The Crown Prince Begged Me Not to Marry Him - Chapter 4

4.

Shen Wan stared at Xiao Jingchao in disbelief, tears in her eyes.

“Brother Jingchao…”

Tenderness flickered across his face. He was about to speak when I reached around and pinched his backside.

“Don’t you dare.”

He sucked in a sharp breath of cold noodles, shot me a murderous glare, and gritted out, “That is exactly what happened!”

Then he looked down at Xiao Jingyan.

“Third Brother, for the sake of our brotherhood, I won’t pursue this any further. Put those twisted thoughts out of your head. Father will decide what is to be done. Understood?”

Xiao Jingyan’s birth mother had been a lowly palace maid who died when he was very young. The Empress, taking pity on the motherless child, had brought him into her own palace to be raised. Only then had he acquired a little standing.

Put kindly, he was her adopted son.

Put bluntly, he was a lackey she had trained for her own son.

How could a dog like Xiao Jingyan dare bite his master?

However bitter he felt, he dared say nothing more.

He merely looked at me, his eyes full of hurt and bewilderment.

“Qing’er…”

In my previous life, that pitiful expression was precisely what had stirred my compassion and made me compensate him in every way I could.

Who would have thought he was such a treacherous ingrate?

At the thought, I hooked my arm through Xiao Jingchao’s and snapped at Xiao Jingyan.

“What are you staring at? Do you think I don’t know what you’re after?”

“I am the Crown Prince’s fiancée! I’m the only one he’ll marry. Give up!”

Instead of arguing, Xiao Jingyan clutched his chest and vomited a pool of blood.

“Qing’er, you came back too, didn’t you? I never imagined you hated me so much…You know my elder brother loves your half-sister, yet you still refuse to marry me again…”

I immediately worked myself into a frenzy and slapped him.

“Silence! What a monstrous accusation!”

“The Crown Prince is my fiancé. How could he possibly love my half-sister?”

“Wanwan is my sister! How could she seduce her own future brother-in-law?”

“You failed to frame the Crown Prince, so now you’ve dreamed up another scheme!”

“Your Highness, how did I never realize how vicious you are? If you can’t have him, you’ll destroy him! Wanwan pitied you because you lost your mother as a child. She spent time with you out of kindness—and this is how you repay her?”

Shen Wan had been about to speak up for Xiao Jingyan, but my words made her shudder.

The Crown Prince could barely protect himself. He certainly wasn’t going to admit to their secret affair.

If Xiao Jingyan dragged her into this, the consequences would be unimaginable.

So she leaped up and dealt him a resounding slap too.

“Third Prince! I thought of you as my dearest friend, yet for your own selfish ends, you accuse the Crown Prince and me of having an affair! I was completely wrong about you!”

Xiao Jingchao jumped up and kicked him twice.

“You beast! Wasn’t hurting me enough? Now you want to hurt Qing’er’s sister too? How cruel can you be?”

The Empress had meant to break up the fight. Instead, surveying the utter chaos, she clutched her head.

“Quick…help me back to the palace. My head…”

Pained to see her suffering through no fault of her own, the Emperor hurried to support her.

“Attendants! Escort the Empress to her chambers! Summon the imperial physician!”

I ventured, “Your Majesty, what about me?”

He gave me an impatient look, but he could hardly criticize me.

“Shen Qing, daughter of the Chancellor, has rendered a service by exposing the Third Prince’s crimes and has suffered a severe fright. Reward her with…a thousand taels of gold, a hundred bolts of brocade, and one aged wild ginseng root…Go home!”

Then he and the Empress left, supporting each other, as though all his strength had deserted him.

Shen Wan pouted and looked plaintively at Xiao Jingchao, about to speak.

I threw myself straight into his arms and gazed up at him with aching concern.