During this time period, Ning Shu’s attention had been fully focused on Huo Chengwang and she barely paid attention to the matters of the inner palace. So today, she asked Qing Zhu, “Has anything happened lately?”
Qing Zhu thought about it, then said, “Nothing much really. It’s just that His Majesty’s pet likes to wander around the highnesses’ palaces and is always breaking things. All of the highnesses are fed up with it and wanted to ask Your Imperial Highness to get justice for them, but this servant made them leave. The highnesses had gone to His Majesty instead, but ended up being berated by him.”
Weren’t they asking for embarrassment? Based on how much Huo Qing doted on the little fox, even if the little fox burned the entire imperial palace down, it’d be fine.
Those consorts were pretty dumb. They should’ve just placed mousetraps in their palaces like her. Then they could say the little fox brought things upon herself.
However, this had probably occurred to these consorts already. It was that they didn’t dare. After all, one had to check the master before beating the dog. This fox belonged to His Majesty and so they could only endure things.
It was also quite impressive that the fox had been able to get everyone to hate her so much in such a short amount of time. However, she had still been able to live happily without troubles despite this. It was seriously illogical.
It had been a long time since Huo Qing had slept with any of the consorts in the inner palace. These bored consorts decided to find something to do to pass the time, so Noble Consort Xuan came to invite Ning Shu to an opera. Ning Shu had no interest those drawn out traditional operas.
However, for the two little boys, she agreed to go to the opera tomorrow.
Noble Consort Xuan told Ning Shu about the details of the plan and after a moment of hesitation, asked Ning Shu, “Your Imperial Highness, is there something wrong of His Majesty’s health? Why isn’t he willing to let the consorts and concubines of the inner palace attend to him?”
He wouldn’t even come to the empress’s palace on the fifteenth. It was making the consorts seriously distressed.
“Something wrong with his health? Do you feel like there’s something wrong with His Majesty’s health?” Ning Shu lifted her brows and just threw this question back.
Noble Consort Xuan’s face flushed as she recalled how fiercely His Majesty had favored her last time. There was no problem with his ‘health’ at all.
“Then why isn’t His Majesty willing to enter the inner palace?” Noble Consort Xuan’s willow brows knitted. “It couldn’t be that His Majesty’s hiding a woman? That he’s hiding some vixen?”
Ning Shu: …there really was a vixen.
The next day, Ning Shu took Huo Chengwang and Xiao Qingyan to the opera with a long line of palace maids following behind them.
When they arrived, there were already a lot of consorts waiting there. They curtsied towards Ning Shu. Ning Shu said with a smile, “Go ahead and sit down.”
“Your Imperial Highness, please pick an opera.” Noble Consort Xuan passed the list of operas to Ning Shu. Ning Shu passed it to Huo Chengwang and asked with a smile, “Chengwang, take a look and see if there’s anything you like?”
Huo Chengwang took a look, then picked a King Wu of Zhou opera. It was a story about overthrowing a tyrant king.
Ning Shu lifted her brows as she glanced at Huo Chengwang. She was probably overthinking things. How could a little boy like Huo Chengwang already have such thoughts?
Ning Shu casually picked another opera, then handed it to Noble Consort Xuan. Following that, each of the consorts and concubines picked the operas that they liked.