Lu Tingchen suddenly patted his shoulder. “Don’t be upset. Here, I’ll let you have my shoulder to lean on.”
Lu Liangwei lifted her eyes to glance at him. She did not stand on ceremony with him either; as expected, she placed her head on his shoulder.
She was much shorter than him, so she had to stand on tiptoe when she did this.
Lu Tingchen thought this looked quite taxing; he really wanted to help by picking her up in his arms. However, when he considered that she was already in the midst of marriage negotiations and would eventually be the future Empress, he refrained from doing so.
The two siblings did not linger outside for too long; they entered the main hall right after.
The moment they stepped into the main hall, Lu Liangwei saw her grandmother sitting, grim-faced, on the main seat there. Suddenly, she felt a little nervous.
“Grandmother.” Lu Liangwei approached the Dowager Duchess and greeted her.
The Dowager Duchess raised her drooping eyelids when she heard Lu Liangwei’s voice. She glanced at her granddaughter, then gave vent to a very pointed, forceful snort. “So you’ve finally decided to come back?”
Lu Liangwei immediately felt aggrieved beyond measure.
She had been abruptly spirited away by Long Yang, then confined in the imperial holiday home. Even if she had wanted to return home, she had no way of doing so.
However, she was too ashamed to say this.
She had been away from home for three days—that was an undeniable fact.
At the thought of this, she crouched down by the Dowager Duchess’ legs. Hugging her grandmother’s arm, she gave it a little shake. “It was all Weiwei’s fault. Grandmother, you should punish me.”
The Dowager Duchess looked extremely upset. “Very soon, you will be the Empress. How could I dare to punish you?”
At these words, Lu Liangwei immediately felt extremely unhappy. She held onto her grandmother’s arm and refused to let go.
“Grandmother, what you’ve just said grieves me terribly. Don’t you want me as your granddaughter anymore?”
When she saw the anxiety and helplessness on Lu Liangwei’s little face, the Dowager Duchess’ upset expression eased slightly. However, she still raged, “Both you and your sister do nothing but cause me worry, one after the other. There are so many good men in this world—why must both of you insist on marrying into the imperial family?”
Just the mention of this gave the Dowager Duchess a headache.
The Lu family had served the imperial court for generations without ever taking sides or becoming kin to the imperial family. In this generation, however, both her granddaughters had actually become involved with the imperial family.
Lu Yunshuang had married the Crown Prince, and now, Lu Liangwei was about to marry the Emperor. How could the Dowager Duchess not be angry over this?
From this day on, any internal struggles within the imperial family would now involve the Lu family; they could no longer stay out of it even if they wanted to.
The Lu family had always only desired to serve the imperial court, guard the borders, and protect the country. However, now that the daughters of the Lu family had become involved with the imperial family, the Lu family could no longer remain impartial.
This was something the Dowager Duchess had never wanted to see happen.
Lu Yunshuang was already married; this did not bother the Dowager Duchess that much. However, even her favorite granddaughter was about to marry into the imperial family now; she could not be at peace about this.
Lu Liangwei could more or less understand her grandmother’s feelings about the matter. She felt very guilty as well, but she had never expected that things would develop to such an extent.
All she had wanted to do initially was to treat Long Yang’s illness so that he would be able to keep Long Chi in check and prevent Long Chi from achieving his dream of becoming the Emperor.
Long Yang had now been purged of his poison, but she had no way of retreating into obscurity after accomplishing what she had set out to achieve. Her success was even impinging upon her entire future.
The thought of this made her feel depressed, as well as guilty toward her family.
Since time immemorial, the struggle for imperial power had always been ruthless. The Lu family had always upheld prudence as a means of protecting themselves, and had never once taken sides with any factions. This was also how the Lu family had maintained their solid standing in the imperial court for generations.
However, because of her, the Lu family would be now be embroiled in the imperial family’s fight for power. She was truly unfilial in this sense; she felt ashamed of letting her family down after they had given her so much love.
At the thought of this, Lu Liangwei felt even worse.
“This is all my fault…” She lowered her head guiltily.
Before the Dowager Duchess could say anything, Lu Hetian could remain seated no longer and immediately pulled Lu Liangwei to her feet.
“Silly girl, none of us are blaming you.”