"Ning An, are you alright? Why is your face so pale? Did you bump into something?" the Emperor asked Princess Ning An, who seemed a bit nervous in his arms.
Princess Ning An spoke softly, "I’m fine, that was close, I’m lucky Royal Brother caught me in time, otherwise, I would have been injured."
The Emperor looked back at the chair and said with a scare, "Yes, you almost hit your head on the chair, and the consequences would have been unthinkable."
Princess Ning An hummed vaguely in response.
The Emperor helped her sit down on a stool.
The acknowledgment of guilt letter had already reached the Emperor’s hands, so there was no possibility of a second accident happening to it.
After the Emperor sat back down, he glanced at Wei Gonggong.
Wei Gonggong had served the Emperor for many years; if he couldn’t understand that look, his years as a chief eunuch would have been in vain.
He quickly called over two junior eunuchs and had them move the fire basin further away, ensuring that even if the Emperor fell ten or eight times, the acknowledgment of guilt letter would not fall into it.
The Emperor couldn’t wait to unfold the acknowledgment of guilt letter, which was ten pages long, nine pages more than Bai Kun’s, detailing Hua Xiyao’s origins, her turbulent early years, and how she came to Xianle Inn.
Hua Xiyao was originally the daughter of an official family; her grandfather had been a prefect in the southern city and was thrown into the Imperial Prison for a corruption case. Her grandfather was beheaded, and the rest of the family was sentenced to exile.
Hua Xiyao was only two years old and did not feel deeply about the family’s calamities, except that she could no longer eat or dress warmly every day and occasionally saw her family members being beaten harshly.
It was much later that she came to understand what had happened to her family. By then, she was seven, a clever and pretty little girl, spotted by an old Brothel Madam who bought her with the intent to nurture and train her for a few years to become the brothel’s cash cow.
But Hua Xiyao did not fare well in the Brothel, often bullied by the older children. On a freezing winter night, she ran away.
How far could a seven-year-old girl possibly go?
In the middle of the night, she fainted in a filthy alley and woke up on a carriage that was headed to some unknown destination.
The carriage was beautifully decorated, clean, and spacious, and it emitted a fragrance unlike common perfumes.
It was in this carriage that Hua Xiyao met the most important person in her life.
Her real name was not Hua Xiyao, and her family name had been forcibly erased when she was sold to the Brothel, where she was known as Lanlan, a name she hated.
The gentle woman in front of her bestowed upon her a brand-new name.
Looking out the window at the setting sun, the woman said to her, "Your name shall be Hua Xiyao."
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