Shen Xihe truly felt both angry and uncertain about how to face this person. One moment, his strategic planning could be serious and commanding respect, and the next instant, he would transform into someone frivolous who made her so uncomfortable she wanted to rough him up!

“Youyou, when I’m with you, I feel at ease and comfortable. Everything I say and do is my true nature,” Crown Prince Xiao Huayong said with a flickering smile on his lips. “I want you to know this before our marriage, so you won’t think I’ve changed after our grand wedding.”

“…Should I thank Your Highness?” Shen Xihe asked speechlessly.

“What need is there for thanks between us? Besides, I’m merely being honest with Youyou,” Crown Prince Xiao Huayong shook his head with a smile. “Regarding the examination fraud case, Youyou can just watch it unfold. Why don’t you instead help select our wedding attire…”

As he spoke, Crown Prince Xiao Huayong picked up a catalog sent by the Imperial Wardrobe Bureau, containing complete sets of wedding attire.

As she was to be Crown Princess, she didn’t need to make her wedding clothes unlike other ladies getting married. Even those unskilled in needlework would typically make at least a symbolic few stitches, but her and Crown Prince Xiao Huayong’s wedding attire would be prepared by the Imperial Wardrobe Bureau. All grand wedding ceremonies were handled by the Six Departments and Twenty-Four Divisions led by the Department of Palace Affairs and the Court of Imperial Sacrifices leading the Ministry of Rites. She didn’t even need to prepare her dowry, as the royal family had a standard dowry prepared for the Crown Princess.

The grand wedding attire naturally didn’t need her preparation either. The current dynasty favored bright colors, typically using crimson red and cyan green for wedding clothes, with green for the bride and red for the groom. The Crown Prince’s wedding attire had intricate patterns, and as Shen Xihe flipped through several sets, they all seemed similar.

She preferred subtle colors, with purple being the brightest color she had ever worn. She had never worn cyan green or red.

Just as her interest was waning and she was about to randomly point to a set, she came across wedding attire in a light cloud color, with golden thread trim embroidered in exquisite patterns. Shen Xihe fell in love with it at first sight, but she had reservations: “Would light cloud color not be appropriate?”

“What’s inappropriate about it? This is our wedding, not someone else’s. If you’re happy with it, that’s what matters,” Crown Prince Xiao Huayong said deliberately. His Youyou was too bound by propriety and etiquette – he wanted to gradually break down these ritualistic constraints on her.

She could be a lady of graceful bearing, a Crown Princess who knew literature and propriety, but with him, she must be a wife who followed her heart.

Only by breaking through this barrier could they truly face each other without reservations.

“The court officials, Ministry of Rites, Confucian scholars…” Shen Xihe got a headache just thinking about their verbal and written attacks.

She didn’t think it was worth enduring their lengthy criticisms just for a moment’s pleasure.

“There’s no law stating that wedding attire must be red and green,” Crown Prince Xiao Huayong smiled gently. “White was revered by our ancestors, and considered beautiful during the Wei and Jin periods. Our dynasty doesn’t taboo white either. What’s wrong with white wedding attire for our ceremony?”

Shen Xihe watched Crown Prince Xiao Huayong’s earnest expression. She was worried that this was his arrangement just for her preferences, that to fulfill her wishes, he would again have to carefully plan how to silence those critics.

“This is our only wedding in this lifetime. Being able to marry you as my wife is my life’s greatest fortune – my joy lies in you,” Crown Prince Xiao Huayong said with sincere feeling. “You’re different from me – marrying me may not bring you unexpected happiness. I only wish for you to have more things that please you in our marriage, and to see joy and delight in your eyes on our wedding day.”

So a set of wedding attire, whether it brought her joy or merely acceptance, held such deep meaning for him.

Once in a lifetime – these words moved Shen Xihe, and she chose to follow her heart: “Then let’s choose this set.”

Crown Prince Xiao Huayong revealed a pleased smile. This wedding attire, paired with the crown he had made from northern pearls collected by his gyrfalcon, would surely make her beauty astound everyone on their wedding day.

Shen Xihe stayed at the Eastern Palace until after the evening meal before returning home. From that day forward, Crown Prince Xiao Huayong truly sent a plate of cherries every day, each one plump and lustrous, as if carefully selected.

Tianyuan naturally wanted to claim credit for his master: “His Highness personally picked each cherry, selected them himself, and washed them.”

The less attractive ones, those not evenly red, were all picked out by His Highness and given to his subordinates.

“Tell His Highness to send me the screened cherries as well. I’ll make some food for him,” Shen Xihe wanted to reciprocate his kindness.

She wondered how many cherries he had gone through to select such uniformly beautiful ones for a single plate. Cherries were precious – it wouldn’t be good to waste them.

Tianyuan hurriedly agreed. One plate of cherries was selected by the Crown Prince from an entire basket – he had eaten so many cherries during the selection that he almost wanted to run away at the mere smell.

The next day, Shen Xihe received many cherries that weren’t as attractive – they were only less beautiful compared to the ones Crown Prince Xiao Huayong had selected. She made cherry soup – perfect for quenching thirst during the warm spring afternoons when flowers were blooming.

She made cherry blossom cakes as tea snacks for Crown Prince Xiao Huayong and prepared extra cherries to try to make cherry wine.

While she was busy making treats in her residence, the court was in turmoil. The top scorer of the provincial examination was personally retested by the Director of the Palace Library on the Emperor’s orders. Given a new topic to solve alone, his handwriting remained excellent, but his composition was nonsensical, infuriating Emperor Youning so much that he threw a paperweight at the Minister of Rites’ head.

This time, the Minister of Rites had leaked the examination questions because of his grandson’s troubles – actually, a scheme orchestrated by Crown Prince Xiao Huayong.

Two years ago, at a literary gathering, the Minister’s grandson had happened to present a poem he claimed to have “found,” receiving unprecedented praise. His vanity inflated, in the heat of the moment, he claimed it as his own work.

Afterward, he received various invitations. Not wanting people to know he had falsely claimed another’s literary talent, by coincidence he found the true author. Learning of that person’s poverty, he used money and power to threaten them into becoming his ghostwriter. Since then, his poems, paintings, and essays flourished everywhere, earning much admiration. Even the lady he admired began to favor him, causing him to sink deeper into this deception.

Just before the metropolitan examination, this candidate discovered his unsavory dealings and threatened to expose him, which would ruin his reputation. He used this to blackmail him into obtaining the examination questions. This year’s examination questions were set by his grandfather since he wouldn’t be participating.

Knowing his grandfather best, he managed to get the questions after getting his grandfather drunk, then told the candidate.

This candidate couldn’t solve the questions himself and didn’t dare spread them widely for fear of exposure. After a “well-meaning person’s” subtle hint, he remembered his distant relation to the Director of the Imperial Academy’s He family and gained their favor under the pretense of seeking knowledge.

The He family’s eldest son was highly talented in literature, but because his grandfather had passed away this year and the mourning period of one year wasn’t complete, he couldn’t participate in the examinations. So the candidate took the questions to the He family’s eldest son for solutions, memorized them completely, and sure enough, the examination questions matched exactly.

He had plagiarized the He family’s eldest son’s work to become the top scorer.