The Devious First Daughter

661 - 670

The banquet had started. Unlike regular banquets, the guests were served fresh fruits, light dishes, and sweet fruit wine. Everything was meant to be mild-tasting.

A maid presented a small tube filled with many polished bamboo sticks. The sticks were beautiful because of their careful engravings of all sorts of flowers.

It went without saying that the tube of bamboo sticks was taken to Ning Xueyan first. The maid knelt respectfully in front of her, held the tube high, and waited for her to pick a stick. This meant that whether or not she wanted to perform, whether or not she was ready to perform, she would have to show the guests something after drawing a lot.

On the surface, this was a show of respect. In reality, they were forcing her to perform.

Ning Xueyan knew that Wu Yao wouldn’t give her a chance to reject performing. She could guess as much after experiencing their little scheme with the zither.

Thus, she smiled when the maid presented the bamboo tube. She grabbed the bamboo stick with a plum blossom craving and passed it to Linglong. Linglong looked at the number at the bottom of the stick and announced, “Ten.”

She was neither at the top or the bottom of the sequence. There were at least tens of young ladies present today. It was quite a good placement for her.

The maid retreated and handed the bamboo tube to Commandery Princess Muling, Ya Moqin, the rest of the unmarried ladies, as well as several young madams.

The married women in attendance were all young women. After all, the older ones wouldn’t bother attending such events for a literary reputation meant little to them.

After the maid finished deciding the sequence for the performances later, she retreated. Several maids appeared in her place, and in their hands were a tray each. Inside the tray was a brush, ink, and a stack of white paper for the poem-writing portion of the poetry exchange.

Some young ladies had brought their brush and ink with them, so they rejected the ones that Wu Yao prepared for them.

The maids presented the trays filled with brush, ink, and paper before they stepped aside and waited for the women to finish writing their poems.

Ning Xueyan took the inked brush from Lanning’s hand and discreetly looked around. Neither Commandery Princess Muling on her left nor Ya Moqin on the right were looking at her. This made her surroundings seem particularly quiet.

A few young ladies who knew each other were speaking in hushed voices, seemingly in a discussion. Wu Yao had also left her seat. It was as if everyone had selectively forgotten that the Crown Princess never studied much as a child and might not be able to write a poem at the moment.

If she could come up with a poem at a banquet like this, she would surely garner praise. But what if she couldn’t? She would be humiliated.

Ning Xueyan cast a discreet glance around her before she started writing. Even though Commandery Princess Muling couldn’t see what she was writing, she couldn’t help sneering on the inside at Ning Xueyan behaving like a scholar. “She sure knows how to put a front.”

She had investigated Lord Guardian’s Manor quite thoroughly recently. The Crown Princess was your typical case of an unlearned and uneducated person. Ning Xueyan had been living with her mother in semi-house arrest since young. There was no rumor about anyone teaching her. It would be surprising if she could write properly, never mind write a good poem.

Just having poor writing would be enough to ruin Ning Xueyan’s reputation.

The banquet guests were famous scholars or talented literati. The men might not be high-ranking officers but they were known for their honesty. They would surely criticize Ning Xueyan ruthlessly after seeing her poem. They wouldn’t spare her just because she was the Crown Princess.