Traveling through time and space to become a lady of a noble family, but she only wants to escape

Some aristocratic families who were on good terms with the Marquis's Mansion and young officials who wanted to curry favor with them all sent gifts one after another. Qiao Wanwan was now the mistress of the house, and she had to do all the troublesome things such as currying favors and recording gifts. From time to time, she would bring gift books to Yishuiyuan to complain to Bai Zhi, saying how much she regretted snatching the position of the head of the family. Bai Zhi listened with one ear and let the other ear out, and her mind was focused on the gift book in her hand.

Only after flipping through the booklet so intuitively did Bai Zhi realize that something was wrong - in the past two years, the palace had sent eunuchs to congratulate and present gifts at Old Madam Gu's birthday banquet, but since last year, no one from the palace had shown up.

What's going on? Could it be that the emperor overreacted and guessed that there might be some injustice behind Prince Jing's rebellion?

"Qiao Wanwan, do you know the ministers in the court?"

Qiao Wanwan: "Minister of the court?"

Bai Zhi: “Yes.”

"Why do you ask this suddenly?"

"Just a little curious."

Chu Yunchuan said that there was another mastermind behind King Jing's rebellion. After listening to Lin Ruogui's statement, this mastermind was most likely someone in the court.

This was the only thing Chu Yunchuan didn't want to talk about, but that didn't mean Bai Zhi didn't want to know.

"Let me think about it." Qiao Wanwan pointed at the table and closed her eyes, thinking hard. "There are a few people who always interact with my father, General Gao, General Liu, Lord Jiang... No, they are all local officials, not in the capital... Ah, there is a Lord Pan who is a Beijing official. He visited us two or three times, and my father entertained him at home."

"Master Pan?"

"Yes, he was originally the Minister of War. After the rebellion of King Jing, the old Minister died of illness, and he became the Minister. He is a sarcastic and mean person, and he always scolds King Jing every time he comes."

Bai Zhi sat up straight at once: "Scold King Jing?"

"Women from King Jing's thirteen states can join the army, and he always uses this as an excuse, saying that King Jing's army is full of Yin energy, and if it continues like this, the country will be ruined. Although I look down on King Jing, I also look down on him. After King Jing's rebellion, it was he who wrote to the emperor, saying that Yin energy would be detrimental to the country's destiny, and dismissed all the female generals and female soldiers from the thirteen states, and only recalled the men in the army to be deployed by the Ministry of War."

This guy sounds stupid and doesn't seem like the mastermind behind this.

"Any more?"

"No, my family is not in the capital, and I don't know many officials in the capital. I have only heard some rumors about the big figures in the capital, and I don't know whether they are true or not."

"tell me the story."

"Like the Jingzhao Yin who has dozens of concubines, the Ministry of Revenue's assistant minister who sent all his children to the court to serve as officials because he has the ambition to become a prime minister in the future... Ah, there is one thing I remembered, this is not a rumor, do you still remember the Honglu Temple's junior official that my third brother knows? Recently, the Northern Di people have been in turmoil. It is said that the Northern Di envoys came to the capital to offer gifts, but the Honglu Temple did not arrange the reception well, so they complained, so they are making trouble at the border. I heard that the Ministry of Rites passed the buck to each other in the end, and they planned to dismiss the minister and junior official from their posts."

"Will the Marquis and Second Brother be affected?"

"How could that be? Even if the sky falls, it won't fall on these two lowly officials. Besides, if the people above fall, the people below can take their place. Gu Shou is so happy that his face is filled with joy."

After saying a lot of things, none of them seemed to be of any use. Bai Zhi leaned back and planned to visit Lu Jiliang again.

But the autumn examination is approaching, and I don’t know if he is free.

Qiao Wanwan suddenly said, "Oh, and about the crown prince. A few days ago, it was rumored in the capital that the emperor wanted to depose the crown prince and make the seventh prince the heir. But no one dared to spread this matter openly, so I still found out about it secretly."

Bai Zhi had heard about the dispute between the Crown Prince and the Seventh Prince from Lu Jiliang, but she didn't expect it to be spread so widely among the people: "How did this matter spread specifically?"

"That is to say, the Seventh Prince found out that the Northern Di people were in turmoil because they were picking quarrels. In addition, the Seventh Prince performed better than the Crown Prince in the tasks assigned by the Emperor before, so the Emperor relied on the Seventh Prince. But speaking of it, the Northern Di people have always been a tributary country. They should have swallowed their anger when they came to Dayan to pay tribute. It is too casual for them to pick quarrels and cause turmoil when they were wronged. There is no guarantee that there is something else we don't know about here."

"The emperor didn't let Beidi see his own strengths and weaknesses, but instead blamed the Ministry of Rites first. This is really incomprehensible..." Bai Zhi muttered for a long time, and suddenly asked, "Is the Ministry of Rites the power of the prince?"

Qiao Wanwan: "Yeah...wait, do you have something else to say?"

If the prince was afraid of the emperor's favor for King Jing, or was afraid that after he ascended the throne, there would be such a powerful uncle entrenched in the southwest, then it was indeed reasonable, and he was also capable of doing such a thing. Bai Zhi shook her head to avoid this topic: "I just asked casually. Are there any other rumors?"

"You think I'm a god who knows everything. It's good enough to know these."

"Yes, you are well-informed and can find out these things."

"It's not that I'm well-informed, it's that you don't like to go out. I can always find you when I come back to Yishui Garden, and I've never missed you. Have you rarely gone out since you came to the Marquis' Mansion?"

When Qiao Wanwan mentioned this, it actually reminded Bai Zhi. She had gone out less before for the sake of Yishuiyuan's safety, so as to avoid being ambushed by Ge Zhen. Now that Ge Zhen was gone, it meant that she could finally go out without any worries.

In the past few months, she only knew Wanjia Street and had hardly been to other places. Mid-Autumn Festival was coming soon, and she had to buy some new clothes for Qiaoqiao and Chuqi, and buy some food and toys they liked.

Bai Zhi returned the gift book to Qiao Wanwan and said, "If you hadn't told me, I would have forgotten about it. I haven't been out for a long time. You go back first. I'll take Qiaoqiao out now."

Qiao Wanwan: "...so heartless. You go out to eat, drink and have fun, and I have to stare at the old lady. If I had known earlier, I would have fought for the position of head of the family. I haven't gotten any benefits yet, but I have done a lot of work first."

"What work did the old lady give you?"

"You don't know, the old lady has been thinking about making a golden statue of Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva for Dajue Temple these days, and asked me to raise gold and find a craftsman. Such a big statue of Bodhisattva would cost a thousand taels of gold, but there is more silver than gold in the treasury, so I have to be busy exchanging gold these two days. As for the craftsmen, there are many people who recommend themselves, but I don't know how good their skills are, so I have to test them one by one."

Bai Zhi smiled and said, "You did a good job. But does it really cost a thousand taels of gold to make a golden statue?"

“I don’t know if this is enough.”

"If you don't have all the gold, give me some."

Qiao Wanwan quickly covered Bai Zhi's mouth: "That's a Bodhisattva! How dare you say that!"

Bai Zhi couldn't speak anymore, she just blinked. Qiao Wanwan stared at her and warned, "I let go, don't say disrespectful words again."