The ceremony was not due to start for another half hour. But Min Li, contrary to her preconceived notions about how she would feel about the ceremony, was having a marvellous time.

Food was getting sent to her like nobody's business. The crown prince had been sending her all sorts of snacks. He was happy enough with what she had done that he seemed to have deemed them both friends.

At first Min Li was hesitant to try any of the food in case any remnants of the crown prince’s anger remained. But after she had tried the second batch of snacks, he had sent her, it had tasted so glorious that she decided to get stuck in, consequences be damned.

Min Li was now on her seventh batch of snacks and the appearance of snacks were showing no sign of slowing down. The snacks had gone so fast as she kept on handing them over to Lily, both because she loved her and also because she needed someone who could test the food for her.

But Fenhua had frowned when a few other things had found themselves at Min Li’s table.

Drinks and presents of different kinds were also getting sent to her table.

Fenhua had leaned over to Min Li and whispered that he hadn’t sent them.

At first, Min Li was worried that one of the crown prince’s fans had sent the things to her. She thought that it may have been someone that wanted to marry Fenhua like Jess, or someone who had seen the way the prince had gotten up from the table under the pavilion guts bubbling when she had cooked for him and wanted to take revenge to restore the crown prince’s honour.

But the more she saw the gifts appearing on the table, the more she had decided that there was nothing wrong with living a little bit on the edge.

Before it was confiscated by Fenhua, to Lily’s alarm Min Li had tried one bottle of the alcohol delivered to her and she had found that it both tasted good and slipped down her throat easily.

The gifts were more of the same story. Min Li liked the look of the various pieces of jade and other types of jewellery she had received.

They were beautiful and she was sure she had clothes that would go well with the lot of them. When Min Li had mentioned this to Fenhua he had simply scoffed and commented that she was ‘easily pleased’, before confiscating them anyway.

But the more he confiscated the presents, the more such things turned up.

Min Li had looked towards the thrones of the king and the queen at one point and was surprised to find that the queen was smiling broadly at her.

Min Li had thought that it would have taken a little bit more convincing of the queen that kneeling before the crown prince was the right thing to do. But no, she honestly looked happier than she had ever before leaving Min Li to wonder whether that was just because of her usual sunny countenance and that the two of them had the same taste in beautiful things, or whether the woman was plotting and planning something.

There was only ten minutes left before the starting of the ceremony when somebody who Min Li was familiar with approached her at her table.

Kit, the son of the head of the South of Xilin, who the crown prince preferred to call Kit the bovine, boorish brute looked at Min Li with a lopsided smirk.

He turned around for a second and bowed down to king who didn’t look too pleased about it and the queen whose face made up for all the pleasure her husband’s face lacked.

The bovine, boorish brute again turned his attention to Min Li and again executed his lopsided smirk. It seemed to be the way his face was set. He couldn’t do much else with his facial expressions and he didn’t seem to mind his lack of facial control.

“I see that you are enjoying all the drinks and presents that I have gifted to you,” the man croaked.

Min Li was enjoying them, that much was sure, so she nodded at him. But she didn’t like him saying that she was enjoying the gifts with as much certainty as he had. Such was unnerving for a real lady who had to keep her cards close to her chest at all times.

The crown prince seemed to hold the same sentiment, he huffed, “She wasn’t enjoying them, they are over here.”

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He pointed to the space next to his feet and lightly kicked all the things that Min Li had received to the other side.

Now, Min Li was glad that Fenhua had helped her keep some of her dignity intact. However, she wasn’t so glad that he had kicked her presents. She wanted to keep them, she was a good citizen of the world, and it seemed a shame and a waste to not use such things in the way that they had been intended.

“Your highness, I didn’t see you there.” Kit quickly committed a bow in Fenhua’s direction effectively dismissing him and looked back to Min Li.

Fenhua seemed flabbergasted besides Min Li, and rightly so Min Li thought thinking about it deeply.

It was impossible to have not seen Fenhua when Kit had seen both the king and queen and Min Li. Fenhua was right between them.

The queen spoke up from her place on the throne where she was jovially taking in the scene. She redirected the conversation to where she wanted it, not caring much about the frosty atmosphere between her son and Kit.

“Kit, it is lovely to see you. You have grown so much. You really are everything everyone said you would be. You will be a real asset to the crown prince in years to come.”

The crown prince snorted at that comment, not particularly pleased with what was going on.

Kit seemed undeterred by the noise and answered her royal highness back.

“Your majesty, as always you are as beautiful and lovely as can be. I see,” Kit turned his attention to Min Li, “that your daughter had inherited such qualities from you.”

The queen made a noise that faintly resembled a giggle.

The king snorted. His son, always hot on his heels, followed his dad in the noise.

Min Li paused. She stared Kit up and down and wondered if he knew that she was not related to the queen.

“You do know that the queen, as fantastic as she is, is not by biological mother, don’t you?”

Kit paused.

There was slight panic in his eyes. He waved his hand in dismissal and reassured her with his words. “Of course I know. I have known you for decades now. What I meant was some of the queen’s best qualities must have rubbed off on you since she did raise you.”

“Of course he knew. Don’t be absurd. He is just stating facts. Me and my daughter are both very pretty.”

The queen did not seem to be bothered by anything the man said. It all bounced off her.

Min Li studied the man in front of her.

Kit was a tall man and to many ladies, Min Li was sure that he would be very visually attractive. He was made of lean muscle. The perfect model for any sporting endeavour and he proved that to be right in nearly everything he did.

Min Li studied the crown prince next to her. She wondered whether Fenhua was a bit on edge because of the fight he had today against Kit.

No one could beat Fenhua in a fight in the whole kingdom unless something drastic took place, that’s what Min Li thought. But there was always a chance that something drastic could occur.

Min Li looked at Kit once more. For as long as she had known the guy, he had never been anything but nice to her. But there was just something about him that made her uncomfortable. Maybe it was the way that Fenhua had always described Kit to her. Whether it was his chin always facing the air, the lopsided smile on his face or the frog in his throat causing him to croak out his sentences, Min Li knew not. There was great chance that it was because for nearly all their lives, Kit’s parents had always tried to joke with the royal family about a coming together of the two families by marriage.

As far as Min Li was aware all of Kit’s sisters were married, and his brothers were all extremely troublesome. So, according to Min Li’s astute nature, though she did not have to use it much, the two innocent children that Kit’s parents must have wanted to sacrifice to bring the families together must have been Kit and Min Li.

Kit appeared to have caught that Min Li was staring at him. Min Li had thought that she was being sly but now Kit’s lopsided smile had curled even more turning into a very confident, very lopsided smirk.

The crown prince cleared his throat as forcefully as he could besides Min Li, causing Min Li and Kit to look in his direction.

It seemed that Kit had got the warning to hurry up and leave. It was signed, sealed and delivered.

But the man was not going to go just like that without a fight or a parting statement.

He got even closer to Min Li to where Min Li could see that all his smirking had left fine lines around his mouth, then he picked up Min Li’s hand from where it laid resting on an osmanthus cake on the table, which she was waiting for the perfect time to pop in her mouth when the queen was distracted.

Kit then wiggled Min Li’s hand so that the cake dropped out of it. He was rewarded with a very deep frown from both Min Li and the ever frowning crown prince.

Kit moved Min Li’s hand towards his face, and although Min Li tried fight with all her might she was no match for the power the man could produce with ease. He probably didn’t even know he was facing any resistance as he planted one big, fat, wet, sloppy kiss upon the back of Min Li’s hand.

“Princess, I regret to say that I am going to have to leave you now to your own devices as it is nearly time for the ceremony to start. If you didn’t know I will be competing later and I hope that if no one cheers for me, you cheer for me.”

In her head, Min Li imagined the crown prince to be as purple as a choking pig. It was not without reason that she did so, the man’s snorted so hard watching Kit that she was sure that turning into a pig would be the next step he would take. How common.

Min Li wondered why Fenhua was getting as frustrated as he was. Such a lack of confidence in himself for his upcoming fight is really not becoming, she thought frowning even deeper at the crown prince.

Min Li hadn’t heard people refer to her as a princess in nearly a decade, but she decided then that it did quite suit her. Especially if it came with gifts. She decided that she may have even been able to put up with a Kit or two if she was able to get such treatment every day.