Chapter 5
The young man froze.
The Seventh Princess rounded on him.
“You address a princess as your equal? Who do you think you are? You happened to meet her? Eight times out of ten, you just happen to meet her! Why don’t you happen to meet me? Or my cousin? Or any other young lady? Of course a dog always finds its way to filth. You’re a filthy pair!”
“Seventh Sister, how can you speak to Master Li that way? He’s your future husband. Am I not even allowed to speak to him when we meet? You’re utterly spoiled and overbearing,” the Third Princess rebuked her.
The Seventh Princess slapped her across the face too.
“I hit him and left you out, did I?”
“Bribing my maid to watch when I go out—one fiancé isn’t enough for a shameless woman like you? You want every man in the world dancing around you. Can you marry them all?”
The two princesses began to fight.
Master Li rushed forward, pretending to separate them while taking one side.
Cui Mingxue and I exchanged a glance, then hurried to hold him back.
“Master Li, you can’t strike the Seventh Princess! She’s your fiancée. How can you defend someone else instead of her?”
“Master Li, even if the Seventh Princess caught you being intimate with the Third Princess, you still can’t hit her!”
Cui Mingwei’s eyes darted about. Then she burst into loud sobs.
“Help! The Third Princess is going to beat the Seventh Princess to death!”
By the time the others arrived, the Third Princess had just gained the upper hand and was straddling the Seventh Princess.
She was about to slap her when someone caught her wrist…
The Third Princess’s lips trembled. She had never been so frustrated and wronged.
Cui Mingxue and I released Master Li at the same time. He immediately hurried forward and helped the Third Princess up, holding her tightly in his arms as he glared at the Seventh Princess.
Silence fell around us.
Line after line of […] drifted through the comments.
Only after a long while did someone speak.
[What a glorious team fight. That coordination…]
[The Third Princess could jump into a river and still never wash this off.]
[The heroine’s gone bad, and I love it. Hahahaha! Finally, a heroine who feels like a real person. So much better than the punching bag in the original story.]
The incident ruined the entire flower-viewing banquet.
The Empress stepped in to settle it.
The Seventh Princess insisted on ending her engagement.
“Third Sister says Cui daughters are shameless for breaking off engagements so casually.”
“Then I’ll break mine off too. We Zhao daughters can be shameless as well. I’m shameless, Third Sister’s shameless—we can all be shameless together.”
The Empress pressed a hand to her forehead, drawing one agitated breath after another.
“Nonsense! How dare you speak such rubbish? Your mother arranged this engagement. Would you disregard even her dying wish?”
The Seventh Princess’s eyes reddened with anger.
“If my mother were alive, would that man Li dare treat me this way?”
“If she were here, she would never make me accept a filthy man.”
“Pawing at another woman—how vile!”
“Mother, I would rather die than remain engaged to him.”
“And please let Third Sister marry that man Li, so they can’t keep using poetry as an excuse to ruin other people’s lives.”
“Even I, a princess, have had to swallow this humiliation. What are other young ladies supposed to do? Let wretches like them disgust them to death?”
Murmurs broke out among the onlookers.
Before the Empress could answer, the Third Princess spoke.
“Mother, Seventh Sister is trying to drive me to my death. I might as well die!”