She came to her senses and breathed a sigh of relief, saying with lingering fear, "Thank you, Your Highness."
She tried to get up, but couldn't stand up straight. She was still held tightly in his arms, and the hand around her waist tightened around her waist for some reason.
Yao Youqing, puzzled, looked up and said, "Your Highness..."
The other person then asked at the same time, "Haven't you eaten?"
"ah?"
Yao Youqing was even more confused: "I...I ate it."
After saying that, he realized something was amiss and asked, "Your Highness, are you asking about lunch or dinner?"
Wei Hong then realized what he was saying and doing, and quickly let go, but his gaze was still involuntarily fixed on her waist. Thinking of the feeling in his hand and the fragrance that filled his nose, his eyes darkened.
Seeing that he remained silent for a while, Yao Youqing asked softly, "Your Highness, what brings you here? Is there something you need?"
Wei Hong snapped out of his daze and quickly looked away from her: "I... I forgot some things in the inner courtyard, so I came to get them."
Yao Youqing suddenly realized and smiled, "Your Highness is referring to those in the study, right? I saw them when I was cleaning the room and have already had them sent to the front yard for you. You can ask the stewards; they've definitely taken good care of them for you."
Wei Hong nodded, stood there for a while but couldn't find anything to say, then turned and left.
He took a few steps, rounded the corner he had come from, and then suddenly stopped.
When he first arrived... what was he supposed to do again?
Chapter 18 Understanding
Laughter rang out behind him again, and Wei Hong stood there, unsure whether to go back or not.
If he doesn't go back, wouldn't that mean he'll let bygones be bygones about her turning the garden into the Yao family garden? If he does go back, it doesn't seem appropriate for him to turn around and go find someone to settle scores with when Yao Youqing asked him what was going on earlier. It would make him seem fickle.
Cui Hao followed behind him the whole way, his emotions going through ups and downs.
From suppressing a laugh when the prince was coming to the inner quarters, to the tension upon discovering that the garden had been converted into the Yao family garden, to the worry when the prince realized it and ran away in anger, and finally the bewilderment when the prince left inexplicably.
The dramatic ups and downs made his heart, which he thought had seen countless rises and falls and was no longer prone to fluctuations, pound wildly.
But he reacted quickly, and immediately said after Wei Hong suddenly stopped, "Your Highness is not the kind of person to go back on your word. Since you promised to let the Princess live in the inner quarters and let her arrange it as she pleases, you certainly won't be angry with the Princess because of the current state of the garden."
"It was my petty thinking that led me to judge you. I thought Your Highness would reprimand the Princess."
He offered a way out, and Wei Hong readily accepted it, sliding down the slope.
"Since I have promised, I will not go back on my word."
“Yes,” Cui Hao nodded, “Your Highness is magnanimous; how could he be angry with a mere woman?”
"Besides, the princess must have been feeling anxious and uneasy after marrying into the country, so it is understandable that she changed the garden to its current state."
A girl who had never left home was suddenly married off to a place thousands of miles away by imperial decree. Everything around her was unfamiliar. What could make her feel more at ease than having her house transformed into the home she knew?
Wei Hong nodded, indicating his agreement, and continued walking forward without turning back, returning to the front yard where he now lived.
He sat down to deal with the backlog of official business. Things that he could usually finish quickly and efficiently took him a long time to complete this time. He couldn't concentrate, and for some reason, he kept recalling the woman's slender waist and the faint fragrance she brought when she fell into his arms.
Wei Hong has a keen sense of smell. He was certain that he had never smelled this fragrance before and did not know what kind of perfume it was. It was light and pleasant, completely different from the perfume scent of ordinary women. It was very subtle and elegant, and you could not smell it at all unless you were very close.
As he pondered, his thoughts drifted away again. When he came to his senses, he realized that he had been looking at the official document in his hand for fifteen minutes and still couldn't remember what it said. Frowning, he irritably tossed it aside.
...
Meanwhile, in Chu Yan's courtyard, Wan'er pushed open the door and entered the room, saying, "My lady, the prince has been back for some time now. Aren't you going to see him?"
After Ji Yunwan left that day, Chu Yan went back to her room and cried.
Suddenly, Chizhu called her, saying that the princess wanted to see her and asked her to come immediately.
Although she was puzzled as to why the princess would suddenly seek her out and send Chizhu to deliver the message, she didn't know the princess well and was afraid that something might have happened to her, so she went along anyway. In any case, she wasn't afraid that Chizhu would do anything to her while she was in the mansion. However, she didn't expect to run into Miss Ji on the way.
She immediately realized that the princess had not actually sought her out; it was Chizhu who had deliberately summoned her and then intentionally bumped into Miss Ji to draw their attention to each other.
It was then that Chu Yan finally understood why Zhou's mother had shown that kind of expression when she first saw her.
Because she looks very much like the prince's deceased fiancée.
She had never seen that person in person, so naturally she didn't know how much she resembled him.
But it is said that Miss Ji the Second looks seven or eight parts like Miss Ji the First. Since her face resembles Miss Ji the Second, it must also resemble Miss Ji the First.
Chu Yan froze on the spot, all the surrounding scenery disappeared, and she seemed to be transported back to the scene of her first encounter with the prince.
More than two years ago, she suddenly lost her father due to a major disaster that befell her family. Overnight, she went from being the apple of her parents' eye to a homeless orphan, and was even captured by human traffickers to be sold into slavery.
She tried to escape several times but failed. In the end, she resigned herself to her fate, thinking that even if she had to be a slave, as long as she could survive, that would be enough.
One day, a middle-aged woman came to the slave trader to look at goods. The slave trader said that this woman was the head housekeeper of a wealthy family. If she caught his eye and was chosen, he would have no worries about food and clothing and would receive a considerable monthly allowance.
Since they were all destined to be sold, who wouldn't want to be sold to a good family? So everyone tried their best to show off their strengths, hoping to be noticed by this woman.
Although Chu Yan was the daughter of a merchant and came from a humble background, she had been well-versed in poetry and literature since childhood. She was proficient in music, chess, calligraphy, and painting, if not an expert in all of them, and was naturally chosen quickly.
But she later learned that the woman was not a head housekeeper at all, but a housekeeper at a local brothel.
She was willing to sell herself into slavery to survive, but that didn't mean she was willing to become a prostitute. So when she realized that she was going to a brothel, she immediately struggled to escape, but how could she possibly outrun those burly pimps? She was about to be dragged inside.
At this moment, the King of Qin, who happened to be passing by, rescued her, bought her, and brought her to his palace.
The prince wanted to free her from slavery and give her some silver so she could make a living on her own.
But where could she go, an orphan with no relatives?
Once they leave the Prince's mansion, they fear not only will they lose their money, but they will also be captured and sold again.
Chu Yan was truly frightened, so she begged the prince to let her stay, and the prince agreed.
At first, she thought that the prince had only saved her out of kindness and that she would stay here as a maid like everyone else. But Lord Cui gave her a courtyard by herself and even picked a servant to serve her, without assigning her any tasks.
She felt anxious and disappointed, thinking that the prince was also attracted to her looks and wanted her body, but compared to being sold to a brothel, her current situation was much better.
Besides, no matter what, he saved her.
If this is what he wants, she is willing to give it to him, only asking that he give her a safe haven so that she can stay here in peace.
But to her surprise, the prince did not come to find her.
One day, two days, one month, two months, but he never came.
Chu Yan was puzzled. During this time, she tried to see the King of Qin a few times under various pretexts. The king treated her politely and courteously, but nothing more.
Some chaotic thoughts gradually rose in her mind, wondering if the prince truly cared for her, which was why he saved her but never forced her.
However, because he was already engaged, it was not appropriate for him to take a concubine before the wedding, as this would displease the woman, so he could not give her a formal title.
The moment this thought crossed her mind, Chu Yan could no longer calm down. Because, apart from that, she couldn't think of any other reason why he would be so good to her.
In the third month after she entered the Prince's mansion, one day the Prince returned home after drinking outside. She happened to see him and personally cooked a hangover soup for him to take to him.
She was supposed to leave after delivering the hangover soup, but she didn't.
She didn't know where she got the courage to stand in front of him and take off her outer garment.
She could clearly feel the prince's gaze growing hotter, but he quickly looked away and said to her, "Miss Chu, you must have misunderstood. I have no such intentions towards you. The reason I kept you here is to find you a good family to marry into, but I've been quite busy lately and haven't found a suitable candidate yet."
Chu Yan was taken aback, her first reaction being that he was lying.
He and she were not related by blood. He had already shown kindness by saving her, so why would he help arrange a marriage for someone he had no connection with?
But she could tell from his expression and tone that he wasn't lying; he truly had no other intentions towards her.
Chu Yan's eyes immediately reddened, feeling utterly ashamed.
She wanted to ask him why he treated her so specially if he had no feelings for her.
But he opened his mouth and couldn't ask the question.
She instinctively felt that the answer was not what she wanted to know, and that once she found out, she might never be able to step through that door again.
So what was about to come out became something else: "But I have it."
The prince's gaze, which had been shifting away, returned to her. Under his gaze, she suppressed her trembling and repeated, "I have."
As she spoke, she took off another piece of clothing.
The prince looked at her, this time not looking away, nor hiding the desire in his eyes, but his voice remained deep and cold, even colder and harder than before.
"You should know that even if I keep you here tonight, I will not give you any title or status, and I will definitely send you out of the manor before my wedding, and I will never see you again."
Some sons of wealthy families would send away their concubines before the wedding to show respect to the bride; she never expected that the prince would do the same.
Either leave now, pretend nothing happened, and in the future, under the prince's arrangement, find a good family to marry into in style.
They could either stay, but receive no official title and be destined to be sent away in the future, or at most stay by the prince's side for a little over a year.
Chu Yan chose the latter, and thus she became the Prince of Qin's concubine, the only concubine in the entire palace. Although the prince didn't visit her often, he would still visit her two or three times a month. For a long time, she didn't understand why she made this choice, but later she understood.
She still held some hope that, with time, the prince would develop some affection for her and be reluctant to send her away in the future.
But the moment she saw Miss Ji the Second, she knew it was absolutely impossible.
Because the prince never truly loved her; he only saw her as a substitute for someone else.
She finally understood that he hadn't fallen for her at first sight; he simply didn't want her face to end up in a brothel.
He wasn't being nice to her; he just didn't want her face to suffer.
The reason he wanted to send her away before the wedding was because the woman he truly loved was about to arrive, and he no longer needed this substitute. If he kept her here, her face would surely displease Miss Ji.
Chu Yan returned to her courtyard in a daze, heartbroken, resentful, and unwilling to accept defeat. She said that when the prince returned, she would definitely find him and ask him clearly. If he was really so heartless and had no feelings for her at all, she would leave the palace and never come back.
Now that the prince has returned, she has been sitting in her room all day without moving an inch.
"My wife, it will get dark soon if you don't go now."
Wan'er said.
Chu Yan smiled self-deprecatingly: "What's there to ask? I already know perfectly well that going there would only be a humiliation."
How could that be?
Wan'er persisted, "Miss Ji has already passed away, and the Prince has already married, yet he hasn't sent you away. It's clear he still cares about you and is afraid you won't be able to live well without the Prince's residence."
“But the Prince hasn’t come for a long time,” Chu Yan said. “It’s been since Miss Ji passed away.”