“Princess, I told you before, this horse servant must not stay. If it weren’t for Mistress insisting on bringing that horse servant to the royal temple, we could have dealt with him during Mistress’s retreat.”

“But this time, if not for that horse servant, my Ling’er… I don’t know what would have happened to her.”

“Princess, it’s hard to know a person’s true nature just by looking. You didn’t see how that horse servant looked at Mistress… He really must not stay!”

Su Baiyue lay on the couch, half-asleep, overhearing the whispers between Princess Weinan and the old nanny. She lazily turned over, her eyes fluttering as she buried her head under the covers, then covertly kicked Jing Wen awake beside the couch.

Jing Wen, groggily opening her eyes, suddenly became alert upon hearing the conversation outside, holding her breath.

The conversation outside continued, deliberately lowered but still clearly audible inside.

“Princess, the news of Mistress encountering bandits has spread. Although there are no unpleasant rumors, you saw today, our servants all saw Mistress with that horse servant together. A secluded young lady spending a night with a man in the mountains—anyone would think too much of it, especially since our Mistress is so beautiful. Every man in the world would covet her. Even if truly nothing happened, but that horse servant, when he came to see you earlier, spoke of a verbal marriage agreement…”

Princess Weinan sighed at this, “How could Ling’er make such a promise? Could it be that the horse servant made it up?” Now that Liu Ling is betrothed to the Crown Prince, if this gets out, not only will Mistress Ling Yun’s reputation be ruined, but our Weinan Royal Mansion could face catastrophic consequences.

The old nanny shook her head, “I don’t think so. It must have been Mistress’s last resort to stabilize that horse servant. I think you should take care of that horse servant soon, otherwise, it will lead to endless trouble.”

“Yes,” Princess Weinan nodded, “endless trouble indeed.” Her daughter was to marry the Crown Prince; how could she let a horse servant who took advantage of the situation tarnish her purity?

“Let’s leave this matter to you,” after a pause, Princess Weinan instructed, “Now that Chen’er is fighting abroad, we can’t be too ruthless. Give him some silver to keep him quiet, and send him far away.” After all, this little horse servant did save Ling’er’s life.

The old nanny showed a hesitant expression but said nothing more, respectfully turned, and left the main house. She then went to her own husband, weighing the silver given by Princess Weinan, immediately adopting a harsh demeanor, “The Princess is just too soft-hearted. Such a creature should have been killed long ago!”

Meanwhile, Princess Weinan sat quietly for a moment before rising and entering the inner chamber.

Jing Wen quickly hid behind the curtain, concealing herself.

Su Baiyue pretended to rest, her cheeks faintly blushed, her eyelashes lightly trembling, her beauty unearthly.

Princess Weinan sighed softly, her face full of pity as she tucked Su Baiyue in. “Ling’er, don’t blame your mother.”

Not blaming at all.

Su Baiyue thought to herself: If you don’t act, how can the plot proceed?

Watching Princess Weinan leave, Jing Wen bit her lip, stamped her foot, and then also left.

…

After recuperating in the room for half a month, Su Baiyue finally recovered from the “bandit scare.”

Princess Weinan made nourishing soups and broths for Su Baiyue every day, persuading her to drink them. Su Baiyue verbally refused but honestly drank them all.

Ah, the feeling of fullness was long missed.

“Mistress…” Jing Wen watched as Su Baiyue got better day by day, standing by with a hesitant expression.

“Hmm?” Su Baiyue eyed the bird’s nest soup in Jing Wen’s hands, unable to stop swallowing.

It smells so good!

Unaware of her Mistress’s eager little expression, Jing Wen hesitantly spoke, “Mistress, that Lu Gan in our courtyard, Princess had the nanny sell him off.”

Su Baiyue thought: Not sold, but that treacherous old nanny embezzled the silver and then dragged him to the deep woods to be beaten to death and buried. But passing by, Wei Sa from Wei’an Royal Mansion will save him.

“Sold off?” Su Baiyue responded coolly, seemingly unconcerned about the horse servant.

However, Jing Wen seemed particularly concerned about the horse servant, clearly unable to escape the male lead’s unwitting charm offensive. “Mistress, I heard it wasn’t a sale, but rather, he was taken to the mountains and beaten to death with sticks.”

Yo ho, such informed news, little maid.

Su Baiyue fluttered her eyelids, continuing coldly, “Hmm.”

Seeing that Su Baiyue showed no reaction, Jing Wen’s eyes reddened as she suddenly understood. Mistress really didn’t care about that little horse servant.

After all, how could there be any connection between someone so high above and someone as lowly as mud?

Half a month ago, Jing Wen accidentally overheard Princess Weinan and the old nanny’s conversation in the inner chamber, learning that her own Mistress had promised to marry the horse servant. But how could Princess Weinan allow such a laughable marriage to proceed? She immediately colluded with the old nanny to dispose of the horse servant.

Without much thought, Jing Wen went to inform Lu Gan, who was waiting outside.

Lu Gan didn’t believe her, refused to leave, and even while being beaten unconscious in the deep mountain woods, he still thought that if Su Baiyue knew of his plight, she would surely come to save him.

Unfortunately, Lu Gan did not wait for his beloved Bai Yue Guang.

Passing by, Wei Sa rescued Lu Gan, carefully tended to him, and saved his life.

“Brother Lu, luckily those servants thought you were dead and were too lazy to bury you; otherwise, not even the greatest immortals could have saved you.”

Lu Gan sat calmly in the carriage, staring blankly outside.

Wei Sa followed Lu Gan’s gaze, only to see a luxurious carriage passing by, its fragrance cold and rich. Judging by such a display, the person inside must be Mistress Ling Yun.

“Brother Lu, if you ask me, that Mistress Ling Yun is nothing but a femme fatale,” Wei Sa gently advised Lu Gan, not daring to say outright that such a swan was out of reach for ordinary folks like them, so he opted for a very tactful tone.

Who knew that Lu Gan would suddenly turn his head, his dark eyes glaring at Wei Sa like a ferocious wild dog.

“Alright, alright, I won’t say it, I dare not say any more,” Wei Sa surrendered, making a gesture of giving up.

Tsk, tsk, tsk, Lu Gan, with his unyielding integrity, was utterly enchanted by Mistress Ling Yun, to the point where he couldn’t even tolerate a hint of slander against her.

“Hey, Brother Lu, where are you going?”

Naturally, Lu Gan was off to see Su Baiyue.

And Su Baiyue, persuaded by Jing Wen, had stepped out precisely to give Lu Gan a chance to see her.

Her final drastic measure came just at the right time.

In the quiet bookstore, Su Baiyue leisurely flipped through a book in front of her, while Jing Wen nervously glanced around, a look of anxiety on her face.

“Mistress, do you really dislike that horse servant?” Jing Wen asked cautiously.

Su Baiyue slowly recited a well-rehearsed internal script, “I’ve long known about what my mother has done. Mother has always been softhearted, and that nanny is quite competent. A mere horse servant overstepping his bounds is not worth mourning. To think he saved my life and then dared to aspire to marry me! Burying him in the wilderness was actually letting him off easy.”

Her lips, as pretty as dangling cherry blossoms, spoke each sentence sharply, piercingly. Hidden nearby, Lu Gan felt as if his heart was being squeezed, and even breathing hurt.

Jing Wen paused for a moment, then forced a smile, “Of course, the man who could marry Mistress must indeed be a hero of this age. The Crown Prince, once he ascends the throne and rules the world, only such a man is worthy of Mistress.”

Su Baiyue turned a page with her delicate, fair fingers, studying it intently but indeed not recognizing a single character on it.

“Let’s go back, don’t make mother worry.”

With her task complete, Su Baiyue felt relieved.

She was almost ready to log off, truly delightful.

“Yes,” Jing Wen helped Su Baiyue step out of the bookstore.

The beautiful silhouette vanished around the corner of the stairs, and Jing Wen turned with a worried look.

Lu Gan stepped out from the shadows, his usually expressionless face now terribly somber.

He paused, walked to where Su Baiyue had stood, and picked up the book that still seemed to carry a trace of her scent, then suddenly laughed.

She had held the book upside down.

…

In the past six months, Su Baiyue had been quite content.

Since the remaining plot involved the male lead reaching the pinnacle of life on his own and coming back to face her when she was already supposed to be dead, it didn’t require much effort from her.

However, Su Baiyue had never expected that the script, which should have been smooth sailing from here on out, would suddenly take a drastic turn.

Weinan, the stronghold of the Weinan Royal Mansion, had run into trouble.

In previous years, Liu Chen had gone to war against foreign tribes on behalf of the royal family, with all expenses and manpower provided by Weinan. Even upon their victorious return, the royal family was stingy, granting him titles like “Great General of Building Might” but no real compensation.

Weinan was not a wealthy place to begin with. After years of costly wars, it was further impoverished when the Xingyuan King took advantage of Liu Chen’s absence at war to annex the cinnabar mines that were crucial to Weinan’s economy, turning the moderately wealthy region into a destitute backwater.

Weinan’s appeal to the royal family was met with indifference because of the fear of Xingyuan King’s military power. They procrastinated for three days, which almost caused the King of Weinan to die of frustration.

If it had only been this incident, it might have been bearable. However, at this critical moment, Liu Chen, who should have been victorious, made the strategic mistake of pursuing a defeated foe too far and was captured by the King of Hejian, who used this to threaten the royal family to withdraw their troops.

The royal family naturally refused to comply. Sacrificing a small figure like Liu Chen for a major victory could help suppress other restless princes.

“The royal family is really too much!” Princess Weinan wept with anger, “Our Chen’er has made so many contributions, and now they just turn their backs on us, treating us as if we were nothing!”

“And about that incident where Ling’er encountered bandits on the road, I had people investigate and found out that those bandits had ties to Xingyuan’s house. One of them was even the male pet of Mistress Yang Shi!”

Princess Weinan grew more and more agitated, her whole body trembling uncontrollably.

Su Baiyue stood behind a screen, biting her finger in secret.

Where did things go wrong?

Wasn’t the original plot supposed to have the male lead rescue his surrounded brother, turning him into another faithful follower of the male lead? How did he end up captured? And Xingyuan’s seizure of Weinan’s cinnabar mines—wasn’t that supposed to be a gift from her foolish brother to the male lead after learning of the wrongs done to him by Princess Weinan and Mistress Ling Yun? How did it end up in Xingyuan’s hands?

As Su Baiyue puzzled over the tangled plot, a bombshell dropped from outside.

The Empress had sent someone to call off her engagement, and with lightning speed, she arranged for the Crown Prince to be betrothed to Mistress Yang Shi.

The Crown Prince was unwilling, not wanting to marry such a promiscuous woman. He even stepped one foot over the railing to threaten his mother, but the Empress coldly laughed, “Has the Crown Prince forgotten? The Emperor has many sons; without you, there are countless other princes to take the throne.”

The Empress, who had given the Emperor five sons, did not take the Crown Prince’s threats seriously at all.

Knowing he had no way out, the Crown Prince painfully withdrew his half-stepped foot.

Meanwhile, Su Baiyue sat in her room, holding acidic poetry written by the Crown Prince in one hand and the rushed marriage arrangements from the Hebei battlefield in the other, her head about to explode.

Lu Gan had actually sent her a marriage proposal?

No, not just a proposal, but also a letter. The gist was: if you sign this marriage contract, he will immediately have his lackey Wei Sa dispatch troops to rescue her foolish brother.

Su Baiyue found herself in a dilemma.

She was supposed to quietly wait to log off, but the male lead just wouldn’t let her go, forcing a marriage on her!

Was it because the things she said in the bookstore weren’t harsh enough?

No, Su Baiyue firmly believed, it must be because she played her part too venomously, pushing the male lead to act even more perversely, seeking revenge irrespective of the plot.

Oh dear, she was just a small civil servant doing her job, and she was innocent!