The lotus flowers in the Chengde Summer Resort are exceptionally beautiful, and Empress Dowager Cixi sits on a painted barge with Mei Li to appreciate them carefully. The cool breeze blowing from the lake surface carries the fragrance of lotus leaves. A small eunuch runs quickly to the lakeside and whispers something to the chief eunuch. The boat is not far from the shore, and Xiaozhuang sees it and asks Yu An behind her: "Is there anything?"

  Yu An saw the question and immediately dispatched a eunuch who had been waiting on a small boat to row back to the shore, and when he came back, he presented a letter.

  "The letter from King Qing to Gege." Yu An said with a low chuckle, Jing Xuan had also grown up under her care, and now he knew how to write letters to his wife to report safety. Thinking of his usual cold and careless demeanor, she couldn't help but laugh.

  Meili took the letter in her hand and didn't open it immediately. He had been gone for three months, this was the fourth letter, all with simple content, "All is well, don't worry".

  Xiangzhuang took a sip of tea, furrowed her brow slightly, and gazed at Meili's expression. She smiled and began to speak in a leisurely tone, as if engaging in casual conversation: "Meili, actually Jingxuan is very concerned about you. When he left, he even specifically entrusted you to me."

  "Mm." Meri nodded slightly and responded in a low voice.

  "He is far away in Mongolia, can you give him a letter back home?" This was a rhetorical question, no response.

  As expected, she asked and Meryl fell silent.

  "Child," said Empress Dowager Ci Xi, putting down her tea cup. Since there were few people on the painted barge and they were all loyal servants, she decided to speak directly. "Perhaps you still resent him for his cruel rejection of you at first, for his persistent pursuit later, for making you settle for being a secondary wife... But no matter how much you resent him, he is your husband, and you will be married to him for the rest of your life. The one person a woman cannot afford to be at odds with is her own husband."

  Meili's eyelashes trembled, now everyone thought she was blaming him, resenting him... perhaps she was still blaming him, he had caused Yonghe to be forced onto the battlefield, and when living in the palace seeing off the empress dowager many times, she felt guilty and ashamed.

  She also wants... to protect herself.

  "Meili, perhaps you're afraid that Jingxuan will no longer favor you in the future." Xiangzhuang looked at her and said, but her words made Meili secretly shocked, as if the old ancestor had seen through her heart. "That's all in the future, a person who can't grasp the present can't talk about anything else. Child, don't think too much, just do your duty as a wife, and the rest... can only be left to heaven." Xiangzhuang sighed, this was not necessarily her lamentation of fate.

  Meili clenched the letter in her hand...

  The boat was wrapped in a patch of lotus leaves, shook slightly, and Mei Li felt a wave of nausea, and she didn't even care that her ancestors were right next to her, and rushed to the side of the boat to vomit.

  The palace maid and eunuch attended to her as she rinsed her mouth and sat down. The old ancestor and Yu An's aunt both had joyful expressions, and while admiring the lotus flowers, immediately ordered the boat to shore and quickly summoned the imperial physician.

  Leaning on the couch, listening to Taigong's repeated congratulations, Meili was not surprised. Since he left... her period had never come again, and the child was already three months old. She even dared not think about it carefully, unable to face it. She liked children and wanted to give birth, but this child... came too early.

  The ancestors personally came to give her good wishes, saying that when a couple has children, they naturally become harmonious. Once they became parents, the child's temper disappeared and would no longer be stubborn.

  He pulled her hand and the old ancestor actually cried, as if she had finally made it through the tough times.

  She was still worried.

  Sitting at the desk by the window, gazing up at the moon in the sky that wasn't blocked by a single cloud, her brush seemed to weigh a thousand catties. Proud as he was...he still wrote letter after letter to her without waiting for her response, she understood the weight of those few words. On sleepless nights, those few sheets of paper with only sparse numbers were pressed under her pillow, tormenting her heart.

  Just as he couldn't write a long letter to her, she could only give him a brief four words: Everything is fine. She didn't even have the courage to write "don't miss me", did he... miss her?

  She gripped the pen tightly, loosened it, and then gripped it again. She was afraid that if she told him, he would cruelly make her have an abortion.

  She wants this child!

  How could she strangle her own family!

  But... she put down her pen, folded the family letter with only four words, and put it in an envelope. She didn't want to say anything more. Perhaps he couldn't be fooled anyway, he probably knew everything that happened around her like the back of his hand. Since he didn't make any move, she even less wanted to personally verify his contempt and cruelty towards her.

  The ancestors attached great importance to this child and specially dispatched four experienced nannies to take care of her. Supplements and delicious food were bestowed upon her every day without interruption.

  When the child was six months old, Mei Li's belly was already very round and big. Yu An aunt even joked with Lao Zu Zong that it looked like twins.

  The weather is getting colder and cooler due to the war, and the emperor doesn't plan to return to Beijing either. The ancestors are also very satisfied with this arrangement, so Meili can give birth to the child in Chengde.

  Afraid she would be cold, the side hall where she lived had been heated with a kang early on. She felt hot and asked Jiang Liu to open a window. Moyu's several older maids were whispering something in the courtyard, seeing the window opened, they stopped talking, their faces looked strange as they entered the room to serve her.

  Meili didn't ask any further, actually she had already discovered that sometimes when she went to pay respects to her ancestors, she saw her and Yu'nan Auntie whispering something to each other, and they would stop talking as soon as they saw her coming.

  At first she was a little frightened, thinking that something might have happened to Jingxuan, but his brief family letter never stopped, and it was his handwriting, so she put her mind at ease.

  When Su Ying also came to see her with a big belly, she finally knew what everyone was hiding from her.

  Su Ying... also had good news.

  It's clear that Su Ying is overjoyed at the arrival of the child, and her originally delicate face has added a few more sweet intentions. Her smile is always hanging on her lips, and she talks more than before, chatting endlessly about her pregnancy experiences. Mei Li listens with a faint smile, only to find out in their conversation that Su Ying's child is also five months old.

  Even if I were born earlier... I would still be a bastard child.

  This sentence, which she thought she had forgotten, suddenly emerged clearly in her mind. She looked at Su Ying's bright and beautiful smile with some envy... She couldn't have the same joy as her.

  She suddenly hoped the child in her belly was a girl.

  Illegitimate child... This status is more helpless than being a concubine.

  Su Ying was carefully received by her mother... Mei Li stood at the door and watched as the mother and daughter walked away, surrounded by servants, laughing and chatting.

  She gently stroked her round belly... She didn't want to think about it anymore, the joy that the child brought her exceeded her expectations, at least looking at this scene in front of her, loneliness was no longer so strong and unbearable.