Chapter 144: Bottom Line
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“You hit me… You actually hit me? You hit me for her?” Princess Funing couldn’t believe it, covering her face and bursting into tears, glaring at Mingzhu with resentment, crying out loudly, “You’re despicable! Both of you! Just wait and see! I’ll tell mother!” After speaking, she ran off crying.
Now she had another charge against her, making her mother-in-law unhappy. Mingzhu pursed her lips and glanced at Yuwen Chu, pretending, “Your Highness shouldn’t have hit her.”
Yuwen Chu looked down at the hand that had just struck Princess Funing, his expression indifferent. “Is that what you really think?”
Mingzhu felt a sense of frustration that she couldn’t lie to him, so she didn’t say anything. “I know what I should do. Who can say that what they think and what they do are always the same? Is Your Highness the same?”
“If you know what you should do, that’s enough. Don’t intentionally provoke her in the future. She’s not as smart as you.” Yuwen Chu looked at her, neither pleased nor angry, speaking calmly as if it were a usual conversation between husband and wife. “Of course, I hope that Mother and Sister will both like you. But if they really don’t, it doesn’t matter. I’ll take care of you and protect you. But you shouldn’t deliberately provoke them.”
Mingzhu was displeased. “What if they provoke me? Should I just endure it quietly? No one dares to insult me like Funing did. For the sake of you and Royal Mother, I didn’t argue with her. What more do you want?”
“Royal Mother won’t provoke you. As for Funing, you’ve seen it. As long as you don’t provoke her, I’ll handle her.” Yuwen Chu walked quickly ahead, wanting to quickly end this conversation.
Not happy? Even though you scolded Funing, you still feel sorry and unhappy, right? Mingzhu quickly caught up with him, acting coquettish and silly, saying, “I didn’t provoke her. It’s just that she doesn’t like me. She always thinks I’m not as good as her Second Sister Jiang and keeps bullying me.”
Yuwen Chu acted as if he hadn’t heard her, just continuing to walk briskly.
Stingy. Mingzhu smiled and kept up with his pace, then shamelessly linked her arm with his, whispering, “Wait for me, I can’t keep up with you.”
Yuwen Chu ignored her, so she cooed, “It hurts.”
Yuwen Chu indeed stopped, and Mingzhu couldn’t help but feel delighted. It seemed that he wasn’t completely unmoved by her. But she saw Yuwen Chu looking at her with a helpless expression. “Is this okay?”
Mingzhu innocently looked into his eyes and said, “Your Highness, you don’t like me holding onto you, then you should have said so earlier. Before, when you held my hand in front of so many people, I thought you liked it.” As she spoke, she seemed reluctant, releasing his arm and standing two feet away from him.
Clearly, she didn’t like them showing affection in public, but she had to make it sound like it was his fault. Yuwen Chu’s expression darkened. “Don’t you really understand?”
Being a wise person, Mingzhu immediately compromised without dignity, saying, “It really hurts.” It wasn’t entirely fake; she already had a bad impression of such intimacy, but now she had to endure it, turning the slight pain into a tenfold one.
Yuwen Chu turned his face away, took a deep breath, and remained silent for a while before reaching out to her. “Come here.”
Mingzhu happily leaned over and affectionately held his hand. “Your Highness, you’re really good to me. I originally wanted to get along with Funing, but she keeps mentioning Second Sister Jiang, so I can’t. I’m jealous.”
Pretending as if it were real, and still jealous. Yuwen Chu smiled faintly, lowered his eyes and held her hand, silently walking forward. It wasn’t until they were close to the palace where Imperial Consort Min resided that he let go of her hand and whispered, “You don’t need to test my limits. As long as you always remember that I am your husband, remember that we share honor and disgrace, life and death together, then, even if I indulge you a little more, it doesn’t matter.”
Mingzhu blinked innocently. “Of course, I remember Your Highness is my husband, besides, you are already my husband.”
Yuwen Chu glanced back, lifted her chin, forcing her to meet his gaze, and said in a deep voice, “That’s good. Whether you believe it or not, I really want to live a good life with you.”
Mingzhu disliked his condescending attitude, forcefully pushed away his hand, and smiled brightly, “Look at what Your Highness is saying. Am I not marrying you to live a good life with you? Whether you believe it or not, I sincerely want to live a good life with you.” With that, she didn’t even look at him, gracefully walked into the room like a butterfly, and greeted the palace attendants with a smile, “Quickly inform the Empress Dowager, His Highness and I are here to pay respects to her.”
Before the attendants could relay the message, the sound of Funing’s crying came from inside, “Get her out! Fox! Shameless…” The rest of her words were muffled, presumably stopped by Imperial Consort Min.
Mingzhu remained unchanged, pretending not to hear. She didn’t regret treating Funing like this because she knew Funing would never like her or sympathize with her.
When Mingzhu entered the hall, she didn’t see Princess Funing’s figure. She pretended as if nothing had happened and followed behind Yuwen Chu to pay respects to Imperial Consort Min, serving tea and sweetly calling her “royal mother.”
Imperial Consort Min smiled kindly and happily, not at all affected by Princess Funing’s crying and fussing. After drinking tea, she handed Mingzhu a thick red envelope and said with a smile, “I have a wonderful son and daughter-in-law, which makes me very happy.”
Mingzhu graciously expressed her thanks with a smile. She remembered that Imperial Consort Min had given Jiang Shanshan a pair of exquisite jade bracelets in the past, and Jiang Shanshan had never taken them off since then, carrying them everywhere to show their good relationship. Now that she had replaced Jiang Shanshan as the Ying Wangfei, was she only getting gold and silver? In the palace, noblewomen usually only rewarded others with gold and silver in three situations: when the recipient truly needed it, when gold and silver were just an addition to other gifts, or when they were too lazy to think and simply gave gold and silver as a gift. So, in her current situation, which category did she belong to?
Imperial Consort Min said, “You’ve been tired for several days, so there’s no need to be formal here. Please, everyone, sit down.”
If she’s already disliked, then sitting would be meaningless, but in the early days of marriage, it’s still necessary to maintain appearances. Mingzhu was about to decline, but then heard Yuwen Chu say, “Royal Mother doesn’t like formalities. If she asks you to sit, then you should sit. We are family.” With that, he indeed took a seat first and gestured for Mingzhu to sit beside him.
Mingzhu stopped refusing and, after thanking Imperial Consort Min, took her seat. However, Yuwen Chu winked at her, and when she didn’t respond, he blinked his eyes forcefully. Mingzhu didn’t understand what he meant. It was obvious that both he and his mother wanted her to sit. If she didn’t sit, it would seem hypocritical, as if they weren’t family. But now that she was going to sit, he wanted her not to? She decided to ignore it, pretending not to see. Unexpectedly, Yuwen Chu directly pinched her leg discreetly under the cover of his sleeve, with a face full of frustration.
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