The young Royal Eunuch waited for an answer without raising his head; the Fifth Princess, Yang Yu Lian, was still a Princess despite all the rumours, after all. But minutes passed and he heard no reply. Hence, as he repressed all the ill sentiment he might have, he opened his mouth again to repeat his words as though the Fifth Princess had just not heard him, “Her Highness, the Fifth Princess, this loyal servant has come to…”

CRASH! His sentence was cut by the heavy sound of something breaking into pieces. He slowly looked up to the front as he maintained his bow and saw the pieces of broken jade on the floor right before the bed.

He was a bit shocked and his response to the event was slow. He only reacted when a small white foot and a falling thin black robe entered his field of sight—he got goose-bumps.

The small white foot kept going down and before its toes touched the floor a step beside the broken jade, he quickly retrieved his eyes, looking down.

Yang Yu Lian was getting up to sit at the edge of the bed after having broken the jade bowl; she had planned to take her sweet time to reply as she didn't want to spoil her mood because she had been indulging herself while eating grapes but it got spoiled anyway, she had found there were no more grapes and the same words she had heard before had begun to be repeated again.

When she sat completely, her left leg crossed over her right leg and she supported herself back with both of her arms. She swept her dark eyes through the people and saw a bowing young Royal Eunuch and fourteen palace maids behind him; the former was clad in light blue silk robes mean for the personal eunuchs of the King and the latter were clad in pink and white robes mean for the first-rank palace maids of the Princesses.

Quite the entourage, she thought before focusing her gaze in the young Imperial Eunuch and said, “All right.”

Her voice was colder than usual. In fact, there were no charming tones. It wasn’t something to be surprised about, it was well known within some high-ranking servants of the Royal Palace that the Fifth Princess was cold and sometimes even cynic; though, the ones who had ever come to see her interacting with the Crown Prince said she was bright, warm and a bit spoiled. But nothing of that mattered to the young Royal Eunuch, he was beyond the line of happiness as her reply had sounded sweet in his ears—there weren’t going to be difficulties this time.

“But…” However, before everything were pure honey, Yang Yu Lian opened her crimson lips again, “Why this Princess?

“Aren’t there more adequate Princesses than this Princess?”

Her tone was so cold that the young Royal Eunuch felt a chill run down his spine, This… how?

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Nonetheless, he didn't dare to look up to try and find out some reasoning behind his shiver, answering with a shaky voice he didn't know where it came from, "R-replying back to Her Highn-ness… it's not that…" he was going to say some sugar-coated words but he stopped after feeling his feet going cold, saying instead, "Her Highness, Princess Wei Yue, was meant to carry His Majesty wishes…”

As I thought, which means… Yang Yu Lian’s dark eyes radiated a gelid light as she thought while listening.

“… However, when the command was passed down to Her Highness, Her Highness took her life.”

“…”

That is unexpected. Then… No… Although she didn’t feel he was lying to her, she still drifted her cutting sight from the bowing young Royal Eunuch to Hua Su, I first need to be sure.

Hua Su, who was caught in her thoughts, felt a gaze on her. She turned around to the origin and met with her master's eyes.

Understanding her meaning, she acknowledged the order and left without the King’s entourage noticing it.

As Yang Yu Lian took her eyes back, she saw Hua Si looking at the young Royal Eunuch with furrowed brows; her angry thoughts were evident and she seemed to be struggling to not say anything. Yang Yu Lian found her reaction funny that the coldness in her dark eyes reduced to the usual amount of coldness and her crimson lips slightly curved upwards.

Her stare on Hua Si didn’t last long enough for her to take notice or perhaps Hua Si was too caught in her suppressed wrath as to not notice anything else.

Although it had passed just a couple of seconds since he had given his reply, the young Royal Eunuch could feel drops of sweat falling down his face; he didn’t know why he felt so in danger but he could sense his life hanging from a thin thread. So when he heard in the following second the positive words of the Fifth Princess again, with the boundless relief he felt, he thought of falling to his knees and gave his thanks—it didn’t happen, of course.

“All right, you may proceed.” Yang Yu Lian voice was back to her balanced cold but charming tones and her dark eyes were also the usual cold and nonchalant ones when she replied. Too perceptive… she thought as she saw the almost collapsing young Royal Eunuch who had yet to utter a word back in reply.

It was taking a while for the young Royal Eunuch to regain himself because of the unexpected ups and striking downs he had had in a short amount of time. Only the breathing of the people inside and the chirp of birds in the outside could be heard.

Yang Yu Lian wasn't in a hurry; his reaction and this situation had become some kind of amusement for her, though her facial expression didn't show anything of it. Hua Si was the opposite, she was gnashing her teeth as she swallowed the words that were in the tip of her tongue; it seemed that this joke of a eunuch not only came to say nonsense, he was also audacious enough as to make her master wait.

Five complete minutes passed, and he was finally able to collect his emotions, saying without raising his head, “Blessings and fortune to Her Highness.” He found those words to thank her before turning back to face the fourteen pink-robed maids, “Remember to have all ready in time.”

“Aye,” the palace maids answered him with a deep bow before he turned back again to the Fifth Princess to give her a reverence to dismiss himself; he never raised his eyes to look at her.