Yun Ze let out a thud as he dropped to his knees, wailing, “Crown Prince, Your Highness — I can’t lose my arm.”

It wasn’t as though he had been the one to let Ningning pull at his sleeve. So why wasn’t he going after Ningning’s arm instead?

Why was he always the unlucky one? Had he known it would come to this, he would never have entered the palace today.

Yan Yunning’s mouth twitched at the corner.

“Silence.” Xuan Yanyu’s temples were throbbing.

Yun Ze still wanted to wail a little more, but the sound lodged itself raw in his throat.

Xuan Yanyu rose to his feet at an unhurried pace, closing the distance toward Yan Yunning step by step.

“You wanted to leave with him?” The corners of the man’s mouth held a curve that might have been a smile or might not, and his tone was hardly gentle.

Yan Yunning shook her head decisively. “No.”

This was not the moment to argue with him.

After a long silence, a low voice drifted down from above her head: “Yan Yunning, what exactly do you find so wonderful about him? Hmm? What is wonderful about him?”

“Nothing wonderful at all — Your Highness, the Crown Prince, I still have matters to attend to. May I take my leave first?” Yun Ze mustered a strained smile.

The mockery in Xuan Yanyu’s eyes grew more pronounced. “No, you may not go yet.”

Yun Ze pressed his forehead against the gilded floor tiles, his body frozen in place. His aunt, the Empress Dowager, had gotten him into trouble this time.

Yan Yunning suddenly smiled, her voice soft and coaxing. “Xuan Yanyu, I misspoke. Most exalted Crown Prince — will you forgive me just this once?”

The man gave a low grunt, muttering in a muffled voice, “If I hadn’t stopped you, you would have walked right out with him?”

Yun Ze weakly interjected, “Your Highness, absolutely not — I would never take her away.”

“You keep quiet.” Xuan Yanyu forcibly held down a cold surge of displeasure.

Yun Ze pressed his lips together. When he had been talking with Ningning earlier, the tone hadn’t been like this at all.

“I would not.” Yan Yunning gave Xuan Yanyu a sweet smile. “I only found the palace stifling and wanted him to take me out. There was absolutely no intention of going away with him.”

“If you wanted to leave the palace, why not say so to me?” The man’s brow furrowed slightly.

Yan Yunning coaxed him patiently. “I promise to tell you first from now on. Is that all right?”

Xuan Yanyu hooked the corners of his lips in satisfaction and gave his noble head a nod.

Yan Yunning cursed inwardly. [Fafa, I’d wager everything that if I told him I wanted to leave with Yun Ze today, Xuan Yanyu would really have torn Yun Ze’s arm off in his anger — do you believe me?]

Fafa: [He would. Master, don’t you remember? In the book, it was precisely because Yan Shiyao kept defying him — refusing outright to marry him — that he killed you without hesitation.]

[If you just say a few coaxing words, he calms right down. Why provoke him head-on and drag others into it?] — Yan Yunning pressed her lips together.

After all, he was the Crown Prince of an entire kingdom. If you kept goading him, did you really think he could tolerate it indefinitely?

Fafa: [Because the female lead is unyielding and refuses to compromise — that’s precisely why Yan Shiyao gets to be the female lead!]

Yan Yunning: [……]

Admirable, this refusal to compromise. If she hadn’t had advance knowledge of her own fate, she wouldn’t have tagged along with them on their journey — and her destiny would have been to wait at the Chancellor’s estate until she was killed.

Fafa: [Xuan Yanyu had already pressed a blade against your neck and asked if she was willing. Your A’Jie shook her head through her tears. But because the female lead is written as kind-hearted, she assumed Xuan Yanyu was only threatening her and wouldn’t truly act.]

Yan Yunning: [……]

There was something she probably shouldn’t say, but she felt that A’Jie had been rather foolish. First of all, Xuan Yanyu was using her as leverage against A’Jie — his intention was obvious: to make A’Jie agree. If you kept shaking your head, Xuan Yanyu would certainly think A’Jie wasn’t taking his threat seriously. How could he not be furious enough to kill her?

Even if you’d just humored him first and then sought another way out later, that would have been something.

“Your Highness, Your Highness.” Ye Chen wiped his nose, pushed open the doors of the palace chamber, and slid on his knees to a stop before Xuan Yanyu’s tall boots.

Ye Jian tilted his head slightly to one side. He simply could not bear to watch.

“What is it now?” Xuan Yanyu felt quite at a loss for words.

“Your Highness, why did you leave me and Ye Jian behind for Prince Xuan?” Ye Chen lifted his head and looked at him, his face full of grievance.

“When did I leave you behind for the Emperor?” Xuan Yanyu narrowed his eyes and laughed lightly. “Could it be that you two failed to keep up in time and were detained by the Emperor yourselves?”

Ye Chen pursed his lips, beginning to protest. “Your Highness, you were clearly in such a hurry…”

“Silence.” Xuan Yanyu shot him a cool glance.

He had been so eager to see the second young lady of the Yan family that he hadn’t even noticed they hadn’t followed.

Ye Chen drew a deep breath and lowered his head in dejected resignation.

“Er — did Prince Xuan punish you?” Yan Yunning followed up.

She could see Ye Chen looked quite put-upon. Keeping it bottled up inside would only make it worse, she supposed, so she asked out of concern.

“Second Young Lady Yan, you have no idea — Ye Jian and I nearly never got to see you or His Highness again.” Ye Chen sniffled, and did not forget to add some flattery: “The moment I think I’d never see His Highness again, my heart aches terribly.”

Yan Yunning: “……”

Xuan Yanyu: “……”

Ye Jian’s brow twisted into a knot. Since when had the man learned to talk like this?

Yun Ze, seizing the moment while Xuan Yanyu’s attention was elsewhere, quietly shifted his knees, which had gone numb from kneeling.

Xuan Yanyu gave a light snort. “How did you two manage to anger the Emperor?”

“Your Highness, it wasn’t us — it was you.” Ye Chen muttered under his breath.

Xuan Yanyu’s expression shifted slightly; he more or less guessed what had happened.

He said in a measured tone, “Get up. Go with Ye Jian to my treasury and pick something you’d like.”

Ye Chen’s eyes lit up, his voice brimming with excitement. “Your Highness, you treat us so well.”

The Crown Prince’s treasury held only things bestowed by Prince Xuan — all treasures of the imperial household, the finest of rare objects.

“This subordinate thanks Your Highness.” Ye Jian smiled at the corners of his mouth.

Ye Chen glanced over at Yun Ze without thinking and asked, puzzled, “Young Master Yun, why are you kneeling here?”

He had only been focused on weeping his grievances to His Highness when he first came in; he truly hadn’t noticed him at all.

His feet had gone numb and prickly. Yun Ze was desperate to leap up on the spot. He forced out a smile. “I…”

Never mind, he would keep his mouth shut. If he said he’d come to find Ningning, the Crown Prince might very well want to tear his arm off again.

Xuan Yanyu took Yan Yunning’s hand, his voice carrying a measure of warmth. “I’ll go pay my respects to the Empress Dowager first, and then we’ll leave the palace together. If you get bored, let Ye Jian and Ye Chen keep you company.”

His low voice drifted past the tip of her heart, carrying something that sounded like coaxing.

Yan Yunning was a little startled. Had she not made herself clear enough to him?

She was not going to marry him. So why was he taking her hand again?

· · ·

The Imperial Study

Prince Xuan sat on the purple sandalwood dragon throne, impatiently flipping through the memorials stacked on the table beside him.

“These ministers — every memorial they present is urging Yanyu to take consorts. Have they all grown too idle for their own good?” Prince Xuan reproached.

Eunuch Feng was somewhat at a loss. “Your Majesty, they are only anxious to place their daughters in the Crown Prince’s household.”

Prince Xuan pinched the bridge of his nose. “If I had known that, no matter how many precautions I took, I still couldn’t stop Yanyu from having ideas about taking other consorts, I would have had Yanyu take a secondary consort long ago. By now I might already be holding a grandchild in my arms.”

Eunuch Feng was caught between wanting to laugh and cry. “Your Majesty, it is not too late now. The attendant maids and nannies have already been trained and sent to the Crown Prince’s estate.”

Prince Xuan sighed. “I need to think of a pretext to bring Shiyao here to Xuanzhao from Qilan.”