Zhou Weizhao walked to Song Chuyi’s side and stopped, as if he naturally should stand only beside her, standing there with perfect justification. Miss Kong stared at him with bloodshot eyes, almost entranced. After a long while, she began to cry out in both anger and resentment. She cried for her father, and she cried for herself. She felt terribly wronged—from the first moment she saw the Crown Prince, she felt that she was meant to marry someone like this: warm and refined as jade, a true gentleman, whose appearance alone was pleasing to behold.
Miss Kong had loved reading storybooks since childhood. Her father, being a military official, didn’t place much importance on his daughter’s education and saw nothing wrong with these storybooks. Even her father didn’t control her, so Miss Kong’s mother, who couldn’t read a single character, simply indulged her daughter’s every whim. Thus Miss Kong had read storybooks from all corners of the land, harboring since childhood the idea that heroes should be paired with beauties.
The Crown Prince appeared at precisely the right time. She was exactly at the flower-like age, believing that in all of Jinzhong, no one except Cui Hualuan could compare to her. The Crown Prince’s status was noble, yet he possessed a face that even those masters on the opera stage couldn’t rival. She believed herself worthy of the Crown Prince. Even now, though she had once harbored overwhelming resentment because the Crown Prince had executed her father with a swift blade, Miss Kong still found it somewhat difficult to hate Zhou Weizhao. She thought about it—her recent favorite opera was called “Jade Born Fragrance,” which told of a noble young lady whose family was raided and exterminated by the imperial family, leaving her wandering in foreign lands. She later encountered the Fifth Imperial Prince, fell in love with him at first sight, but departed in sorrow due to family grudges. In the end, she was moved by the Fifth Prince’s threat of death and revealed herself, ultimately becoming his happy match.
She cast herself as the pitiful Miss Axiang whose entire family was exterminated, imagining the Crown Prince as the Fifth Prince. She cried with mournful yet lingering, melodious sorrow: “Your Highness!”
She called out once, struggling with effort several times, but couldn’t move at all. She could only continue gazing toward Zhou Weizhao: “Your Highness, you…” After calling out, she didn’t know what else to say. She thought of her mother crying rivers of tears at home day after day, thought of her father’s head hanging on the city gate as a warning. Her expression changed, becoming twisted with hatred as she cried: “How could you kill my father just because the Cui family helped you! He was my father!”
Song Chuyi was shocked by her freely flowing acting skills and rapidly changing expressions, her mouth opening slightly in amazement. She thought to herself that young ladies really should be raised like those in the Song and Cui families—those unsuitable operas shouldn’t be heard, those storybooks shouldn’t be read, lest seeing too much of them alter one’s temperament.
Zhou Weizhao probably felt the same way, glancing awkwardly at Song Chuyi before instructing Qing Zhuo to take her away and hand her over to the Cui family to be sent to the authorities for punishment.
Qing Zhuo was also dizzy from Miss Kong’s various antics. Walking forward several steps, he was unwilling to reach out with his hands, afraid some strange complication might arise. He walked past her to the front, had Han Yan lead her, and took her toward the front.
Cui Hualuan covered her neck, feeling as if she had survived a disaster. However mature she might seem for her age, in the end she was still a genuine young lady not yet fifteen years old. Having nearly lost her life, she leaned in Young Nanny Xu’s embrace and couldn’t help but cry out.
But cry as she might, her bearing remained completely composed, with nothing disheveled about her. After crying softly and restrainedly for two sounds, she lifted her head from Young Nanny Xu’s embrace to thank the Crown Prince and Song Chuyi.
Madam Qin’s teachings were still useful. At this moment, Cui Hualuan’s eyes weren’t completely filled with only Zhou Weizhao’s merits and achievements. Song Chuyi shook her head: “If Cousin were me, she would have done the same. It truly doesn’t warrant Cousin’s thanks.”
While speaking, Xie Shi had already arrived with a large group of people. Seeing that the Crown Prince was also present, she suppressed her inner anxiety to first pay respects to the Crown Prince before pulling Cui Hualuan to ask if she was injured. Though she normally harbored some petty thoughts, at critical moments she could still clearly distinguish between close and distant relations and the bigger picture.
Cui Hualuan shook her head with tears in her eyes, but her hands were ice cold and continuously seeping cold sweat—she had been frightened. Xie Shi sighed and quickly instructed the maids and nannies behind her to take Cui Hualuan back home. After such an incident, they absolutely needed to have an experienced nanny restore her soul, otherwise if the child lost her soul from fright, it would be troublesome. Besides, Old Madam at home must be worried sick.
Cui Hualuan hurriedly curtseyed to Zhou Weizhao, taking one last look at Song Chuyi standing beside Zhou Weizhao before walking away supported by Young Nanny Xu’s hand, surrounded by servants.
Xie Shi also breathed a sigh of relief. Such a major incident had occurred up front, and several physicians were still busy. If anything else happened in the back courtyard, the Cui family would likely face an unprecedented scandal today.
She grasped Song Chuyi’s hand and said softly: “I’ll go upstairs to check on Huaying and the others.” The Xie family sisters were still upstairs, and she felt somewhat uneasy. On the contrary, Song Chuyi—this young lady didn’t need anyone to worry about her at all.
After Xie Shi went upstairs, Zhou Weizhao tilted his head to look at Song Chuyi, just in time to see her elegant and gentle profile, and the smile on her face directed at Xie Shi that hadn’t yet faded. She smiled until light shone from her eyes, as if all the stars in the sky had fallen into them.
His heart felt warm and soft to the point of complete mess. He said softly to her: “Shall we take a walk?”
Song Chuyi really didn’t know how to handle Zhou Weizhao. She had never met someone whose exterior was cold as an iceberg yet warm and refined as jade, conveying aloofness, but when he spoke could always exceed your expectations, saying things that made it impossible to agree or disagree. Hesitating for a moment, her reaction slowed by a beat. She fell back a step following behind Zhou Weizhao, and by the time she reacted, she had already walked quite a distance with him, leaving absolutely no room to refuse. She was both annoyed and angry, hating it so much she almost couldn’t help wanting to stomp her feet.
She had said she would never repeat the tragedy and mistakes of her previous life. In her previous life she had already suffered enough from being completely obedient to her husband in all matters. How was it that now, whatever Zhou Weizhao told her to do, she had to do accordingly? She clearly hadn’t yet sorted out exactly what kind of feelings she had toward Zhou Weizhao.
Zhou Weizhao looked down at her shadow, imperceptibly falling back two steps to wait for her to catch up. Tilting his head to see her frowning as if quite annoyed, he smiled, coughed once, and first changed the topic: “I heard that Third Madam Chen plans to return home to demand a family division?”
When proper business was mentioned, Song Chuyi’s awkwardness dissipated considerably. Her eyes brightened as she quickly responded with an affirmative, then immediately stopped in astonishment, the words turning a corner at her lips as she asked him: “How does Your Highness also know about this?”
This news had clearly only been delivered by Song Jue yesterday… Zhou Weizhao’s sharp ears and eyes shouldn’t extend to such a degree, should they? Could it be that Lai Chenglong reported it again?