Pampered Consort of the Fragrant Orchard Chapter 099.4: Verbal Sparring in the Imperial Study, Princess Anle (4)

Once Han Mingze’s party left, the empress straightened her posture. She stared at Du Xiaoli’s and muttered, “Princess Anle? Does he mean her?”
Du Xiaoli sensed a gaze fixed on her, so she turned around and saw that it was the empress.
The empress never imagined that Du Xiaoli would turn around or that the latter would catch her staring. Nevertheless, she smiled at Du Xiaoli.
Du Xiaoli smiled as well and turned back to the front, leaving with the others.
She didn’t know why, but she felt that the empress seemed different from the first time they met. Even though the empress smiled the same way, the feeling her smile gave off wasn’t the same.
Moreover, Han Mingze’s attitude towards the empress was also a bit different. Du Xiaoli remembered the two of them had seemed like an intimate couple the first time she saw them. However, Han Mingze now seemed to be guarded against the empress.
Nonetheless, these were matters of the palace, so she couldn’t be bothered trying to figure them out.
Upon arriving at the inner palace, the three people waited outside for a while, and Hong Xiu appeared.
“Your Majesty, Prince Ding, Miss Du, please come with me.”
“Sorry to trouble you, Auntie Hong Xiu
.”
Hong Xiu brought the three people into the palace hall where the grand empress dowager was playing with her parrot. When she saw Du Xiaoli and the others enter, she had someone take the parrot away.
“I pay my respects to Grandmother.”
“I pay my respects to Your Highness, Grand Empress Dowager.”
The grand empress dowager indicated that they were excused from making formal greetings and said, “I only just mentioned the two of you to the His Majesty today, yet here you are now. Could it be that he called you over specially to meet me?”
“Your grandson did no such thing,” Han Mingze said with a grin.
“I can’t believe your words. Li-yatou
, you tell me,” the grand empress dowager requested while looking at Du Xiaoli and beckoning with her hand for the latter to sit beside her.
“Grand Empress Dowager, His Majesty summoned me in because of a different matter,” Du Xiaoli said.
“Anle, you should call her ‘Grandmother’,” Han Mingze reminded. Upon seeing the grand empress dowager’s suspicious gaze, Han Mingze explained, “Grandmother, it’s like this. Today, I adopted Xiaoli as my younger sister and gave her the title of Princess Anle. Tomorrow, I’ll announce this clearly to all the cabinet ministers and then add her to the family records.”
“Is that so?” the grand empress dowager said looking happily at Du Xiaoli. She continued, “This is a happy occasion! Come, call me ‘Grandmother’.”
“Grandmother,” Du Xiaoli obediently called out.
“Ha, I thought I would have to wait until after your wedding to hear you address me like this!” the grand empress dowager said with a laugh. “Mingyi, you didn’t put in the effort for me. Ultimately, it’s still His Majesty who is resourceful. He knew I wanted Xiaoli to call me ‘Grandmother’.”
Han Mingyi felt extremely aggrieved. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to put in the effort. In fact, he wanted to marry Du Xiaoli into his family earlier, but she still had yet to reach marriageable age. He had no way around this!
“You’ve called me ‘Grandmother’, but I don’t have much to give you that’s good. Seeing that you never really wore much jewelry in the past, I’ll give you this. Girls need to know how to get dolled up. Understand?” the grand empress dowager said. Then she pulled off the bracelet that was on her wrist and put it on Du Xiaoli’s instead.
Made with the highest quality jadeite, the bracelet was extremely exquisite. Both sides of the bracelet were inlaid with coils of gold thread. The way it gleamed under the sunshine made it seem as if water would drip out.
The moment Du Xiaoli saw the bracelet, she knew it definitely had a special significance and hurriedly avoided it.
She said, “Grandmother, how could you give me such a precious thing?!”
Han Mingyi and Han Mingze were both alarmed by the Grand Empress Dowager’s action and also spoke to stop it: “Grandmother, you cannot do this.”
With this, Du Xiaoli was even more certain that this bracelet had a special meaning.
The grand empress dowager glared at Han Mingze with both eyes and said, “Why not? This bracelet has remained in my possessions for long enough. It’s just right for me to give it to Xiaoli. I initially intended to wait for your wedding with Mingyi and give it to you then. Since things have become like this, I’ll just give it to you now. I’m giving it to you, so you should just accept it. Otherwise, I will get angry.”
It would be rude of Du Xiaoli to reject after the grand empress dowager said that, so she could only let the grand empress dowager have her way and slip the bracelet over Du Xiaoli’s wrist.
After setting the bracelet in place, the grand empress dowager looked at Du Xiaoli’s wrist and nodded in satisfaction. Then she pulled Du Xiaoli’s hand forward to show Han Mingyi and Han Mingze. She even asked, “How is it? Doesn’t it look great?”
Han Mingyi and Han Mingze could only nod.
“Thank you, Grandmother,” Du Xiaoli said with a smile.
“Anle, this bracelet is comparable to the rewards His Majesty gave you today. So you must safeguard this bracelet well. There must not be any mishaps. Do you understand?”
Du Xiaoli looked at Han Mingze puzzledly and asked, “This bracelet…”
“This bracelet was given to me by your grandfather on the day he bestowed me with the title of Empress. I heard him say that this was something his father gave to his mother,” the grand empress dowager said. “However, this is ultimately just a bracelet, a piece of jewelry. There’s nothing particularly special about it.”
The moment Du Xiaoli heard this, she thought, ‘Isn’t this an imperial heirloom?’
She hurriedly began to take off the bracelet, only to be stopped by the grand empress dowager staring at her while saying, “This bracelet will be given to you sooner or later. Why are you taking it off?”
“Since Grandmother has given it to you, you should just accept it. This bracelet represents Grandfather. Whoever sees it will have to kneel down and pay their respects. It is even more useful than a commander’s token
!” Han Mingyi said.
“Really?” Du Xiaoli gazed at the bracelet on her wrist and wondered if the empress dowager would curtsey to her upon seeing it.
“Of course, it’s true. How could anything I give you possibly be unsightly?!” the grand empress dowager said. “All right, let’s not continue on with this. I heard about how you won first place in the dance contest. I really need to give you a good lecture about this, Your Majesty. How could you bet the fate of our country on such a contest? If Feng Ming's representative hadn’t won the contest, how would you be able to face all of our people?!”References 1. — Not blood-related. It’s common in Chinese culture to address older women and men as aunties and uncles. 2. — In this use case, ‘yatou’ is a term of endearment. It just means girl/lass. 3. — Essentially like an ancient version of modern forms of identification, but this signifies the power they hold. MoonWhisperer, TWIP's Thoughts

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