Princess Duanrong did indeed love Ganlin very much, but that was the way a dignified elder showed affection to a junior.

Gan Qiongying now loves Gan Lin just as much as Princess Duanrong does, because Gan Lin is so lovable. Although he is handsome and heroic, his crying appearance has a kind of cute contrast.

But she wasn't really Princess Duanrong. Gan Qiongying's personality was much more lively than Princess Duanrong's. From the beginning, Princess Duanrong almost never joked with Gan Lin.

Gan Lin was caught off guard by this joke and didn't know how to respond.

His lips moved, but in the end, his face only became more flushed, and he coughed softly again after taking a deep breath.

Gan Qiongying walked around the screen and poured Gan Lin a glass of water. Both of them had vented their emotions and were gradually calming down. There was still some time before the palace banquet that evening, enough for the siblings to have a good talk.

Gan Qiongying, on the other hand, was no longer in a hurry. She kept smiling as she looked at Gan Lin, mentally rehearsing the words she had already prepared to say to him.

Gan Lin's expression and even his spirits had improved a lot. He took the water cup that Gan Qiongying handed him, drank all the water, and suppressed his cough, but he would still hiccup occasionally.

He had been suppressing his emotions and living in fear for so many days. Now that his worries about growing apart from his sister were relieved, Gan Lin was still young after all. Just as Eunuch Li had said, Gan Qiongying had only come to the palace to see him, and he immediately felt his dark clouds clear and his vitality returned.

Gan Qiongying stood at the door of the inner room and called out to the outside, "Please trouble Eunuch Li to bring in the radish cakes I brought. His Majesty must be hungry."

After Gan Qiongying finished speaking, she turned to look at Gan Lin and said in a very low voice, in a voice that only the two of them could hear, "Having lost so many gold beans, shouldn't we replenish them?"

Gan Lin was still holding her water glass when she heard this. She looked up at Gan Qiongying with a slightly helpless expression.

My sister seems very happy today?

I kept joking with him.

Gan Lin was also very happy.

He curled his lips into a slightly restrained smile as he gave Gan Qiongying a brief, controlled laugh.

No matter how good-looking a person is, if they smile blankly like that, they will look a little silly.

Upon seeing this, Gan Qiongying broke into an even bigger smile.

This left Gan Lin completely bewildered.

It had been many years since they had such a relaxed atmosphere. Ever since... ever since the older sister revealed her feelings and Gan Lin was unable to respond, their relationship, like Gan Lin's current health, had been deteriorating.

Gan Lin never even dared to hope that their relationship could take such a dramatic turn for the better.

He held the cup in his thin, bony fingers and handed it to Gan Qiongying, saying, "I'd like to have another cup."

He spoke slowly and nervously, his eyes fixed on Gan Qiongying's, as if afraid that this cheerful and bright older sister was as illusory and fragile as one of his few beautiful dreams.

Gan Lin is frighteningly thin; she's almost unrecognizable. Fortunately, her bone structure is still good, giving her a dignified appearance that can withstand even such a sharp, angular face.

Gan Qiongying took the cup and naturally turned around to pour more water, but muttered under her breath, "I already told you I brought you radish cake. Are you trying to get a big belly by drinking so much water before eating?"

Upon hearing this, Gan Lin almost burst into tears again. When he was young, before he met Princess Duanrong in the palace, he did indeed spend most of his time drinking water to fill his stomach.

Moreover, the cakes those wicked servants gave him were unusually hard, and even after being swallowed raw with nectar and water, they still needed to be soaked in water for a while before they reached his stomach.

This led him to develop a bad habit before meals: he would drink a lot of water before and during meals to soften the hard bread and feel full.

Even after he became emperor, Gan Lin still drank soup before formal meals. This habit was known only to his closest eunuch and his elder sister.

And in the whole world, only his older sister would care about him and make sure he didn't drink too much soup or water before eating.

However, his older sister hasn't taken care of him for many years.

Thinking of this, Gan Lin's eyes reddened again. When Gan Qiongying handed him the water cup, she pointed to his forehead and said, "If you cry again, I'm leaving. We haven't been able to exchange more than a few words since I came in. You're like that leaky water tank in the palace!"

Upon hearing this, Gan Lin, holding her water glass, suddenly burst into laughter through her tears.

During the years when the siblings depended on each other for survival, the temporary palace was not like the princess's residence it is today. It was a place abandoned by Emperor Huicheng. Since the emperor did not go there to escape the summer heat, there was naturally no need to repair the palace.

Therefore, many places are in disrepair, and leaky houses are commonplace. In the courtyard where the brother and sister depended on each other for survival, there was a leaky water vat.

Gan Qiongying and Gan Lin would fill a vat with water every day, but by the next day, more than half of the vat would be gone. At that time, the two of them were very young. In the palace at night, without candles, it was so dark that you couldn't see your hand in front of your face. The two of them would scare each other, saying that the water had been drunk by ghosts.

It wasn't until much later, when the two wicked servants kicked the water vat during their argument and it started to leak from the side, that they knocked the vat over and discovered the hole at the bottom.

The hole faces a burrow dug by some unknown animal, so the water that leaks out every night flows through the burrow instead of spreading out from under the water tank.

That's why, even after so long, neither of them realized that the water tank was leaking, not that the water had simply vanished into thin air.

For a long time that summer, the two of them were afraid to go to the toilet at night because half the water in the water tank would disappear every morning.

From then on, whenever one of them cried, they would say the other was like a leaky water tank.

This isn't exactly a funny story, but it's something the siblings laugh about every time they bring it up.

Because they drank too much water every day to fill their stomachs throughout the summer, they inevitably had to urinate while sleeping. However, because they were afraid of ghosts, what they saw most that summer was the pathetic sight of each other holding their urine and not daring to go out.

This is a joke that belongs only to the two of them.

As expected, Gan Qiongying took the water cup from Gan Lin's hand after seeing him smile. At this moment, Eunuch Li outside the door made a sound and said to the inside, "Your Majesty, Princess, lunch is ready. Shall we serve the meal now?"

"Bring it in," Gan Qiongying said directly, then instructed Eunuch Li, "Call in two maids to help His Majesty wash up again."

Gan Qiongying asked Eunuch Li to bring in the radish cake, and he then had someone prepare a meal.

Although it is not lunchtime yet, His Majesty has not eaten properly for a long time, and he hopes that Princess Duanrong can take the opportunity to persuade His Majesty to eat something.

Gan Qiongying understood what Eunuch Li meant. When a maid came in to help Gan Lin wash up, Gan Qiongying went around the screen and out of the outer room, and sat down at a table.

She sat for a while, then suddenly stood up, walked over to the place where Gan Lin was handling memorials, and picked up a memorial to read.