Zheng Zhenyu was waiting for Ling Hua on the way back.
She had made inquiries and found out that Ling Hua had escorted the Empress Dowager back to the palace. In the few months since she had followed Cui Yanyi to the Capital City, she had seen the Empress Dowager twice. Once was after Cui Yanyi had topped the imperial examination, when the Empress Dowager had summoned her, and the other time was more recent, when people from the Cui family of Qinghe had come and she accompanied them to pay respects to the Empress Dowager.
The Empress Dowager, with her benevolent and dignified manner, had rewarded her generously.
During one of these meetings, the Empress Dowager mentioned Ling Hua with a smile in her eyes, but it was one particular sentence that Zheng Zhenyu remembered clearly. The Empress Dowager said, "Yan Qing, that cheeky boy, doesn't even write me a letter, but Ling Hua, that girl, is really my favorite."
