Chapter 137
The sun was high in the sky. Lu Dieqing had overslept.
Aaaah! She scrambled up and found that the bed was already empty, leaving only her own messy quilt.
The sky outside was already so bright, so bright that it even gave Lu Dieqing a sense of shame.
She wasn’t a little child anymore. How could she still sleep so late?
Lu Dieqing was as if she had done something wrong, very guilty. She tiptoed to open a crack in the door and peeked outside.
Lu He, who was sweeping the courtyard, put down her broom and, with a turn of her head, saw her daughter hiding behind the crack in the door.
She walked towards the side room, and Lu Dieqing obediently opened the door.
“Mother, I overslept…” she said, very guilty.
However, Lu He looked at her with a benevolent gaze and instructed her earnestly, “Cultivation is not something that can be achieved overnight. You still need to sleep normally. Your body is not made of iron. You still need to eat the five grains normally. How can you completely replace sleep with meditation and cultivation?”
Her mother’s words stunned Lu Dieqing.
The girl was a little dumbfounded, not understanding why her mother would say such a thing.
She… she clearly had not woken up late because of cultivation. She…
Her muddled little head, in her mother’s following words, cleared up again.
Lu He looked at her daughter with a beaming smile and said to her, “If the Crown Princess hadn’t told me, I wouldn’t have known how hard you were cultivating. Ai, I thought immortal cultivation was a good thing, but I didn’t know that it also requires perseverance and the ability to endure loneliness, and that it’s not something that can be achieved overnight.”
“Although you have obtained the legacy now, which is a great opportunity, you still have to eat your food one bite at a time. The road ahead is still long. Don’t be in a hurry to succeed. Your mentality is also important.”
Ah, so it was because Ningning had told my mother that I was cultivating last night…
Lu Dieqing had a sudden realization. This feeling of having someone cover for her from behind inexplicably made her shy.
Especially since… Ningning had covered for her in front of her mother about why she had slept late and couldn’t get up. There was always a feeling of a mouse bouncing under a cat’s nose—guilty, embarrassed, but also surprised.
“Alright, hurry up and eat. I heard from Her Highness that some palace staff will be coming to help us move our things later. Ai, it’s been almost twenty years since we’ve left this palace gate. Thinking that we’re going out today, your father and I really didn’t close our eyes all night.”
Lu He usually didn’t talk so excitedly, but today she seemed particularly talkative.
Just like a mother in an ordinary family, following her daughter around and talking about some family matters, Lu Dieqing also listened patiently.
The girl opened her round almond eyes and nodded obediently, even acting as a straight man from time to time.
“That’s right, Mother. From today onwards, we will all be different from before.”
Once they left the palace gate, at least they would have regained their freedom.
Although the Lu family’s departure from the imperial palace today was not a grand affair, the other hostages from neighboring countries who lived near the side-palace quickly heard the news.
Some who were familiar with the Lu He family secretly came to inquire.
Lu He naturally dealt with them and managed to get through it.
Although her family had received the Crown Princess’s kindness, they could not be so blatant and publicize it everywhere. One had to know that many disasters started from the showing off of such small matters.
Seeing that they couldn’t find out anything, those neighbors could only leave with regret.
Even Bai Ming, on this matter, was as tight-lipped as Lu He. Even when the neighbors came up to him and beat around the bush, he pretended not to know anything, maintaining his image of a useless scholar, not revealing a single word.
When everyone had left, and Lu Dieqing had finished her breakfast, she smiled and asked her parents how they could be so tight-lipped.
Lu He glanced at her, and while she was packing up all sorts of household goods, she said, “How can you shout about something that hasn’t been accomplished yet? Our family and their families are all hostages. If we can leave, and they can’t, it will make so many people jealous.”
“How can a person’s heart withstand such tests? It’s not worth taking these risks.”
Lu He’s spirit had truly been completely worn down in these years.
In the past, when she was still in the Shan Kingdom, she had also not understood these principles. She had had everything since she was born. Even if she was unremarkable, as a royal descendant, she would not be deprived of a single meal or a single piece of fiefdom.
The pampered nature she had developed had been repeatedly worn away in these years in the Chaoying court. At first, it was not obvious, and there was even resentment and injustice, but as time went on, those past events slowly became hazy.
Lu Dieqing listened to her mother say these things, blinking her almond eyes and not speaking.
She thought, when they left the palace, would her mother also find something she wanted to do again?
She always felt that her mother was not satisfied with the years she had spent in the palace. Her mother must also have hoped to accomplish something in her heart.
…
Most of the people in the imperial palace did not notice that a carriage carrying the Lu couple had openly left the palace gate.
From the moment the carriage left the courtyard of the side-palace, Lu He and her husband’s hearts had been in their throats.
Lu Dieqing also sat in the carriage, next to her mother.
Perhaps because she had been taken out of the palace gate by Ningning several times, she found that she was not so nervous.
But she still remembered the feeling of caution and disbelief the first time she had walked out of the palace gate.
It was no different from walking out of a prison that had imprisoned people.
The air outside seemed to be sweet to breathe, which was a great relief.
She looked at her mother’s excited side profile and couldn’t help but think of herself back then.
Clearly, less than two months had passed, but she already felt that the her who had needed to borrow Ningning’s waist token to walk out of the palace for the first time had been like a reincarnated person, and had become another person.
When the carriage finally reached the palace gate, even though Lu He had been a mother for many years and had long since lost the naive nature of a young girl, she still couldn’t hold it in. She quietly lifted a small corner of the curtain to look at the sky and the guards outside.
Lu Dieqing pressed her head next to her mother’s and looked with her.
“Mother, we’re leaving the palace.”
Her tone was joyful, and she was also happy for her parents to regain their freedom.
In any case, to be able to walk out of the Chaoying palace gate was the beginning of freedom.
Sob, sob, sob. All this was thanks to Ningning.
Lu Dieqing’s heart was both sour and sweet.
It was sour because there was a person in this world who treated her so well, who almost wanted to give her her heart, and she had nothing of equal value to give in return.
It was sweet because she had the best lover.
Her Ningning was the best treasure in the world.
Aiya, how could I be so lucky to have Ningning?
Her heart was in turmoil. Lu Dieqing tightened her grip on the little doll in her sleeve.
Just as she was accustomed to Ningning’s company, she was also accustomed to always having this little wooden doll that she had once carved with her own hands, inseparable from her.
“We’re out, we’re out of the palace gate.”
Seeing that the guards outside had raised their hands to let them pass after seeing the driver’s waist token, Lu Dieqing’s parents were both excited.
Soon, the carriage clopped away from the imperial palace.
Lu He could no longer hold it in. She lifted the carriage curtain wide, as if their lives had also finally gone from the caution of nearly twenty years to being able to breathe freely.
“Father, Mother, look, the carriage is going in this direction. If we go straight east, we’ll reach our house.”
Lu Dieqing was now quite familiar with the capital.
Especially yesterday, when she had ridden a horse with Ningning and had looked at houses everywhere. After running around a lot, she had naturally remembered all these directions.
Even before cultivating, her memory had been excellent. Let alone now that she had a little spiritual power, and her five senses were much sharper than before.
As her head poked out of the carriage curtain, the girl’s little nose suddenly wrinkled.
What a familiar fragrance.
Her almond eyes lit up, and she turned her head to look around.
A certain someone was standing by the roadside, in a different outfit. Today, she was dressed like a beautiful fairy who had descended to the mortal world, smiling at her.
Being caught off guard by her gaze, Lu Dieqing blushed.
Ningning is dressed so beautifully today. Why didn’t she let me see it in her room first?
