Qiao Zhen followed the jailer to Lin Yuyun's cell and saw Lin Yuyun huddled in a corner filled with straw.

Lin Yuyun's face was ashen, her eyes were dull and lifeless, and she just stared blankly at a certain place.

The jailer unlocked the chains, and Qiao Zhen stepped into the cell through the withered grass. As she looked at Lin Yuyun, she listened intently to the footsteps outside the cell.

“Miss Lin, if you don’t want people to know, then don’t do it in the first place. You’ve done so many bad things, and in the end, you’ll reap what you sow.” Qiao Zhen said slowly, pulling her sleeve to cover her nose. The dust swirling in the cell made her very uncomfortable.

Lin Yuyun turned her gaze to Qiao Zhen, and sneered, her expression cold and indifferent. "I have heard that the princess and General Xu's wedding is approaching, and I offer my congratulations. What does it matter if I reap what I sow? In the end, I used my life to exchange for the princess's marriage with Young Master Lu, which is truly worthwhile. It's just a pity that I was unable to marry Young Master Lu in this lifetime."

Qiao Zhen listened and felt very impressed with Lin Yuyun. Lin Yuyun was able to do something so self-destructive that hurt the enemy by a thousand and still remain calm.

She looked at Lin Yuyun with a complicated expression, and when she heard light footsteps outside the cell, Qiao Zhen steered the conversation to the main point. "You poisoned Chunzhu's mother, manipulated Chunzhu, learned of my whereabouts, colluded with those shady characters to kidnap me, and then lured your cousin to that thatched hut there. Did you do all of this?"

Knowing she was about to die, Lin Yuyun finally blurted out, "Yes, I did it. But I regret it. I regret why I pretended to stop my uncle that day. Otherwise, your innocence would have been gone long ago."

Her eyes were filled with venom as she stared intently at Qiao Zhen. "Princess, oh Princess, you are the only princess in the history of Qi Kingdom, but so what? I, your humble servant, still managed to ruin your plans. Cough cough cough... cough."

Lin Yuyun coughed violently, as if each cough took all her strength. "Cough... How does it feel? Being forced to apologize to the person who harmed you must be very humiliating for the princess, right? You were the one who was supposed to be pushed into the lake, but you were falsely accused of pushing someone else into the lake."

As Qiao Zhen listened to Lin Yuyun recount in a weak voice what she had done, she felt somewhat displeased. "You did all these things, yet you still act so self-righteously. This princess cannot understand you."

Lin Yuyun continued, "Someone like the princess... is a person of noble birth wherever she goes. How could she know that someone like me... with a crippled body, if I could be engaged to... cough cough... my ideal husband, how happy I would be... how rare it would be... cough cough... cough..."

A patch of crimson blood stained her slightly blackened hands, and Lin Yuyun's face was deathly pale.

Qiao Zhen muttered disdainfully, "What bad luck!"

She stopped looking at Lin Yuyun's dejected face, straightened her sleeves, turned and left. She happened to be looking at Lu Yuanchuan at the corner.

Qiao Zhen took a few steps back, somewhat at a loss. She looked up and met Lu Yuanchuan's complicated gaze, which she neither wanted to understand nor could. Qiao Zhen said jokingly, but with a tone full of malice, "If Young Master Lu wants to visit Miss Lin, he'd better hurry. If he's any later, she might already be dead from anger by this princess."

She bypassed Lu Yuanchuan and left.

As Qiao Zhen brushed past him, Lu Yuanchuan reached out and grabbed her wrist, "Zhen..."

“Young Master Lu!” Qiao Zhen unconsciously raised her voice, “Please address me as ‘Princess’ by such an intimate name. If others were to hear it, it would damage my reputation.”

Lu Yuanchuan moved his lips, but in the end he could only silently let go.

Qiao Zhen looked at his hand, which he released so easily, and felt only irony. She had been scheming so much so that they could be together, but Lu Yuanchuan was always backing down.

He never stepped forward.

He just felt that she would wait for him in the same place.

After Qiao Zhen and Xu Ruan Kuang left, she focused on preparing for the wedding. Xu Ruan Kuang truly cared for her, always asking her if she liked anything they wanted to use at the wedding.

Sometimes, when Qiao Zhen got annoyed by Xu Ruankuang's questions, she would impatiently yell at him.

But Xu Ruankuang still managed to make Qiao Zhen happy, and then asked Qiao Zhen if she liked those things.

That day, Qiao Zhen avoided Xu Ruan Kuang, who kept asking her "Do you like this or that?" and went to Hua Man Lou with her maid to watch a play.

Meanwhile, in the private room upstairs at Huamanlou, Lu Yuanchuan and Lu Yuanliu were both looking at Qiao Zhen.

Lu Yuanchuan was regretting his past disregard for Qiao Zhen. His deeply ingrained belief made him always think that since Qiao Zhen had already married him, she would wait for him as long as he made a promise.

But in the end, Qiao Zhen turned and left decisively. Before he even reached the end, he turned around and found that she was no longer there.

Lu Yuanliu always remembered the handkerchief he kept in his desk drawer.

Love arises without warning, yet it deepens with time.

Perhaps it was when he first met Qiao Zhen that her stunning beauty was etched into his heart.

Perhaps it was Qiao Zhen's melodious singing voice on the stage, her poignant voice, or the radiance of her long sleeves as she waved them that amazed him.

Perhaps it was when Qiao Zhen dared to be perfunctory with him that he focused his attention on her, attracting her gaze—that was the first step in liking someone.

Lu Yuanliu could only bury those things in his heart. He was just someone who was very much like his older brother, nothing more.

Qiao Zhen had no idea that the Lu brothers were thinking so much about him. She watched the opera while cracking sunflower seeds, not caring about her image at all.

Lu Yuanchuan was the first to come to his senses. He wanted to look at Lu Yuanliu to cover up his earlier lapse in composure, but he found that Lu Yuanliu was also in a daze. He followed Lu Yuanliu's gaze and found that Lu Yuanliu was also looking at Qiao Zhen.

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