The girl who had been crying until her eyes resembled a rabbit’s suddenly looked up. Seeing it was her, she was stunned for a moment, then her gaze turned fierce as she roared angrily, “Li Huaisu, get lost! Who wants your crocodile tears and fake compassion? This is all your fault!”

Why was Lian Xin crying here? She had gone to find Empress Dowager Xiao’an earlier to complain about Suzhen, but was scolded by Xiao’an, who told her to listen to her brother. In her anger, she said, “Why don’t you help me? Brother Lian Yu isn’t even your real son!” Empress Dowager Xiao’an was immediately furious and would have slapped her if Hong Gu hadn’t held her back.

Lian Xin had only spoken in anger—she truly loved her brother—but seeing her mother’s reaction, she became both frightened and sad, so she ran out. The new palace had many people, and she was afraid of being laughed at, so she slipped away to this place. She didn’t let her maids follow, and those maids were quite afraid of her, so they didn’t dare follow.

Who knew this girl would have misfortunes pile up? While walking, she tripped over some stone or stick on the ground and fell flat on her face.

Her knee struck a sharp stone on the ground, tearing her pants and causing blood to flow in a large pool. Her shoes had also flown off somewhere.

Now in pain, angry, and sad, she found a rock to sit on and began crying loudly, feeling she was the most pitiful person in the world. Seeing Suzhen at this moment was like enemies meeting, making her especially furious. When she saw him staring at her shoeless feet, though she still wore silk stockings, she felt both ashamed and angry—how could she not lose her temper?

Suzhen saw her knee wound was serious and wanted to bandage it for her or help her out, but before she could even touch her, Lian Xin was already beside herself with rage, screaming repeatedly, “Li Huaisu, get lost! Get lost immediately!”

At this moment, several of Lian Xin’s palace maids happened to walk nervously through the archway. Suzhen, having sharp eyes, saw them and stood up to leave.

“Useless things! Hurry up and find my shoes, or I’ll beat you to death when we get back!”

These personal maids had been beaten by her plenty in the past. They immediately scattered to search for the princess’s shoes. Finally, one of them pointed fearfully at a massive artificial mountain two or three people high, saying, “Princess, this is terrible! Your shoes… your shoes are stuck up there.”

All the maids stood there stunned, and Lian Xin was also dumbfounded. To kick one’s shoes to such a place from a simple fall was truly a technical feat.

She screamed, and several little maids hurriedly began climbing up the mountain.

Unfortunately, they were all delicate creatures. After climbing only a little way, they clung to the jagged rocks, trembling and afraid of heights, not daring to move further. The shoes remained hanging high above.

Lian Xin half-stood up, momentarily forgetting about her foot injury, and began stamping repeatedly. When she remembered her wounded foot, pain had already struck, and with a wail, she finally began crying uncontrollably.

Through her teary, blurred vision, a white figure leaped up, snatched the red embroidered shoe, then spun around and lightly returned to the ground.

She stared blankly, seeing this person’s white robe stained half-red at the front, his lips also half-stained with deep red. He was frowning slightly, one hand tightly gripping her shoe, the other wiping at the corner of his mouth, as if injured or ill.

Then he quickly walked back to her side, saying softly, “I got your shoe. Don’t cry anymore.”

Who else could it be but Li Huaisu, who had returned?

He smiled at her, his lips red and teeth white, his gaze somewhat clear and bright, his brow carrying a hint of indulgence. Lian Xin’s heart suddenly jumped. Only when he helped her sit down did she snap back to reality, wanting to kick him or do something.

But, but there was no longer such an opportunity.

He crouched down, actually grasping her ankle with one hand, letting her step on his robe, then gently helping her put on the embroidered shoe.

Lian Xin felt a surge of heat rush to her cheeks, and that foot became as soft as silk, no longer able to kick out.

The foot also grew hot along with her cheeks.

She stared at him blankly, only hearing him laugh hoarsely, “It will hurt a bit. Be good and bear with it. I’ll do a simple bandage for you first. Later they can help you back, and you can call for the imperial physician.”

“The outer robe is dirty,” he said, frowning at his garments, pondering briefly before lifting his robe hem and tearing off a piece of inner clothing to quickly bandage the wound on her knee.

Lian Xin still stared blankly at his clean, white hands until he stood up somewhat unsteadily, touched her head, then quietly left.

“Princess, Li Huaisu bullied you! We should tell the Empress Dowager and His Majesty to teach him a lesson!”

“Right! That Li is definitely done for this time!”

The several maids seemed to have been stunned as well, only now exploding into chatter.

Lian Xin seemed to wake from a dream, her pretty face turning stern as she glared at them fiercely, saying in a heavy voice, “Whoever dares gossip before Mother Empress and Imperial Brother, I’ll kill her! What are you things? Do you have the qualifications to deal with Li Huaisu? Li Huaisu, this bad person… this bad person, I’ll deal with him personally!”

“You bunch of useless things! Hurry up and find whatever offended me just now—stones, tree branches, sticks, whatever. I want to smash them to pieces!”

The maids were dumbfounded upon hearing this, but despite their inner complaints, they still crawled on the ground searching through flowers and grass. Soon they had collected a pile of stones and branches, with someone even finding a jade flute.

Lian Xin didn’t care about any of this, wanting to take all these things back to her chambers to smash them for relief.

Upon returning to her chambers, she found Xiao’an, Lian Yu, Lian Jie, and Lian Qin had all come.

Originally, when Lian Yu and others went to pay respects to Xiao’an and heard about Lian Xin’s quarrel with Xiao’an, since Xiao’an had never spoken harshly to Lian Xin before, both sides were worried and had all come over.

Seeing Lian Xin’s disheveled appearance, Xiao’an’s eyes reddened as she called her “precious heart and liver,” taking her into her arms to comfort her. Lian Jie and Lian Qin looked at the pile of stones and sticks their little sister had brought back for execution and couldn’t help but smile quietly.

Lian Yu’s expression was indifferent until his gaze fell on a section of jade green pressed among the pile of stones and wood. His eyes moved, and he walked over to pull the item out.

“Sixth brother, what’s wrong?” Lian Jie and Lian Qin were somewhat curious.

Lian Yu held the item in his hand, looking at Lian Xin, “This jade flute is made extremely well. Xin’er, can you give it to sixth brother?”