When Wen Zhuojin arrived at the front yard, the others were already ready and waiting for her.
When Wen Zhuojin got out of the sedan chair, she saw the face of a middle-aged man. She had a decent appearance, but was a little overweight, with a kind smile on her face.
"Azhuo, how are you? You must have had a hard time traveling today." The man said in a gentle voice.
"I'm fine. Thank you for your concern, father." Wen Zhuojin said in a low voice, put her hand on the neckband covering her cheek and coughed lightly.
The person in front of her was none other than Wen Zhuojin's father, Wen Minghe, Marquis of Jing'an.
"It's cold outside. Help the young lady get on the carriage quickly. There is a charcoal stove inside." Wen Minghe said with concern. Zirong beside her hurriedly helped Wen Zhuojin to get on the carriage.
Wen Zhuojin is pampered in Qinfangxuan, and it is no exception outside.
As soon as she entered the carriage, the marquis's wife, her second daughter, her third daughter, and the eldest son all greeted her with a smile.
"It's very cold today. I prepared a hand warmer for you. Don't get frozen." The Marquis's wife looked at Wen Zhuojin sitting down with a friendly smile on her face, and a hint of caution in her eyes.
"Thank you, Madam." Wen Zhuojin responded politely without pulling down the scarf covering her face. She coughed lightly a few times and received the concerned questions from the Marquis's wife. It seemed that the mother was loving and the daughter was filial, and the couple looked very harmonious.
If others didn't know the inside story, they would probably think that Madam Hou was Wen Zhuojin's biological mother.
Wen Peishu, the second daughter of the Marquis's family, who was one year younger than Wen Zhuojin, looked strange with a look of resentment in her eyes. The Marquis's wife glared at her secretly, and soon her eyelashes drooped. She twisted a handkerchief under her hand, as if she had a grudge against the handkerchief.
Wen Zhuojin caught a glimpse of it out of the corner of her eye, but pretended not to see it.
Although my uncle, the Earl of Changyuan, does not hold a high title, she has a good career. She is now a third-rank imperial censor, responsible for supervising all officials. She may very well be the next prime minister.
Both the Marquis of Jing'an and her wife were afraid of her, so they were naturally very polite to Wen Zhuojin.
It's nice to lean against a big tree for shade, and we judge by deeds, not by the heart.
Wen Zhuojin was happy and at ease.
The Marquis's wife is delicate and gentle, and speaks softly. Although she is not sincere, she is not annoying.
After a few words, the carriage started moving and the noises around stopped.
The carriage was closed and the smell of several people gathered inside was not pleasant. Wen Zhuojin held the gilded sachet in her hand and smelled it, which made her feel a little better. After that, she was shaken a few times and was already very sleepy, so she leaned against the wall of the carriage and fell asleep quickly.
The Marquis's wife took a thin blanket and covered Wen Zhuojin with it.
"Mother, who is my biological daughter? I gave her the best fox fur, and she still wants..." The second lady Wen Peishu raised her eyes and muttered dissatisfiedly. Before she finished speaking, the marquis' wife frowned and stared at her sternly, and she fell silent and dared not say another word.
"We are praying today, and this is a serious matter, so don't speak carelessly. Your eldest sister is weak, so you must take good care of her. You must all remember this." The Marquis's wife said slowly, glancing at her children.
The younger ones didn't say anything more. The carriage was silent for a moment, with only the sound of wheels and the whistling wind outside.
The carriages lined up to leave the city when the city gates were wide open.
Various types of carriages, accompanying servants and guards rushed to the Tianxuan Palace on Xuannv Mountain in the western suburbs one after another, unafraid of the wind and snow.
Around noon, the sky gradually brightened.
The carriage stopped in front of the stone steps leading to Tianxuan Palace. Wen Zhuojin was woken up and got off the carriage with the others.
Amidst the biting cold wind and the white snow, there is a clear stone staircase with a crowd of people leading directly to the Tianxuan Palace embedded in the silver-white mountains.
From a distance, the towering red walls and the dark black tiles look like a palace in the sky in the curling smoke, which makes people feel awe.
Wen Zhuojin secretly breathed a sigh of relief and thought about her shameful face again, which gave her the motivation to climb the stairs.
The ladies who seldom went out and usually looked delicate and frail, at this moment, as if they had agreed on it, walked up the stairs wearing heavy winter clothes.
Not long after walking, Wen Zhuojin heard heavy breathing. Looking around, she saw that everyone, including the delicate marquis' wife and her second and third sisters who were usually pampered like ladies from wealthy families, were all exhausted and out of breath, but they were still insisting on going up.
As if being pulled by some force, she looked at the Tianxuan Palace right in front of her with a persistent look and a hint of excitement.
Front, back, left, and right, everyone had almost the same expression.
Wen Zhuojin didn't understand, so she just lowered her eyes and played with the gilded sachet under her sleeve. She walked slowly with the crowd, neither ahead nor behind.
Perhaps there were too many people, the heat evaporated, and the snow fell and melted into water.
By the time they reached the gate of Tianxuan Palace, many people's cloaks were already wet.
When queuing up to enter, Wen Zhuojin's maid Zirong changed the dry cloak in her bag for Wen Zhuojin.
"Wait for me in the dining hall. Buy some hot food if you're hungry." Wen Zhuojin put on her cloak, quietly stuffed a silver ingot into Zirong's pocket, and whispered.
"Miss, I will wait for you at the door of the prayer hall." Zirong said.
"Don't you listen to me?" Wen Zhuojin raised her eyebrows.
"Listen, listen to the girl." Zirong said hurriedly.
"That's good." Wen Zhuojin said with a smile.
According to her memory of previous years, praying for blessings was a very long process. There was a ritual that was very mysterious and took about an hour. Attendants and servants were not allowed to go in and had to endure the cold outside.
The dining hall that Wen Zhuojin mentioned is where people in Tianxuan Palace eat, and you have to pay money to enter.
Wen Zhuojin has always been generous to her own people and would not let a little maid suffer from cold and hunger just to save a little money.
While Wen Zhuojin was talking to the maid, they had already arrived at the gate of Tianxuan Palace.
She watched as the marquis' wife took out the admission certificate issued by the court, a stack of silver bills as incense money, and received a few incense sticks.
Wen Zhuojin watched and clicked her tongue in her heart.
The money for incense offerings has doubled again.
What kind of low-quality incense stick costs a hundred taels of silver?
Each person who came to the Marquis of Jing'an's mansion burned three sticks, for a total of six people, which means 1,800 taels.
Even though they were being ripped off like this, they were still willing to take it.
The high and mighty eldest princess is very good at calculating and doing business.
When they arrived at the entrance of the prayer hall, Wen Zhuojin and Zirong separated and followed the others inside.
The statue enshrined in the main hall is a woman with a flying bun, colorful clothes and a wide belt. She is about five or six meters tall, with a golden body. She is solemn and has a hint of divinity, just like a goddess or fairy.
This is the "main god" in Tianxuan Palace, Goddess Xuannv. It is said that this golden statue was sculpted according to the eldest princess of the current dynasty.
Wen Zhuojin glanced at it and sighed at the luxury.
The bright yellow layer covering it is real gold!
There were already quite a few people in the hall. After burning incense, they knelt on the cushions to pray for blessings, wait for the incense to come back, and ask for divination.
The so-called incense signal is to ask for divination by comparing the changes in the burning height, smoke and color of three incense sticks with the incense chart.
When asking for divination, if it is a good omen, you need to give more money for incense and offerings, and if it is a bad omen, you need to give even more money for incense and offerings to ward off disaster.
It costs money anyway.
Wen Zhuojin couldn't help but sigh in her heart, the eldest princess really knows how to make money.
There is business everywhere.
Walking inside, the hall was warmer than outside and the smell was more complex.
Wen Zhuojin was brought back to her senses by a strange and unfamiliar smell.
There were other smells mixed in with the complex flavor. They were not the incense materials used to make incense sticks. Wen Zhuojin recognized one of them as Datura. There were also more unfamiliar ones, which were smells that Wen Zhuojin had never smelled before. Even the neck scarf covering her mouth and nose could not cover it up.
Wen Zhuojin endured it and lit the incense sticks with the people from Jing'an Marquis Mansion, inserted the incense into the incense burner, and then knelt on the cushion to pray like everyone else.
The nun wearing a Taoist robe and holding a whisk was muttering something, but Wen Zhuojin didn't listen carefully.
Her focus was on smell.
The more people burn incense, the more incense sticks burn, and the stronger the smell becomes. The more you smell it, the more you feel hot.
Wen Zhuojin has always been sensitive to smells. Although she didn't know what the strange fragrance was, her intuition told her that it was definitely not a good thing.
Is it not enough to get so many people to believe in Goddess Xuannv? Do we still need to use incense and poison?
Wen Zhuojin glanced around and saw that no one was covering their mouth and nose like her. Her face was slightly red and her eyes were a little more obsessed than when she came in.
It seems that nothing serious will happen at this moment, but this method is a bit despicable.
It's too much to steal money and kill people.
Wen Zhuojin's eyes gradually turned cold.
The extremely powerful eldest princess, the reincarnation of Goddess Xuannv.
Oh!
Originally, Wen Zhuojin wanted to go along with the crowd and deal with it for a while, but the smell became more and more unpleasant, and Wen Zhuojin really couldn't hold on any longer. She looked around, covered her mouth and nose, coughed a few times, and quietly retreated.
It is said that prayers cannot be interrupted, otherwise they will not be effective.
Fortunately, the Marquis of Jing'an and his wife who discovered her did not "love" her so much as to interrupt their prayers.
When Wen Peishu saw Wen Zhuojin leaving, she narrowed her eyes and raised the corners of her mouth, thinking that if she didn't pray well, she would be unlucky for another year!
Regardless of the people inside, Wen Zhuojin successfully exited the prayer hall.
When she reached the palace door, she lifted the heavy curtain and walked out with her back bent. Wen Zhuojin finally stood up straight and took a deep breath.
There were many servants waiting outside. Wen Zhuojin avoided them and wanted to find Fanmianxiu.
"People have three urgent needs. Can you please show me the way, Taoist priest?" Wen Zhuojin asked a young Taoist priest for directions and stuffed a piece of silver into her pocket.
The young Taoist priest had her own things to do and only pointed the way to Wen Zhuojin.
Wen Zhuojin thanked the Taoist priest and continued walking forward. She did not go in the direction the Taoist priest pointed, but followed the pleasant smell she could smell and took a small path.
The fox fur cloak that Wen Zhuojin wore was extremely warm, and she also carried a warm hand warmer, a snack bag, and a purse and sachet around her waist. She felt very comfortable and not bored along the way.
It was snowing and no one walked on the road, so it was easy to leave footprints. In order to avoid trouble, Wen Zhuojin pulled down her cloak and swept it behind her.
The incense in the prayer hall did not spread very far. The farther away from it, the fresher the air became.
Wen Zhuojin first found a plum forest.
The cold plum blossoms covered with snow are quite interesting.
Wen Zhuojin pulled down the neck scarf that covered her mouth and nose, took a few breaths of the cool and subtle fragrance, and felt her body and mind purified.
Wen Zhuojin held back her hand as she wanted to pick the fruit and continued to look for the rumored pink-faced shame.
Going deeper, Wen Zhuojin smelled a faint and unique cold fragrance among the subtle fragrance of plum blossoms.
In the plum forest full of blooming plum blossoms, this cool fragrance was extremely faint, but its presence was very strong. Just a hint of it made Wen Zhuojin, who was already feeling a little hot, shiver.
It has an icy chill and a slight spiciness, like an ice crystal flower born from this vast world.
Is this the smell of shame?
It smells good, but it's not the same as the floral scent I imagined. It has a strong cool feeling and doesn't have the sweet taste of most floral scents. It's rather cold and hard.
Smell it again.
Wen Zhuojin followed the scent further and smelled a woody scent, the scent of agarwood, and then, what seemed to be the smell of blood...
Wen Zhuojin was about to savor it when a voice came to her ears, and a smell of smoke mixed with the stench of sweat was carried over by the wind.
Wen Zhuojin became alert, looked around, made sure to use her cloak to smooth out the footprints, found a rockery to hide in, and covered her mouth and nose with a neck scarf.
The noise outside grew louder and louder, the smell grew stronger, and soon human voices were heard.
Wen Zhuojin couldn't hear clearly and seemed to be looking for something.
Wen Zhuojin waited for a while, and only came out from behind the rockery after the noise died down.
The pleasant smell from before became vague, and the air was mixed with the smell of those people before, making it taste different.
The prayers are almost over now, and something seems to have happened in Tianxuan Palace. If we don't go back now, we will probably be in trouble.
But this kind of taste is rare. If you confirm that it is the Powdered Shrub, it would be nice if you could pick some or buy some from someone in Tianxuan Palace.
Wen Zhuojin blinked her dark eyes and continued to walk deeper, dragging her cloak.
Not long after walking, Wen Zhuojin discovered that the road was covered with footprints. There was no need to cover them up anymore. However, the people who had just left did not leave completely, and a few of them were still left.
The fact that those people were wearing the uniforms of the Imperial Guards made Wen Zhuojin realize the seriousness of the matter again.
I'm afraid only the eldest princess can mobilize the imperial guards in Tianxuan Palace.
She wanted to give her a good beating but she still came to cause trouble. She really clashed with her.
Just as Wen Zhuojin was wondering whether to avoid these people, a loud bronze bell rang out.
The prayer is over.
Wen Zhuojin looked into the distance, wrinkled her nose, and felt a little regretful. She could only come back another day.
The shy plant will not disappear if it is planted here.
Wen Zhuojin returned the same way and went to the dining hall to call Zirong to go back to the prayer hall together.
The prayers were over, and the strong smell of incense had dissipated a lot.
When Wen Zhuojin arrived at the prayer hall, the people from the Jing'an Marquis' Mansion were talking to several outsiders who were dressed in luxurious clothes.
Wen Peishu's face was filled with joy in front of the Marquis' wife, and she looked at the person opposite her with burning eyes.
Wen Zhuojin paused, her brows furrowed and then relaxed.
"Sister Azhuo, I haven't seen you in the prayer hall. Uncle Wen said you were not feeling well. Are you okay now?" The young man in a dark green robe saw Wen Zhuojin first, walked forward a few steps, looked at Wen Zhuojin and asked.
This man was none other than Shen Yuque, the prince of Rong, who was engaged to Wen Zhuojin.
"Much better, thank you for your concern." Wen Zhuojin said softly, bowed and walked forward without stopping, without pulling down the neck scarf covering her mouth and nose.
"Greetings to Duke Rong, her wife, and Madam Ming. Thank you for your concern." Wen Zhuojin went up to the others to greet them. Her voice was still a little weak, which was consistent with everyone's impression of her as frail, delicate, reserved, and polite. She was completely different from the person who had just walked briskly around half of the Tianxuan Palace.
The woman whom Wen Zhuojin called Madam Ming was a beautiful middle-aged woman in her thirties. She wore brightly colored clothes and an elegant headdress. She exuded a blended floral fragrance and was the only one present who smelled okay.
Madam Ming is Shen Yuque's widowed aunt and has a bad reputation.
However, Wen Zhuojin would rather talk a few more words with Mrs. Ming, who has a bad reputation, than have any communication with Shen Yuque.
Ever since Wen Zhuojin came, Shen Yuque has always had her eyes on Wen Zhuojin.
Wen Peishu's face darkened and she twisted the handkerchief in her hand together again.
Wen Zhuojin exchanged greetings with the others, feeling fortunate that Madam Ming was there, making the life not so difficult.
These people were not in a hurry to leave. They were queuing up to see the Taoist priests from Tianxuan Palace to have their incense letters resolved or to ask for elixirs to ward off disasters.
Although Wen Zhuojin did not pray for blessings, the incense she had burned before was still there, as well as the incense letter.
All the incense burned in the incense burner and the incense letter that is eventually formed will be recorded and have corresponding serial numbers.
If you want to know your own fortune, you can pay the silver and give your serial number to the Taoist priest who interprets the incense letter and then ask for the incense letter.
Wen Zhuojin didn't believe in the so-called incense letter.
"Your incense is auspicious, auspicious, and cause for celebration. As for your marriage, your wish will come true and you will marry a good partner..."
This is what the Taoist priest who explained the incense letter to Wen Zhuojin said.
Wen Zhuojin:...
At this moment, Wen Zhuojin sincerely hoped that Goddess Xuannv really existed and the incense letter was real.
But how is that possible?
I'm afraid it will be difficult for her to get what she wants.
Upon learning of Wen Zhuojin's incense letter, the people from the Marquis' Mansion and the Duke of Rong's Mansion smiled at each other.
"It's a good omen, it's God's will, a perfect match." The wife of Duke Rong chuckled, and the wife of the marquis followed suit. Only Wen Peishu lowered her head to hide her expression, her handkerchief almost torn into pieces.
Wen Zhuojin was silent, and everyone thought she was shy.
Finally, everyone had finished interpreting the incense letters and could go back.
Wen Zhuojin secretly breathed a sigh of relief. She wanted to go back and eat mutton soup noodles and have a good sleep.
However, before everyone left, the bronze bell rang again. The uniform sound came with loud shouts, and hundreds of guards came and surrounded the Tianxuan Palace Prayer Hall.