The day her husband welcomed the time-traveling girl into the house, she woke up

"Madam Ning, our queen wishes to speak with you. Please do us the honor of moving to her carriage."

Li Shu had already learned from Lin Yuan that a large number of people were approaching from behind. Hearing this, she lifted the curtain and looked behind, and saw a rather luxurious carriage parked dozens of meters away, surrounded by a group of palace maids and guards.

It’s quite a big scene…

When she stood up and stepped out of the carriage, the person who stopped in front of the carriage bowed to her and said, "This servant Wenxiang greets the wife of Prince Ning. This servant is the head aunt of the virtuous concubine."

Li Shu nodded slightly, "Thank you for leading the way."

Wen Xiang bowed and took two steps back, waiting for Li Shu to get off the carriage before stepping forward to lead the way.

Afterwards, when they arrived in front of Concubine Xian's carriage, Wen Xiang stopped Jingzhe, who was following closely behind Li Shu, and said, "Our queen wants to speak to Prince Ning's wife alone."

Li Shu got on the carriage by herself.

After entering the carriage, she was about to bow and salute, but Ruan Suxin raised her hand to stop her, "This is not the palace, and there are no outsiders here. Forget the formalities. Come and sit next to me, let me take a closer look at you."

"Yes."

Li Shu responded and stepped forward.

As soon as he sat down, he heard Ruan Suxin say, "When I saw you from afar in the palace a few days ago, I found that you looked more and more like your mother. Now that I see you up close, you really are as good as carved from the same mold as your mother..."

At the end of her words, Ruan Suxin raised a hand and stretched it towards Li Shu's face.

Li Shu hesitated for a moment, but ultimately did not avoid it.

Then Ruan Suxin gently stroked Li Shu's face and said, "You may not believe it, but your mother is my only close friend in this world. She was in such good health back then, but she passed away so suddenly. I have never been able to accept her death. I always thought that she was so powerful, maybe she just faked her death and hid herself away.

Because she once said that if her husband betrayed her, she would make sure that he would never find her. For this reason, I sent people to investigate your father several times. Although I found nothing, I was always convinced that your mother's death was related to him. I resented him and even stopped liking you brothers and sisters.

I even carved a tablet for her myself and hid it in my bedroom. I would offer sacrifices to her on her birthday and death anniversary. Therefore, I have never visited her grave, and she has never appeared in my dreams. So last night, when I heard the emperor say that she appeared in his dreams several times a month, I was really angry. I had people prepare sacrificial supplies overnight and was about to go to her grave to complain. I didn't expect to meet you on the way..."

At this point, Ruan Suxin stopped talking and asked, "Do you often come to worship your mother?"

Li Shu nodded, looked into Ruan Suxin's eyes and said, "Apart from the holidays, I will also come when I miss my mother."

"Where are your brothers?"

"In the past, as long as they were in the capital, they would come when I came."

"Does your father come here often?"

"He's very busy and doesn't come often."

"Oh……"

Ruan Suxin lowered her head thoughtfully.

Li Shu continued to look at Ruan Suxin without blinking.

Although her intuition told her that what Ruan Suxin had just said was true, she did not believe it completely.

Firstly, she can no longer trust others as easily as before.

Secondly, when her mother was alive, every time she brought her into the palace, she would go straight to the Empress Dowager's Fengyi Palace, and never to the Concubine Xian's Huayin Palace. When she spoke to the Concubine Xian, she was not as intimate as when she spoke to the Empress Dowager, and it was not like they were close friends at all.

Ruan Suxin finally withdrew her hand from Li Shu's cheek and said, "I've been so absorbed in worshipping Buddha these years that I've almost turned a deaf ear to what's happening outside the palace. I don't know much about many things going on inside and outside the palace, but I've heard a lot about you from Ru'er before. So when I heard from the guards who went to scout the way that your carriage was ahead, I immediately asked Wenxiang to go and get you. I have a lot to say to you and a lot to ask you, but my time out of the palace today is limited, so I can't talk to you for long. Would you be willing to come to my palace someday for a long chat with me?"

So the purpose of Concubine Xian coming to pay homage to her mother today is to lure her into the palace?

But if the emperor wants her to enter the palace, there are plenty of ways to do it. There's no need to ask the virtuous concubine, who is not close to her, to do it...

While Li Shu was pondering, Concubine Xian continued, "I have distanced myself from you since your mother passed away. It's only natural that you would be skeptical of my words, or even unwilling to interact with me. However, I have many of your mother's things in my possession, and you might want to take a look."

"My mother's things? What are they?"

"Her handwritten letters, the various little things she made herself, and the storybooks she wrote..."

"!!!"

When Li Shu heard the word "huaben", her heart was moved.

He blurted out, "I wonder when will Her Majesty be free after the Lunar New Year? When I go to the palace to pay my respects to Her Majesty the Empress, I'll also go pay my respects to Her Majesty."

Ruan Suxin smiled and said, "I'll be free starting from the third day of the new year."

"Then I will enter the palace on the third day of the new year."

"it is good."

Nodding in agreement, Ruan Suxin then asked, "Since you're already in my carriage, why don't you just come with me?"

Li Shu did not refuse.

Ruan Suxin ordered Wenxiang to go out and inform Jingzhe, and soon the carriage continued to move forward.

Later, when Li Shu and Ruan Suxin went to her mother's grave together, Nanny Gui and the others had already arranged the corresponding items.

This year, Li Shu had been arguing with Xie Yu and Ning Jin every now and then for most of the first six months, leaving her exhausted and in a very bad mood. In the following months, she was in a state of chaos because of dreams about the future, and had no time to pay tribute to her mother. So now, when she stood in front of her mother's grave, her mind was full of the scene in her dream where she came here to cry.

Then, her extremely tragic life in the dream began to replay in her mind one by one, making her feel a little dazed for a moment.

When she came to her senses, Ruan Suxin had already knelt on the futon in front of the grave before her, complaining softly with a choked voice, "Sister Azhi, in the blink of an eye, you've been gone for almost sixteen years! Sixteen years! You haven't appeared in my dreams once! You are so cruel! You clearly said before that you would always protect me and would never ignore me! Is it because I have alienated your husband and children that you don't want to come into my dreams and meet me? Blame me for being so stubborn. All these years, I have been holding on to that trace of suspicion in my heart, unwilling to face the fact that you have left a long time ago. But I have thought it through. I will make it up to Xiaoshu'er in the future. Come and see me, even just once. I miss you so much..."

At the end of her words, Ruan Suxin covered her face and sobbed.

Li Shu stood by and watched her slightly twitching shoulders without blinking.

The choked sobs that revealed such genuine feelings didn't sound fake at all.

But I don’t know why…

She couldn't let go and believe...

Then she knelt on the futon beside Ruan Suxin, staring at the words "Lin Zhi" on the tombstone and whispering, "Mother, this afternoon I will sign a letter of severance with my father, brother, and the others. No matter how much they regret or how much they want to make amends, I will never make peace with them. You will support me, right? Also, are those dreams I had about mother real? Mother is truly living a happy and stable life now, right?"