Becoming the Crown Princess by Strength - Chapter 2

Chapter 2

The next day, after Father returned from morning court, he gave me a furious scolding.

“You unlucky child! What in the world did you say to the Crown Prince? Because of one sentence from you, our entire household nearly got confiscated!”

I burst into frightened tears. “Then what do we do?”

“Thankfully, His Majesty is merciful and forgave you on the grounds that children speak without thinking. He said that since you are fond of the Crown Prince, he will arrange something when there is a chance in the future.” Father wept so hard his tears and snot flowed together. He dropped to his knees and grabbed at me. “Things have come to this, so we can only move forward, not back. Fu’er, you must make the Crown Prince happy no matter what!”

So I went to make the Crown Prince happy. I went to the entrance of the academy to find him and play.

“Has the Crown Prince not come out yet?” I grabbed someone and asked.

“Didn’t see him. I guess not,” he answered.

Almost everyone had left, so I had no choice but to go in and look for him.

The academy was empty. I called his name as I searched room by room.

“Crown Prince, where are you?”

“Crown Prince? Crown Prince?”

“Crown Prince, are you here?”

When I reached the innermost room, I pushed open the door. The wooden door let out a creak.

It looked like there was no one inside, but this was the only room left. I might as well search it before leaving.

The place looked as if it had been abandoned for ages. The dim room was filled with many broken-down desks and chairs. I stepped across the creaking floorboards and walked, step by step, toward the back row.

“Crown Prince, I’ve come to find you.”

The wind blew through the torn paper windows and spiderwebs, lifting a piece of white cloth trimmed with gold from beneath a desk in the corner.

So he was hiding here.

I walked over, bent down, poked my head under, and smiled until my eyes curved.

“Found you.”

The Crown Prince was hiding beneath the desk, staring at me in shock and terror, as if he had seen a ghost.

“Are you playing hide-and-seek?” I grinned. “Wonderful! I love hide-and-seek best. Go hide again, and I’ll find you. All right?”

He forced himself to calm down, but his face was still as white as paper. “N-no… no hide-and-seek.”

“Then what do you want to play?” I straightened up unhappily.

He gritted his teeth and stood, his body trembling a little. “I… This Crown Prince is leaving.”

“Great! Come back to my house. Let’s play with mud.” I agreed happily and pulled him along.

“Ow…” I seemed to hear his tiny cry of pain. When I turned back to look at him, tears had welled up in his eyes. He weakly pried at my hand. “An Fu, I’ll go with you. Just don’t pinch me…”

I played with mud with the Crown Prince for an entire day. He did not know how to play at all, so teaching him was exhausting, but I experienced the joy of a mother hen leading her chicks.

When we played until dark, the Crown Prince pleaded with me. “I really have to go back. Mother Empress is waiting for me. If I return late, I’ll be beaten.”

“Fine.” I agreed reluctantly, then looked at him expectantly. “Then will you come again tomorrow?”

His face turned pale, though to be fair, I had never seen it look healthy. “No. I won’t. I won’t go to the academy either. Tomorrow I will catch a cold…”

“How do you know you’re going to catch a cold?” I made a huge fuss of it. “Foreseeing the future-is this the ability of the Son of Heaven bloodline?”

His gaze drifted, and he gave a soft hum of agreement. I asked in worshipful awe, “Then what else can you see?”

He lowered his head, then secretly glanced at me. “I see… that we never meet again, and we never get married.”

“How could that be? Is my family confiscated?” I asked anxiously.

He hurriedly denied it, and only then did I relax. I tugged at his sleeve again. “Then there won’t be another chance in the future… Could you give me your clothes?”

He stared at me in shock. I rubbed my nose, a little embarrassed. “Your clothes are really pretty. They even have dragons on them. We’re so close already, so you can give… lend them to me to wear for a bit.”

He lent me his clothes, refused my skirt, then rubbed his own arms and tottered away, shivering. I happily put on the beautiful clothes and went to show Father.

Father chased me around to beat me. “My little ancestor, are these clothes something you can wear? If word reaches His Majesty, he’ll have your head! Take them off this instant. Tomorrow I’ll take them back and plead guilty.”

After he returned from pleading guilty, he scolded me again. “Why in the world did you play with mud for no reason? And you even made the Crown Prince sick! Wonderful. If anything happens to him, we can all just wait for our nine generations to be exterminated!”

I was dumbfounded. “Was it because of the mud?”

“The Crown Prince is such a noble and pure person that even a sip of coarse tea makes him cough, yet you used your filthy mud to defile him. How could he possibly endure it? Of course he fell ill!”

What he said seemed to make sense, so I believed him. On one hand, I thought the Crown Prince was so weak. On the other, I was anxious.

So I went to the academy every day to check on him, but even after waiting for a month, I still did not see him.

“The Crown Prince didn’t come today either?” I asked the people coming out, frantic.

They said he had not. I was so afraid I squatted down and cried. “Wuwu, why hasn’t he gotten better yet? It’s been a whole month. Is he not going to recover?”

So when he said we would never meet again, did he actually mean he was going to die?

I cried as I walked home, preparing to notify Father that we had to flee.

On the way, I bought a roast goose, taught a gang of local thugs a lesson, played with a cat for a while, and only remembered the important matter after I got home. Father was not there. Instead, there was a eunuch in the main hall.

“Miss An, the Crown Prince asked me to deliver a message.” It seemed he had come to find me. As soon as I entered, he came forward with a face full of smiles.

I grew nervous. “What message? Is it his will?”

The eunuch smiled ingratiatingly. “Miss, what are you saying? His Highness has already recovered from his cold and will return to the academy tomorrow. His Highness heard that Miss has been eagerly awaiting him, so he specifically asked me to inform you.”

That was good. Relieved, I went off to play by myself.