"If you have the guts, say it out loud." Xiao Yi's words were laced with ice.
Li Jin shook his head. "Your Highness, you misheard. I didn't say anything."
Xiao Yi coldly shifted his gaze away.
He had heard exactly what Li Jin said just now.
Duoduo isn't even your biological daughter!
So what if she isn't biological?
Some biological children couldn't even compare to this non-biological one!
Seeing that Xiao Yi wasn't angry and was still looking down at the chessboard, Li Jin assumed his words had gone unheard.
Li Jin gently tapped on the carriage. "Shitou, you're not asleep, are you?"
"No, Sir!" Shitou's voice came from outside.
"Stay alert and remember what I told you!" Li Jin instructed uneasily.
"Yes." Shitou's voice sounded wide awake.
Xiao Yi's hand paused.
Before they set off, Li Jin had insisted that Shitou sit at the front of their carriage and drive alongside the coachman.
Was this Li Jin trying to train Shitou?
Xiao Yi put down his chess piece and scoffed inwardly.
Training Shitou to be a coachman?
The Prince's estate didn't lack coachmen! Still, learning to drive a carriage was a way to make a living.
Seeing Xiao Yi playing chess in silence, Li Jin felt a bit bored.
"Your Highness, aren't you sleepy?"
Xiao Yi didn't even bat an eyelid. Li Jin scratched the back of his head.
"Your Highness, it's not even dawn yet. Can we rest a little longer?"
Li Jin had wanted to sleep a long time ago, but Xiao Yi was the Prince. If Xiao Yi didn't sleep, it wasn't appropriate for him to lie down, right?
Having his train of thought interrupted time and time again, Xiao Yi lost his interest in playing chess.
He began putting the pieces back into the box. Seeing this, Li Jin hurriedly helped him.
After clearing the board, Xiao Yi lay down.
Li Jin breathed a sigh of relief and lay down on the other side.
In the dark night, the sounds of horse hooves and carriage wheels were exceptionally distinct.
Soon, the carriage convoy exited the gates of Xianyang City and grandly arrived at a fork in the road.
A few carriages from the convoy headed in another direction.
Meanwhile, the remaining carriages went in the opposite direction of the previous group.
After traveling for a few hundred miles, Shitou suddenly knocked on the carriage from outside.
"Sir, there is someone behind us."
Li Jin had already fallen asleep, but upon hearing Shitou's voice, his eyes snapped open.
Li Jin sat up and looked at Xiao Yi beside him.
He met a pair of probing eyes that showed not a hint of sleepiness.
"Sir?" Shitou knocked on the carriage again.
Li Jin hurriedly leaned close to the carriage door. "Can you hear clearly how many people there are?"
"I'll try." After Shitou said this, he went silent.
After quite a while, Shitou's voice rang out again.
"They are riding horses, and the hooves are wrapped in soft cloth. I'm not entirely sure, but I roughly hear about a dozen people."
Li Jin looked at Xiao Yi, who then called out to the outside.
"Yun Xiao, take some men and deal with it." Xiao Yi added, "Be careful, leave no survivors."
"Yes."
Li Jin looked at Xiao Yi in surprise. "You were prepared for this?"
Xiao Yi closed his eyes. "No."
Looking at the insincere Xiao Yi, Li Jin smiled.
"Shitou, let me know if anything else happens."
"Okay."
Li Jin lay back down to rest.
The sky outside wasn't even bright yet, not to mention that this journey would take more than just a day or two.
They needed to rest when they could; only then would they have the energy to keep going.
Before Li Jin could fall asleep, he heard the sound of horse hooves. He jolted and was just about to sit up.
Suddenly, he realized that Shitou hadn't given a warning, which meant it was their own people.
Sure enough, the hoofbeats drew near, and Yun Xiao's voice rang out.
"Your Highness, it's done."
"Mhm!" Xiao Yi merely grunted.
With the carriage swaying back and forth, Li Jin finally fell asleep.
By the time he woke up again, it was already broad daylight.
As soon as he opened his eyes, he saw Xiao Yi holding something and reading.
Li Jin felt a bit embarrassed and sat up.
"Your Highness, you woke up so early?" Li Jin tidied his bedding to one side.
Xiao Yi didn't even lift his head. "I woke up, so I got up."
Xiao Yi would get up at the crack of dawn every day to exercise. Except for the two years when he was paralyzed in bed, he had never broken this habit.
Even if he had only dozed for a couple of hours in the morning, Xiao Yi still woke up on time.
Li Jin lifted the carriage curtain and saw trees everywhere outside. They were traveling on a small path through a forest.
Beyond the woods were farmlands and the occasional farmhouse.
The scenery of late spring was like a beautiful painting no matter where one looked.
Looking at the scenery outside, Li Jin felt deeply moved.
With such beautiful lands, it was no wonder the princes fought tooth and nail to claim them.
Thinking of this, Li Jin turned back to glance at the silent Xiao Yi.
He felt that if he stayed in the same carriage as Xiao Yi any longer, he would die of suffocation.
"Your Highness, how about we switch carriages after we eat?"
Xiao Yi lifted his eyelids, his gaze landing on Li Jin like a searchlight.
Li Jin hurriedly explained.
"The scenery along the way is so beautiful, I'd like to give the Princess a lesson."
"Duoduo can come over here." After saying that, Xiao Yi lowered his head again.
"I was just worried about disturbing Your Highness." Li Jin felt a bit guilty.
He always felt that under Xiao Yi's stare, his inner thoughts had nowhere to hide.
Xiao Yi lifted his eyelids and glanced at Li Jin.
"You've become very noisy."
Li Jin couldn't help but laugh. Was he being despised?
He took out a book and started reading as well.
The carriage was quiet, making the sound of Duoduo's laughter from the carriage behind them very clear.
"Mother, look, that bird is actually blue!"
"Wow! The sky is so high and blue. Why does it look different from what we saw in the estate?"
"Aunt Xu, what kind of bird is that in the sky? It's so big!"
"You said it's an eagle? So that's what an eagle is?"
It was as if Duoduo had suddenly opened the door to a whole new world, chattering non-stop.
Compared to the coldness of the front carriage, the carriage in the back was very lively.
Xu Jinxin cracked melon seeds, smiling as she watched Duoduo and Yingniang squeeze by the window to look at the scenery outside.
Princess Consort Pingyang held her embroidery, occasionally adding a stitch.
"Sister, look, there are ducks over there!" Duoduo pointed out the window, and Yingniang curiously stretched her neck to look.
Xu Jinxin leaned over to take a look. "Those are geese, not ducks."
Duoduo turned her head in curiosity.
"Geese? Like the geese from the poem 'bending their necks to sing to the sky'?"
Xu Jinxin nodded. "Yes, a goose's neck is longer than a duck's, and its body is larger too."
Duoduo glanced out the window. "Aunt Xu, it's true! They are bigger than the ducks I've seen!"
The farmlands were soon blocked by tree trunks. The carriage was heading upwards, likely about to cross a mountain.
"Sit tight."
Xu Jinxin called the two children back.
Duoduo sat properly, still wanting more. "No wonder the books say that reading ten thousand books is not as good as traveling ten thousand miles."
"If I were a boy, I would definitely travel across all the rivers and mountains in the world."
Xu Jinxin burst out laughing.
