tallest building

Chapter 209 Initial Amazement

The night rain fell incessantly.

Two young eunuchs braved the rain to come to the Empress's palace. They were eunuchs from the Imperial Household Department, sent by the Emperor to deliver newly presented Hongzhou golden peaches to the Empress.

"Your Majesty, this was delivered to the palace this afternoon. His Majesty ordered it to be sent to you as soon as he heard about it, knowing that you love the smell of fruits and melons." The eunuch bowed, his words as sweet as honey, "Although His Majesty is busy with state affairs, he thinks of Your Majesty every moment."

“The peaches from Hongzhou are the first to come to market; in other places, they don’t come until August.” The head palace maid, Chunying, smiled as she stepped forward to take the peaches. “This is the first of its kind, which shows how much His Majesty cherishes the Empress.”

"That's right. His Majesty specifically ordered that these peaches be supplied only to the Empress's palace, and not a single one can be obtained elsewhere." The little eunuch grinned, knowing that he would be rewarded handsomely for this trip.

"You bunch of monkeys, all of you are so glib-tongued," the Empress couldn't help but chuckle. "Your Majesty, are you still busy reviewing memorials morning and night? Have you eaten the dinner you had them send you earlier?"

"Your Majesty has eaten and has a good appetite today," the eunuch replied. "I was just worried about whether Your Majesty's headache was any better. I wanted to send someone over to ask several times, but I was afraid of disturbing Your Majesty's rest."

"Tell His Majesty that I'm in a much better position and that he needn't worry about it," the Empress said. "It's raining, so you should all go back early and receive your rewards as usual."

The two eunuchs thanked the emperor and slowly withdrew.

The palace maids around the Empress kept praising the peaches that the Emperor had sent.

Although the Empress felt a headache coming on, she was in a good mood and instructed the palace maids, "Remove my makeup. The rain outside is just right, and I can fall asleep to the sound of it."

Removing the empress's makeup was a very complicated process. After removing her hairpins, outer garments, and hair ornaments, it was necessary to carefully untangle her hair. A comb made of Kunshan jade was used to comb her hair from root to tip three hundred times. Her face also needed to be cleansed and smoothed.

You should also massage all the acupoints on your head and face.

Perhaps it was because of the dampness from the rain today, but the palace maid accidentally slipped when she opened the face cream box.

The box of imperial face cream fell to the ground. Although it didn't break, the Empress could no longer use it.

The palace maid was so frightened that she immediately knelt on the ground to apologize.

Chunying said, "How could you be so careless?! Hurry up and get another box of new ones."

"There's only this one box left. There were originally two boxes, but Her Majesty gave the other one to Princess Consort of Chu a few days ago," the maidservant hurriedly said. "Unless you go to the Imperial Household Department to get it."

"Enough," the Empress said. "Let's not bother with all this rain. There's still the face cream that Princess Zhao sent. Let's use that for now."

"Thank you for your kindness, Your Highness." The maid knelt down and kowtowed. "I will be more careful in the future and will go to the Imperial Household Department to get the face cream first thing tomorrow morning."

Chunying then took the box of face cream made by Wen Mingqian. It was always her responsibility to apply it to the Empress's face, and she couldn't ask anyone else to do it.

She knew the Empress didn't like strong fragrances, and although Wen Mingqian's face cream only had a light floral scent, she still didn't dare use it much.

But during the process of blending the face cream, she also felt that this face cream was extraordinary. It was refreshing and non-sticky, and could be quickly absorbed by the skin, yet it was moisturizing enough.

The rain didn't stop all night, and this was the best sleep the Empress had had in nearly a month. When Chunying went to hang up the bed curtains in the morning, she noticed that the Empress looked exceptionally well, especially her skin, which was very radiant.

The Empress herself noticed it, raised her hand to touch her cheek, and smiled, "I only slept for one night, why does my face feel so tight?"

"Your Majesty looks radiant and full of energy today." Chunying smiled and took a handheld mirror. "If Your Majesty doesn't believe me, please see for yourself."

The Empress looked at herself in the mirror with great satisfaction and said, "No wonder my sister said that everyone who has used her products is inseparable from them. Now it seems that her words were not unfounded."

"If Your Highness likes it, why not summon her to the palace and have her make face cream exclusively for Your Highness? There are plenty of good things in the palace, so she can choose whatever she wants."

"No rush, let's talk about it in a few days." The Empress stood up and said, "His Majesty must have finished his morning court session. I'll go and see him."

"Yes, Your Majesty, I will do your makeup right away." Chunying agreed and, together with several other maids, began to apply makeup to the Empress.

On this day, Wen Mingqian was invited to the Zhong family. Madam Zhong was not at home; Fang Shi and Zhong Meier were the ones who invited her.

"You've finally arrived! I was planning to go to the estate together for a day today. But it rained all night, and the ditches and moats are full, so it's not easy to go out of town." Fang greeted him with a smile. "But we do have some freshly picked water chestnuts and lotus seeds. Let's sit in the pavilion and peel and eat them."

“I remember that Grandma loved to eat these fresh seafood,” Wen Mingqian said. “I saw them for sale on the street yesterday, and I was tempted, but I didn’t buy them in the end.”

"That's why I say you're lucky with food!" Fang said affectionately, taking Wen Mingqian's hand. "Isn't this just hitting the nail on the head?"

Wen Mingqian and his sister-in-law, Fang, chatted for a while before Fang finally got to the point: "I know you're busy, so I don't dare bother you. But next month is the birthday of the Princess Consort of Chu, and I've been thinking about what kind of birthday gift to give her, so I'll have to ask you for help."

Wen Mingqian knew that Zhong Meier's brother worked under the King of Chu, so he attached great importance to the birthday gift from the Queen of Chu.

"I don't know how you need my help?" Wen Mingqian asked with a smile. "Even if I'm busy, I can still spare some time for you."

"It's like this," said Madam Fang. "The Queen Consort of Chu is extremely fond of the Lingxi incense that the Great Qin Kingdom offers as tribute, but this incense has almost disappeared in the last ten years. Since the change of rulers, the Great Qin Kingdom has stopped offering tribute to us and has also stopped trading. I managed to find a little bit, and I bought it at a high price. Could you make some using this method?"

“Grandma, let me take a look,” Wen Mingqian said. “If the raw materials can be found, it’s not impossible to imitate it. Although it can’t be exactly the same, it can still be about 70 or 80 percent similar.”

Fang was overjoyed and quickly took out a small box from her purse.

Wen Mingqian opened it, smelled it, and shook his head, saying, "This is somewhat similar to Lingxi incense, but it's not. If I'm not mistaken, this should be Persian civet incense."

"Oh? What... what should we do?" Madam Fang couldn't help but feel anxious. "It's a good thing you know your stuff, otherwise if we had sent it up by mistake, we probably wouldn't have been pleased, and we would have been disliked instead."

"I did smell the Spirit Rhinoceros Incense years ago, but I didn't know much about it. How about this, I'll look for it for you. If I can find some more, I should be able to make a similar replica." Wen Mingqian knew that someone probably had such a thing, but he didn't want to tell the Fang family and the others.

"If we can find it, that would be wonderful. We'll buy whatever raw materials we need with our money," Fang said hurriedly.

They don't care about the money if they're going to do something.