The Female Alpha Consort Mistakenly Marks the Empress - TFACMME Chapter 19

The Mu family’s Bright Lantern Hall.

The Mu family members would gather here only to discuss major matters like marriages or funerals. Only then would the whole family convene.

However, today did not have that grand scene of the whole family present.

Only Mu Lanshi and the head of the family, Mu Mei, sat facing each other, separated by a small round table with a jade candlestick on it.

The Bright Lantern Hall was so quiet that a pin drop could be heard.

Mu Mei didn’t speak at first but scanned her daughter’s face from top to bottom.

She looked like her—after all, she was her own flesh and blood.

But in handling matters, she was unlike her. Mu Mei had to use a ruler, a long whip, and sharp blades to force her daughter to behave somewhat like her.

Finally, Mu Lanshi spoke: “I ask mother to punish me.”

Mu Mei sneered coldly, “Punish you? I don’t think you deserve punishment. You conspired with your elder brother to deceive me?”

She had four children: eldest son Mu Yan, second daughter Mu Lanshi, youngest daughter Xu Yaozhi, and another daughter Cici who was training martial arts outside.

She was from the head lineage of the Mu family, and if these two siblings conspired against her, that was division in the family.

Did they want to hand over the position of family head to someone else?

“Omega, omega, what omega? You haven’t told me who!” Mu Mei demanded.

Faced with her mother’s questioning, Mu Lanshi said, “It’s not that I don’t want to say, but I want to tell mother personally.”

Mu Mei was stunned, looking at Mu Lanshi with surprise.

Only she and her elder brother knew about this.

***

“The Qi family’s daughter?” Mu Mei asked in surprise. “What’s her name? I don’t know her yet.”

“Qi Yingzhu,” Mu Lanshi added. “The second child at home. The one you mentioned before, mother, the Qi family girl entering the palace—that’s her.”

The atmosphere suddenly became quiet again.

Mu Mei suddenly smiled, staring at her daughter: “Mu Lanshi, you say you’re confused, but I think you’re very clear.”

The emperor had recently toured south and took a liking to the Qi family’s daughter. Just as the Qi daughter became an omega, she came to the capital to be offered to the emperor for a marriage to bring good fortune and become the empress.

But Mu Lanshi, once she became an alpha, had already marked and bonded with this future empress.

The Mu family had always cherished its independence and avoided close ties with the royal family. By contrast, the Li family participated in the succession struggle and quickly rose from an ordinary family to now standing equally with the Mu family.

The Mu elders were cautious.

Succession matters were critical—one wrong step was a deep abyss. Even families like the Lis who bet right couldn’t guarantee long-lasting success.

Temporary prosperity wasn’t what they wanted. The world was still unstable, wars and disputes rampant. What if the imperial family fell?

Thinking of this, Mu Mei chuckled: “Our Mu family tries every way to avoid the royal family, and you go and snatch someone directly!”

Her laughter mixed with the flickering light; Mu Lanshi’s heart pounded like a drum.

In her past life, she had never spoken so frankly with her mother. But snatching someone was better than having direct royal connections, wasn’t it?

Mu Lanshi couldn’t help but recall how she had almost angered her mother to death in her previous life.

But now, her mother was still smiling.

Mu Lanshi thought for a moment and continued, “That night, she was poisoned by a love toxin.” Mu Mei was about to speak, but Mu Lanshi added, “That love toxin was meant for me, but the Young Lady Qi mistakenly drank it.”

“She was poisoned, and the noble Young Lady Mu kindly helped her ease it?”

Mu Lanshi stayed silent.

Her mother’s attitude was intriguing—no longer the harsh interrogation from before.

“Alright, I’ll ask directly,” Mu Mei said, eyes sharp, “What are your plans?”

This was exactly the question Mu Lanshi waited for.

Suddenly standing, Mu Lanshi bowed to her mother: “I want to marry Qi Yingzhu and hope mother will approve.”

It was early spring, the season of continuous rain, when suddenly thunder roared, followed by drizzling rain.

Marry.

Mu Mei’s eyes swept over Mu Lanshi and suddenly felt her child had truly grown and changed much.

Layered candlelight and lightning shone together, surrounding her like jade.

Mu Lanshi was tall and graceful, clearly young but already had the Mu family’s spirit—

She listened to her mother, cared little for superficial adornment, dressed simply in white, standing there with the elegance and lonely decisiveness of a thousand-ink mountains.

Unexpected, yet like a sudden growth.

Mu Mei had long hoped her daughter would grow up, but seeing how fast she matured, doubts still arose in her heart.

Thinking so, Mu Mei smiled bitterly, tapping her knuckles on the table in rhythm with the raindrops outside.

And with Mu Lanshi’s heartbeat.

Her mother and Fu Shanyu had a friendship beyond age, and Mu Lanshi studied under Fu Shanyu, so their sense of rhythm was roughly the same.

“I approve,” she tapped slowly, “But has she agreed?” Mu Lanshi suddenly raised her head, finding her mother smiling at her: “Did you think I wouldn’t agree?”

A brilliant color flashed in her dark eyes, unmistakably seen by Mu Mei.

“Besides, if I, as your mother, don’t agree, do you have no other options?” Those phoenix eyes, same as hers, showed a trace of insight: “I don’t believe you don’t have any other backup.”

Mu Lanshi stared at her mother, lowered her head, and said, “Lanshi thanks Mother.”

She couldn’t help but recall in her past life, when going to bed, she still pondered that trace of insight in her mother’s eyes.

That night, the continuous spring rain nourished all things; moss grew wildly on the steps; flowers and trees flourished in the earth.

The pond water quietly turned green, rippling in the light; distant mountains were shrouded in mist, veiled in haze.

In her heart, lush and dense plants grew.

***

Ah Chen felt her recent errands were strange.

Her young lady kept asking her to find “bizarre” items: gold rings, silver bracelets, earrings, sachets, hairpins…

Today she was to deliver a pair of sachets.

Ah Chen clearly remembered when her young lady was young, she was scolded by the family head for wearing sachets like young people, and after that, she stopped wearing them. Why did it seem like the bad habit was returning?

Ah Chen had a good relationship with her young lady and noticed Mu Lanshi had been wearing hairpins more often lately, growing bolder.

When she handed the pair of pink sachets to Mu Lanshi, the latter nodded: “Good.”

Unexpectedly, Ah Chen didn’t leave but stood there motionless.

Mu Lanshi was playing with a pair of pearl earrings, and seeing Ah Chen standing there, she stopped smiling and asked, “Why are you standing here? Nothing else to do?”

Ah Chen giggled.

Young Lady was different when genuinely angry and pretending to be angry.

Right now, she was in the awkward pretending to be angry stage—tall, majestic, yet looking like a noisy young animal.

Ah Chen’s eyes spun around, daringly said, “Young Lady, why do you need these things recently? Is there… a gathering in the capital? Are you going to show off your dance skills?”

It was said that Young Lady had created a dance, very beautiful, but Ah Chen had only heard others talk about it, never seen it.

Something called “Qingluan Dance”?

She couldn’t remember.

But Young Lady was famous not because of that dance, but because when she was ten, she became a disciple of Fu Shanyu and became famous after a dance at a banquet.

Though she danced well, Young Lady Mu was still Young Lady Mu—no one dared say they wanted to see it.

So today Ah Chen was particularly bold.

But besides dance decorations, she really couldn’t think what else these things were for.

She looked at her young lady pitifully.

Mu Lanshi glanced lightly at her: “Don’t worry.”

Ah Chen’s heart jumped; she thought her great fortune had finally come!

But the next moment.

“No luck for you,” cold as frost.

The heartbreak lasted only a moment.

But Young Lady was truly happy, so Ah Chen asked unhappily, “Then who has luck?”

Mu Lanshi didn’t even look, just said, “Go down and receive your punishment—either ten strikes or full deduction of your monthly allowance.”

Ah Chen: ?

***

Deducting one’s monthly allowance was no real relief.

After Ah Chen left, Mu Lanshi still stared at the items on the table.

Silver bracelets, pearl earrings…

She didn’t know why these things gave Ah Chen the illusion she was going to dance.

But Mu Lanshi’s mood was indeed good.

What she thought was difficult wasn’t difficult at all.

Her mother truly was her mother, exposing the key point in one sentence.

“But has she agreed?”

Mu Lanshi tied the sachets and repeated the question.

Agreed?

She hoped she would forgive her.

If only she could repay it; Mother not only agreed but had written a letter for her.