked in.
In the room, Shao Wanru had calmed down. She looked at Yujie, who came in, and said, “I a.s.sume Doctor Qiu hasn’t gone back yet at this moment, has he?”
Shao Wanru meant to ask if he had gone back to the courtyard, where he lived, after leaving w.a.n.g Yishu’s courtyard. As a man, he naturally lived in the outer courtyard. But because he needed to treat w.a.n.g Yishu, his residence was specially arranged in the outer courtyard near the second gate. Yujie had kept an eye on him for a period of time and knew that he shuttled between the inner and outer courtyards regularly.
“Miss, I just happened to see Doctor Qiu go to the First Miss’s yard!” Yujie reported. Doctor Qiu was supposed to be in w.a.n.g Yishu’s yard at this moment. However, when she saw Xiao Xuanzi off, she saw the First Miss’s maid Shuqi led Doctor Qiu to the First Miss’s yard.
“Didn’t they send for a lot of doctors before? Now they even asked Doctor Qiu to go there!” Shao Wanru thought for a while and said with a slight frown.
Shao Yanru seemed to be in a bad condition, now that they even asked Doctor Qiu to treat her.
In the past two days, they had sent for plenty of doctors to treat Shao Yanru. There were famous doctors visiting the Duke Xing’s Mansion from time to time. Both the doctors in the mansion and the famous doctors outside had made a diagnosis for her. Now they asked Doctor Qiu to treat her. Was it because Doctor Qiu was high degree of medical skill indeed or she, in a desperate plight, intended to try anything.
Thinking that Shao Yanru intended to drug her at the beginning, Shao Wanru showed coldness in her eyes. Shao Yanru fell into the trap set by herself. Now she was busy enough with her own affairs so that she was even indifferent to Madam of Duke Xing’s being locked up in the ancestral hall. It could be seen that she was really anxious.
However, it could also be seen that she was very cold-hearted.
Since she dared to do such a vicious thing at that time, she deserved to suffer this. But who on earth was Doctor Qiu? Why did he have the bottle containing the medicine for Wen Xichi in the last life? Shao Wanru was very curious about him!
Doctor Qiu should be the famous doctor who came from the south of the Yangtze River and treated Wen Xichi in the last life. Every time he treated Wen Xichi, Wen Xichi was pushed to another courtyard by a manservant. He said that Wen Xichi was married, so it was inconvenient for him to treat Wen Xichi with her, Wen Xichi’s wife around. The courtyard was far away from Wen Xichi and her courtyard. Moreover, every time he gave Wen Xichi the medicine Wen Xichi needed to take in the following half a month.
Because of this, Shao Wanru had never met the doctor who treated Wen Xichi in the last life.
However, in the last life, as Wen Xichi took the medicine, he became increasingly sick and even died of illness at the end!
In this life, where did this Doctor Qiu come from? She met this Doctor Qiu in two lives. What had this Doctor Qiu hidden?