Fish hunting (1)
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A familiar pink scoreboard flashed in front of the girl's eyes, which is why she did not notice the disorder reigning around her when she left the banquet hall.
Her head ached from the sound of the alerts.
– I've already figured it out. Shut up.
Today has completely unsettled the girl. She was sure that from the very beginning until now, she had done everything right and had not made irreparable mistakes. She especially tried to stay out of the story and be just a bystander. She believed that her role as a background character was simple to handle. But it's not like that. She had only one line. One! But even she managed to screw it up.
Which is even worse. The girl was literally eaten alive by shame for harming Chu Qi's reputation. She hadn't thought much about it before coming to the party, but now, faced with the problem, Yang Yulan realized how much she had been wrong all this time.
«What's going to happen to her now? Will she be fired? Is she going to be executed? The Empress seemed very angry. She definitely won't forgive her for that.»
Yang Yulan bit her nails convulsively, imagining the worst possible outcome of events.
«Is there really nothing that can be done?»
After returning to her room, Yang Yulan immediately buried herself in the blanket, afraid to face the maid. Otherwise, Yang Yulan wasn't sure if she wouldn't cry right in front of her, begging for forgiveness.
Later that evening, a servant from the Imperial Palace came to the White Lotus Pavilion to inform about the punishment for the maids and the princess.
Yang Yulan waited until everyone who had crowded into her room before the arrival of the envoy left her chambers and quietly followed them to find out how things were going.
A middle-aged man with thick round eyebrows lazily informed Chu Qi and several other girls, including the senior maid sent from the palace, that their punishment had been eased. Envoys from the Northern Bay stood up for them. In particular, it was the initiative of one particular envoy, the Northern Princess, who persuaded the Empress to take pity on her daughter and the maids, because they became a good entertainment at the evening.
«That's a snob!» – thought Yang Yulan to herself, standing in a dark corner of the corridor in her pajamas and shivering slightly from the cold evening wind – «She thinks that we are some kind of clowns.»
«However, thank her for saving our heads» –the girl added to herself a little later.
Still, despite her displeasure with the princess's words, Yang Yulan was able to breathe calmly for the first time in the last couple of hours. The most important thing is that nothing bad will happen to Chu Qi through her fault.
At the end of his monologue, the thick-browed servant informed the girls that, despite the indulgences granted, they would clean the imperial stable for another month.
«Not as bad as it could be. But I still can't look into Chu Qi's eyes» – deciding to stop at this thought, Yang Yulan immediately turned around on the spot before anyone noticed her, and ran back to her room.
At night, Yang Yulan couldn't sleep from the thoughts that kept coming over her.
According to Yang Yulan's theory, the window of the system warns her only about significant events in the relationship of the main characters. Therefore, there was not even a word about today's scene. The girl thought about it and mentally asked the system a question. A text appeared on the bright pink scoreboard. Yulan grimaced in displeasure at the sudden flash of light.
[We inform this client that before moving the user to the selected book, the system analyzed the client's data and his main requests in order to best build a story for him. Since this user was reading the book for the sake of the main romantic line, it became a priority. Thus, thanks to the solution of the system, this user will be able to learn about all important events inside the world without leaving the spam place, and the rest of the time to relax and devote time to himself]
«That's how it is. Is it possible to cancel this mode and receive notifications about all other events too?»
[We inform this client that after moving to the workbook, it is no longer possible to change the system settings]
«You are a company of charlatans!!» – the girl couldn't stand it and got angry. The system did not respond.
***
The cloudy weather continued to prevent Yang Yulan from going outside. The lack of books and the Internet made the girl look sadly at the large wooden windows and count the drops of water on the glass.
It rained almost all night. It stopped, then poured with renewed vigor. The earth reveled in water, was saturated with it, and, as if asking for more and more, forced the dried-up clouds to fill up with salt water again.
Towards morning, it almost stopped pouring, but thick clouds of fog descended to the ground. Nothing could be seen at arm's length. The leaves on the trees had already begun to turn noticeably yellow and, falling to the ground, turned black on the dirty wet ground. Autumn will come very soon. Yang Yulan dressed warmly and looked meaningfully at the grayish sky.
– The time has come.
As soon as these words were uttered, the rose window shone.
[Event! "Deadly Hunt" Remaining time: 23:59..23:58..23:57..]
– Hunting competitions! – The girl exclaimed
This is definitely a landmark event of the first half of the book. A lot of young guys of noble blood will gather on it and will hunt in a preprepared area of the forest in the fight for the first place. The main characters will also go there. Yang Jinglong will participate in the competitions and, of course, will take first place in them, catching a "jade" tiger in the forest – the most dangerous beast in the competition.
After the hunt, the number and significance of the caught game will be calculated and the participants will be assigned the appropriate places.
An interesting fact was that the young guys, at their own request, could give their caught game to some noble lady as a gift. Based on this fact, one can guess that girls whose husbands will participate in competitions and girls who have always been famous for their unearthly beauty and charm can compete equally with men for the first place.
An exceptional event at this year's competition will be the appearance of the main character. She was not a representative of the blue bloods, so she had no right to participate in competitions. However, the prince, as he usually did, decided to disregard the rules of the palace and, despite the protests of his parents, dedicated the "jade" tiger to Mei Baijie.
The loot given to her by the prince earned the girl the first place in the competition. However, the same prize became the reason for the hatred of the main character from other noble ladies. So, for example, the villain of the novel, a treacherous and cold lady from the northern lands, who naturally also attended the celebration, according to the plot of the book, got angry when she saw the winner and decided to take revenge on her.
She invited a naive girl to a tea party and already at the table offered her poisoned tea, which she drank with pleasure, hoping for a long-awaited truce.
As soon as Mei Baijie took a sip of this tea, she immediately began to suffocate and lose consciousness.
At the time, Yang Jinglong, who noticed something was wrong, immediately ran up to his beloved and, shooting lightning from his eyes at all the noble ladies present nearby, quickly called the servants to bring his horse, and personally took the girl back to the palace, to the imperial infirmary, where Mei Baijie miraculously escaped death.
Yang Yulan really wanted to attend the event and see all the events with her own eyes. After the recent incident at the banquet, Yang Yulan found herself under strict house arrest, but this did not become a big problem for the girl. When you have a system available that can take you to the right place, you don't have to worry about such little things. The only problem was that since no one was waiting for her at the competition, then no one should have recognized her there.
Yang Yulan thought about it and bent down to crawl under the bed. She reached out and pulled out a rather dusty blue mask in the shape of a fish's face.
«I'll need you again.»
The next morning, the girl got up at the crack of dawn. She was awakened by the incessant sound of the system.
[Event! "Deadly Hunt" Remaining time: 2:25..2:24..]
– There are only two hours left!
Yang Yulan immediately jumped out of bed and began to dress. Training suit, blue mask, bow, arrows. She had to collect everything in an accelerated mode.
As usual, after warning the remaining maids in the pavilion not to appear in her room during that day, Yang Yulan locked herself in her room and called the system:
– The system! I select the option: moving to the place of the event.
The system immediately blinked and the whole room was flooded with pure pink light.
[The transfer was successful!]
These words of the system made the girl nervously clench her fists.
If she moved, she moved. But here's the catch. As a result, she turned out not to be in a hunting forest or even in one of the guest tents, but in a place not far from the registration desk. There was a queue of people at this table who came to participate in the hunt or just to watch it. They filled out applications, confirmed their identity and only then got to the venue of the event.
– Damn it! Why couldn't I be moved immediately outside the registration desk? How am I going to get on the hunt now? – the girl lamented.
– If I hadn't been punished, I would have passed without any problems. But now my way there is blocked
– The system! Is this how you're taking revenge on me for a failed mission?
[ ... ]
In any case, Yang Yulan was not going to miss such an important event. So she lightly slapped her pale cheeks a couple of times and began to come up with another plan.
Just at this time, a luxuriously dressed forty-year-old woman walked past her and gave her a blank look. Apparently she was confused by the girl's mask. In any case, that wasn't what Yang Yulan was worried about at all. She turned her attention to the servants accompanying this woman.
At that moment, a light bulb lit up in Yulan's head.
«If I could slip into the ranks of other such servants unnoticed, I would be able to go hunting without putting my name on the list»
Yang Yulan hid in the bushes and waited for the right moment.
«Not the one.. And it won't do.. These are too few, it will immediately catch your eye..»
«That's it! » – Yulan exclaimed to herself, noticing a short, mustachioed man, obviously of royal blood, dressed in a purple robe and covered from head to toe with gold jewelry. He wasn't walking by himself. He was carried on a palanquin by six or seven servants. These men looked very pitiful. They carried a huge load, not only an obese man dressed in heavy clothes, but also all sorts of useless things like a vase for flowers, alcohol and even musical instruments. It seemed that these servants no longer cared about anything in this world. They were drenched in cold sweat and couldn't see anything in their path because of fatigue.
«Perfect!»
Yang Yulan waited for the perfect moment and, as quietly as possible, jumped out of her hiding place and stood in a row with other men, helping them carry the palanquin.
No one paid much attention to her
That's how Yang Yulan made her way to the registration desk. The man who took into account the visitors sternly examined the rows of servants (Yulan hid behind the tall man in front of her at that time), and then signaled with his hand to move on
Yang Yulan finally exhaled with relief.
After passing the inspection point, the palanquin turned towards a tall golden tent.
«Apparently, this gentleman will live there for the duration of the competition.»
«I definitely don't need to go there» – the girl thought and decided to slip away unnoticed.
– Where did you go!! – A voice called after her. The obese man from the palanquin noticed her escape attempt as he reached for his wine.
– Get back to your place right now. And where did you get that stupid mask?
– And where were you looking!? – he shouted at the other unfortunate servants who were holding him above the ground at that time – why did they let him leave!?
The poor men did not understand at all what was wanted of them. However, one of them noticed everything:
«He's not one of ours, sir» – he said, more indifferently than excitedly.
– How is this not one of ours? Then who is it? Security!!
– Damn it! – the girl swore and took off.
She didn't manage to run far. Guards were stationed everywhere on the competition grounds. The girl was immediately grabbed by the elbows by a man in leather armor and tried to rip off her mask.
Yang Yulan tried to fight back and win at least some kind of head start, but all her attempts were in vain. When the girl was about to part with the long-awaited fun, someone stopped the guard by shooting him right in the leg.
– Who dared!? – The man cursed as he let go of Yang Yulan and grabbed onto the bloody ankle.
– How dare you!
The first prince of Southern Nan, Yang Yusheng, sauntered out from behind a tall golden tent to them