Traitor Concubine Growth Manual

Chapter 78

The so-called portraits of beautiful girls are actually only the daughters of small families, so in the stack of portraits in Chu Yan's hands, she doesn't even know any of them.

Xuan Dynasty's draft is divided into three steps:

[-]. The townships and counties recommend virtuous women with good looks, clean family backgrounds and suitable ages, and then go through layers of selection and screening step by step, and finally the final list and portraits are submitted to the palace by the Ministry of Household Affairs.

[-]. The queen will review the portraits and personal information of Xiunu, select suitable candidates, and then return the list to the Ministry of Household Affairs.

[-]. The selected beautiful girls should go to Beijing immediately. After the final palace examination, the emperor will personally select them. If they are selected, they will be canonized; if they are not selected, they will not be driven back to their hometown.Because those who can enter the final round of selection are mostly good-looking, virtuous and virtuous women. Even if they can't sleep, they will at least stay in the palace as a female official, or be pointed out to princes and ministers.

Of course, these three rules are not applicable to all beautiful women, but for women from small families.

Daughters of courtiers like Mu Nianqiu directly omitted the first two steps, and only used to enter the palace to participate in the final palace examination after the other beautiful girls were selected.

Chu Yan sat in the study, flipping through the portraits one by one leisurely.

There were a total of 34 portraits sent. Chu Yan was not very clear about the specific selection rules, so she asked Dong Yi, who had been disciplined in the Shangyi Bureau since she was a child, how many portraits she should choose.

Dong Yi thought about it, and said that there is no fixed number, but it is best not to be less than five, lest it be said that she is narrow-minded and does not want other women to enter the palace to be favored; of course, too many are not good, after all, Chu Yan It is still the Crown Princess, if she is so magnanimous that she can casually invite a bunch of people into the harem, it will inevitably make people feel that she cares less about His Highness the Crown Prince.

Chu Yan flipped through the paintings leisurely, and she realized that they were indeed stunning beauties selected from various places. Each of them was unique in style and unique in its own way. They were either charming or dignified and elegant.

No wonder so many favored concubines in the history of the Xuan Dynasty were not descendants of officials, but came from the people. One is because they are really good-looking, and the other is because they have no background. Even if the emperor favors them, there is no need to estimate The government will be affected by this.

She flipped through a few photos, picked out the most charming one, and praised with a smile, "The eyes are watery, the brows are affectionate, she really is a beauty."

Hanzhi whispered, "Since the master chooses, why...why choose such a beautiful one?"

In her opinion, as a princess, Chu Yan should naturally pick whichever is slightly less beautiful. How can she pick out the beautiful ones to embarrass herself?
Chu Yan blinked at her, "Do you think the Queen Mother just let go of her hand? When the painting leaves from me, it will go through her review, and then the review of His Royal Highness. If they know that I only pick mediocre ones, So how should I explain it?"

Seeing Hanzhi's suddenly enlightened appearance, bowing her head to be taught, Chu Yan shook her head, still having unspoken thoughts in her heart.

In fact, the remaining mediocre women are more likely to be rivals than the more beautiful women in the painting.

After going through layers of screening from a distant place, they finally entered the imperial palace. Not a single woman on this list would be the daughter of a small family from a poor family, or the richest man in a certain place, most of them were born in wealthy merchant families. Or in the local official's mansion, otherwise, how can they get through the relationship layer by layer, and finally enter the palace?
As for the process of reviewing portraits for the prince, it has always been either the empress or the empress dowager. Each has its own power to rely on in the court, so naturally they are busy pushing the official women sent by this power to the throne of the harem. How can they do their best? How about choosing the folk beauty to enter the palace?
Picked in for what?Compete for beauty with the girl from the family that he respects?

Isn't this against yourself?

Therefore, whether it is this dynasty or some real dynasties in history that Chu Yan is familiar with, as long as there is a hurdle of portrait selection, most beautiful women have bribed court painters. Brilliant and outstanding.

Because the gun hits the head, whoever is too eye-catching will definitely be the first one whose name is crossed out.

So in comparison, these women who look more beautiful in front of them are actually more ordinary ones in comparison.

Chu Yan stared at the beauties she had selected with a half-smile, and this time, the beauties might be surprised.

Who told the portrait to hit her hand impartially?As a virtuous and generous princess, she not only does not choose the ordinary ones, but chooses the most "outstanding" ones.

The real beauties are probably about to weep secretly.

At this moment, Gu Qi was commenting on the border defense issues in the Mobei area in Huayan Hall, when Wanxi suddenly came to his ear and whispered a few words.

He frowned suddenly, paused the pen in his hand, "What? Sent to Yong'an Palace?"

Wanxi nodded, "The people in the household department said that the Queen Mother has been ill recently and is not feeling well, so they leave this matter to the Crown Princess to take care of."

Gu Qi's eyes were flickering and cloudy, and after a while, the purple hair slapped on the table.

"Pull back to the palace."

His complexion was not very good, he stood up and walked towards Yong'an Palace.

What trick is the queen playing?
To actually push the choice of concubine to Chu Yan?

Isn't this embarrassing her?Isn't embarrassing her the same as embarrassing him?

His Royal Highness stepped onto the chariot with a dark face, feeling very unhappy.

At this moment, Chu Yan was carefully selecting beauties in the study of Yong'an Palace.

She decided to pick out five. She looked at the pictures and looked at the corresponding information. Most of them were written about gentleness and pleasantness, hardworking and thrifty housekeeping, quick writing, dignified and generous...the same praise words, but None of them can give a specific characteristic, or piece together a complete person.

When she was picking the fourth picture, she suddenly noticed that someone seemed to block the light from the open door.

Raising her head, she suddenly saw His Highness the Crown Prince appearing at the door, she was taken aback for a moment, then stood up and saluted, "See Your Highness the Crown Prince."

Gu Qi walked towards her without saying a word, but she asked hesitantly, "Why are you back so early today?"

Isn't it just afternoon, so I should be grading papers in the study.

Seeing him staring at the thick stack of portraits and materials on the table, Chu Yan wondered if he didn't know yet?So he added, "The Empress Dowager is not feeling well, so she asked someone to send me all the portraits of beautiful girls this time, and asked me to choose for Her Highness."

Gu Qi knew what was going on in the first place, but when she heard the whole story come out of her mouth, she became very angry.

Originally, the draft would hurt her heart, but the Queen Mother is so good, she actually entrusted this kind of matter to her to handle it herself. Why, do you think she has excellent psychological quality and can help her husband choose a concubine happily?

Thinking of this, Gu Qi coldly ordered Wanxi behind him, "Take all the portraits away."

Chu Yan guessed that he had heard about what the queen mother had done, so he skipped work and ran back to deal with it, so he pretended to be surprised and asked, "Hey, why did your highness take the painting away? The queen mother asked me to help review it personally. Haven't finished it yet."

Gu Qi's face turned even darker, why did she look like she was enjoying it rather than being jealous?
So she helped him choose a new love, did she feel very comfortable?

He turned his head to look at her, with fierce eyes, and asked in a neutral manner, "It seems that the princess is very happy watching, isn't she?"

Chu Yan smiled slightly, "The beauty is so beautiful, it's pleasing to the eye, so I'm naturally in a good mood."

Gu Qi glanced at her, and went straight to the table to have a look. Seeing her look, she seemed not at all worried that he would have a new love and forget his old love. Could it be...

He had an intuition that Chu Yan must have chosen the ugliest ones, that's why she looked confident.

Unexpectedly, after flipping through the stack that was not selected, and picking up the three portraits that she released alone for a glance, the corners of Gu Qi's mouth slightly raised because his guess was true did not follow the original trajectory Going down, but slammed it down suddenly, and suddenly became angry.

His sharp eyes pierced Chu Yan's heart, he lifted his mouth, and asked sinisterly, "It seems that the princess is really trying her best to choose beauties for me, all of them are so beautiful, compared to the prince The concubine is even better than that."

Chu Yan tilted her head and smiled at him, very innocent, and didn't speak.

Gu Qi felt anxious and irritable when he saw it.

Why, weren't you still worrying about this matter last night and not trusting him?Why did he seem to be a different person today, so calmly and responsibly chose three beauties for him?
His eyes sank, and he ordered the others in the room, "Stand back!"

The palace ladies and servants quickly disappeared together and closed the door behind them.

Gu Qi walked up to Chu Yan step by step, "Now there is no one else, so you don't have to pretend."

That tone was as if Chu Yan would be anxious with her if she continued to pretend to be stupid.

Chu Yan smiled and said nothing, and asked him leisurely after a while, "Does Your Highness think I'm jealous? Just looking at their portraits will make you uncomfortable, and you have to use some tricks. If they Entering the palace and going to bed, don't I want to ask someone to stop them halfway and do something sinister, so as not to make myself feel more uncomfortable?"

Gu Qi didn't expect such a reaction from her, and his face became more and more ugly, "I didn't expect you to be so generous."

He only thought that Chu Yan, who cared so much about the draft, would turn pale the moment she saw these portraits. Civilian girls were originally more beautiful than official girls. If Chu Yan saw it, she would definitely be even more beautiful than last night. Be anxious, maybe you will cry out when you can't bear it for a while-these are all his speculations.

Unexpectedly, after coming here, what I saw was such a scene!
His princess didn't care about choosing new favorites for him, and even dutifully picked out the most beautiful ones!
Gu Qi felt that his worry had become like a big joke.

Really the emperor is not in a hurry, the eunuch is in a hurry!
Seeing that Chu Yan was still looking cheerful, he simply turned around and left, ignoring her.

The bright yellow figure disappeared behind the door.

However, there was no sound of descending the steps.

Chu Yan understood, so the smile on her face disappeared in an instant, and she just sat on the chair slumped, pinching and kneading her sleeves with her fingers, and lowered her head, looking at herself crumpled and wrinkled by being played with. The sleeves do not speak.

She tried hard to keep her eyes open without blinking, and after a while, she really choked back tears. Her eyes were sore, and a big teardrop fell down like this.

Then there are beads with broken threads one after another.

She shed tears silently, only her shoulders twitched, revealing her inner emotions.

Sure enough, a moment later, the feet of the black boots with unicorn and silver stripes appeared in front of Chu Yan, and because she lowered her head, only the pointed toes could be seen.

Tears fell one by one, and fell on his shoes.

Chu Yan didn't speak, as if she was angry, but she didn't want him to see her tears.

Gu Qi has long felt that she has changed too much, she was a worried little woman last night, how did she become a good wife who understands righteousness today?And after turning around and walking out the door, he just stood outside the door for a while, then turned back again, and he saw that she changed her previous leisurely appearance, and actually lowered her head like a pitiful little girl.

He lifted her chin, only to see tears on her face.

Heart throbbing, he sighed, "Speak out if you feel uncomfortable, why are you pretending in front of me?"

Raising his hand to wipe her tears, he didn't comfort her angrily until the wetness disappeared, "You don't need to participate in this matter. Take a good rest yourself, take care of yourself and wait for me to come back. If the Queen Mother thinks you are idle , you can take care of it and show it to her, and don’t worry about such troublesome things.”

Chu Yan still looked at him with tears in her eyes, "Trouble?"

Gu Qi patted her hand, and said very lightly and naturally, "Having fun every night, comforting the country with your body, isn't it hard enough?"

"..."

Gu Qi finally calmed down, and then he left with peace of mind. The moment he went out, he said coldly to Wanxi outside, "Take the portrait and go to Shouyan Palace."

He didn't know what kind of medicine was sold in the queen mother's gourd, and he didn't want to know, but if he made up his mind to hit the people around him, then it didn't matter if she was the queen mother or what, he had to be honest!
(End of this chapter)