Chapter 113: Kissing Xiao Youlan into Satisfaction

Wei Nian had served in the Eastern Palace for many years and had never made any mistakes, let alone low-level ones.

Yet, precisely because he had accidentally stumbled upon the Crown Prince and Nan Xueyin in the midst of an intense... intense kiss on the couch today, his gaze kept drifting toward Xiao Youlan's red and swollen lips when he later reported on important matters, to the point that he couldn't even speak clearly.

Fortunately, he remained a professional Grand Secretary of the Eastern Palace; after taking several deep breaths in succession, he finally finished reporting the matter in full detail.

Emerging from the study, Wei Nian was heavy-hearted and, in a moment of carelessness, bumped into Shu Yu.

"Grand Secretary Wei, you have something on your mind?" Shu Yu noticed something was wrong with him immediately.

Wei Nian first turned his head to glance at the study.

"What's wrong? Is it about His Highness the Crown Prince?" Shu Yu asked curiously.

Wei Nian didn't speak; he grabbed Shu Yu's arm and pulled him to the side, moving far enough away from the study so that his voice wouldn't be heard by the Crown Prince.

He took a deep breath and said, "Personally, I feel that His Highness the Crown Prince has been bewitched by that Miss Nan, and this... I fear it is not a good thing."

Shu Yu was puzzled: "Not a good thing? If it weren't for Miss Nan at the birthday banquet, His Highness would probably still be lying in bed recovering from his injuries right now!"

Hearing this, Wei Nian choked.

"But..."

"You are worried about His Highness the Crown Prince, aren't you?" Shu Yu asked.

Wei Nian sighed, "It is not easy for His Highness to sit in this position. In my view, His Highness is the only one among all the princes worthy of the position of the Eastern Palace and the one who will ascend the throne as Emperor in the future. Now that he is so obsessed with this Miss Nan, it is as if he has been struck by a Love Gu..."

Shu Yu tilted his head, "But, although His Highness likes Miss Nan, he has not neglected his official duties because of romantic love. I even feel that in the past, the Crown Prince was always cold and detached, lacking human warmth, and didn't smile a few times all year round. But now that he has Miss Nan, he is always in a good mood every day, more like a living person."

This also made a fair amount of sense.

It was just that Wei Nian was worried about other things, "This Miss Nan... after all, her background is unknown. I worry that she is still thinking of her former master and came to the Eastern Palace only to spy on the Crown Prince's secrets. You also know that Prince Duan and the Jing Prince are both ambitious and want to find out the Crown Prince's weaknesses to seize the position of Crown Prince."

"Is that what you're talking about? Then there's even less need to worry."

Shu Yu grinned and opened his right hand toward him.

Resting in the palm of Shu Yu's hand was a small bamboo-woven cage, from the gaps of which two long, thin antennae poked out, still swaying slowly.

Wei Nian took half a beat to react, "What is inside is..."

"Bugs! It took me a long time to find them. There are cockroaches, which His Highness fears the most, as well as centipedes and such."

"What are you doing!" In truth, Wei Nian was also afraid, and his face turned somewhat pale.

Shu Yu chuckled: "Actually, Miss Nan was the one who asked me to find these."

"What?!" Wei Nian was greatly shocked, "She really has ulterior motives... And you! Why did you listen to her and bring so many bugs?"

Shu Yu shrugged his shoulders, "For one thing, I also really wanted to know what Miss Nan's true attitude toward the Crown Prince is; these bugs can serve as a test. For another, compared to the Crown Prince's habit of not being able to remember people's faces, fearing bugs is a minor matter—at most, he'd be scared pale and hurriedly hide on a chair."

He weighed the small cage in his hand, "On the other hand, if he truly went through this, the Crown Prince would surely be able to see clearly Miss Nan's hostility and disgust toward him, and could gradually let her go in the future—if someone knows he fears bugs because of his tragic past and still deliberately uses them to scare him, such a person is not worth liking in the first place."

Wei Nian couldn't help but look at him again.

Although most of the time, Shu Yu gave the impression of being careless and foolish, in some matters, he possessed a wisdom unique to him.

"And as it stands, Miss Nan did not use them to scare the Crown Prince. Look, Grand Secretary Wei, these bugs are untouched and were left outside the study."

Wei Nian looked at the small cage, his gaze deepening slightly.

"So you see," Shu Yu said with a smile, "Miss Nan is not as bad as you think. Grand Secretary Wei, our Crown Prince is charming; Miss Nan really has no way not to fall in love with him."

He then gently covered his heart, "If I were a woman, I would certainly fall in love with the Crown Prince and never forget him for the rest of my life."

Wei Nian rolled his eyes at him, "Stop being disgusting."

Shu Yu laughed and patted his shoulder, "In short, don't worry too much. Today's event is enough to prove that Miss Nan is not bad. She might not have realized it herself, and she might not admit it, but the fact is, she likes the Crown Prince."

Wei Nian sighed deeply: "Even so, Miss Nan is merely a commoner, or perhaps not even a commoner—she is an Assassin and a Hidden Guard. With such an identity, how could she become the Crown Princess? His Highness might not care, but the Emperor and the Empress Dowager care, and the civil and military officials will certainly not agree. Those old ministers of two or three reigns, those upright scholars—if they heard of this, I fear they would threaten to die in the court, kowtowing until their heads bled, rather than allow His Highness to marry her."

Shu Yu blinked his eyes: "I hadn't thought of that."

He then sighed along with him, "It seems that in the future, the two of them still have a long road ahead."

That intense kiss today must have truly made Xiao Youlan submissive and satisfied; at lunch, Xiao Youlan was all smiles, picking food for Nan Xueyin and adding rice to her bowl, even more attentive than usual.

After finishing the meal, he immediately had Feihong lead Nan Xueyin to see Wu Zhui.

This time, Wu Zhui had not yet had time to take his medicine and had not fallen asleep.

Nan Xueyin finally saw Wu Zhui once again.

Come to think of it, the two of them had likely known each other for seven or eight years.

This was a sufficiently long time; they went from being strangers at the beginning, to not seeing eye-to-eye, to becoming familiar with each other, and finally fighting side-by-side, sharing life and death.

The bond between the two could no longer be explained in a few words.

Wu Zhui looked toward Nan Xueyin, his eye sockets warming slightly.

After a long separation, they met again, looking at each other in silence.

After a long while, Nan Xueyin spoke: "You are really fat now."

With that one sentence, all the outpouring of true emotion vanished into thin air.

That tear of Wu Zhui's was forcibly held back.

He blushed slightly: "I... I... I got fat from taking medicine..."

"Oh."

Nan Xueyin appeared not to care much.

She had long known that Wu Zhui was fat and knew why he was fat; she said this deliberately to spoil the mood, just because she didn't want to make the scene too sentimental.

She had never liked sentimentality; it was too pretentious.

Nan Xueyin turned her head and said to Feihong: "You go out; I want to speak with him alone."

Feihong said "Ah."

"Go further away, don't eavesdrop on our conversation," Nan Xueyin added.

Feihong said "Ah" again.

After they had all gone out, Nan Xueyin's expression instantly turned solemn.

Wu Zhui watched, realizing that something important and urgent must have happened.

"Miss Nan..."

Wu Zhui spoke tentatively, yet before he could finish his sentence, Nan Xueyin said in a low voice, "You and I, let us leave the Duan Prince Mansion together."