After Xiaocao and her sister changed their clothes, they went back into the reception hall and faced the guest of honor, the empress. Their first kowtow was to her, their second was to show their respect to their elders, and then they stood up and kneeled towards the east. The guest of honor washed her hands three times and then took the offered hairpins for the ceremony.

All of the matrons and young maidens present, who had envious hearts, had no reaction when they saw the two lavishly decorated hairpins that had valuable pink pearls embedded in them. This was because they were already numb to the situation. It was as if there weren’t these extremely expensive hairpins present, then it would be abnormal for this ceremony.

The empress looked at the identical hairpins. Each one had several pink pearls decorating it. The pearls were all around the same size, perfectly round shapes, and seemed to glow gently under the light. Any one of these pearls would be considered a top-notch pearl on its own, let alone the dozen or so that were on each hairpin. It was said that Xiaocao herself had personally gathered these pearls from the ocean. It was already considered fortunate for an experienced pearl diver to get one such specimen during their career. The fact that she was able to get around twenty or so in one trip made it a bit odd.

Although the empress’s heart was full of doubts, she still remembered why she was the guest of honor here today....