Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Before Pei Pingjin could speak, Lu Qingshuang straightened her back and lifted her chin at me.

“She disrespected the Prince Consort. Your Highness ought to teach her a lesson.”

“Seeing that Your Highness was absent, I took the liberty of disciplining a servant of the household on your behalf. I hope Your Highness will consider how much care I have shown for the Princess’s Residence, forget our past grievances, and lend me the Resurrection Pill.”

Pei Pingjin’s lips moved for a long while. In the end, he let out a breath and walked toward me step by step.

“Your Highness, if that medicine is left unused, it is nothing at all. Qingshuang’s maid grew up with her from childhood. For my sake, lend it to her.”

Pei Pingjin had red lips, white teeth, and a gentle, upright bearing. He was known as the peerless young noble of the capital.

But now, no matter how I looked at him, he only disgusted me.

So I stopped holding back and curved my lips.

With a splash, I seized him by the front of his robes and slammed him hard into the lotus pond.

His head struck a large rock, and blood instantly stained the lotus pond red.

Lu Qingshuang screamed, her face deathly pale, “Xie Zhixu, what are you doing?”

The next instant, Ling Yun struck the back of her knee with the hilt of her blade.

Lu Qingshuang dropped to her knees before me with a thud. Ling Yun slapped her again and again until blood seeped from the corner of her mouth and her face swelled like a pig’s head.

“Calling Her Highness by name is a crime of gross disrespect. Your tongue can be cut out and displayed as a warning!”

Lu Qingshuang froze where she was, not even daring to cry loudly anymore.

She looked in terror toward Pei Pingjin, who was struggling to crawl up out of the pond.

I did not disappoint her.

Taking Ling Yun’s sword, I stepped over Pei Pingjin’s unease and fury and walked to his side, one step at a time.

Just as he was about to climb out of the water, there was a crack.

I smashed the hilt against his forehead and knocked him back into the pond.

Pei Pingjin opened his mouth in a rage, but mouthfuls of cold water poured in, choking him until he could not force out a single complete word.

“Mama Hu has been with me for eighteen years. She stopped being the so-called servant you speak of long ago. She is my family.”

“You brought someone who doesn’t know whether to live or die and came knocking at my door, seeking your own destruction. Today, I will grant you exactly what you asked for!”

Pei Pingjin crawled to the bank again.

His imposing air had already wilted. He was no longer as self-righteous as before.

When his eyes met mine, there was even pleading in them.

“Your Highness, I… I know I was wrong!”

I looked down at him, my mockery undisguised.

“I gave you many chances, but you never cherished them.”

My scabbard lifted his chin.

“Now, it is too late!”

Splash!

I swung the scabbard into his forehead again and knocked him back to the center of the pond.

His struggles had grown weak. It took him a long while before he managed to get back up.

Drenched in crimson-stained water, he could no longer be recognized as the man he had been.

Looking at his miserable state, barely clinging to breath, and at Lu Qingshuang’s terror so great she could not even speak, I said coldly, “You don’t know you were wrong. You’re afraid to die.”

Then I turned back to Lu Qingshuang and smiled wickedly.

“You call yourself cattail grass, tough and unyielding, refusing to sink with the vulgar world, with a spine no one can break.”

“Then I will let you see with your own eyes how your stupidity drags the Marquis’s Estate and your dear cousin into eternal ruin!”

Faced with the pond full of blood and Pei Pingjin’s wretched condition, Lu Qingshuang was truly frightened now.

She knocked her head to the ground again and again, begging bitterly, “It was my fault. Please, Your Highness, spare my cousin.”

“He won’t last much longer. For the sake of the marriage you once shared, please show mercy.”

I gave a soft laugh and offered her a choice.

“You die, or he dies. Choose one. I promise one of you can live.”

Lu Qingshuang was clearly stunned.

Under my scrutinizing gaze, her pupils shrank and her eyes darted away.

“I… of course I want my cousin to live.”

“Very well. Then you die.”

The moment I finished speaking, she hastily cut in.

“But!”

“But if I die because of my cousin, he will live the rest of his life in guilt, worse than death.”

“I cannot harm him like that. Please, Your Highness, be magnanimous and spare us this once!”

This was the first time I had ever seen someone so greedy for life and afraid of death, yet still so self-righteous about it.

I crouched down, used the sword hilt to lift Pei Pingjin’s chin, and smiled.

“One of you is shameless, and the other doesn’t know whether to live or die. You two truly are a perfect match.”

“I will send her down to keep you company!”

“But you must remember, the one who pushed you to your death was your dear little cousin!”

I raised the hilt again with all my strength, aiming to shatter his skull and leave him without even a grave.

“Princess, wait!”