Chapter 4

Chapter 4

“Jiang Yanru, that unruffled attitude of yours makes victory feel far too easy. It takes all the challenge out of it. Were all you women of ancient times this submissive and meek? So ignorant, so utterly lacking in opinions or courage. How laughable.” Her brow was deeply furrowed, her eyes filled with undisguised contempt and disdain.

Her reaction was exactly what I had expected.

She looked down on me. Or rather, she looked down on the entire group she called women of ancient times.

“Challenge? In that case, the Crown Prince is nothing more than a trophy to you.”

I sat on the swing and lifted my eyes to meet hers. She gave a derisive laugh and said with utter indifference, “Yes. To you, he is the fiancé who grew up by your side. To me, he is merely a trophy worth showing off. His devotion and power, his love and favor-these are things I was always destined to obtain on this journey. In this world, I will be the fated winner.”

The first time I heard those words, I could not understand where her arrogant, all-conquering confidence came from. Nor could I understand why she always looked at everyone from such a lofty, superior perspective.

But now, this was the second time I had heard those words.

And I also understood why she always insisted on saying these things in front of me, and why she was unwilling to let me go.

Because those were the things she had stolen from me with her own hands. With each thing she took, her smugness grew.

Until, after she had stolen everything, she could stand high above me and say, “Women of ancient times truly are this ignorant and useless.”

She left in high spirits. My maid, unable to swallow her anger, murmured, “She stole everything that should have belonged to you, my lady, and she still dares to be this brazen?”

I handed the pastry to the little maid and soothed her. “Anything that can be stolen from me never truly belonged to me. I have no desire for it either.”

That day, I had deliberately brought up the matter of the principal consort and side consort entering the residence at the same time precisely to provoke her. But she was far too eager to announce her success to the world, far too eager to prove to all women that she was different. That was why she could not wait to use such an extreme method to secure this so-called uniqueness.

She was satisfied with the current situation, and so was I.

Watching Meng Yuanxi’s departing figure, I smiled faintly and brushed my fingertips over the leaves on the branch beside me. In a careless tone, I said, “I have returned from rebirth. If you have made no progress at all… then this game of chess will be rather dull.”