Soon enough, the banquet came to an end. After the guests paid their respects to the departing royals, they were free to leave themselves. Mei Yanran made her parents linger about the hall until she caught the person she was waiting for.
"Miss Wei!"
At the sound of her name, Wei Wanru looked up, somewhat surprised to see Mei Yanran approaching her. She managed a smile and slightly inclined her head. "Congratulations on your win, Miss Mei."
"No, no, it was a honor to hear you play," Mei Yanran waved off the compliments with a grin. "Where did you learn to master the zither so well?"
Wei Wanru modestly lowered her gaze. "I simply had the fortune to find a skilled teacher, that's all." She kept her hands inside her sleeves, another servant girl having arrived by now to carry her instrument for her.
"Then the teacher was lucky to have a talented student!"
"I should say the same for you, Miss Wei. It was a truly stunning dance."
I'm getting praised by the female lead, ahh~
Mei Yanran took a second to bask in the glory before getting down to business. "Miss Wei, there's a special type of incense that's specially made in my hometown, popular with all the noble ladies. They use it to keep time when they're drinking tea or playing their instruments. It's called South Heaven Fragrance, have you ever heard of it?"
Wei Wanru shook her head. "It does sound lovely."
"Then I'll bring a sample for you sometime," Mei Yanran said casually before her eyes lingered on Wei Wanru's sleeves. Faint specks of red could still be seen on the fabric near her wrists, subtly hidden by the wavering lantern light. If Mei Yanran wasn't looking for it on purpose, she might not have noticed them at all.
"And this is good for small injuries, so please accept it as well!" Mei Yanran withdrew a small porcelain bottle from her sleeve and tucked it in the female lead's waistband. "Miss Wei, take care!"
Then she grabbed her mother and dashed off before Wei Wanru could react. Left somewhat at a loss, the female lead carefully withdrew her hands from her sleeves to gingerly take the bottle, wondering what that was all about. It wasn't until Wei Wanru reached the estate and entered her rooms that she opened the bottle---and found high quality ointment inside.
Good for small injuries... Wei Wanru mused. She glanced at the faint specks on her sleeves, then back at her cut fingers, before shaking her head with a smile. Mei Yanran, you really do have sharp eyes! She wasn't sure why the girl had approached her, or where her enthusiasm stemmed from, but as for now...she seemed harmless.
Just in case, Wei Wanru had the estate physician check the quality of the ointment before trying it herself. It turned out to be a first-class salve, which moved her quite a bit.
Really, there was no need to take such pains...
--
Naturally, Mei Yanran had ulterior motives---and that was to befriend the female lead!
Sure, the female lead was always getting into scrapes in the novel, but being on her side was infinitely better than becoming cannon fodder or allying with the enemy! The female lead's so-called halo of immortality always made sure she won her gambles and triumphed over her foes. It also had the unwanted side effect of leaving the protagonist woefully devoid of female friends, which was where Mei Yanran came breaking into the story.
After all, if the female lead was destined to hook up with the male lead, who was the close friend of Mei Yanran's love capture target, then sticking with Wei Wanru was her best chance of seeing Ling Fengxiao more often! She was sure a strategy like this existed in some war manual somewhere, though she couldn't recall the name at the moment. In fact, Mei Yanran's original plan was to congratulate Wei Wanru after she won the competition, then notice her wounds and gift her the medicine. As things stood, this worked out even better---it was less likely that she'd be labeled a suck-up if she, as the contest winner, went to get friendly with another contestant.
Now settled in her rooms, Mei Yanran took out a notebook and list of notes from a secret compartment in her desk and read them over. They were written in a mix of stick doodles and Chinglish, the perfect mixture of nonsense to anyone else who found them. Tonight's banquet had been drawn as a stick-figure Wanru standing on an Olympic-styled pedestal, holding her zither in one hand and a "Number One" trophy in the other. There were also mini doodles of a resigned empress dowager, a captivated Chu Yexuan, and a highly polished side profile sketch of Ling Fengxiao sitting on one side.
Flipping her handbound notebook to a fresh page, Mei Yanran grabbed a handy bamboo pen---really just a stick of bamboo hollowed and sharpened to a point on one end---and wrote down new notes.
- Competition ended unexpectedly---I won
- Befriended WWR (?)
- LFX still uninterested (??)
Her Love-O-Meter jade pendant rested haphazardly in her lap as she sat cross-legged on her chair, tapping the end of her pen against her cheek and murmuring to herself.
"What's next..."
The dates in Conspiracies of the Northern Court weren't always very exact, but there were enough timestamps scattered around the main events for Mei Yanran to make a rough outline. Of course, she had done all of her preparation work before finalizing the transmigration, so now she had a handy stock of reference notes and novel excerpts. Out of fear from causing a paradox, she'd declined to keep an actual physical copy of the novel in this world. Imagine if the villains got their hands on it instead and knew what to expect! That'd be disastrous.
Then again, that was assuming her win at the competition hadn't already shifted the plot. That'd make things tricky...
....maybe it won't be such a big deal? Winning at the Snow Festival was only pertinent for the female lead during the first few chapters. Then it got shelved when other story arcs kicked in.
Going by the original plot, the female lead Wei Wanru would be taking a trip to the markets one week from now and run into a super salty Li Siyan. They'd have a verbal spar, Li Siyan would lose, and then some other drama would ensue that end up publicly humiliating Li Siyan even further. And of course, by virtue of the author, the male lead would be there to take it all in and get more impressed.
Now that she was the winner instead, Mei Yanran had no idea whether Li Siyan would be salty enough to lose her temper again. She resolved to stalk the female lead herself to make sure there were no deviations this time.
Mei Yanran next hid and locked away her things before opening her window to call out, "Someone, come!"
In a flash, a shadowy figure landed to kneel outside her window---the head of the Mei Estate guards. "Young Miss, you called?
"Oh, Xiao Chen (小陳)," Mei Yanran nodded absently. Little Chen, a nickname.
"Young Miss, my name is Chen Xiao... (陳曉)" the guard trailed off, not liking how childish 'Xiao Chen' sounded.
"I can't call you that, it feels like copyright infringement," Mei Yanran muttered under her breath. While the novel's pre-existing characters all had their own looks, people who didn't exist in the original story, such as her family, servants, and guards, could be customized just like the Sims. For example, the guard before her now had a startlingly close resemblance to a certain Chinese actor by the same name.
"Young Miss?" Chen Xiao raised his head slightly, not having quite caught his mistress's last words.
"Forget it," Mei Yanran said quickly. "I have a job for you."
Chen Xiao's head quickly lowered again as he waited for instructions.
"Go set up a daytime sentry outside the Wei Estate. Have someone report to me as soon as they spot Miss Wei Wanru leaving the gates." This way, she could catch the female lead even if she left for the markets earlier than expected!
Circumstances and plots might deviate, but the main character and her halo would never fail Mei Yanran! Even as the legendary halo protected the MC from death, it attracted no end of trouble to temper her will and highlight her virtues. Jealous females would always interfere, enemies would always get face-slapped, an obligatory male lead initiated kissing scene would show up before the OTP ever got hitched, etc. Rather than just relying on her own timeline, following the female lead's actions would surely yield better results!
Chen Xiao was about to assent when Mei Yan ran suddenly added, "And do the same for Fourth Rank Official Ling's estate." She wouldn't be able to visit Ling Fengxiao's Winterflower Woods until the plum blossoms actually started flowering, which was some time from now. In the meantime, there was still plenty to do.
Mei Yanran had decided to use the rest of her week to choreograph her plum blossom dance, but was interrupted just a couple days in. As she mentally matched moves to music in her brain, a servant girl came in to announce, "Young Miss, there's a visitor asking for you at the gates."
Mei Yanran arched an eyebrow. She didn't know anyone in this city, so who could it be?
