Chapter 15

Chapter 15

Pei Jingcheng was lying.

The Northern Desert beyond the Northern Frontier had long since been beaten into submission by me; their Royal Court had even retreated a thousand miles away.

I only wanted the money to build a foundation for Yue Tingyuan.

Yet he claimed to have received news that the Northern Frontier was unstable.

He was deceiving Yue Chiyan!

Why would he do such a thing?

He had no reason to.

Unless…

It was truly as Yue Chiyan said-he was doing it for…

Upon returning to the manor, I was informed that Yue Tingyuan had been waiting for me for a long time.

“Your Highness,” I said, performing a formal salute.

“Drop the ‘Highness’ already!”

Yue Tingyuan pulled me aside, her eyes gleaming with mischief. “Is Pei Jingcheng so captivated by your beauty that he’s lost his mind? Is he choosing the lady over the empire?”

I looked at her with a deadpan expression. “When you were skipping classes at the Imperial Academy, the Eldest Princess didn’t hit you hard enough.”

She was spouting nonsense and butchering idioms.

At the mention of the Crown Princess, Yue Tingyuan’s playfulness faded slightly, and she slumped her shoulders.

“Out of all us kids, Eldest Sister beat me every day, yet she spent all her time holding you. Sometimes she even held you while she was beating me.”

That was because Yue Tingyuan was the most troublesome child back then!

The Great Yin Imperial Academy admitted the descendants of the noble and prestigious.

I, Yue Tingyuan, Pei Jingcheng, and many other children of similar age were all classmates.

The Policy Discourse course at the academy was taught by the Crown Princess herself.

She was brilliant and exceptional, as radiant as golden sunlight-the rising sun in everyone’s eyes.

Therefore, when she was impeached, the youths she had looked after as they grew up-now returned to their respective families-submitted memorial after memorial to the throne to protest the injustice against her.

There were only two exceptions.

One was Yue Chiyan, who had never entered the Imperial Academy.

The other was Pei Jingcheng, who had been taught by the Crown Princess just as I had.

When he failed to submit a memorial, I simply thought he was a coward who feared for his life, an ungrateful soul.

But after he took over as Clan Head, it was his single petition that took the Crown Princess’s life.

“Ni Luo.”

Yue Tingyuan looked at me, her playful demeanor vanishing, her gaze turning calm.

“Pei Jingcheng was the key to Eldest Sister’s death. That is the first reason.

“Pei Jingcheng is the leader of the Aristocratic Clans. As long as he remains, the clans cannot be dismantled. That is the second reason.

“The world knows that Pei Jingcheng is a follower of the Fourth Prince. If he can betray Yue Chiyan, he can betray me. I cannot trust this man-I will never trust him. That is the third reason.

“In the future, even if I do not kill him, I will never grant him an important position. And I certainly will not marry my closest confidante, the Grand General of the Great Yin Dynasty, to him.”

I looked at Yue Tingyuan and, after a long silence, responded softly.

“Yes.”

“I understand.”