Chapter 288: Second Update
Zheng Nianru returned to her courtyard, and the whole place suddenly bustled with activity. In one day’s time, the damaged tiles on the roof had been repaired. Although they looked frightening in the night, the damage within the main house was limited. Since Zheng Nianru had few people, and the side rooms were empty, it didn’t really matter.
Nanny Yun personally wrung out a washcloth. Fu Dong had already been the first to tell her what happened in the carriage. Nanny Yun sighed inwardly but couldn’t bear to say anything more.
Having been that age herself, she naturally knew that in the innocent thoughts of youth, even if one knows something is forbidden, it’s hard to resist doing something outrageous.
Nian Xia carefully wiped Zheng Nianru’s hands, looking at Nanny Yun. "You should say something, Nanny. Today’s events seem to be just the Commandery Princess acting on a whim, and that Heir Zong, really, of all the things he could’ve done, he had to do it in front of the Crown Prince."
"Commandery Princess, the bath is ready for you. Please bathe first and let Nian Xia give you a good massage. You..." Nanny Yun said patiently. Before she could finish, Zheng Nianru had already turned and headed toward the side room connected to the main house.
Prince Duan’s Mansion might be old, but it was an estate from the previous dynasty—the traces of a past that had been luxuriously decadent and rotten with indulgence could almost be unraveled from the house itself.
Take, for example, the bath connected to the main house. The floor was paved with uniform jade tiles, and the pool was also carved from a single piece of jade, nearly nine feet long. Blue patterns floated in the white jade, looking even clearer and more brilliant in the water.
But boiling water was needed to fill the pool. It required more than a dozen buckets of hot boiling water combined with more than a dozen buckets of cold water. Zheng Nianru liked her baths hot, demanding even higher temperatures, though jade does not withstand high heat well, not like the Warm Pavilion in the palace. It was necessary to keep adding hot water to maintain the bath’s warmth.
"Commandery Princess, one must look forward," Nanny Yun said as she scooped up water to gently wet Zheng Nianru’s long hair. That black hair was like ink, glistening even under the dim light.