The master and servant were talking animatedly when the carved door of Xiefang Courtyard creaked open. Liu rushed out with her hair disheveled, the pearl tassels on her bun half undone. Seeing Shen Weiwan, she looked like a ghost. "Shen Weiwan! What den of thieves have you taken my daughter to?!"

Chen Weiwan turned around slowly, playing with the pigeon's tail feathers in her hands. There were still some pigeon food crumbs on the feathers. "Aunt, what you should be concerned about is not Sister Ruorou, but the box of South China Sea pearls you hid in the wall. The maid at the clan residence said that the pearls are enough for you to eat vegetarian food and porridge in the side courtyard for ten years."

Liu was so angry that she was shaking all over. She suddenly rushed forward and tried to grab Shen Weiwan's veil, but she dodged it flexibly. Shen Weiwan retreated behind the rockery and suddenly exclaimed, pointing at Liu's bun: "Oh! How did His Highness the Seventh Prince's pigeon 'drop' on your head?"

Liu instinctively touched her head, and her hands were covered in warm pigeon droppings. The maids sweeping the floor nearby could no longer contain their laughter, some covertly covering their mouths with their sleeves, their shoulders shaking like sieves. Liu looked at her hands covered in filth, and heard the servants' suppressed laughter. Her vision went dark, and she passed out. The last silver hairpin in her hair fell into the pond with a clang.

"Look," Shen Weiwan clapped her hands and took out a dry handkerchief from her sleeve pocket to wipe her fingers, "I told you before that if you provoke me, I will easily get a 'brain disease'."

Chuntao handed over the warm water and looked at Liu's miserable appearance as she was dragged away by the nanny. She muttered softly, "Miss, your 'pigeon droppings hitting the head' trick is too..."

"To deal with poisonous snakes, you have to use realgar." Chen Weiwan wiped her hands clean and looked towards the direction of the Seventh Prince's Mansion. The setting sun stretched her shadow into a slender crescent. "Chun Tao, what do you think about the next volume? How should we 'entertain' that prince? We can't always let him use roast duck as a 'sugar-coated bullet', right?"

Chun Tao saw the cunning light in her young lady's eyes and knew that another "good show" was about to begin. She helped Shen Weiwan straighten her skirt and said, "Miss, you should think about tomorrow's poetry meeting first - I heard that the daughter of the Taifu family has prepared a "good poem" and wants to "ask" you for advice."

"Excuse me?" Shen Weiwan raised an eyebrow, the corner of her mouth curled up into an arc that asked for a punch. She took out a folded paper from her sleeve pocket. On it was a funny picture of a lame young man hugging a man's thigh. "It's just right. I also prepared a 'surprise' - for example, to put a collection of 'broken sleeve' jokes in their poems?"

The master and servant walked back, chatting and laughing. The setting sun gilded the eaves of the general's mansion. Shen Weiwan glanced back at Xiefang Courtyard. Liu was being carried by a nanny to the side courtyard, still mumbling curses. In the distance, the blue cloth carriage of the Li Mansion hurried by, and half of a gray face was revealed through the gap in the curtain. A few naughty children were chasing them, shouting "broken sleeves and cripple".

very nice.

She thought.

The scumbag became a rat crossing the street, the green tea girl was sent to eat vegetarian food and chant Buddhist scriptures, and the evil aunt was confined to copy scriptures - the ending of this third volume is more delicious than Wangji Roast Duck and sweeter than the perilla preserves sent by the seventh prince.

Back in the room, Shen Weiwan spread the Seventh Prince's painting on the pearwood table. She couldn't help but laugh at the girl in the painting, her eyes sparkling, holding a duck bone in her mouth. Chuntao brought some warm water and, watching her young lady staring blankly at the painting, finally couldn't help but ask, "Miss, what exactly does His Highness the Seventh Prince like about you? Look at the way he painted you. You look like a little beggar..."

Shen Weiwan wiped her face, her eyes misted with moisture: "Maybe... you think I'm stupid enough." She buried her face in the warm towel, her voice muffled, "But Chuntao, do you think... this time it's true? Not like Li Xiu's marriage fraud, is it true... that you want to live with me?"

Chun Tao was stunned for a moment, then burst out laughing: "Miss, who cares if it's true or not! We now have the general's family property, the old housekeeper and me. Even if the Seventh Prince is fake, we won't suffer any loss - if he dares to change his mind, we will spread the rumors about his 'homosexuality'..."

"Go to hell!" Shen Weiwan threw the towel over, but smiled with curved eyebrows, and the tear mole at the corner of her eye shone slightly under the candlelight.

The moon outside the window quietly climbed up the top of the sycamore tree. Shen Weiwan lay on the table, her fingertips tracing the eyebrows and eyes of the girl in the painting. How should I write the next volume of the script? Should I continue digging holes to bury those blind idiots, or... try to lure the prince who always sent roast duck into my "sand sculpture" world?

She stroked her chin, then suddenly sat up straight and fished out a tube of black ink from her dressing table. In the corner of the painting, she added a fluttering duck, holding a lifelike jade dragon pendant in its beak. Next to it, in crooked handwriting, she wrote: "From Your Highness: If the jade pendant is missing from the pond tomorrow, please retrieve me and bring me back to your residence as an apology."

After sealing the letter and tying it to the pigeon's leg, Shen Weiwan yawned and fell onto the soft couch covered with a brocade quilt. Chuntao covered her with a thin blanket and looked at the smile on her young lady's lips while she was sleeping. She couldn't help but shake her head and chuckle.

The capital city was about to burst into laughter again because of her young lady's "devious cleverness." Meanwhile, the carrier pigeon carrying the "declaration of war" was fluttering towards the Seventh Prince's residence, drawing a white arc in the dark blue night sky. With this letter, the story of the next volume quietly began.