Her voice just fell when she saw Xiang Qiao enter from outside. She was beaming as if there was a major happy occasion. Seeing that both Jiang Li and Tong’er were sitting, she directly said: “Second miss, quickly groom and dress yourself. Today is the third miss’s hairpin ceremony, many nobles came one after another. Madam and the rest of the family are waiting for you.”

On Jiang Li’s face emerged a perfectly surprised expression, she smiled and said: “It’s really very good.”

Really good, finally the play was going to start.

……

Today many people came to the Jiang residence.

Jiang Yuan Bai’s position in the court was not low. On one side, the people in court were dissatisfied with his method of only blindly following the Emperor’s intentions. On the other hand, they couldn’t help coveting Jiang Yuan Bai’s status in the Emperor’s eyes.

The previous assistant to the emperor, Sheng Ji, was on an almost equal footing with Hong Xiao Emperor but he was exiled afterwards. It only took a short three years for Sheng Ji to decline, yet Jiang Yuan Bai had sat in this seat for ten years and he still sat steadily. Naturally, he was not as incompetent as he displayed.

No matter what, Jiang Yuan Bai was an influential role in the court. All the scholars wanted to befriend him. His honorable daughter’s birthday ceremony, obviously many people were bound to attend.

Acting as the greeter for Jiang Youyao’s guests was Ji Shuran’s blood-related sister, the Madam of Minister of Consultation, Ji Chenzhi. Ji Shuran had two older sisters; one was Ji Chenzhi, while the other one was in Hong Xiao Emperor’s harem. To put it, nowadays Jiang Shuran had status in Jiang residence, aside from the fact that the Vice Imperial Censor Ji’s status had become increasingly important in the court, it was also due to looking at Li pin’s¹ face.

Hong Xiao Emperor doted on Li pin very much.

In the main hall, many madams had already arrived, all were the nobles in Yanjing and they were discussing the recent gossip. Even Chengde Minister Liu Yuan Feng’s madam, Madam Liu was also there.

Although Liu Yuan Feng and the Ji family did not get along well, they weren’t hostile towards the Jiang family on the outside and could still be regarded as peaceful. Today Madam Liu came to attend the ceremony also not because she wanted to see Jiang Youyao. Rather, she wanted to see how Jiang Li had passed her days. Ever since Jiang Li had returned to Yanjing, Madam Liu had not seen Jiang Li anymore.

Ji Shuran sat by the side of the ladies. She was born gentle and beautiful, money and power really played in one’s deed, and she also spoke really well in every situation. Not once did she get heated with these nobles. This naturally was also due to the nobles wanting to curry favor with the Jiang family.

Jiang Yu’e and Jiang Yuyan had also come early. Jiang Yuyan was wearing a deep purple dress, it was very appropriate. Her appearance was just average with nothing remarkable. Jiang Yuyan was used to being a wallflower in the crowd. She didn’t say a word and just sat at the side to accompany her mother, Yang shi.

On the contrary, Jiang Yu’e was unwilling to be mediocre. She probably knew today Jiang Youyao had the leading role and she couldn’t grab Jiang Youyao’s limelight, yet she was not resigned to be as indifferent as Jiang Yuyan. She wore a goose-colored light dress with a small vest and rolled her hair up into a bun. She appeared more and more like a pretty daughter in a humble family, lovely and moving. The tip of her brows was raised in a lively and cheerful look and she strived to look for topics to discuss with the nobles’ daughters, wishing that she could climb a bit of relations.

In the middle of the female nobles, two people were sitting on the left side of the main hall. One of them was middle-aged with wrinkles on the corner of her eyes. At first glance, she was much older than the other ladies in her surrounding, yet her dress was extremely luxurious and somewhat inappropriate. It somehow didn’t suit her appearance.

A young female was sitting by her side, around 17-18 years of age. Her features could be regarded as delicate and pretty, however, her face was thin and narrow, her cheekbones were tall and made her appear somewhat unkind. This female was also dressed in extreme riches and honor, especially eye-catching among the crowd of female nobles. There was impatience between her eyes and in a low voice she asked the madam by her side: “Mother, why hasn’t Jiang Youyao come out yet?”

These two people were precisely the current Ministry of Rites people, last year’s top scorer Shen Yurong’s mother and younger sister, Madam Shen and Shen Ruyun.

I agree with Lime, thanks god this is not imperial harem novel… Sorry for the delay, these days I’m dead tired from studying and when I arrived home yesterday went directly to bed >.<

Footnotes:

^{1: Thank goodness this is not an imperial novel or I’ll cry so much with the titles. These mentions of ministers are already enough to pull my hair out in frustration T^T.}

So, as we all know, there are 3,000 women in the Emperor’s harem. The only one woman that will have a unique position is just the Empress. Others can have the same rank. For example, the rank just under the empress will be seated by 2 people, the one under that will be seated by 3-4 people etc etc. The rank names and position differ depending on the dynasty. Here is a link for those curious cats XD: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_Chinese_harem_system

So, here, it seems that Li pin is ranked 4th in the harem with a total of 9 people.