Although they don't know whether it is true or not, everyone in Sanhu Village knows that the Shui family is a descendant of the Prince of Xia.
Their family has always felt different from other villagers, including myself, but the eldest daughter of the Shui family is petite and has a round face with only very big eyes. I don't know whether to say she is quiet, leisurely, or a little silly.
...She is not the kind of girl who makes people's eyes shine. It is impossible to think that she might be a princess.
Unexpectedly, she really is.
...The changes in women are really terrible...
Maybe it's because Shui Xinyuan's clothes now are completely different from those in the village. In short, it's like he's a completely different person.
To put it simply...just become beautiful.
……What a pity.
If I had known she would transform into a beauty, I should have taken that matter more seriously...
"What are you muttering to yourself?"
"ah?"
Looking back, Uncle Fu, who was also pulling weeds, was looking at him with indifferent eyes.
"It doesn't matter if you talk to yourself, but don't forget to do something. You have to clean up all the backyard today."
"Okay, okay...by the way, what is that house for?"
"It's the teaching hall. That's where the palace servants live, and here's the dance studio. Just here, there are six gardens."
"Palace concubine? Woman? Uncle Fu, can I go and have a look?"
Ziwei couldn't help but lean out, and Fu Bo's eyes became colder.
"Do you have any brains? The palace dancers are specially designed to dance for His Majesty. If you dare to help rashly, you will be responsible for the consequences."
"...Don't scare me, you won't get twenty lashes, right?"
"Before the whipping, you will be beaten out by the palace servants and hung upside down in public."
The palace concubines here are not easy to mess with... Hearing what Uncle Fu said, Ziwei laughed loudly.
"Wow hahaha... How is it possible? How is it possible? It's not like I haven't seen a fierce woman. At most, she just throws the plate during a quarrel."
"Don't say I didn't warn you..."
Uncle Fu stood up straight with a look of helplessness, holding the basket to pull the grass in the corner of the garden.
"What a stubborn old man. I'm not going to watch them take a shower..."
Ziwei stood up muttering, and after throwing all the weeds on his hands into the basket, he saw two women walking to the dance room.
"Shui Xinyuan!"
Hearing his loud shout, Shui Xinyuan and the maid behind her stopped.
"Ah... Ziwei, good afternoon."
"Hey! I finally see you, what are you doing here?"
Ziwei ran over, and the maid immediately took a step forward and stood between him and Shui Xinyuan...
This maid was the woman who came out to look at her last time when he called Shui Xinyuan in the garden of Chunying Palace.
She also showed a strange expression last time, and she also showed suspicious eyes today.
What happened to her?
"I'm going to practice."
"Practice? Practice for what?"
"Practice dance, I want to dance at the festival banquet."
Although the maid looked suspicious, Shui Xinyuan's smile was very cute.
Is she really...really the Shui Xinyuan who carries her younger brother on her back and chops firewood with a knife?
"Yes...yes! I don't quite understand the situation. Do you want to dance?"
Ziwei concealed his inner panic with a smile, clapped his hands inexplicably, and patted down a lot of mud. The maid couldn't help frowning and took a step back.
"I am no longer a palace concubine. This time is special."
"I really want to see it."
During festivals, the head of Sanhu Village would also invite everyone to drink. After everyone got drunk, they would also dance strange dances, but since Shui Xinyuan wanted to practice dancing, it should be a more formal dance.
"Speaking of dancing, isn't there a Xiaoya next door to my house? She used to do the Mid-Autumn Festival..."
"...Uh, Ziwei, I have to leave."
"Ah? Don't you remember Xiaoya? She has been since she was very young..."
"Empress, let's go!"
The maid said in a voice twice as loud as Ziwei's.
"...What are you doing? I'm talking to Shui Xinyuan."
"My queen has to go to dance practice and I don't have time to chat with you."
"nothing dealing with you……"
"Ziwei!"
When Forbes found out, he ran over with one leg lame.
Shui Xinyuan opened his eyes wide and made a stop motion with his hands.
"Uncle Fu, don't run away..."
"I'm sorry for delaying the Queen. You go and do your work!"
"Your knee is not healed yet? Please come to the clinic later. There are patches there..."
Shui Xinyuan finished speaking with concern and left quickly.
The maid also glared at Ziwei and ran after him.
...What are you doing?
"Ziwei, you..." Fu Bo touched his knee and said, "The Queen has that kind of personality, so I won't scold you for being long-winded and rude, but don't act like you know the Queen very well."
"You look familiar... Shui Xinyuan and I are childhood sweethearts!"
"But your childhood sweetheart is now the Queen of Yuan Kingdom."
Uncle Fu sighed heavily, straightened his waist, and frowned.
"Perhaps in your eyes the Queen is a kind fellow countryman. Even if the Queen allows you to be so presumptuous, don't forget this."
"presumptuous……?"
…It’s so baffling.
Just talking to Shui Xinyuan, how could I be so presumptuous? If I couldn't talk, Shui Xinyuan wouldn't answer me.
Moreover, Shui Xinyuan may be the queen, but she is still her playmate who grew up with her.
and……
"I was almost Shui Xinyuan's husband."
"……What did you say?"
Fu Bo's small eyes were so wide that they almost fell down.
"I'm not lying to you. I proposed to the Shui family before, but later because Shui Xinyuan left the village, the matter fell into nothing. If Shui Xinyuan still stayed..."
"You are so stupid!"
Fu Bo straightened his body and hit Ziwei on the head hard.
"It hurts...what are you doing?"
"What if His Majesty hears it? Don't mention this again in the future!"
"Didn't I say it? I'm just telling the truth!"
"It doesn't matter if it's true or not! I'll just pretend I didn't hear it."
Uncle Fu turned pale, covered his ears, and turned back to pull weeds with an expression that looked like the end of the world.
"……Hello!"
Ziwei opened his mouth wide in surprise and tilted his head.
It is true that he once proposed to the Shui family.
This matter was mentioned to Shui Xinyuan’s parents, and several people in the village remembered it...
To be precise, his parents once went to propose marriage, and at that time, he was a little uninterested.
…What’s wrong with me telling the truth?
Even if the emperor is the most powerful in this country and Shui Xinyuan is his queen, it cannot change the fact that Shui Xinyuan almost became his wife.
"Even if His Majesty knows..."
It would be another matter if Shui Xinyuan was destined to become the queen after she was born, but that was before she came to the capital. Even if the emperor heard about it, he couldn't do anything, right?
The sound of music came from the direction of the dance studio.
"Old people just like to worry about things unfounded..." Ziwei said to himself.
…
Shui Xinyuan looked back before entering the dance room and saw that Uncle Fu had hit Ziwei, but he couldn't hear what they were saying. He only knew that Uncle Fu was scolding him.
"Xiangquan, thank you just now."
"You're welcome...but what's going on with that person? He dared to directly call me by her name."
"In Ziwei's eyes, I must still be the Shui Xinyuan of Sanhu Village."
The sound of pipa came and others had already started to practice dancing.
Shui Xinyuan quickened his pace in the corridor.
"Moreover, didn't I specifically ask Qing'er and Gong Ji to still call me Shui Xinyuan as before?"
"That's your thoughtfulness. I hope everyone will not have unnecessary worries about you during dance practice. Besides, Mrs. Qing'er is your friend... Mrs. Qing'er and other palace concubines are both women. Among men, only His Majesty calls you
name."
Xiangquan raised her chin and pouted her lower lip, with an angry expression on her face.
"Xiangquan, you seem to hate Ziwei very much."
"I hate talkative men who like to pretend to be mature."
"Oh, I know, you like men who are taciturn, steady and calm like someone else."
"...Mother, mother!"
Seeing Xiangquan's face turn red, Shui Xinyuan burst into laughter.
"Hmm...but if the emperor knew that Ziwei directly called me by my name, he might be unhappy."
"Your Majesty will definitely be angry."
"……can you?"
Ziwei must miss his hometown very much.
Although we don’t know when he left Sanhu Village to make a living, he must have been doing hard work in an environment without anyone around him.
If you happen to meet a fellow countryman, of course you would like to chat like before... at least that's what Shui Xinyuan thinks.
…I also felt very uneasy when I first came here…
Shui Xinyuan has not forgotten the days when she struggled to suppress her homesickness.
After meeting Lu Fusu and vowing to become the best dancer in Beijing for Lu Fusu, she decided to move forward.
As soon as the door of the dance studio was opened, all the court ladies turned their heads.
"Ah, Shui Xinyuan, you're late."
"Shui Xinyuan! I'm so sorry to trouble you when you just arrived. Can you demonstrate 'Gui Yan Qiukong' to them?"
"Okay, leave it to me..."
Shui Xinyuan handed the shirt she had taken off to Xiangquan and immediately walked towards the palace servants who were younger than her.
Ziwei’s matter...
In order to prevent Lu Fusu from hearing Ziwei calling his name directly, he could only ask Uncle Fu to stop calling him by his name directly.
In the hut where the Imperial Guards were resting during the changing of the guard, the sound of music coming from the church could be faintly heard.
In addition to the imperial guards who would come back to drink tea during their patrol breaks, people who worked in the palace could also go in and rest.
"...Really, that old man is so verbose!"
Ziwei sat on the stone platform outside the hut, drank boiling water to moisten his throat, and talked to himself.
"He lectured me seriously. Didn't he chat with Shui Xinyuan easily? Why did I just...?"
"...Hey, I've never seen you before."
Ziwei looked up and found two forbidden soldiers standing in front of him.
Seeing the strong soldiers, Ziwei couldn't help but straighten his body.
"Are you new here? Where do you work?"
"I, I am a gardener..."
"It turns out you were the one helping Uncle Fu."
The Imperial Guards also held teacups filled with boiling water and sat on the big rocks that replaced chairs.
They also seem to be taking a break.
"I heard that Uncle Fu has been feeling unwell recently, so he needs more manpower, right?"
"It seems that there is something wrong with the knee. It seems to be very difficult to walk."
Although the two Imperial Guards looked fierce, their tone and attitude were like ordinary soldiers, and Ziwei breathed a sigh of relief in his heart.
He didn't do anything bad, so he had nothing to be afraid of, but because he rarely saw men in armor walking around at work before, he still wasn't used to it.
"...By the way, I heard that the new gardener and the Queen are from the same hometown, is it you?"
"ah?"
Ziwei almost choked on the boiling water.
"Huang, Huang...who do you think you are?"
"The Queen is the wife of the Emperor."
"Oh, it turns out to be Shui Xinyuan..."
Hearing Ziwei's muttering, the guard who was about to drink water stopped.
"...Isn't that the Queen's name?"
"Shui Xinyuan? Yes!"
Called three times... Ziwei seemed to hear another Forbidden Army muttering like this. Did he hear it wrong?
"Are you... so familiar with the Queen?"
"We are playmates who grew up together..."
The guard stared at him with wide eyes. Ziwei mistook his eyes for envy, threw Uncle Fu's advice behind him, and said proudly: "Because I have proposed to the Shui family before."
"……What did you say?"
"Later, due to some strange combination of circumstances, I couldn't complete the engagement, which was a bit regretful. Therefore, Shui Xinyuan might have been my wife..."
The guard who originally looked envious gradually showed a subtle expression.
They frowned and gaped...as if they were looking at someone who had made a big mistake.
"……What's wrong?"
"It's okay... let's go!"
"Okay, it's time to go..."
They put the tea bowls in the basket in the hut and left.
Ziwei began to complain again that it was difficult to find people in the palace to chat with and speculate. Of course, he did not hear what the two guards said when they left.
"...That guy is either inexperienced in the world, or there is something wrong with his head."
"There must be something wrong with the head! I think Yifu will need to find a replacement as soon as possible."
"...I also feel that if he brags like this to others, it will be difficult for him to stay here until the New Year... and he will also cause trouble for the Queen!"