"Really?" Shen Weiwan squatted down, pinched Shen Ruorou's chin, and pressed her fingertips hard enough to make her cry out in pain. "When you bribed the little palace maid, did you ever think that this day would come? Last time I sent you to the Salesian Home, it was out of our kinship, but you insisted on going down the road to death."

Xiao Yu reached out and pulled Shen Weiwan up, saying to the guards, "Send them both to the Northwest Military Camp." He glanced at the wailing Li Xiu and added, "Since Li Xiu has a problem with his legs, assign him to the military tent to manage horse feed. As for Shen Ruorou... have her follow the laundry women and learn how to 'reform through labor.'"

"Your Highness! I am a scholar!" Li Xiu cried, his limping leg leaving blood marks on the ground.

"That's perfect," Xiao Yu raised his eyebrows. "The barracks are in need of a clerk who knows how to count and feed the horses. You're the one."

Watching the two being dragged away by the guards like dead dogs, Shen Weiwan clapped her hands, her skirt sweeping across the fallen leaves on the ground: "Finally, it's quiet."

Xiao Yu pulled a string of candied haws from his sleeve, the sugar coating gleaming in the sunlight. "I had the guards buy some at the West Market a while ago. I knew you were thinking about it."

Shen Weiwan bit off a hawthorn and suddenly remembered something: "Your Highness, do you think Lin Wanrou is also involved?"

"Her?" Xiao Yu sneered, taking the wet wipes Chun Tao handed him and wiping his hands. "I've had someone keeping an eye on her. Yesterday, there were reports that she was using the children's slingshots at the orphanage to shoot at a pigskin raft, trying to figure out how to make it fly."

"Pfft—" Shen Weiwan almost choked with laughter, "I'm afraid you want to fly up to the sky and complain to Nezha?"

The two chatted and laughed as they entered the inner room. Chuntao had already brewed Biluochun tea. Shen Weiwan took a sip of the tea and suddenly grabbed Xiao Yu's hand, her fingertips touching the beating pulse in his palm. "Your Highness, thank you for the soup just now..."

Xiao Yu rubbed the top of her head and brushed his fingertips across her earlobe. "Silly girl, the orphanage has already deployed secret sentries. The little palace maid had just bought croton oil cream from the pharmacy when the news reached me."

"You knew it a long time ago?" Shen Weiwan widened her eyes in surprise, her eyelashes brushing across his wrist.

"How could you possibly think that," Xiao Yu raised an eyebrow and suddenly leaned in closer, his warm breath brushing against her ear, "that I happened to be entering the courtyard just as you were yelling 'poison'?" He brushed his fingertips against the tip of her nose. "If you encounter something like this again, don't take risks. If you want to trick anyone, tell me, and I'll let her..."

"Stop!" Shen Weiwan waved her hands quickly, "Don't send people to feed the pigs again. Li Xiu was scared to death last time!"

Xiao Yu chuckled softly and pulled her into his arms. The setting sun shone through the window lattice, gilding the two of them and stretching their shadows into a long, cuddling embrace. Shen Weiwan listened to his heartbeat in her chest and suddenly felt that with someone like him protecting her under his wings, even the most sinister calculations would be nothing but a passing cloud.

Three days later, news spread throughout the capital that "Miss Shen Er had failed in her attempt to poison the prince's consort and had been exiled to the northwest along with the lame Li Xiu." In teahouses and taverns, storytellers recounted how the general's daughter had outsmarted the poisoned broth and how the seventh prince had heroically rescued the beauty. In the streets and alleys, children sang a newly coined jingle: "Chen Ruorou, with a vicious heart, put arsenic in the ginseng soup. She lost more than she gained, washing clothes in the northwest military camp!"

Shen Weiwan sat under the grape trellis in Xiefangyuan, listening to the laughter coming from outside the wall, and biting the last of the candied haws. Xiao Yu was looking at the account book sent by the Ministry of Revenue when he suddenly looked up and asked, "What are you laughing at?"

"Thinking," Shen Weiwan swung her legs, the sunlight filtering through the leaves and falling into her hair, "Who should I trick next?"

Xiao Yu put down the account book, walked over, held her hand, and drew circles on her palm with his fingertips: "As you wish. But let me make it clear first, if you cheat me this time, I will personally take the blame."

"Oh? How do you plan to trick me, Your Highness?"

"Of course..." Xiao Yu leaned close to her ear and whispered a few words, making Shen Weiwan laugh so hard that she fell backwards and pounded his chest: "Your Highness is so mean! This trick is even worse than mine!"

The late spring breeze whipped up the grape leaves, carrying the couple's laughter and banter beyond the courtyard walls. In this vast capital, their daily life of "trickery" had just begun. And those blind rivals and villains could never have imagined that this "scheming prince and idiotic daughter" combination would pave their own path to destruction, becoming the biggest joke in the capital.