Chapter 2

The Prime Minister's wife had painstakingly dressed Anan up, only to discover that the way Anan carried herself was, to put it bluntly, a f*cking pain in the ass.

To put it nicely, Anan was a plump and fair-skinned young lady; to put it harshly, she was the type who vanished into a crowd. Only her pink, tender, and soft complexion made up for the shortcomings in her looks. But for some reason, when she was all dressed up, those gold and silver ornaments symbolizing wealth and power sat on her head, somehow managing to exude a vulgar, nouveau riche stench.

This girl was truly beyond saving! Entering the palace like this, wouldn't she have the entire Prime Minister's residence laughed to death?

The Prime Minister's wife fell silent for a few seconds, sighed, and ordered the gold ornaments on Anan's head to be swapped for colorful silk ribbons and a few silver hairpins inlaid with gemstones. She looked fresh and clean now, bringing out the young girl's delicate cuteness.

Anan truly suited this style; gold jewelry was just too heartbreaking, you know?

A crowd of maids and old servants chimed in with praise for Anan's clever freshness, saying she looked just like a jade maiden attending the Holy Mother.

Anan smiled shyly, stealing a glance at the Prime Minister's wife, only to find her brows still tightly knit, not relaxed in the slightest.

The Prime Minister's wife cut off the servants' flattery, checked the time, and took Anan into the carriage bound for the palace.

Inside the carriage, the Prime Minister's wife looked grave as she instructed Anan: "Later, just stay by my side. Watch more, listen more, speak less. No matter what anyone says, you just smile. Do not, under any circumstances, argue out of pride."

Anan nodded vigorously, committing the Prime Minister's wife's words to memory. She figured the Prime Minister's wife had lived half her life and become a seasoned veteran; there was no scene she hadn't seen. There had to be a reason for her saying this. Anan would just follow orders. Stealing the spotlight was something only Mary Sues liked to do; as an unqualified transmigrator, she absolutely could not do that, or she'd become a cannon fodder transmigrator.

Anan was a petty-bourgeois transmigrator, and one who had transmigrated into a concubine-born daughter at that. She felt Heaven had wasted a perfectly good transmigration slot on someone like her.

Under normal circumstances, Anan should have had a "Concubine-Born Daughter's Survival Guide," "Concubine-Born Daughter's Struggle History," "Concubine-Born Daughter's Leisurely Record," or something similar... In short, any struggle narrative involving a concubine-born daughter should have been the path she walked from childhood.

Unfortunately, Anan's aptitude was too poor; everything else was just floating clouds. Being able to live peacefully without giving anyone cause to pick faults was already pretty good.

Thus, in her fifteen years of rebirth, Anan had done nothing outstanding, but naturally, nothing outrageous either.

As for the Imperial Palace, it had always been an existence Anan feared like a tiger. Leaving aside how in jj's transmigration novels the palace is where all sorts of transmigrators shine and also where they get screwed for life, just based on her being an ordinary commoner with little knowledge in her past life, and now just an unworldly concubine-born daughter, the palace was truly not a place she could afford to provoke.

Anan's obedience and sensibility were what the Prime Minister's wife was most pleased with. Although the concubine-born daughter wasn't her own flesh and blood, compared to her own few worry-inducing sons and daughters, the concubine-born daughter's good behavior was comforting.

They alighted from the carriage at the palace gate and were led by a eunuch to the rear garden where the Empress Dowager was hosting a flower-viewing banquet.

It was currently autumn, the perfect time for admiring chrysanthemums and drinking chrysanthemum wine.

In the rear palace garden, the golden chrysanthemums blooming in splendor were exceptionally eye-catching. Anan took in the sight and silently recited: "The city filled with golden armor, chrysanthemums withered, the ground covered in wounds..."

"Anan, let's go!"

The Prime Minister's wife called out softly, pulling Anan back from her awkward woolgathering.

"Yes, Mother."

Anan lowered her eyes and followed behind the Prime Minister's wife, looking neither left nor right, playing the part of a good girl perfectly.

The Empress Dowager was a kind-faced, middle-aged woman. Her skin and figure were maintained so radiantly and appropriately that one dared not believe such a young woman was already the Empress Dowager. Now *this* was a role model for a woman's struggle! Although the Empress Dowager wore a head full of glittering gold ornaments, she smiled like a Maitreya Buddha, making one feel incredibly close, almost forgetting she was the Emperor's mother, the supreme master of the harem.

The Empress and several favored concubines accompanied the Empress Dowager. Every single one of them was draped in glittering gold headdresses and jewelry from head to toe, a sight Anan genuinely found no appeal in.

This world revered bright yellow as supreme and gold as precious. Only women of official families had the privilege to wear gold and silver. Commoners, even if you were the richest man under heaven, sitting atop mountains of gold and silver, wealthier than the Emperor himself, you simply could not wear gold and silver. The ancestral rules stood there; if you dared wear gold and silver to challenge imperial authority, hey, the consequence would only give the Emperor an excuse to confiscate your assets to fill the empty treasury.

Therefore, Anan entering the palace looking so fresh and clean appeared truly alien in the eyes of others, instantly turning the originally unremarkable Anan into the oddball of the entire flower-viewing banquet.

"Is that the concubine-born daughter of Prime Minister Lu? Look at how she's dressed..."

"Tsk, no wonder we've never seen her. With such a shabby appearance, which noble lady dresses like her?"

"I heard the Prime Minister's wife never neglected her, so why is she dressed like this?"

"Could it be she deliberately dressed like this to attract attention?"

"Even if she's a concubine-born daughter, she's still of the Prime Minister's household. She shouldn't be so lacking in awareness, right?"

"Hmph! I think she's just pretending to be lofty and different!"

...

It wasn't that no noble ladies dressed as simply as Anan, but that was only within the private chambers of their own homes. To do so at a palace banquet would only make one seem arrogant.

Anan sat in the seat behind the Prime Minister's wife with lowered eyes, trying her best to minimize her presence. She finally understood why the Prime Minister's wife had sighed before leaving. Although this styling concealed the nouveau riche气质, it also made her stand out as an oddball. Truly worrisome!

Although the young ladies' private whispers were annoying, Anan felt that having lived thirty-odd years across two lives, she shouldn't take these girls' words to heart.

However, although Anan wanted to remain calm, her peculiarity wouldn't let her. Originally, a concubine-born daughter today was just here to make up the numbers; she could just doze off calmly. Who knew her oddness would draw the involuntary attention of the Empress Dowager and the others, followed by all sorts of questions.

Anan had no choice but to rise obediently and answer the nobles' queries under the Prime Minister's wife's covert guidance. The questions were nothing more than what books she read at home, how her needlework was, which of the four arts she mastered... Anan's answers were standard, but her voice was soft and sweet, her person small and exquisite, like a ball of snow. Just looking at her made one's heart melt with sweetness, amusing the Empress Dowager into fits of laughter, and making the young ladies grind their teeth in hatred.

The young ladies screamed internally, hating Anan to death. Who didn't know the Empress Dowager's flower-viewing banquet today had a deeper meaning—perhaps to select a wife for some royal relative—yet it was ruined by a concubine-born daughter of the Lu family? They even had half a mind to eat Anan alive.

Only the Prime Minister's wife remained calm as ever, neither servile nor overbearing in her salutes, conversing and laughing with the nobles, fully displaying the demeanor of a matriarch of a great clan.

Anan didn't dare be presumptuous, keeping her head bowed the whole time. Even if the nobles told her to raise her head, she kept her eyes downcast, not daring to look directly at these women of boundless favor in the harem, afraid that a single slip might reveal an emotion she shouldn't have, at which point she wouldn't know how she died.

Anan's performance greatly satisfied the Prime Minister's wife. Although Anan's unintentional spotlight-stealing caused her some worry, considering Anan's status, there was nothing for anyone to exploit. So she calmly led Anan through the various nobles until the banquet ended, leaving just as calmly.

Who knew that the next day, when Prime Minister Lu attended court, the young Emperor suddenly bestowed a marriage on the Lu family, betrothing the Lu family's young lady, Lu Shaoqi, to Prince Su as a consort, with the wedding set for the fifth of next month.

Prime Minister Lu:? What the hell is this? Did Anan do something big?