While speaking, he cast a deeply meaningful glance toward her.

Shen Xihe remained unmoved, quietly waiting for him to continue.

“Alas, I still have to endure for another year…” Xiao Huayong sighed heavily, “The long nights are endless, my pillow lonely, the blanket cold with heavy dew…”

Here he goes again, starting with his three-part lamentations, acting just like a melancholic maiden in her chamber.

“Your Highness, are you trying to negotiate terms?” Shen Xihe suddenly said flatly, “If I don’t give Your Highness what you want, will you make the wedding date unfavorable to me?”

“How could that be? How dare I threaten Youyou.” Xiao Huayong smiled faintly, “I merely want Youyou to understand my desire to marry you. Of course… if Youyou understand the yearning and torment in my heart and feel sympathy for me, I would be overjoyed. If Youyou is unwilling, I’ll accept it sweetly – next year it shall be.”

This strategic retreat instead made Shen Xihe feel as though she were being unreasonable. Not wanting to let him take advantage, she pretended not to understand.

“Youyou must come to the palace often to see me, to ease my lovesickness,” Xiao Huayong winked at Shen Xihe with eyes full of mirth.

“Your Highness, you were never such a frivolous person before. Why do you insist on making yourself appear so unbecoming?” Shen Xihe was puzzled.

Xiao Huayong chuckled softly: “Youyou, you’re mistaken. The me you think you know is the proper and refined me that everyone sees. But the me before you now is the real me. Every word I say to you comes from the depths of my heart, with complete sincerity.”

Shen Xihe quietly looked at him for a long while before nodding: “Zhaoning understands now.”

This meant she needed to learn to remain calm in the face of his true nature.

Xiao Huayong curved his lips in a smile. He understood what Shen Xihe was thinking. He stood up and said: “I hear Youyou is skilled at painting. Right now the apricot blossoms are budding and the green willows are sprouting – it’s wonderful spring weather. Would you like to paint together?”

“Zhaoning is not skilled at painting,” Shen Xihe corrected but didn’t refuse, “It would be good to learn from Your Highness.”

It was better than staying here listening to his constant deliberate teasing.

The Eastern Palace was a place of rare flowers and exotic plants, with abundant flora. Setting aside everything else, she quite liked the arrangement and ingenuity of the Eastern Palace. The servants had already set out the painting implements.

Seeing this, Shen Xihe couldn’t help but feel that Xiao Huayong was so certain she would agree, that he had probably deliberately used those words to provoke her: “Your Highness, are you so certain His Majesty won’t come to visit today?”

If Emperor Youning knew he was painting, he wouldn’t be able to maintain this pretense of blindness.

“His Majesty has no time today.” Xiao Huayong smiled mysteriously.

Indeed, Emperor Youning had no time today. Just as he finished reviewing the memorials and was preparing to visit Xiao Huayong at the Eastern Palace, he received news that Wang Erlang had committed suicide by throwing himself against the prison wall.

“Suicide? How does the Court of Judicial Review watch their prisoners!” Emperor Youning shouted in anger.

Xue Cheng, the Minister of the Court of Judicial Review, knelt on the ground not daring to make a sound. He had indeed ordered strict surveillance, even assigning someone to guard him specifically. The prisoner had been bound securely with cloth tied around his mouth, precisely to prevent an unexplained death.

“Did he confess?” the Emperor asked.

“In reply to Your Majesty, we used every permitted torture, but he insisted he knew nothing,” Xue Cheng had dealt with thousands of prisoners – those like Wang Erlang were either extremely deep and able to endure suffering silently, or truly wrongly accused.

Wang Erlang had never received special training, being the eldest grandson of the Wang family, delicate and privileged – how could he have endured such torment? Xue Cheng leaned toward believing Wang Erlang was wrongly accused.

Now the man was dead, his body covered in torture wounds. Returning the corpse to the Wang family would be difficult to explain. It was a case of being unable to endure severe torture and choosing death to preserve dignity.

Just then, Wang Zheng seemed to have heard the news and came seeking an audience. Emperor Youning was not one to avoid confrontation. He called him in and dismissed Xue Cheng. Wang Zheng entered and knelt before Emperor Youning: “Your Majesty, Erlang had no intention of harming His Highness. This humble servant has questioned everyone who was at the competition grounds that day, both our country’s young men and the envoys all say that if there were poison powder hidden inside the hollow ball, it would have been noticeable when striking it.

This humble servant also specifically sought out some powder – whether just hiding powder alone, or wrapping it in oiled paper or cloth, all would be different from a normal ball. Therefore, this humble servant boldly deduces there must have been no powder in the ball.”

As he spoke, Wang Zheng had people present the polo balls he had specially made.

Emperor Youning picked one up and looked at it briefly before saying: “According to what you’re saying, if the poison wasn’t hidden in the ball, then why was the Crown Prince’s face covered in it?”

Wang Zheng was silent for a moment before saying: “It could only have been that after the ball left Erlang’s hands, someone who touched it tampered with it.”

Emperor Youning laughed after hearing this: “The ball left Wang Erlang’s hands, flew directly at the Crown Prince, and was shattered by the Crown Prince’s guard. Are you suggesting that the Crown Prince’s guard took the opportunity while breaking the ball to scatter poison all over the Crown Prince’s face?”

This was exactly what Wang Zheng meant, but he didn’t dare say it, could only kneel in silence.

Emperor Youning was provoked by his attitude and snapped: “Cao Tianyuan is the leader of the Eastern Palace Guard. If he wished to harm the Crown Prince, why would he need to use such methods? He has no grudge or enmity with your Wang family or your Wang Erlang. Therefore it wasn’t his intention, and if he had been bought by others, there are countless ways to kill the Crown Prince – he definitely wouldn’t use this method.

That only leaves acting on the Crown Prince’s orders. During the grand court assembly that day when the envoys from both countries nearly drew their swords, you implied to me it was the Crown Prince’s doing, and I believed you somewhat then. Today you want to tell me that the Crown Prince sees you as such a thorn in his side that he would risk his life and possibly lose both eyes. Wang Zheng, aren’t you thinking too highly of yourself?”

This was also what Wang Zheng couldn’t understand. The Crown Prince’s desire to eliminate him was already very obvious, from the charging horse incident to the conflict with envoys at court to the Yuan Lantern Festival where he had set up a trap trying to force the Crown Prince to reveal his true nature – perhaps the Crown Prince already knew.

But even if the Crown Prince wanted to eliminate him, he wouldn’t need to pay such a price. Now everyone knew the Crown Prince might go blind in both eyes, and the Fourth Prince and Second Prince Zhao far away at the Imperial Tombs had already started stirring.

“Your Majesty, this humble servant dares not overestimate himself, but this humble servant’s loyalty to Your Majesty will always be an obstacle to some people.” Wang Zheng carefully said, “Your Majesty, please consider – both this humble servant and the Turkic prince suspected His Highness the Crown Prince of hiding his true nature, and neither this humble servant nor the Turkic prince came to a good end…”

“You think the death of Princess Yangling was the Crown Prince’s doing, intending to frame Munuha?” Emperor Youning sneered, “This happened simultaneously with your Wang family’s affair. Tell me, if the Crown Prince already has such far-reaching power, would he still need to eliminate you in secret?”

Wang Zheng was momentarily speechless. Although he wanted to push everything onto the Crown Prince, Princess Yangling’s matter indeed seemed unlikely to be the Crown Prince’s doing. He could only say: “Your Majesty, since the Crown Prince’s return to the capital, the Xuanping Marquis’s household, Prince Kang’s household, Prince Xun, Minister of Revenue Dong Biquan…”

These were all His Majesty’s people. How prominent these people had been before, yet all died within less than a year of Xiao Huayong’s return – didn’t this deserve deep consideration?