The Crown Prince Begged Me Not to Marry Him - Chapter 3

3.

He pointed at me. “Shen Qing, you lunatic! How dare you strike—”

Before he could finish, I lunged forward and clapped a hand over his mouth. In a voice only the two of us could hear, I said, “Your Highness, rushing about with no underpants on—aren’t you feeling a draft?”

The Crown Prince went rigid. Like a lobster having its vein pulled out, he clamped his legs together and doubled over, looking down. Clearly, he had hurried here without noticing a thing.

While he was still stunned, I wrapped my arms around his waist, buried my face hard against his chest, and sobbed my heart out.

“Your Highness, my heart aches for you!”

“The Third Prince had evil intentions! To stain your reputation, he knocked you unconscious, stole your underpants, and tucked them inside his robes. Then he deliberately fell during the polo match so they would tumble out in front of everyone and make them misunderstand your relationship!”

“How could there possibly be anything between you and him? It’s obvious to me! He wanted you and couldn’t have you, so he decided to frame you. He wanted me to think you were sleeping with him and break off our engagement!”

“What a vicious scheme! He deserves to die for it!”

Xiao Jingchao blurted, “Bullshit! YOU hit me over the head!”

I lowered my voice and smiled at him. “Oh? Would Your Highness prefer His Majesty to learn that the Crown Prince drugged his own fiancée and tried to strip off her undergarment? That he intended to frame his own younger brother and destroy our engagement—all so he could marry my half-sister?”

His face turned liver-purple. With his head already bloodied by the blow I’d dealt him, he looked dreadful.

I seized his collar, pulled him down, and whispered like a devil in his ear.

“I told you, the Third Prince hit you. Don’t make me regret giving you a way out.”

“I know everything you, Shen Wan, and the Third Prince planned. Innocent victim or incestuous brothers. Take your pick.”

“He’s only a concubine-born younger brother, and he covets the woman you love. Better him dead than you…”

When he still refused to speak, my patience ran out.

“Fuck, are you going to say it or not? Keep quiet and I’ll tell everyone you’re only three cun long…”

Xiao Jingchao had never been a man of honor. Otherwise, he would never have dreamed up such a vile way to break our engagement in my previous life.

He weighed his options in an instant and threw Xiao Jingyan straight to the wolves.

“Yes…Father! It was my third brother who injured me and stole my underpants!”

“I am too ashamed to face you!”

As he spoke, the Empress arrived outside the great tent with Xiao Jingyan, Shen Wan, and a crowd of eager spectators.

“Your Majesty, you mustn’t listen to that Shen girl’s nonsense…”

Hearing this, the Emperor dared not open his eyes. He could only hope he was imagining things.

“Third Son! Is what your elder brother says true?”

“Did you really…commit such an abomination?”

The Third Prince protested instinctively. “Father! I’ve been wronged!”

When Xiao Jingchao ignored him, he grabbed desperately at his trouser leg.

“Brother! Say something, Brother!”

He would have been better off keeping his mouth shut. That cry only added fuel to the fire.

“Silence, you disgrace! How did I sire such a shameless creature?”

“You’ve stripped me of every shred of dignity! How am I to face our ancestors when I join them?”

“Guards! For assaulting the Crown Prince and harming his own brother, the Third Prince shall forfeit three years’ stipend. He is to be confined to his residence for six months to reflect on his wrongdoing, effective immediately!”

His own flesh and blood, after all. Even for something so appalling, the Emperor gave him only six months’ confinement.

Yet in my previous life, this had cost me half a lifetime.

Heaven was hardly fair.

Xiao Jingyan was Shen Wan’s devoted lapdog, after all. Seeing him in trouble, she immediately pleaded for him.

“Your Majesty, could there be some misunderstanding? The Third Prince isn’t that sort of person…”

The Emperor flew into a rage. “The Crown Prince himself has identified him! Could that possibly be false?”