Sheng Weiqiao went back to Zhuying Mini Villa with a flushed face. She felt grateful that no one appeared in her way to see her nuances, and hastened to warn Lvqu and Lvjin never to let out the thing.

The two maids logically nodded, "We've seen nothing and heard nothing today!"

"He's fortunate!" Sheng Weiqiao relieved herself. When recalling the scene that she ran into today, though she felt bashful and annoyed, she had no courage to go trouble Sheng Shuihe again, so she simply cursed in her mind, "Next time when I catch you, you'll see!"

At that thought, she lowered her head, caught the kylin jade pendant and couldn't help crumpling her brows. She considered in heart, "The jade is not a common one. I have to take it to my aunt!"

After a while, At Xuanyu's mansion, Mrs. Feng frowned, studying the kylin jade pendant, and said, "It belongs to the son of a mistress? Are you sure?"

"I saw him put it by his hand myself. How can I get it wrong?" Sheng Weiqiao asked hopefully, "Aunt, have you found anything unusual?"

"That's quite an unusual one!" Mrs. Feng put down the jade and said with a solemn face, "Nothing can be helped even if I talk about it with you. Cuixiao, go send someone to Feng's mansion and show Weiqiao's father here!"

Sheng Weiqiao wasn't happy about being belittled by her aunt so she held her Aunt's arms, shaking, "You haven't talked with me about it, so how can you a.s.sert that I can't help? Besides, it was me who got you the jade pendant!"

"This thing is likely from Chang'an!" Mrs. Feng couldn't bear with being badgered by her so leaked some clue, "The style of the carving seems from the royal palace. If the jade had really been held by the son of a mistress, either his biological mother would have come from a n.o.ble family, or himself would have been dignified and he would not have been a son of Sheng Family!"

Her eyes glittered subtly and she pondered, "But since the son of a mistress has already come back to affiliate with his ancestors, if his biological mother really had been n.o.ble, it wouldn't be impossible that she would have forced your mother to cede her place with power! Why did she wait until the son entered his seventeen and send him back alone? As far as I'm concerned, the latter hypothesis is more logical!"

"But if the son weren't my father's son and he were actually dignified, why would he bother going to my family and being my father's son?" Sheng Weiqiao asked in confusion, "Moreover, why did my father approve that?"

"That's why I sent someone to invite your father here!" Mrs. Feng frowned, "After all, your father spent some time in Chang'an. I'm not your mother. How can I know his deeds and acquaintances in Chang'an?!"

She muddled through her niece but her heartbeats were actually speeding up. Nanfeng County was far away from Chang'an, while Xuanyu Family were squires that focused on running business, so they never paid much attention to the imperial court.

But when Sheng Lanci proposed to Feng Yinlu at that time, since Feng Family failed to take advantage of Mrs. Feng's marriage, to find a match good enough for their little daughter, they had sent someone to Chang'an to search into the general views on him!

Mrs. Feng still remembered that when the person they sent to Chang'an came back, besides Sheng Lanci's behaviors in Chang'an, he also added, "I heard that the emperor pampered the Shu Sisters who were originally dancers and hasn't attended to political affairs until now. Queen Mother is taking care of all the stuff and everything is distributed to her brothers, so both the royal family members and the officials feel anxious about that. People like the emperor's brother Gaomi King have advised for times that the emperor should look after everything himself, but the emperor sat in the hall for a while and he went back to Shu sisters again. They can't help with it!"

Mrs. Zhan was curious and said, "The emperor holds the world. Are there any fairies that he can't reach? Even though Shu sisters are charming, how can he leave the political affairs aside just for them?"

"Old Madam, you don't know about the rumors, but I heard of them when I was in Chang'an. The emperor hadn't got a son since he married. Days ago, Concubine Jin finally got pregnant. Rationally speaking, it's good news, right? Even the emperor's mother was in rapture. But guess what happened next?" The servant, seeing the madam interested, continued intended to please her, "Shu sisters weren't happy with it, so they sulked in front of the emperor. The emperor couldn't endure that and he sent someone to serve Concubine Jin with aborticide! You see, the emperor pampered them so much that he didn't even care about his children, let alone the politics, right?"

The topic was stopped by the head of the family Feng Li, and he urged everyone to concentrate on Feng Yinlu and Sheng Lanci's marriage instead of diverging.

…While Mrs. Feng couldn't help being skeptical when a.s.sociating all the signs together, "Over ten years pa.s.sed! It's said that far from losing the emperor's affection, Shu sisters rose even higher and they even pushed the empress to drink poisoned wine and died last year. But the emperor still had no child. Because Shu sisters had no children, no one else was allowed to bear a child for the emperor! Even the emperor was fancied to fatuity by the two, how could other people let the emperor have no descendants? So, Sheng Shuihe… Was he possibly… the prince sent out of the palace secretly?!"

But Mrs. Feng's thoughts just went too far. After quite some time, Sheng Lanci, who was seen over here, entered and smiled at the sight of the kylin jade pendant, "Shuihe gifted that to our sweetheart? The boy, I thought he liked it himself when he traded the jade with some other stuff. In the end, he was intended to give it to our sweetheart as the gift for their first meeting?"

Mrs. Feng, "…."

She calmed down and asked, "Shuihe traded it? It's such a good one, with which treasure could he trade it?"

"Wasn't a precious piece." Sheng Lanci smiled and said, "He just got the chance—you know about the fairs at the seaside. Everyone is trying his chance."

Sheng Weiqiao got bewildered when listening and was to raise a question. But Mrs. Feng caught the indication and turned to her, "Weiqiao, go to your cousin and have a look. He's got something quite funny recently. You might like it as well."

"What's the meaning of liking or not!" Sheng Weiqiao rose with a sense of unfairness and said in temper, "You just want to rush me away!"

With other issues on her mind, Mrs. Feng didn't care about her temper, while Sheng Lanci felt so sorry and coaxed her to the door with many words of sweetheart. He chatted with her in the aisle, making sure that his sweet little girl was no longer mad, and then he showed her away with a bow. He turned back and complained about his sister-in-law, "Don't be that apparent even to get Weiqiao away! She's so clever...."

"As a girl of her age, she still doesn't take her cultivation seriously. It's all made by your indulgence!" Mrs. Feng said impatiently, "Haven't I warn her from time to time, I don't dare to suppose how ridiculous she's going to be. Leave it aside. It's not the time. I just ask you, was the jade really obtained by trading?"

"Or how could Shuihe leave it somewhere noticeable to our sweetheart? Even he allowed her to show it to you!" Hearing that, Sheng Lanci also put on a serious face, "I resigned from the government and came back initially not only for the needs of my family but also because I saw the unstable situation in the imperial court and I didn't want to get involved with all the turbulence. So, I made use of the chance to leave. Ten years have pa.s.sed, would I possibly partic.i.p.ate in the conspiracies? Even just for my sweetheart and her mother, I'll never do that!"

Mrs. Feng pondered and found him right. Sheng Lanci had risen from imperial examination and had once entered Imperial Academy. Sheng Family still kept their friends.h.i.+p with Ningwei Marquis's family which dated back to several generations ago. If he had been bored with being a squire and wanted to work in government, there would have been no need for him to meddle the things of the imperial family. He could baldly go through Xu Family and regain his power.

However, she asked, "The jade must be from the imperial palace. People who are authorized to use it are only imperial family members and high-leveled officials. But near our Nanfeng County, there isn't such a family! How did it appear on the fairs at the seaside?"

"There are some reasons behind." At that point, Sheng Lanci sighed, touched his short beard and continued, "The big incident on the sea not long ago, have you heard of it?"