Chapter 508 Housewarming Party (2)

Chapter 508: Chapter 508 Housewarming Party (2)
Translator: Dragon Boat Translation Editor: Dragon Boat Translation
The hot topic was regarding King Kang—the Fourth Prince. It was said that Zhou Jiaying, his secondary consort, busied herself so much that she almost died on the street because she was preparing the betrothal gifts for the main consort.
For a moment, Zhou Jiaying went viral. Of course, there were good and bad things to say about her.
Zhou Ying, who knew Zhou Jiaying well, admired her scheming.
No matter how others saw her, as a secondary consort, she was preparing betrothal gifts for the main consort. It was obvious to the outside world that, as a secondary consort, she was a contender to be the head of the household and was on excellent terms with King Kang.
When the main consort marries in, it would be hard to say whether she could seize power.
However, Zhou Ying knew this was stupid. As a pregnant woman, instead of playing tricks, Zhou Jiaqing might as well give birth to the child safely. If something really happened to the child, it would be too late to regret it.
The rest of the gossip was nothing noteworthy. What Zhou Ying didn’t expect was that Sun Miaoke’s scandal didn’t spread even one bit.
Not long after, the First Prince’s wife, Consort Hui, a melancholic beauty, walked in under Kuihua’s lead.
Zhou Ying paused momentarily, immediately stood up, and greeted her. “Zhou Ying greets Consort Hui.”
Yang Wanning and Mingyu also stood up and bowed.
“I came uninvited. Please forgive me, Mrs. Gu.” After Hui Wangfei smiled at Zhou Ying, she went forward and greeted Madam Consort An, “Greetings, Fourth Aunt.”
“We’re family, so there’s no need to be so polite.” The old madam nodded.
After Consort Hui sat down, Zhou Ying personally made her a cup of tea.
Consort Hui swept her gaze across the room a moment later and asked, “Mrs. Gu, there’s not even a fireplace in this room. Why is it so warm?”
“We modified it with a heated floor, similar to a farmer’s brick bed. Although it costs quite some firewood, it does bring convenience.” Zhou Ying explained the reason.
“What a great idea. It also saves on charcoal usage; I’m sure it can save us a lot of silver this winter.”
“It shouldn’t be much different as it does consume a fair bit of firewood. Of course, it’s way warmer than using a fireplace.”
“I’ll try to modify my courtyard later. Otherwise, 1 won’t be able to stand the cold in December.” Madam Consort An spoke up.
“Sure. If you want to renovate your courtyard, I’ll get those workers to look for you at your residence.”
“Alright, then, I’ll leave this matter to you.”
The atmosphere was not as relaxed as it had been at the beginning because of Consort Hui’s participation. Fortunately, she did not talk much and just curiously asked about the greenhouse.
Zhou Ying did not hide anything, and she gave her a simple introduction to the theory behind it.
After a while, Madam Qin, the wife of the Minister of Works; Madam Ma, the wife of the Left Assistant Minister; and Madam Bai, the wife of the Right Assistant Minister, arrived.
After greeting each other, they exchanged simple pleasantries before chatting with Madam Consort An.
Zhou Ying saw this and gave Yang Wanning a look, indicating that she helped take care of it. Later, she politely said a few words and went to the kitchen.
She was just worried since it was the first time that Biaozi and Haitang were preparing a hotpot, so she was afraid they wouldn’t be able to make it right.
Sure enough, Little Biao was staring at the clean copper pot when she entered the kitchen.
Zhou Ying immediately went forward and taught him how to prepare it.
She glanced at the main dishes that Haitang had prepared. There were scallion pancakes, sesame seed cakes, rice cakes, and chestnut cakes.
She also took a glance at the side dishes. There were mutton slices, beef slices, fish balls, shrimp balls, beef tripes, blood tofu, noodles, cabbage, radish, assorted veggies, and fungus.
After making sure that there were no mistakes, she said, “The men’s tables will be set in the front. When Chengrui comes back, just bring the copper pot over.”
Then, she looked at Biaozi and asked, “Brother Biaozi, do you know how to heat this copper hotpot?”