peeling shrimp

Zhiyue was a playful person once she let loose. Knowing that Jingyao would not blame her, she became even more lively. When she heard some big news, she rushed back to tell Jingyao:

"Just now, I heard the news from the harem that the Crown Prince personally ordered the Empress Dowager from De Shou Palace to be sent to the Western Garden Palace to recuperate."

Xiyuan Palace?

This place is located in the western suburbs of Shanghua City and is the farthest from the imperial palace among the six palaces.

"I can finally feel relieved now." Zhiyue breathed a sigh of relief. Jing Yao thought about it and realized that if Queen Dowager Xuan was still in the palace, who knows how much trouble she would cause her.

It seems that this matter was...Si Pei's work.

Jing Yao remembered that she hadn't seen much of Queen Dowager Xuan since returning to the palace in her previous life. She only knew that she had left the palace to recuperate. It seemed that Si Pei's actions in both lives were consistent, and that there had been no major deviations in what had happened.

"Miss, you don't know. Sister Bo Yue and I were so worried the night before... We were so afraid that you'd really been taken away by the Empress Dowager. We cried until the door suddenly opened in the morning! It turned out that it was His Royal Highness the Crown Prince who brought you back. I couldn't help but feel so happy at that time!"

Zhiyue's little mouth chattered, her round eyes blinked, and she vividly described the scene at that time:

Si Pei held her in his arms, Jing Yao fast asleep, curled lazily against his neck. His Royal Highness the Crown Prince looked down at the person in his arms, his eyes filled with unwavering affection.

When Zhiyue thought of that scene, she couldn't help but cover her face in shame. Boyue stood aside and carefully observed Jingyao's expression.

Although Jing Yao had been gentle about staying in the Eastern Palace since he woke up after this incident, she was worried that Jing Yao still didn't want to hear about the Crown Prince. Seeing Zhiyue talking more and more, she coughed lightly and reminded him, "Zhiyue, don't you have any unfinished work?"

"Ah? Oh!" Zhiyue slapped her forehead, "Miss, please read first. I still have to go sweep the floor."

Jing Yao chuckled twice and let her go. Bo Yue breathed a sigh of relief when she saw this.

In fact, Jing Yao still finds what Zhiyue said quite interesting.

She almost forgot that the guy who had been chasing her was the Crown Prince, who was cold and aloof in the eyes of outsiders.

It is really an interesting picture to see such a person trapped in love.

It would be even better if she wasn't the one who was sleepy.

Jing Yao closed the book in his hand and glanced casually at the scenery outside the window.

There was also a garden in the East Palace, right behind her bedroom.

Jing Yao suddenly wanted to go in for a walk and told Bo Yue not to follow him.

March is the time when all flowers bloom, and the garden is filled with the fragrance of spring. Pear trees are not suitable to be planted too close to the house, so we chose to plant them in a circle at the outermost edge.

Jing Yao followed the scent of pear blossoms along the quiet path and arrived under the pear tree.

It was the beginning of the flowering season, and the trees only had pure white buds, with few blossoms. But the refreshing fragrance filled the air, allowing Jing Yao to find a moment of peace in his breath.

She stroked the texture of the pear tree trunk with her fingers, and her memory somehow drifted back to when she was nine years old.

Spring banquet, a cup of green wine and a song.

At the palace banquet, the nobles were toasting each other, the princes and ministers were flattering each other, and the ladies were whispering secrets to each other.

Jing Yao naturally didn't care about the twists and turns; she didn't like banquets with red tape. And even if she was interested, the adults wouldn't let a child talk too much.

Fortunately, today's dishes were pretty good. Jing Yao tasted a few dishes and then put down his chopsticks.

Eating in the palace was mostly a formality, and it was impossible to eat as freely as at home. As the eldest daughter of the Duke's Mansion, Jing Yao still understood this rule.

Seeing that she was sitting there doing nothing, Mrs. Jing simply sent her out to play.

"Madam Jing, Yaoyao has grown up to be a real beauty! Have you ever considered getting married?"

"Oh, Miss Jing is only a few years old! Why are you so anxious to find a match for your son?"

The ladies were teasing each other. Madam Jing took a sip of tea and smiled serenely, "Yaoyao is young, so let's talk about it later."

Jing Yao walked out of the banquet hall and wandered around the palace aimlessly. Thinking that the peach blossoms in the back garden should be blooming by now, he hurriedly pulled his maid over there.

There was a whole peach orchard in the palace, and next to it were plum and apricot orchards, as well as many other flowers she couldn't recognize. Indeed, there were simply too many flowers in the palace to admire them all.

In order to match the scene of the spring banquet today, the nanny specially dressed her in a pink and blue silk skirt and jacket. She was young and had fair skin, looking like a small flower stamen.

Little Jingyao searched around the palace, his pace unconsciously quickening.

When he looked around, he found that he had lost his maid. Jing Yao panicked and somehow ran into a forest he had never been to.

The flowers on the tree were pure white. Jing Yao rarely saw white flowers and was already afraid of getting lost. She didn't know what she was thinking of, so she quickly ran in any direction.

Until he was tripped by something under his feet, Jing Yao screamed: "Ah!"

She suddenly fell onto another person who was resting against a tree trunk. Jing Yao had obviously fallen directly into his arms.

"Hiss..." The boy's breathing was very close to her, and the vibration of his chest when he breathed was clear and obvious.

Jing Yao raised her eyes slightly and met his ambiguous gaze.

I feel a little angry and helpless.

“…Sorry!” Jing Yao suddenly jumped up from his arms. Although the boy in front of him was young, his eyes were sharp and his face was delicate and cold.

"Who are you?" His tone was not kind, but rather stinging.

Jing Lingyin pursed her lips and crossed her arms over her chest: "I am the eldest daughter of Duke Jing's mansion, Jing Yao Jing Lingyi!"

She raised her lips high, as if to tell the boy in front of her that she was not an ordinary person.

"Oh, it's you. I've heard of you." The boy smiled slightly.

He was handsome. Jing Yao tried her best to hide her pink cheeks and started to be unreasonable: "Who are you? You deliberately tripped me under the tree. Are you trying to hurt me?"

"Miss?" The maid who had finally caught up wanted to come over to check on her young lady. When she met the young man's gaze, her knees suddenly weakened. "This servant pays respects to His Royal Highness the Crown Prince!"

Jing Yao suddenly remembered that this seemed to be something his mother had mentioned... Si Pei, the eldest son of the Queen and the Emperor, was named the Crown Prince since birth and was the most honorable person in the palace except the Emperor.

She immediately panicked. Would she get into trouble for offending the Crown Prince?

Si Pei shook his head, a look of pity on his pale face: "I didn't mean to hurt you on purpose, I was just resting under the tree."

Jing Lingyi's face flushed crimson, and she stammered, unable to utter a word. She didn't dare to refute him, and she felt awkward trying to apologize.

Si Pei enjoyed seeing her being humiliated. He had heard that the daughter of the Jing family was extremely favored. She was four years younger than him and was actually his cousin.

When I saw her today, I found that she still had the heart of a girl, and was a bit willful and unruly.

"Crown Prince cousin... why are you here alone?" Jing Yao thought for a long time and finally came up with a new topic.

She hadn't noticed this guy at the banquet just now, but someone like him should have been the center of everyone's attention.

Si Pei sighed: "The banquet doesn't welcome me, so I can only stay here alone."

"Ah..." Jing Yao suddenly felt that he was extremely pitiful. On such a busy day, he could only hide here and sleep alone. He might not have eaten yet...

"Are you hungry? How about I secretly take you to the imperial kitchen to eat something?"

Si Pei didn't go to the Spring Banquet because some people at the banquet didn't welcome him, and he was too lazy to deal with other people's hypocritical faces.

If he said he was hungry, countless people would rush to serve him delicacies from all over the world.

But at this moment, he looked at the stupid girl in front of him who seemed to really want to take him to the imperial kitchen to eat secretly, and nodded for the first time in his life.

Jing Yao opened his eyes again and found himself back on the couch in his bedroom.

Si Pei, who hadn't had time to leave yet, was by the bedside. Seeing she had woken up, he turned back and asked, "Yaoyao, how do you feel?"

"Why am I here?"

Wasn't she just under the pear tree in the garden...

Si Pei showed concern: "You just fell asleep under the tree, did you forget?"

Jing Yao rubbed her aching temple, thinking that it might be because she had been thinking about her past life for too long, which caused her to feel dizzy and fall asleep.

As it was getting dark, it was time for dinner.

"I asked the kitchen to prepare some nourishing dishes for you." Si Pei explained and prepared to leave. "You have a good rest. I'll go back first..."

"Wait." Jing Yao called out to Si Pei, who paused, a look of surprise flashing in his eyes. "What's wrong?"

Having not seen Si Pei the entire day, Jing Yao thought that since she wanted to rekindle her relationship with him, she should start now.

She lowered her eyes slightly, looking away with a hint of hesitation: "I'm having dinner alone, so it's inevitable that I feel a little lonely..."

Before she could finish her words, Si Pei had already walked quickly to her.

Jing Yao raised his eyes, his upper eyelids making him look particularly innocent and charming: "Have you had dinner?"

—

The two sat opposite each other at the dining table, and the palace maids took turns serving the dishes. Eunuch Ming, who was standing behind the screen, was even more nervous than the two of them. He hurriedly whispered to the palace maids to be careful with the lunch boxes in their hands and move faster.

It's no wonder that Eunuch Ming is so concerned. Madam Jing has been in the Eastern Palace for almost three years, and this is the first time she has taken the initiative to have dinner with His Royal Highness the Crown Prince.

Eunuch Ming, who was accompanying him, was happy, and Si Pei was even happier.

It's just that he couldn't easily express his emotions in words, so he just acted more straight in front of her.

Jing Yao couldn't remember having a meal with Si Pei face to face for a long time. She looked at the dishes on the table intently, but she would occasionally glance at Si Pei's expression out of the corner of her eyes.

Seeing Si Pei tense up, Jing Yao found it funny. He pursed his lips and said, "No shrimp?"

"The imperial physician said you might have caught a spring cold, so eating shrimp isn't a good idea..."

"I'm in good health, don't worry about it." Jing Yao always followed her own way and was particularly picky about food. Especially since this was her first proper meal after her life-or-death experience, she would not accept anything without her favorite prawns.

"Eunuch Ming, go ask the kitchen to blanch some shrimps."

Jing Yao spoke up, and Eunuch Ming couldn't refuse, but the Crown Prince had just mentioned the Imperial Physician's instructions, and Eunuch Ming was undecided, looking at the Crown Prince to inquire about his opinion. Si Pei frowned slightly, then relaxed: "Give the order."

"yes."

Eunuch Ming quickly brought a plate of freshly cooked prawns. Jing Yao liked to eat prawns, especially blanched prawns.

But she didn't like peeling shrimp shells, so the maid used to peel them for her.

Seeing this, Bo Yue was about to take action, but Jing Yao simply swapped the plate of shrimp with the lotus root slices in front of Si Pei.

Si Pei was stunned for a moment, and Jing Yao smiled slyly like a successful little fox: "Peel it off."

Everyone else present gasped, but Si Pei remained silent for a moment before he began to peel the fruit calmly.

Others might think that Jing Yao ordered Si Pei to humiliate him intentionally, but Si Pei knew that this was a sign of reconciliation.

Jing Yao said that she does not hold grudges. If she is angry one day, just peel a plate of blanched prawns for her and hand it to her mouth, and she will calm down.

While peeling the shells, Si Pei suddenly turned his back. He explained that the juice splashed into his eyes while he was peeling the shells, but Jing Yao suspected that he was really crying.

My heart sank inexplicably.

Si Pei was much more emotionally sensitive than she thought.

He is neither cold nor heartless.

It is precisely because he is too sentimental that he has become what he is today.

Si Jue in his previous life might have also taken advantage of this loophole.

Thinking of the past, Jing Yao couldn't help but sigh.

Si Pei handed the peeled shrimp to her, and Jing Yao smiled at him: "Thank you."

They looked at each other in silence, perhaps because they each had their own thoughts, and the two finished their dinner in silence.

The maid removed the leftover soup and replaced it with two cups of scented tea.

Si Pei stroked the teacup with his hand, and after pondering for a long time, he said: "Yaoyao, I have actually guessed what you want to say..."

He knew from the beginning that Jing Yao wanted to leave the Eastern Palace and leave him.

"Forgive me...I can't do this."

He couldn't just let Jing Yao leave like that.

Si Pei hated his own selfishness the most, but in his heart he was also grateful for it, which allowed him to cling to Jing Yao so stubbornly. He had already sworn in his heart that he would never let Jing Yao go, even if he died.

So even if Jing Yao hated him, he couldn't bear to let her go.

"Si Pei."

Jing Yao called his name softly and put down the tea bowl lid in his hand.

"I said earlier that I had something to say to you, but those words... I can't remember them right now."

Si Pei raised his head in astonishment, his brain buzzing, and he could only hear Jing Yao's voice. She said:

"I want to wait until I remember it later and then tell you slowly."

Jing Yao felt a little disgusted when she said it herself. She stood up from the table, looking as if she had given up. "If you understand what I'm saying, that's good. If you really don't... that's fine. I'm sleepy, so I won't see you off."

"Um."

Si Pei sat there in a daze, and it took him a while to come back to his senses.

His heart was beating a little too fast, so he raised his hand to his chest and forced himself to calm down.

But I still couldn't help laughing.

Jing Yao could barely hear the sound of him leaving from a distance, and fell on the bed, fiddling with a few strands of hair.

Si Pei is so smart that he must have understood it. Next... next thing is not her business.

Jing Yao tried hard not to think about this matter, and quickly flipped through the pages of the annotated book in his hand.

On the other side, His Royal Highness the Crown Prince in the study was also busy reviewing memorials, with more enthusiasm than ever.

Eunuch Ming shook his head, and the East Palace might have a hard time sleeping tonight.

Tomorrow's matter? Let's talk about it tomorrow.