Chapter 37

Chapter 37: The Peerless Beauty vs Capital’s Top Beauty

After one chaotic night piled on another, Gu Nan Xi finally curled under her blankets and slept like the dead—until Lu Mei grabbed her and hauled her upright.

“Master! Get up! Noble Consort sent someone to invite you into the palace!”

Gu Nan Xi’s eyes didn’t even open. Sleep-starved fury surged up instead. “Noble what consort? Consort what noble? She tells me to attack and I have to attack? Not a chance. I’m defending.”

Lu Mei stared at the bundled lump wriggling under the quilt like a silkworm and sighed. “Master, they won’t give you a chance to defend. Did you forget? Yesterday you boasted and told the enemy to bring it on. The entire household knows.”

She leaned closer, voice sharp with alarm. “Faced with a love rival’s provocation, are you going to hide like a turtle?”

Love rival?

Gu Nan Xi blinked, slow and confused.

She had been single her whole life. What love rival?

Then memory crashed in. Right—she’d been transported into a book. And the original owner had kept a whole pond of fish.

“What? Noble Consort wants to see me?” Gu Nan Xi jolted fully awake.

A battlefield like this… was she even qualified to step onto it?

“Exactly!” Su Yun Yan burst in like a storm. “Mother, I’m here to back you up!”

She flung open two large makeup boxes. “I used Shu Yao’s connections to borrow these from the Treasure Pavilion.”

Jewels spilled light into the room: phoenix hairpins, plum-blossom gold bracelets, a jade butterfly crown, tassel earrings, jade pendants—each piece so dazzling it practically shouted its price.

“Noble Consort Tong has always loved to snatch the best,” Su Yun Yan said, brimming with righteous indignation. “She calls herself Capital’s top beauty and looks down on everyone. She doesn’t understand that true beauty is in the bones, not the skin. If you’d been born a few years later, she wouldn’t even have a place to stand!”

Gu Nan Xi’s stomach tightened, but her face stayed calm. “No need to make such a show.” She kept her tone light, as if merely reminding Su Yun Yan of the weather. “Yun Yan… did you forget… lover?”

Su Yun Yan froze.

Before she could answer, Su Yun Ting strolled in with a fan in hand, looking entirely too pleased with himself. He tapped Su Yun Yan’s forehead lightly. “Mother’s right. You still have a lot to learn.”

Su Yun Yan immediately dragged over a cushioned stool and sat down, eyes bright. “Brother, teach me. In detail.”

Su Yun Ting was about to snap his fan open—then remembered whose room he was in and slid it back into his sleeve, pretending it had never existed. “Mother has many lovers. If that person wants to stand out, then that person should be the one dressing up and trying to please her.”

Su Yun Yan blinked. “Huh? Is that how it works?”

Su Yun Ting looked at her like she’d disappointed the ancestors. “Think. When a husband goes to see a concubine, does he dress up? No. It’s the concubines who compete, who dress up, who fight for attention. His Majesty—cough—no matter how impressive he is, he’s still only one husband in Mother’s inner courtyard.”

Gu Nan Xi’s face fell.

Wonderful. With Su Yun Ting’s way of thinking, nobody needed to frame them. Marquis Yong Chang’s household would sprint straight toward disaster on its own.

“No one says another word,” Gu Nan Xi snapped. “We’re still in mourning. We can’t dress extravagantly.” She turned to Lu Mei. “Pick something plain.”

Lu Mei opened her mouth, wanting to point out that Gu Nan Xi hadn’t exactly been eating less fish or mutton lately, so where had this mourning restraint been? Then Lu Mei remembered Gu Nan Xi’s track record and swallowed the words.

Master must have a deeper meaning. Master always did.

Soon, the carriage bearing Marquis Yong Chang’s family crest rolled through the bustling market streets toward the crowded, lavish Imperial Palace.

Capital’s commoners erupted.

“In broad daylight, Madam Marquis Yong Chang went into the palace?!”

“Who has firsthand news? I’ll pay ten wen!”

“Twenty!”

“Don’t drive up the price—same melon-eaters, why hurt each other?”

A well-connected teahouse hurriedly hired errand men to shout over the crowd, “Firsthand news is all at Fu Quan Teahouse! Don’t miss it!”

By the time the busybodies rushed there, Fu Quan Teahouse was packed so tightly the tables spilled into the street. The storyteller even sent an apprentice outside to repeat the tale for guests who couldn’t squeeze in.

“Special episode of ‘Peerless Beauty’—a showdown between two generations of top beauties!”

“Everyone asks why Noble Consort would provoke the Peerless Beauty. They don’t know—someone poisoned Noble Consort’s ear with slander!”

“Ahem,” the apprentice continued, voice rich with anticipation. “The general’s Young Lord Li was beaten, and his grandmother nursed a grudge. So she went to whisper in Noble Consort’s ear…”

The listeners all understood without being told. That general was Dragon-Martial Grand General Li Ao Tian.

So that was it. That old madam was narrow-minded indeed—especially when her own grandson had been the one flirting first.

Still, compared to that, what the crowd wanted most was simple: between the Peerless Beauty Gu Nan Xi and Noble Consort Tong, who would win?

Gu Nan Xi couldn’t say.

But she could say one thing with absolute certainty: from the tips of her hair to the heels of her feet, she was branded with one word—awkward.

If the person behind the scenes intended to kill her with embarrassment, then they were dangerously close to success.

“Madam Marquis Yong Chang,” Noble Consort Tong said from the seat of honor, voice deliberately heavy on the title, “please sit.”

Gu Nan Xi sat down without ceremony.

Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Noble Consort Tong’s long, delicate fingers. A shiver went through her—not fear, exactly, but the instinctive reaction to beauty sharpened into a weapon.

Noble Consort Tong was at the freshest age—sweet, proud, and dangerously luminous. With each movement, her sleeves stirred waves of perfume that lingered in the air.

Her waist was soft and slender, like a red lotus swaying in autumn mist.

The current sovereign truly had an enviable feast before him.

Gu Nan Xi, unfortunately, was also the type who took feasts seriously. Before she knew it, she had eaten three plates of pastries and drained two pots of sheep’s milk.

Noble Consort Tong’s hands disappeared into her sleeves, fists clenched hard enough to tremble. “Marchioness, how is the food in the palace? Does it suit your taste?”

Gu Nan Xi answered without thinking. “It’s fine. The sheep’s milk is a little gamey. Next time add some almonds—it should taste better.”

It hit like a slap.

Noble Consort Tong’s face tightened, and her eyes turned sharp.

Old Madam Li had been right.

This Gu Nan Xi was a thousand-year fox spirit.

How could she say that so casually, as if she didn’t know the palace used to add almonds to the sheep’s milk—until it was changed because Noble Consort Tong was allergic?

The more Noble Consort Tong thought, the angrier she became. Her chest rose and fell, her catlike eyes rounding as fury boiled up.

The maids at her side lowered their heads, trembling, already bracing for a storm.

Then a shrill voice rang from outside the hall: “His Majesty arrives!”

Something inside Noble Consort Tong snapped.