Chapter 720 Nanny Yu, Do You Really Want to Know?
After Nanny Xi finished her words, she turned around and left, followed by the two palace maids closely, leaving Old Madam and the servants of Duke Xing’s Mansion behind. The servants looked at Nanny Xi’s back in astonishment and then looked at Old Madam, who was sitting in the middle with a straight face and lowered their heads silently.
Everyone could see that Old Madam, whose face was twisted, was about to burst with anger.
“Old Madam, please cool down. Nanny Xi didn’t make it clear…” Nanny Yu consoled her cautiously.
Old Madam swung her arm, and the teacup on the table immediately fell to the ground. The tea and the fragments of the teacup were scattered all over the ground, turning the room into a mess.
“Let’s go and see who the great etiquette instructor is!” Old Madam said with her fingers trembling.
After that, she struggled to stand up.
“Old Madam, don’t be angry. What’s the point of going there at this time? If there is no such etiquette instructor and Nanny Xi misunderstood it, it’s inappropriate for you to make a punitive expedition. If there is really such an etiquette instructor, even Nanny Xi has come back, so it’s useless for you to make a punitive expedition!” Nanny Yu said anxiously and reached out to support Old Madam.
If Old Madam really rushed over rashly, she would cause a big trouble!
Hearing Nanny Yu say the point, Old Madam managed to calm herself down after breathing heavily and sat down heavily with Nanny Yu’s help. It was indeed irrational to go there when she didn’t know what was going on.
“Go and the etiquette instructor’s background!” After sitting down for a long while, Old Madam said in a deep voice.
“Yes, I’ll go now. Old Madam, please cool down.” Nanny Yu nodded while comforting Old Madam in a soft voice.
When Nanny Xi was here, Old Madam basically pretended to be angry. But now, she was really angry. Old Madam was in poor health. If anything terrible happened to her, no one could bear the responsibility.
“Don’t go there empty-handed. Take the bracelets given by the Empress with you!” Old Madam also knew that she was in poor health, so she tried hard to get her breath back and spoke.
Sending Nanny Xi to educate several Misses of Duke Xing’s Mansion indicated that the Empress thought highly of Duke Xing’s Mansion. In order to show her high opinion of Duke Xing’s Mansion, the Empress even instructed Nanny Xi to bring four pairs of bracelets as gifts for the Misses who were going to enter the imperial palace to attend the consort selection.
However, after Nanny Xi came here, she had been busy with establis.h.i.+ng her prestige and forgot to give the bracelets to the Misses, so they were kept by Old Madam for the time being. Coincidentally, now they could be used as an excuse for Nanny Yu’s visiting Shao Wanru.
Hearing Old Madam’s words, Nanny Yu knew that Old Madam had really calmed down. She secretly breathed a sigh of relief and hastened to agree.
Then she instructed a maid to fetch a pair of bracelets and headed for the Piaoyun Courtyard.
Nanny Yu also wondered why Shao Wanru had an etiquette instructor. It had been a while since the Fifth Miss returned to the mansion. During these days, she had often visited the Piaoyun Courtyard. Why didn’t she find that there was such an etiquette instructor, who could even suppress Nanny Xi, in the Piaoyun Courtyard?
It was very quiet in the Piaoyun Courtyard as if Nanny Xi’s visit didn’t make any wave. Most of the servants there did not know that the old maid, who came over a.s.suming a haughty air just now, turned out to be a trusted servant of the Empress.
They all thought that Nanny Xi was just a supervisor nanny of a mansion and probably came to visit the Fifth Miss for some business. But seeing her go back with a pale face, they knew that she failed to get what she wanted.
Now seeing Nanny Yu, who served Old Madam, come over, they were all shocked.
Hearing of Nanny Yu’s visit, Shao Wanru instructed Yujie to come out and politely invite Nanny Yu in. When Nanny Yu got in the room, she saw Shao Wanru sitting there and embroidering a sachet with a calm look.
“Fifth Miss, I came here with a pair of bracelets, which are the gifts the Empress instructed Nanny Xi to bring here for several Misses.” Nanny Yu came up to bow to her and said with a smile.
Shao Wanru instructed Yujie to hold her, put down the sachet in her hand, and said with a smile, “Nanny Yu, you’re overcourteous. I’m sorry to trouble you to bring them here!”
“Don’t mention it. This is what I should do!” Nanny Yu looked around as she spoke.
There were only Shao Wanru and Yujie in the room. The others were not here. It was so quiet in the room as if they didn’t have a conflict with Nanny Xi just now.
The maid handed over the jade bracelets, and Shao Wanru stood up and took them respectfully.
“The Empress thinks highly of the Misses of our mansion, so she bestowed special favor on our mansion by sending a nanny, who served her, here to be in charge of educating several Misses in daily etiquette. The imperial palace is a different place from our mansion. The slightest mistake you make in the imperial palace could make you lose your life.”
Nanny Yu said with a smile while talking about how kind the Empress was.
“The Empress is really thoughtful.” Shao Wanru said softly. However, the Empress was thoughtful to the whole Duke Xing’s Mansion rather than to her.
“Just now, Nanny Xi said that she saw an etiquette instructor here. Old Madam said that she didn’t know about it and wondered whether it was true or not!”
Nanny Yu smiled and changed the topic.
“Nanny Yu, are you talking about Nanny Zheng?” Shao Wanru didn’t hide it. She tilted her head slightly and thought for a while, then asked with a smile.
“Nanny Zheng? Fifth Miss, I remember that the supervisor nanny of this courtyard is not your wet nurse, but seems… seems to be a nanny surnamed Yu. Nanny Yu, right?”
Nanny Yu pretended to figure it out after thinking for a long while and said as if she really had paid little attention to the Piaoyun Courtyard.
“The supervisor nanny in charge of the Piaoyun Courtyard is indeed Nanny Yu.” Shao Wanru nodded and confirmed.
“In this case, who is Nanny Zheng?”
“Nanny Zheng is my etiquette instructor Old Madam Qin chose for me when I was in the Qin’s Mansion. At that time, she happened to come out of the imperial palace and said to be refined in manners. Old Madam Qin thought that the First Miss Qin and I had just moved to the capital city and were not good enough in manners. For fear that we would offend others, she specially hired Nanny Zheng to educate us. Later, I suddenly returned to my ancestral roots and went up the mountain for cultivation in seclusion. So I entrusted Nanny Zheng to my maternal grandmother. My maternal grandmother also thinks highly of her. She has just moved to Duke Xing’s Mansion recently.”
Shao Wanru blinked her eyes, no longer hid Nanny Zheng’s existence, and told the whole story of how Nanny Zheng became her etiquette instructor.
As such, not only did Nanny Zheng really come out of the imperial palace, but she also got the approval of Rui’an Great Elder Princess. So it would be difficult for Old Madam to drive her away even if she wanted to.
Old Madam had never gained the upper hand when confronting Rui’an Great Elder Princess!
“Can I meet Nanny Zheng?” Nanny Yu thought to herself and said with a kind smile. Although she worked for Old Madam, she had always show faint kindness to Shao Wanru, so Shao Wanru didn’t find her words annoying.
Nanny Yu’s intuition told her that Nanny Zheng was not simple. Seeing was believing and hearsay was undependable. She decided to take a closer look at Nanny Zheng when Nanny Zheng showed up.
Since Shao Wanru had introduced Nanny Zheng as her etiquette instructor, she naturally did not intend to hide Nanny Zheng from others. She nodded to Yujie. Yujie left and brought Nanny Zheng in a moment later.
Seeing that the woman, who came in, was only in her thirties, Nanny Yu was stunned for a moment. Since Nanny Zheng was an etiquette instructor from the imperial palace, Nanny Yu expected her to at least be in her forties or fifties. How could she look so young and beautiful? She looked even more like a competent major palace maid of a master in the imperial palace.
After coming in, Nanny Zheng bowed to Shao Wanru and then turned to Nanny Yu as Shao Wanru asked. After looking Nanny Yu up and down a few times, she asked, “Nanny Yu, do you want to see me?”
She looked very calm and acted with composure as if she didn’t know that Nanny Yu in front of her was the most capable servant of Old Madam of Duke Xing’s Mansion.
“Are you Nanny Zheng from the imperial palace?” After looking her up and down, Nanny Yu asked cautiously.
Nanny Zheng smiled faintly and nodded.
“Since you came from the imperial palace, why do you follow the Fifth Miss for so many years? Even an etiquette instructor is unlikely to follow the Miss she educates for such a long time, right?” Nanny Yu asked in confusion.
She had been following Old Madam for a long time, so she knew something about etiquette instructors. Duke Xing’s Mansion had hired etiquette instructors to educate several Misses for a period of time. In particular, the etiquette instructor, who had educated the First Miss for about a year, had followed her for the longest time.
If Nanny Zheng had really been Shao Wanru’s etiquette instructor since when they were in the Qin’s Mansion, she would have followed Shao Wanru for at least three years.
Under normal circ.u.mstances, how could she follow the Miss she educated for three years?
“I was driven out of the imperial palace, so I am naturally different from ordinary etiquette instructors. I plan to follow the Fifth Miss for the rest of my life!” Nanny Zheng said without avoiding mentioning her past.
“Why were you driven out?” Nanny Yu felt her heart skipped a beat and asked subconsciously. It was not until she blurted out the question that she realized that she shouldn’t have asked that.
“Nanny Yu, do you really want to know?” Nanny Zheng looked at Nanny Yu and asked meaningfully, which made Nanny Yu’s hair stand on end.
The more one knew the affairs in the imperial palace, the faster she would get killed. Not to mention that she was just a servant, even those Mesdames with the t.i.tle of Honorary Lady did not dare to inquire about the affairs in the imperial palace casually.
“I made a slip of the tongue just now.” Nanny Yu said with her head down, did not dare to inquire further, and changed the subject. “Did Nanny Xi leave after seeing Nanny Zheng?”
“If Nanny Xi is gone now, it may be true!” Nanny Zheng said with a smile.
Shao Wanru calmly watched Nanny Zheng dealing with Nanny Yu. She picked up the tea served by Yujie, took a sip, put it down, and continued embroidering her sachet.
This sachet was a new task a.s.signed by Nanny Zheng, so she should do a good job.
She did not mind that Nanny Yu came to inquire about Nanny Zheng, nor that Old Madam learned Nanny Zheng’s existence. Since she decided not to hide Nanny Zheng from others any longer, she would wait and see how things went.
“Nanny Zheng, are you really going to follow the Fifth Miss for the rest of your life?” Nanny Yu pulled herself together and tried to ask calmly.
“Since the Fifth Miss has taken me in, I will definitely follow her!” Nanny Zheng said without hesitation.
Hearing this, Nanny Yu didn’t know how to reply at the moment. She looked at Shao Wanru and said with a forced smile, “Nanny Xi has returned to the imperial palace. I can’t decide what to do next. It’s up to the Empress in the imperial palace. Old Madam doesn’t feel well at the moment, so I’m going back now!”
“Nanny Yu, do as you please!” Shao Wanru put down the sachet in her hand, stood up, and spoke.
“Fifth Miss, I’m leaving now!” Seeing that Shao Wanru was so polite, Nanny Yu cracked a smile and spoke.