Wang Gui moved closer to the Crown Prince and lowered his voice. “Your Highness, with First Miss Lin becoming Princess Wei, that may be difficult to manage, but Second Miss Lin is still possible.”

The Crown Prince’s eyes lit up. “Speak!”

He had been most interested in Second Miss Lin to begin with. As for First Miss Lin, collecting them both together would naturally be good, but if it was too troublesome, forget it.

“Second Miss Lin is just sixteen—precisely the age when young ladies harbor romantic feelings. First Miss Lin happily accepted even someone like Prince Wei. Your Highness, you are of noble status and extraordinary appearance. If you interact more with Second Miss Lin, how could you worry about her remaining unmoved?”

The Crown Prince frowned. “You mean for me to court Second Miss Lin’s favor?”

He had never done such a thing before.

Wang Gui smiled. “Your Highness, in the current situation, using gentle methods is better than forceful ones. Think about Consort Sun—isn’t that the principle?”

The Crown Prince’s brow twitched.

Being able to bring the only niece of Princess Consort Jing into the Eastern Palace without lifting a finger—wasn’t that because Consort Sun’s heart had been captured by him?

When the fish willingly takes the bait, the fisherman naturally has it easy.

“There is some logic to that.” The Crown Prince nodded slightly, then felt somewhat troubled. “The problem is how to make contact with Second Miss Lin? I get the sense that girl is avoiding me.”

The Crown Prince wasn’t stupid either. Ever since that time at Prince Jing’s mansion when he met Lin Hao, he had never seen her again on subsequent visits to the prince’s mansion. Someone eager to curry favor wouldn’t act that way.

“Your Highness, Second Miss Lin wants to avoid you because the gap between you is too great. You can close that distance.” Wang Gui’s thoughts flowed like a fountain, growing more enthusiastic as he spoke.

“How do I close it?” the Crown Prince asked curiously.

Wang Gui said earnestly, “Play the hero saving the beauty.”

“Play the hero saving the beauty?” The Crown Prince instinctively furrowed his brow.

He was the heir apparent—did he need to risk danger to save others?

The Crown Prince shook his head.

Even a hair’s breadth of risk was unacceptable.

Wang Gui, who understood the Crown Prince best, quickly said, “It’s all to close the distance. We can use our own people disguised as villains.”

This would work.

The Crown Prince approved of this idea.

“This servant will immediately investigate where Second Miss Lin frequently goes and arrange this performance well.”

The Crown Prince’s brow relaxed. “Go handle it.”

With his vexed mood relieved, the Crown Prince strolled over to Sun Xiuhua’s quarters.

Hearing the Crown Prince had come, Sun Xiuhua was overjoyed.

Her face had long since healed, and the marks on her hands were no longer obvious, yet the Crown Prince hadn’t visited once since leaving that day.

At first, she didn’t want the Crown Prince to come—having him remember her face with scratch marks wasn’t good. But once her face had completely healed and the Crown Prince still didn’t appear, her heart began to panic.

The Eastern Palace was filled with countless beauties. Surely the Crown Prince hadn’t simply forgotten about her?

Rational analysis suggested this possibility existed. Emotionally, Sun Xiuhua couldn’t accept such a defeat.

In terms of appearance and bearing, she was among the best of the Eastern Palace women.

“Greetings to Your Highness.” Sun Xiuhua curtsied deeply to the approaching Crown Prince.

The Crown Prince’s gaze involuntarily fell on the back of Sun Xiuhua’s hand.

Mm, it wasn’t so offensive to the eye anymore.

The corners of his mouth curved into a smile, his tone becoming gentle. “Rise quickly.”

The Crown Princess received news that the Crown Prince had gone to Consort Sun’s quarters and felt a wave of frustration.

She hadn’t expected the Crown Prince to be so devoted to Sun Xiuhua.

The Crown Princess sat down on her beauty couch, feeling inexplicably uneasy.

Prince Wei had unexpectedly chosen First Miss Lin as his consort. The Crown Prince had always done as he pleased—clearly acting unpredictably was the imperial family’s way. Was her position as Crown Princess perhaps not as secure as she thought?

The Crown Princess developed a sense of crisis and monitored Sun Xiuhua’s quarters even more closely.

On Wang Gui’s end, he had already gathered the information he wanted.

“Second Miss Lin occasionally meets a few close friends for tea and shopping, sometimes accompanies her mother and elder sister out, and sometimes hosts the young county princess at home…”

The Crown Prince listened with a frown.

A young girl, quite busy.

“In the past couple of days, Second Miss Lin has enjoyed riding Lin Xiaohua for leisurely outings.” Reaching this final point, Wang Gui’s expression became peculiar.

She was the future princess consort’s younger sister, after all—could she really be so undisciplined?

The Crown Prince thought he’d misheard. “Riding whom?”

“A small donkey. Second Miss Lin gave it a name—Lin Xiaohua.”

The corner of the Crown Prince’s mouth twitched.

He truly couldn’t imagine what that picture looked like.

Wang Gui assumed the Crown Prince had lost interest. “Your Highness, should we still arrange—”

The Crown Prince glanced at him. “What nonsense are you spouting?”

What did Second Miss Lin riding a small donkey have to do with his interest in Second Miss Lin?

This dog slave Wang Gui was becoming less and less astute.

Sensing the Crown Prince’s disdain, Wang Gui’s heart tightened and he quickly said, “This servant will arrange it immediately.”

The warm, gentle sunshine of early winter bathed every corner of the capital. Lin Hao rode Lin Xiaohua, seemingly wandering aimlessly.

Crown Prince’s Junior Preceptor Qin Yunchuan was dead, the physiognomist Fang Chengji was dead, the teacher who lost the secret letter had hidden his tracks, and her elder sister had become the future princess consort.

Many things had changed, and many unknowns remained. Yet the change in her elder sister’s marriage had temporarily reduced the Crown Prince’s threat to them. Under these relatively favorable circumstances, she decided to observe and wait for now.

What if the Crown Prince courted his own doom and caused some disaster?

Without the imminent crisis before her, Lin Hao finally had the energy to do something else: she was going to save someone—or more accurately, a child, a beggar child.

In her previous life, she had escaped from Emperor Pingle’s hiding place back to the capital while evading pursuit by Emperor Pingle’s men and investigating the truth behind her elder sister’s death.

Though she had learned some unusual skills from her teacher, two fists were hard-pressed against four hands. In the face of absolute force, she could only flee. Once, she had nearly been caught when a beggar child helped cover for her, allowing her to escape calamity.

She later found that beggar child and learned his name: he was called A’Xing.

Unable to protect herself, she dared not interact much with A’Xing and gave him some silver coins to express her gratitude. A’Xing clutched the purse of broken silver and cried, saying his younger brother Little Moon had died three years earlier in the bitter cold of winter. If he’d had this money then to get treatment for his brother, to keep his brother from starving, perhaps his brother wouldn’t have died.

She wanted to find them and let A’Xing’s Little Moon live.

Lin Hao rode Lin Xiaohua at an unhurried pace.

The place where she’d encountered A’Xing was in this area. Though the capital was large, beggar children had unwritten rules—their begging territories were fixed. Wandering to someone else’s territory to beg would earn a beating.

If her luck wasn’t too bad, finding the A’Xing brothers shouldn’t be difficult.

But Lin Hao discovered her luck wasn’t very good. Not only had she failed to find A’Xing after two days of searching, she seemed to have attracted trouble.

Lin Hao’s peripheral vision swept over people furtively approaching, feeling somewhat puzzled.

Had the capital’s public security deteriorated this badly? Had she encountered would-be abductors attempting a daylight kidnapping?

It wasn’t that she was overly confident in her beauty, but rather that she had deliberately dressed plainly when going out and didn’t look wealthy.

In her peripheral vision, those two people drew closer and closer.

The person walking in front charged横across in front of Lin Hao with a pitiful cry of “Aiya!”

Lin Hao’s grip on the reins tightened as she watched coldly to see what this person who had spun in a circle before her and collapsed on the ground intended to do.