Venting?
Di Ronghua thought expressionlessly, who would dare vent their frustrations on him?
She slowly withdrew the scissors, “Yes.” Then she gave him a look that was mildly displeased yet stripped of its earlier frostiness, “I went out shopping today and saw a street vendor selling sugar-dusted pastries. Who’d have thought the one I bought would taste bitter?”
She pursed her lips, her cheeks puffing slightly with her grumbling tone, “And when I went back to confront the vendor, he refused to admit it was from his stall, insisting I’d brought it myself to frame him.”
Xiao Hanjin gazed at her, his eyes deepening slightly.
She seemed to be merely complaining about a trivial matter, yet it felt like more than that— tinged with a faint trace of… a long-absent petulance melting through the ice.
Yes, petulance, something he hadn’t seen in ages.
Was it his imagination?
Xiao Hanjin’s gaze grew darker. He lifted a finger, brushing it against her cheek, “Who’s so blind as to treat you like that?”
She didn’t dodge, replying unhappily, “How should I know?”
His slender fingers then gently pinched her earlobe, his voice low, “Shall I find him and give him a thrashing for you?”
Di Ronghua shot him a cool glance, scoffing, “Over a sugar-dusted pastry? You’d hit someone? Isn’t your reputation bad enough already?”
“He made you unhappy.”
The man’s handsome face suddenly drew closer, stopping mere inches from hers, so intimate it felt as though they might touch at any moment. His warm breath brushed against her, “And he made you point scissors at me—so I’m not happy either.”
Di Ronghua narrowed her eyes, “I didn’t hurt you.”
Xiao Hanjin leaned down and fully embraced her, “But I’m still upset.” His palm pressed against her back, patting her gently as if soothing her, with a cautious tenderness, “You wouldn’t let me hold you and treated me like this, all because of some insignificant outsider. Your Highness, I now have a shadow over anything sharp like this. Could you please stay away from such dangerous things in the future, hmm?”
Hah.
Di Ronghua gazed at the endless expanse of white crabapple blossoms, a mocking tug pulling at the corner of her lips.
Look how well he played his part.
Her falling for his deception wasn’t just her own blindness—it was inseparable from this man’s masterful acting.
Had she not just confirmed with the physician tending Mu Qingshuang that the cure involved finding compatible blood and a kidney to transplant, she might have thought she’d misheard earlier.
The coldness in Di Ronghua’s eyes deepened further. Her red lips slowly uttered two words, “Alright.”
But Xiao Hanjin couldn’t see her expression at that moment. Her unusual compliance even made him pause.
“Why are you so agreeable today?”
Di Ronghua pushed him away, casting him a half-smiling glance, “I think constant cold wars with no one to talk to are exhausting, so I can’t be bothered to keep fighting you. Xiao Hanjin, you’ll always treat me well from now on, won’t you?”
Xiao Hanjin’s pupils constricted, “…What did you say?”
“You won’t?” The woman raised an eyebrow.
“I will,” he answered instinctively, “The line before that—what did you say?”
“…”
Di Ronghua met his intense gaze with a faint smile, her eyes sparkling with a playful charm, “If you didn’t hear it, I won’t repeat it.”
“Ronghua…”
“I’m going to rest.”
She turned to leave, but the man suddenly pulled her into his arms, holding her tightly.
