Chapter 352: I Volunteer
When the war began, Cui Zhao and her sister, Marchioness Ping’en, moved to a small courtyard in the northern part of the city. Their former grandeur was naturally gone, and they even had to share the courtyard with the female relatives of Prince Dai. Each group looked down upon the other with cold eyes, but because disaster loomed overhead, they truly had no mood for quarreling and managed to maintain peace.
The Xiongnu offensive grew stronger and stronger, and Jincheng was on the verge of falling. The female relatives were so frightened they could neither eat nor drink, crying all day long. Yet under these circumstances, Cui Zhao’s health actually began to recover bit by bit. She could get out of bed and walk normally, and her expression remained calm, as if she didn’t take the Xiongnu outside the city seriously at all.
The other women sharing the courtyard all felt puzzled by this, and then somewhat fearful, becoming even more convinced that this daughter of the Cui clan was abnormal – perhaps the Xiongnu had been “summoned” by her. Her fate was so hard it could overcome even an emperor!
The female relatives of the prince’s mansion quietly moved away, preferring to live among common people rather than dare to stay near Cui Zhao.
Only Marchioness Ping’en knew that all this talk of being a jinx was nonsense that she herself had concocted, but even she didn’t understand why her third sister’s health kept improving.
Cui Zhao understood it herself.
Ever since the Xiongnu had besieged the city, the more critical the situation became, the less pressure there was forcing her to approach the Emperor. A few days ago when the situation was most dire, Marchioness Ping’en had even complained about their grandmother, feeling it was all because of her favoritism that two daughters and one son of the Cui clan were trapped in Jincheng.
Without family pressure, Cui Zhao’s mood suddenly became relaxed, and naturally her health gradually improved as well.
She finally understood that she didn’t like the Emperor, much less want to seduce him. Compared to that, life and death didn’t seem so important.