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Princess Qin showed no signs of waking up, so Emperor Cheng'an sat for a while before leaving, leaving only Empress Zhou and Xuan Ci waiting, their hearts filled with anxiety.
Relying on Emperor Cheng'an's favor, Xue Shen never respected anyone except the emperor, and didn't even give the mother and daughter a kind look. He turned his wheelchair around the gauze curtain to check on Shen Youying's condition.
Shen Youying had been lying in bed pretending to be asleep. When she heard Emperor Cheng'an and Empress Zhou forcing Xuan Ci to apologize to her, the resentment she had been holding in for years dissipated somewhat.
Hearing Xue Shen approach, her eyelashes trembled, but she didn't dare open her eyes for fear of being discovered.
Xue Shen sat by the couch, tucked the blanket around her, and whispered in her ear, "No rush, let them air out a little longer."
Having received his instructions, Shen Youying felt relieved. As soon as she relaxed, drowsiness began to wash over her.
In order to enter the palace to pay homage to the Emperor and Empress, she got up before dawn to do her makeup and entered the palace as soon as it was light. She was exhausted. Since she had to pretend to faint anyway, she quietly adjusted her position and let herself fall asleep.
Seeing that her face relaxed and her breathing became long and even after a while, Xue Shen raised an eyebrow and shook his head.
He's really bold; isn't he afraid of selling her out?
Shen Youying slept for an hour and a half.
She vaguely heard someone calling her and instinctively hid her face under the covers. After a moment, she suddenly woke up with a start, realizing that she was not in Qingwu Courtyard, but in the palace. She abruptly opened her eyes and met Xue Shen's ambiguous smile.
She slept soundly, her hair slightly disheveled, her cheeks flushed, and a few teardrops glistening on her dark eyelashes. When she looked over from under the covers, half-supported by her elbows, she resembled a meticulously painted picture of a crabapple tree in spring slumber.
He looked far from sickly; in fact, his complexion was even more rosy and healthy than Xuan Ci, who had been waiting outside for over an hour.
Xue Shen's gaze lingered on her for a moment before he looked away and said in a low voice, "Xuan Ci and the Empress are still waiting outside."
Shen Youying then remembered that Xuan Ci should apologize and repent to her.
She quickly straightened her clothes, clutched her heart, and feigned a delicate fragility. After a long and agonizing cry of "Your Highness," she asked pitifully, "What's wrong with me?"
"You fainted from fright just now," Xue Shen said gently. "Are you feeling unwell anywhere? Let me have the imperial physician examine you again."
Upon hearing the commotion, the imperial physician waiting outside hurriedly brought in his medicine chest and carefully took her pulse: "Does Your Highness feel any better?"
Shen Youying glanced at Xuan Ci outside and said weakly, "My head hurts, and my chest hurts a little too."
The imperial physician frowned and carefully felt her pulse for a while before instructing his apprentice to prepare paper and ink: "I will prescribe some medicine for the Princess Consort to take care of herself. After ten days of taking it, she should be fine."
Shen Youying thanked her in a soft, gentle voice.
Xuan Ci, who was listening outside, was getting impatient. She felt that Shen Youying was being pretentious and affected. She suddenly lifted the curtain and walked in: "Sister-in-law Wang has finally woken up. Mother and I have been waiting for so long."
Shen Youying was startled and shrank back into the bed like a frightened bird, looking at her with a face full of fear.
Xue Shen looked displeased and glanced at Xuan Ci with a sinister expression: "If the princess is not sincerely apologizing, she should leave first, lest she frighten her sister-in-law again."
Xuan Ci clenched his fists in anger, barely managing to force a ferocious smile: "Brother Wang has misunderstood. Of course, I sincerely apologize to Sister Wang."
Xue Shen glanced at her sideways, his expression sarcastic.
Xuan Ci gritted his teeth in secret, clenched his palms tightly, and spat out each word: "What happened today was my fault. I apologize to Sister Wang. I hope Sister Wang will be magnanimous and not hold it against me."
Shen Youying lowered her eyes and remained silent, but secretly admired her humiliated and unwilling expression out of the corner of her eye.
She still remembered that year when Xuanci pushed her into the pond, he stood on the bank with a smug look on his face watching her struggle and cry for help, and said to the servants beside him with malice, "Look at her like this, she's really ugly."
Now, the high and mighty princess is forced to lower her noble head and apologize to her.
Although it was a little late, it didn't stop Shen Youying from being happy.
Ignoring Xuan Ci's apology, she lowered her eyelashes and softly asked Xue Shen, "Your Highness, I want to go back."
Xue Shen readily agreed and summoned Danzhu and Liuyun to help her rearrange her clothes and hair.
Xuan Ci was left standing to the side, secretly wishing she could pounce on Hua Chenyouying and scratch her pretentious face, but in reality, restrained by Empress Zhou's intimidation, she could only endure the humiliation and stiffly say, "Sister-in-law, I really know I was wrong."
Supported by Liu Yun and Dan Zhu on either side, Shen Youying rose weakly and said, "It's just a small matter, Princess, you don't need to take it to heart. After all, I am the eldest, how could I hold a grudge against my younger sister?"
At this moment, she placed her hands folded in front of her lower abdomen, looking dignified, gentle, and graceful.
Although they were the same age, when she slowly walked up to Xuan Ci, her skirts billowing like flowing clouds, and even the tassels hanging by her face didn't sway at all, everyone in the room inexplicably felt that she had more of the bearing of a princess than Xuan Ci.
Unexpectedly, she even adopted the airs of an elder, which made Xuan Ci so angry that her face turned red, but she could only force herself to swallow her anger.
"I'm relieved that Sister Wang isn't angry."
Shen Youying smiled and nodded: "Of course I'm not angry."
She leaned closer to Xuan Ci and said in a voice only the two of them could hear, "After all, you look really bad right now. All my anger has dissipated."
After speaking, she straightened up and looked at Xuan Ci with a delicate and gentle expression, as if she hadn't said those words at all.
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