"What sins have I committed!" Sun Huohuo was speechless with bitterness and felt extremely aggrieved. He scratched his head, looking very pained.

"Erhuo, did you accidentally offend someone?" Yun Duoduo was also a little confused. Sun Huohuo was an honest person and rarely made enemies.

Sun Huohuo shook his head: "Apart from ordering the new recruits to fight dozens of battles, there's nothing else."

"But to be honest, although these injuries are very painful, my martial arts skills have improved by leaps and bounds recently."

Sun Huohuo was both happy and worried.

"Father no longer needs to worry about my martial arts skills."

"Duo'er, could you stay at your Fu Shuang Palace for a while?" Sun Huohuo looked at Yun Duoduo with anticipation.

Aren't you coming home?

Sun Huohuo shook her head: "I'm not going back. My father doesn't care about me, and he didn't say he would find me a few more powerful bodyguards. If I get injured, I have to find a doctor to treat me myself."

[Oh, poor Erhuo, his status in the family is exceptionally low!]

"Alright, then you can stay in the side hall. I'll go find some painkillers for you."

Although Sun Huohuo was an official from outside the palace and it was not appropriate for him to live in the princess's palace, the two had grown up together since childhood, and the palace maids and eunuchs in Fushuang Palace all knew Sun Huohuo, so no one gossiped about it.

After settling Sun Huohuo in, Yun Duoduo went to the Shangyao Pharmacy to get some medicine to treat Sun Huohuo's wounds.

...

Inside the Western Chu royal palace, Xi Jing was engrossed in reading a book called "Childhood Sweethearts Can't Beat a Sudden Arrival".

On the table in front of him were dozens of storybooks such as "The Long-Planned Childhood Sweetheart", "My Childhood Sweetheart is So Sweet" and "Through the Years, the Childhood Sweetheart is the Wildest".

The old man standing nearby almost spoke up, but seeing the king so unusually happy, he had no choice but to refrain.

Everyone says that no one neglects their duties in court, and now it seems that this is indeed true.

[But Your Majesty, you at least have a real beauty in your arms, what's the point of spending all your time holding a storybook?]

The old man sighed inwardly.

"Your Majesty." A guard who had entered from outside bowed before Xi Jing.

"Speak," Xi Jing said without looking up.

"I have already sent men to Nanyang to assassinate the Ninth Princess's childhood sweetheart."

"So, is he dead?" Xi Jing asked, but he still hadn't put down the storybook.

"Your Majesty, I have spent a fortune to hire the top ten assassins from the five major factions of the martial arts world. This man will surely die within ten days," the guard said confidently. The old man beside him sighed heavily in his heart.

[Alas, what a tragedy! So much of the nation's wealth wasted just to kill one person.]

"Very good." Xi Jing nodded in satisfaction, the image of him and Yun Duoduo getting married and having children flashing through his mind.

[If Yun Duoduo's childhood sweetheart dies, I will take him back.]

[I will let her know that no woman I desire can escape my grasp.]

"Is that man as handsome as me?"

Xi Jing put down his storybook, looked up at the guard seriously, and asked.

"Your Majesty, that man is rough-looking, and it is said that he uses a pair of axes. He is vulgar and filthy, with a dirty face and a filthy appearance. His figure and appearance are not even one ten-thousandth as good as Your Majesty's."

The guard's words were so detailed and believable that even though he himself had never met Yun Duoduo's childhood sweetheart and only imagined it from rumors, he was used to facing questions like this from Xi Jing and already knew how to answer in order to please the king.

Xi Jing listened to the guard's words, nodded in satisfaction, and raised his hand to touch his superior jawline.

"Hmph, I knew it, that little thing is blind."

Xi Jing snorted coldly as he looked at the portrait of Yun Duoduo hanging to the side.

"I really can't agree with the aesthetic sense of the people of Nanyang."

"With my looks and beauty, I was eager to marry her, yet she is so ungrateful."

Xi Jing snorted coldly: "I will make this little thing regret it sooner or later!"

Ren Lao and Ren Yuan came in to deliver the fruit platter and overheard Xi Jing's conversation with the guard. The two of them looked at each other with puzzled expressions.

Princess Nanyang once said that her childhood sweetheart was the most handsome man in the world, and even described his appearance.

But judging from the conversation just now, that person was clearly a slovenly young man.

What's going on here?

The two decided to write a letter in secret to ask Princess Yun Duoduo if she had lied to them and boasted to them back then.

"Yes, we need to get an explanation for this."

...

Time flies, and heavy snow fell, turning the entire Nanyang into a silver-clad wonderland.

Inside the Empress Dowager's Shouchang Palace, Empress Dowager Nangong Rui was sitting in the main seat, with Yun Beiye sitting to her left, serving her tea. Yun Duoduo stood behind the Empress Dowager, massaging her shoulders.

"What happened to the person who poisoned Duoduo?" the Empress Dowager asked Yun Beiye with her eyes slightly closed.

Although the Empress Dowager stayed in the palace every day, she knew everything that was happening in the capital.

"Is the young lady from the Bu family that Mother is referring to?"

Seeing that the Empress Dowager did not speak, fearing that she would scold him for asking a stupid question, he quickly continued.

“I originally intended to give her fifty strokes of the cane, but considering that she is a woman, I gave her ten strokes, and let her father take the remaining forty strokes.”

"Poor father, he was an old man, and he only took twenty strokes out of forty before he fainted. His adopted son took the remaining twenty strokes."

Yun Duoduo laughed. Good heavens, this beating will be shared among the three of them.

Bu Yaolian was also lucky; she had a father and a sworn brother who was willing to take the beatings for her.

The men Yun Beiye sent out were all skilled in martial arts. When the military batons struck people, they didn't appear to tear the skin and leave a bloody mess, but their bones and tendons were likely broken inside.

Yun Duoduo couldn't help but recall the scene of Bu Yaolian's sworn brother taking the beating for her.

In a storybook, this would be a classic tale of a hero rescuing a damsel in distress. Why would Bu Yaolian abandon her devoted husband and go to such lengths to reach Jin Jinzhi, who is so far away?

Alas, how foolish the truth is!

[It's truly a case of being so close to the mountain that you can't see it clearly!]

"I will confine her to her quarters for another year to reflect on her mistakes. She will not be allowed to leave the residence for the rest of the year. As for her father, I have already dismissed him from his post!"

Yun Beiye shook his head. Even though Bu Yaolian was not a good young lady, her father was a wise minister. Unfortunately, he failed to control his daughter and was ruined by her.

"The emperor is still magnanimous and spared that wretched woman's life."

The Empress Dowager snorted coldly. In her opinion, anyone who dared to bully her granddaughter should not be allowed to live any longer.

Standing to the side, Zhao Zhongquan swallowed hard. The Empress Dowager was truly ruthless.

"This person is malicious; if we marry, she will surely bring disaster to her husband's family."