Huan Changming had already made preparations for returning to the palace, so he said, "I know, you can go back now."
When Jingyi saw Huan Changming enter the dilapidated palace alone, he felt sorry for him and wanted to take him back to the Prime Minister's residence, but he had many concerns and finally gave up and turned back.
Having been away for so long, the cold palace is now covered with cobwebs and dust.
Huan Changming sat down in front of the bronze mirror and wiped the dust off the mirror with his sleeve. A woman of stunning beauty appeared in the mirror.
He took out a pair of black jade teardrop earrings from his pocket and put them on his earlobes. The one on his left ear covered the blue flower birthmark on his left earlobe.
He tucked all the strands of hair from the side of his face behind his ears and carefully examined how he looked in the mirror after putting on the earrings.
The black jade suited him perfectly, but after examining it for a while, he scoffed and said, "It's really ugly."
A note from the author:
You all like the junior brothers but not the junior sisters anymore?
How could someone change their mind so quickly?
Chapter 15
As soon as it got dark, a group of palace servants barged into the Cold Palace.
Leading the group was Huan Mi's personal maid, who kicked open the gate of the Cold Palace and said arrogantly, "This sinful slave Huan Changming has violated etiquette in broad daylight by failing to kneel before Princess Huan Mi. Bring her before the princess to receive her punishment!"
"yes."
Huan Changming remained expressionless as the palace servants carried him away. He had long anticipated that Huan Mi would not let him off easily once he returned to the palace, and sure enough, they had come.
Huan Mi's princess palace was built with an air of extravagance, and even the roof was decorated with glazed tiles with gold trim.
She ordered her men to force Huan Changming to kneel on the cobblestone ground, a position directly facing her palace gate, where she could lie on her soft couch and enjoy the sight of Huan Changming being punished.
She stepped forward and whispered in Huan Changming's ear, "I've made up my mind. What's the fun in torturing a living person compared to a corpse? You've escaped death, but I can still skin you alive and make you suffer unbearable pain!"
The pebbles were hard, and Huan Changming's knees ached from the impact. Hearing this, he didn't beg for mercy, but stared at the void in front of him, seemingly lost in thought.
Huan Mi received no response, as if she had punched cotton. She angrily returned to the palace, "Keep an eye on her! No one is allowed to let her get up without my permission! I want to see how long this spineless woman can keep up this!"
"yes!"
King Li had intended to see his most beloved youngest daughter, Huan Mi, today, but he heard her furious voice through the palace walls: "Mi'er, what happened in the palace?"
The eunuch beside him went to inquire and returned to report, "Your Majesty, it was that girl in the Cold Palace who disrespected Princess Huanmi, and Princess Huanmi is punishing her by making her kneel."
Upon hearing that it was related to the Cold Palace, Prince Li immediately frowned and returned to the Imperial Study.
The illegitimate child left behind by the concubine who assassinated him has always been a thorn in the side of Prince Li.
"Your Majesty, I have an urgent report to make!" came a loud shout from outside the Imperial Study.
A eunuch came in to announce, "Your Majesty, the Prime Minister came late at night to report that there seems to be an urgent matter."
"Announce!"
Prime Minister Jing Yuan knelt before King Li, saying, “Your Majesty, our generals stationed at the border of Xiye Kingdom have reported that King Xiye is seriously ill and Crown Prince Wu Yao will soon ascend the throne… Wu Yao has always been a proponent of war rather than peace with our Li Kingdom. If he ascends the throne, I fear that the war between our Li Kingdom and Xiye Kingdom, which has only been quelled for more than ten years, will be reignited.”
In the last battle between the two countries, although Li was victorious, it suffered heavy casualties, losing many good generals and elite soldiers. It has been many years since Li has recovered.
"Your Majesty, the people of Xiye are brave and skilled in battle, and Wu Yao is not to be underestimated. Our Li Kingdom has declined in both culture and military strength since that battle. If we were to truly go to war with Xiye, I fear..."
The odds are against us.
Li Wang was well aware of these things. "I understand. Prime Minister Jing is tired. Please return to your residence first."
"Your Majesty, please consider this carefully. I shall take my leave."
After Jing Xiang left, Li Wang suddenly asked, "My son has been away from the palace for ten years, hasn't he?"
The eunuch immediately replied, "Your Majesty is wise."
"Grind the ink." King Li picked up the brush. "I will write a letter and send it to my son, asking him to bring the Holy Maiden back to the country with me."
The eunuch guessed the king's thoughts and hurriedly prepared ink and paper. "His Highness the Crown Prince and the Holy Maiden are the lucky stars and divine generals of our Li Kingdom. Their return will surely help our Li Kingdom turn misfortune into good fortune and ensure its continued prosperity..."
Upon seeing Wang Lishi, Long Xin was overjoyed, exclaiming, "Well said!"
Lu Pianpian and Huan Juntian traveled together for more than ten days before finally completing their mission and returning to their sect.
The two brothers who guarded the gate, Sheng Guan Fa Cai, didn't sleep soundly as usual this time. Instead, they were engrossed in reading a book together.
"This senior sister is really hot. If I were the junior brother in this book, I would never be so distant from her. I would definitely spoil her rotten!"
"That's absolutely right, but it's not that my junior brother really dislikes my senior sister. He has his own difficulties. What a perfect couple, but this damned writer has turned them into a pair of lovesick fools!"
Lu Pianpian found it strange and leaned closer to ask, "What are you looking at?"
"Second Senior Brother Lu, Third Senior Brother Huan, you're back!" Fa Cai greeted them, then pointed to the book cover for Lu Pianpian to see. "We're reading 'The Cold Junior Brother and the Fiery Senior Sister,' it's so good!"
Lu Pianpian had bought this book for her junior brothers before, and the two brothers were reading it so enthusiastically, which undoubtedly showed their approval of his taste in books. "You have good taste in buying books."
Sheng Guan snapped out of his reverie and gestured with his chin toward Huan Juntian behind Lu Pianpian, "It was a gift from Senior Brother Huan San, it didn't cost any money!"
"Third Senior Brother Huan, thank you for sending us such a beautiful storybook!"
Lu Pianpian was stunned for a moment, and turned to ask her junior brother why he would give away the storybook he had given her, but Huan Juntian ran past her like a gust of wind.
He actually ran away!
"Junior brother, don't run away! I want an explanation!" Lu Pianpian chased after him relentlessly. "Why did you give the storybook I gave you to Sheng Guan Fa Cai? Don't you care about me as your senior brother anymore? Are you planning to recognize someone else as your senior brother? Tell me why?"
Huan Juntian was rendered speechless by Lu Pianpian's four consecutive questions. When he saw Qu Surou walking towards him, he grabbed her as if he had seen a savior, "Senior sister, save me."
Qu Surou was completely confused. "Huh?"
"My senior brother found out that I had given away the storybooks he gave me."
"Oh, then just tell him directly, tell him you don't like what Senior Sister likes..."
Huan Juntian immediately covered Qu Surou's mouth. Lu Pianpian rushed over and saw that her senior sister was about to be suffocated by her junior brother. Her expression changed from grief and indignation to sorrow. "Junior brother, you don't care about me or your senior sister anymore... Do you really only care about Master from beginning to end?"
Huan Juntian was speechless: "Senior brother, I..."
Qu Surou stomped hard on Huan Juntian's instep, and in pain, he immediately released the hand that was covering Qu Surou.
Qu Surou drew her sword and pointed it directly at Huan Juntian, "Huan San, you're becoming more and more disrespectful! How dare you lay a hand on your senior sister!"
Huan Juntian sighed expressionlessly, "Senior Sister, if you want to fight, then fight."
"No, you can't fight!" Fighting is the worst thing for harmony. Lu Pianpian spent ten years building up the bond between her and her master, and she couldn't let the two of them destroy it all today. "If you want to fight, kill me first!"
"What do you mean by fighting?" Qu Fuyi descended from the sky on her sword, seeing Qu Surou's tense expression. "What are you doing?"
Lu Pianpian immediately complained to her master, "Master! Senior sister and junior brother are about to fight, and I can't stop them!"
Qu Fuyi shielded his handsome and obedient disciple behind her, saying, "After a few days without rest, do you two think you're going to fly to the heavens?"
Huan Juntian clasped his hands in a gesture of respect, saying, "Master, please forgive me."
Seeing this, Lu Pianpian thought to herself that only her master could control her junior brother.
Qu Surou sheathed her sword with a look of irritation. "But we didn't even fight!"
Qu Fuyi tapped each of them on the head. "You two come with me to the study. I have something to say to you."
"Yes, Master."
Lu Pianpian watched as her master led her senior sister and junior brother away, leaving him alone on the spot, and couldn't help but ask, "Master, what about me?"
The three of them turned around at the same time and saw Lu Pianpian looking at them with a wronged expression. "Is there something you're whispering that I can't hear?"
Qu Fuyi's heart melted at his sight, and she quickly took her handsome disciple's hand and pulled him close, saying, "No, no, my handsome disciple will listen to anything..."
Lu Pianpian nodded in satisfaction, "That's good."
Lu Pianpian clutched the letter stamped with the imperial seal of the Li Kingdom, staring blankly at the ground without uttering a word.
Ever since he learned about his senior sister and junior brother's other identities half an hour ago, he has been like a lost soul.
Qu Surou pointed a finger at his cheek and said, "Pianpian, Huan San and I didn't mean to hide it from you, so why are you acting like this?"
"Senior brother, I thought you always knew about my and my senior sister's identities..." Huan Juntian asked him, "So you never knew all along?"
Lu Pianpian's fingers trembled slightly as she held the letter. "No, you never told me... One of you is a prince, and the other is a saintess."
Even Xiao Shu never told him that for more than ten years he had naively believed that his senior sister was just his senior sister and his junior brother was just his junior brother, and he had no idea that his senior sister and junior brother had another identity.
Qu Fuyi recalled the situation back then and said, "Pianpian, on the day I brought your junior brother back to the sect, he seemed to have mentioned his identity. However, if I remember correctly, you seemed to have turned around and run away after hearing Juntian's name that day?"
"Yes, yes, you turned around and ran away!" After he mentioned it, Qu Surou also recalled, "My master and I thought you didn't like Huan San and didn't want to play with him."
Lu Pianpian was speechless. He had run away because he was too shocked to hear his junior brother's name and went to his room to look up his books to verify it.
"Later, I thought of having the three of you learn from the same master, so you don't have to care about those worldly identities. After Juntian, you no longer consider yourselves princes." Qu Fuyi patted Lu Pianpian's head. "My dear disciple, don't be sad. We never thought of hiding it from you."
Huan Juntian nodded and said, "Yes."
If he truly wanted to conceal his identity as a prince, he wouldn't have given Lu Pianpian a luminous pearl, a privilege reserved for the royal family. However, he hadn't expected that Lu Pianpian would receive this pearl for so many years without him noticing.
It wasn't that Lu Pianpian was too fragile; it was just that relationships within the sect had always been a sensitive issue for him. For example, the fact that he didn't know the true identities of his senior sister and junior brother made him feel like an outsider who was excluded and whose identity wasn't worth revealing. This was really making him feel terrible.
After hearing their explanation, Lu Pianpian felt a little better, and looked at Qu Surou with resentment in her eyes, "Then what about Senior Sister? Senior Sister clearly entered the sect before me, so why did she become the Holy Maiden of Li Kingdom?"
"It was my master who divined for the King of Li and said that I would be the lucky star of the Li Kingdom, so the King of Li named me a saintess." Qu Surou seemed to take this matter very lightly. "The King of Li is Huan San's father."
Qu Fuyi laughed heartily, "Yes, yes, His Majesty the Prince of Li trusts his teacher very much, which makes his teacher feel flattered..."
"I don't know either! You've been hiding this from me again!" Lu Pianpian cried out in anguish. "What am I to you all?!"
Qu Fuyi quickly replied, "You are my precious and beloved disciple!"
Qu Surou added, "You are my most beloved junior brother!"
“Senior brother, you are my…” Huan Juntian paused, “…the most respected senior brother.”
A note from the author:
Haha, just a heads-up, my junior sister is sick, the kind of crazy person with a mental illness.
Chapter 16