Chapter 71 – I Don’t Want To Go! (2)
“Yao Yao!” Lu Xiangzhi came over with a smile. “Eldest brother visits us! He invites us to go hunting in the mountains together. Are you going or not?”
Quite stupefied by the turnout of events, Ye Zhen couldn’t respond for a second, and had only woke from her stupor by the time Lu Xiangzhi snapped a finger in front of her face.
Her days would never go peaceful with Lu Lungzhi breathing on this very land!
“Yao Yao? Did you hear me? Eldest brother is here!”
She muttered a faint “Pardon” before giving salute to Lu Lingzhi. “Eldest brother, have you come to Zhuangzi to bathe in the hot springs?”
Before Lu Lingzhi could even answer, Lu Xiangzhi spoke with delight. “Aha! You really didn’t hear me. Eldest brother didn’t come to Zhuangzi. He went hunting in the mountains with others. He heard that we were in Zhuangzi, so he specially came to invite us. Father has agreed to let us go.”
She didn’t want to go! Ye Zhen knew that if she hunt with them, she would definitely meet Mo Rongzhan.
“Brother, I have to learn etiquette from Mister Shan today, and the exam will be held in a few days. I can’t be distracted any more, otherwise I will lose my one hundred taels!”
“What one hundred taels?” Lu Lingzhi asked curiously.
He told Lu Lingzhi everything about it, the ladies throwing bets on Ye Zhen’s success or failure in entering the Women’s College and her persistence in making her money grow by nagging him to participate.
My, my, it never occurred to him that his sister didn’t have a faint heart. Even risking a hundred taels!
“Since Yao Yao doesn’t want to go, we can’t help it. I’ll just hunt with fourth brother and get my third sister a rabbit at my return.” At the back of his mind, Lu Lingzhi also didn’t want Ye Zhen to accompany them, especially in the presence of the Mo Rongzhan. He only went to the Zhuangzhi to invite Lu Xiangzhi alone, not exactly wanting Ye Zhen to be in the emperor’s company.
If she went appearing the same way she did when she first arrived in the capital, dark, thin and simply unattractive, it would have been fine to bring her with them.
But she was now different, undisputedly.
In simple, unswayed words, Lu Lingzhi didn’t trust the emperor. Who knows, by the simple sight of her, Mo Rongzhan would be attracted in a heartbeat!
Most of all, his sister Lu Wushuang had a dangerous temperament. If the emperor really likes her, Ye Zhen will not have a good life even if she enters the palace. The most terrible thing was that someone will recognize that she looks the same as the late Wang Fei Ye. What should he explain then?
Such things, if given negligence could turn into a catastrophe.
Ye Zhen nodded smilingly and said to Lu Xiangzhi, “Brother, go ahead and I’ll wait for you here in Zhuangzi.”
When Lu Xiangzhi saw that his sister really didn’t want to go, he ceased his persuasions. “Well, we must leave now. Sister, I will be right back in no time.”
*
Amidst the scorching heat of the afternoon, Lu Lingzhi brought Lu Xiangzhi to the mountain, joining with them was some men and of course, the emperor.
Upon their arrival, Tang Zhen immediately noticed the absence of the third miss! He asked disappointingly, “Xiangzhi! Why didn’t your sister come?”
There were other men around who are all an acquaintance, if not a friend, of Lu Xiangzhi. But one man, who permitted an air of indifference, forbidding anyone to look straight at his eyes, caught his interest. Who was this man?
He stood calm and restrained beside Tang Zhen.
Mo Rongzhan’s eyes sank slightly. He was now certain that the woman he met last night was the third miss Tang Zhen had mentioned.
Since she was a miss from the Lu family, he lost at least three points of interest in her.
There was already Lu Wushuang in the palace. No more girls from the Lu family can enter the palace. Otherwise, the Lu family would be held up too much.