Next, Zu'an went to pay his respects to the Crown Prince, but the prince had only just gotten up and seemed to still be grumpy, showing no interest in anything.

After dealing with the matter, Zu An went to see Bi Linglong. Unlike the Crown Prince, she was already dressed in her finest attire, looking noble and beautiful, and no one could find fault with her at all: "Greetings, Crown Princess!"

When in front of others, one should still observe proper etiquette.

"You may rise, Lord Zu," Bi Linglong replied casually, then continued to look down at the memorials on the table.

To train the crown prince, the emperor would deliberately entrust some state affairs memorials to the Eastern Palace for handling, though these were usually not urgent.

The Crown Prince clearly doesn't handle things; it's mostly Bi Linglong who takes care of things on a daily basis.

"Having just emerged from the secret realm, the Crown Princess's body hasn't fully recovered. She shouldn't overexert herself," Zu An said with concern. Her once black hair had turned completely white, a constant reminder of her significant loss of vitality.

Bi Linglong gave an "oh" and then ignored him.

Zuan was taken aback; something was off about the other party's attitude.

He quietly used telepathy to ask, "Linglong, what's wrong?"

Unfortunately, the other party still did not respond to him.

After calling several more times and seeing that it remained unmoved, while the backend kept receiving a series of anger points, Zu An was a little puzzled. His eyes lit up and an idea came to him: "If you keep doing this, I'll come and hug you!"

"You dare!" Sure enough, upon hearing him say that, Bi Linglong looked up at him in a flustered manner, though all of this was done secretly through telepathic communication.

“You’ll see if I dare!” Zuan retorted without backing down.

Bi Linglong knew he was always bold and was indeed worried that he might cause a huge uproar in the East Palace in a moment of impulsiveness, so she snorted: "Why don't you rest a little longer with that courtesan? What are you doing here so early in the morning?"

Zuan chuckled to himself, realizing that's what he was jealous about.

It seems that as the Crown Princess, she also has her own intelligence channels.

Damn, I wasted half my time making green oranges.

However, he reacted quickly and immediately said, "You've misunderstood. I went to the brothel to investigate a case."

He then gave a brief account of how the emperor had instructed him to find fault with Yu Nan.

However, Bi Linglong was not as easily fooled as Chu Youzhao. She sneered, "It's just investigating a case. Do you need to stay overnight there?"

"Wouldn't it arouse suspicion if I left in that situation?" Zu An hurriedly explained, "I swear, I absolutely did not have the same physical contact with that courtesan last night as you did, otherwise may I be struck by lightning."

Yes, Bi Linglong definitely didn't do that for him.

Seeing him make such a vicious oath, Bi Linglong was startled: "Are you crazy? Don't make such oaths so carelessly!"

“I have a clear conscience, so of course there’s no problem,” Zuan said solemnly.

Bi Linglong had already believed it, but she was too proud to admit it, so she said coldly, "Then why did you write poems for that courtesan? What 'Spring Boudoir' and 'Dream Lover'? They sound so cheesy."

Zu An thought to himself, "So that's what it is." He laughed and said, "Isn't that also for the purpose of investigating the case? By the way, I have a secret report here to send to the Crown Princess."

Next, ask the maid to bring paper and pen.

Bi Linglong's heart stirred, and she roughly guessed his thoughts. She thought to herself, "You think you can just get rid of me like this? I'm not the most beautiful courtesan, I'm not that easy to fool."

Zu'an quickly finished writing, folded the note, and sent it over: "This is urgent intelligence; I hope the Crown Princess will give her instructions."

Bi Linglong snorted, quietly unfolded the note, her face immediately turned red, and her breathing became much more rapid.

Because a poem was written on it:

"Lighting a lamp at the bottom of a well deeply illuminates her; let us walk together for a long time, without playing chess."

A delicate die holds a red bean, a symbol of deep longing, does it know how profound my love is?

---

I suddenly learned last night before bed that Zongheng had been acquired by Qimao. I chatted with friends and worried about the future, which caused me to have insomnia and only sleep for 3-4 hours last night. I have a headache all day today.

Sigh, why do we laborers, eating pickled vegetables, worry about all that? We can't seem to shake our habit of acting like political commissars.

I haven't forgotten about the chapters I owe, and I'll have to catch up eventually. However, it's not realistic to do it anytime soon, so I'll take some time to retreat and build up a backlog of chapters.