Cui Yunchu turned her eyes to look at Tang Qingwan.
The woman was clearly smiling, but a thin layer of mist had somehow covered her eyes, mocking and desolate.
Her cousin actually knew.
Tang Qingwan suddenly looked over and chuckled softly, "Why are you looking at me with that look? I don't need sympathy."
"No, just a little surprised." Cui Yunchu withdrew her gaze.
"What I was thinking is that even before getting married, you can know the Crown Prince's itinerary like the back of your hand. That's truly remarkable."
Tang Qingwan laughed again behind her hand upon hearing this. "Yunchu, since when did you become so amusing with your words? It makes one feel refreshed."
Cui Yunchu smiled. The two sisters gazed at the grand scenery of the night, and for a moment, neither of them spoke.
After a long while, it was Cui Yunchu who finally broke the silence again. "Does His Highness the Crown Prince have a good relationship with Lord Shen?"
"Just the etiquette between a ruler and his subject, mere superficialities," Tang Qingwan raised her hand, and a maid immediately served fresh tea. "All the officials in the court, princes, and nobles want to be on good terms with him, but winning over this person is no easy task."
"The Shen family is a good ship. If they could join forces with our Tang and Cui families, it would be like adding wings to a tiger for us. It's just a pity..."
It was a pity that the resentment between the two families was deep, and they couldn't possibly walk the same path.
Cui Yunchu twitched the corners of her mouth. "Regarding what happened back then, our two clans were merely following orders, acting as swords in the hands of others. If the Shen family had any backbone, they should have aimed their arrows at the chief culprit, rather than clinging to the powerful and taking it out on us because they couldn't bring down that person."
"Just bullying the weak and fearing the strong." Cui Yunchu lowered her head, casually flicking the handkerchief in her hand.
Suddenly, out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of a tall, slender shadow cast on the ground, seemingly facing her direction.
"..."
It couldn't be that unlucky.
Cui Yunchu's cheeks twitched a few times as she slowly turned her head.
Shen Xiabai's noble and aloof face slowly came into view. His bottomless dark eyes seemed to carry ice blades as he stared at her coldly and heavily.
"..."
What kind of terrible luck did she have?
Cui Yunchu's heart almost stopped beating. She stiffly turned her head back, looking at the slightly rippling lake surface without making a sound.
"Eldest Miss Cui seems to have a lot of opinions about me?"
The man's voice suddenly rang out, even colder than the chill wind on the lake, making Cui Yunchu shiver.
Only then did Tang Qingwan notice Shen Xiabai standing on the deck behind them. She immediately frowned and glanced displeasingly at the maids and Eunuch Zhang on the side.
Why didn't anyone announce his arrival?
Eunuch Zhang was also quite bewildered.
He hadn't heard a sound at all. When did this person appear?
"My younger sister is young and speaks without a filter. Please don't take offense, Lord Shen."
"Is that so?" Shen Xiabai's face was hidden in the dark night, making his emotions indistinguishable. "I see that Eldest Miss Cui is very articulate and clear-headed."
"Thank you for the compliment," Cui Yunchu turned her face away and said.
The atmosphere stagnated for a moment, and it grew colder on the boat deck. Cui Yunchu rubbed her arms, feeling goosebumps rising.
"Miss, His Highness the Crown Prince seems a bit drunk and has requested your presence."
Hearing this, Tang Qingwan could only give Cui Yunchu a look to tell her to be careful, before stepping into the cabin.
"..." At this moment, Cui Yunchu just wanted to shrink her head and roll away from this embarrassingly suffocating place.
Suddenly, footsteps sounded behind her, getting closer and closer.
Shen Xiabai's cold gaze fell on the woman not far away.
The woman had a slender and graceful figure. The exposed half of her neck and earlobes were as white as snow, and the step-shake hairpin in her hair swayed gently with the breeze.
It should have been a very pleasing sight, but this was the same girl who was deceptive, cunning, fierce, seductive, and foul-mouthed.
The Cui family really knew how to raise their children.
Wuwu—
The person leaning on the edge of the boat suddenly let out a whimpering cry. It was low, but filled with immense grievance.
Eunuch Zhang and the maids were all startled.
Shen Xiabai also immediately stopped in his tracks, his brows furrowed tightly.
"Eunuch Zhang, you were right. He is indeed terrifying, even scarier than the Black and White Impermanence who come to claim lives."
Cui Yunchu sobbed.
"..." Eunuch Zhang met Shen Xiabai's gaze blankly, looking as if he was about to cry. "Lord Shen, this old servant..."
Deny it? Wouldn't that mean Eldest Miss Cui was lying, further escalating the conflict?
Not deny it? Just let this huge scapegoat fall squarely on his head?
Eunuch Zhang's face flushed red holding it in. If it were anyone else, he would have just taken the blame, but Lord Shen...
He was someone even the Crown Prince respected. Where would an incomplete person like him get the courage to offend him?
Cui Yunchu lay there, babbling non-stop, without shedding a single tear.
"Even if Lord Shen has a feud with the Tang and Cui families, I am still a girl. As a dignified seven-foot-tall man, how can you make things difficult for a little girl like me? Showing such a lack of gentlemanly grace, aren't you afraid others will call you despicable when word gets out?"
Shen Xiabai was somewhat angered into laughing. "Does Eldest Miss Cui not feel despicable speaking ill of others behind their backs? And when did I ever make things difficult for you?"
Cui Yunchu immediately cried even louder.
Even Tang Qingwan in the cabin was alarmed and hurried out to ask what was wrong.
Cui Yunchu immediately threw herself into Tang Qingwan's arms, complaining tearfully, "Cousin, you don't know. Just now, on the way to find you, Lord Shen made things difficult for me and warned me in every possible way, insisting that I seduced his nephew. Cousin, I'm innocent! I haven't even spoken a few words to his nephew."
"..." Tang Qingwan lowered her eyes to meet Cui Yunchu's tear-stained face, and the arm she used to lightly embrace her slowly withdrew.
She frowned slightly, her eyes clearly showing distrust towards Cui Yunchu.
Could this girl be acting up again?
"..." Cui Yunchu's face darkened. She grabbed Tang Qingwan's arm herself, half-wrapped it around her own waist, and patted it, signaling Tang Qingwan to continue comforting her.
Otherwise, she wouldn't look pitiful.
Tang Qingwan's eyelids twitched. After all, they were family. The Cui family always favored their own over reason.
Ignoring Shen Xiabai's awkward expression, Cui Yunchu continued to accuse, "I'm discussing marriage with Young Master Chen, and his nephew is discussing marriage with the Chen family's daughter. We just happened to cross paths, and yet he says such things about me. He's clearly harboring malicious speculations."
"Besides, there were many girls who brushed past his nephew today. Why didn't he go warn them? He just picked on me because I'm a concubine's daughter and have a soft, weak personality, making me an easy target."
Soft and weak? An easy target?
Shen Xiabai's handsome face was tight, his gaze cold and heavy.
Then who was the one baring her fangs and brandishing her claws on the boat just now?
Since entering officialdom at the age of twenty, he had never seen such an unreasonable, pretentious woman.
No, even among men, such thick-skinned individuals were rare.
Although the Shen family had fallen on hard times, the upbringing passed down for centuries in a noble family was still there. Furthermore, men were always taught to be men of few words, so he naturally couldn't out-talk Cui Yunchu.
After all, she had been acting since childhood; it ran in the family.
"Didn't Eldest Miss Cui already get her payback on the boat just now? Now you're putting on an act to gloss over and distract from what happened earlier, so I won't pursue the matter?"
"..." The importance of having a good brain.
If it were her, she would have started arguing with him long ago.
Cui Yunchu didn't speak, just kept crying, crying so much it was annoying.
"Do you really think the men of the Shen family are as handsome as Pan An? Even if I, Cui Yunchu, remain a spinster for the rest of my life, I will absolutely never marry into your Shen family!"
Who was he looking down on? What wishful thinking.
Her reputation might be bad, but she wasn't some foolish dog incapable of learning its lesson.
After being stabbed through once, why would she eagerly rush up just to let him stab her again?
These words were not an act; Cui Yunchu meant them from the bottom of her heart.
"Hmph," Shen Xiabai's lips curled into a cold sneer. "Rest assured, Eldest Miss Cui, the men of the Shen family have not yet fallen to such a wretched state."
"..." Cui Yunchu's sobbing choked in her throat. She raised her eyes to meet Shen Xiabai's incomparably icy gaze.
Fallen to such a wretched state? What did that mean? Was she someone so utterly unpresentable?
Cui Yunchu held in a breath of anger, her chest tightening until she could hardly breathe.
Shen Xiabai withdrew his gaze. "Eunuch Zhang, I have other matters to attend to, so I shall not stay. Please report this to His Highness the Crown Prince."
As a dignified man, he naturally disdained to continue bickering here with an arrogant and rude little girl like Cui Yunchu.
It was beneath his dignity!
Eunuch Zhang immediately stepped forward to guide Shen Xiabai off the boat. Only after the man left did Cui Yunchu pull away from Tang Qingwan's embrace. She slumped into a chair, looking listless. Upon closer inspection, her legs were faintly trembling.
Tang Qingwan looked at her and said after a long moment, "Yunchu, are you afraid of him?"
"No." She had been so valiant today; how could she be afraid of him?
This was the most refreshing day she had experienced since her rebirth.
"Anyway, he wouldn't dare kill me in broad daylight."
Cui Yunchu paused and suddenly looked up, as if a new train of thought had just opened up to her.
Did that mean as long as she wasn't alone with him in private, she was safe? And since she was safe, it didn't matter what she did, and exacting a little revenge would be fine too.
Even though she couldn't stab him back with a sword, she could at least satisfy herself by lashing out with words.
"Miss, His Highness the Crown Prince is looking for you."
Tang Qingwan had no choice but to leave Cui Yunchu behind and head back into the cabin.
Cui Yunchu was left alone on the deck. Out on the lake, a small wooden boat bobbed as it was rowed toward the shore. A figure stood upon it, as straight and tall as a bamboo. The surrounding water sparkled brightly, and the colorful, picturesque scenery seemed to serve only as a backdrop for the man on the little boat.
He looked like a figure stepping out of a painting.
Cui Yunchu tilted her head and watched for a long time before muttering in a low voice, "A handsome face with a venomous heart. What a dressed-up beast."
