Chapter 11

Somehow, the news still leaked out.

Just at dawn, Princess Yurou stormed into the Shen Mansion. I had just stepped out of Shen Yunian’s courtyard when the whip in her hand lashed towards me.

With a “snap,” it struck my face.

A burning pain spread across my cheek, and I staggered a few steps before falling to the ground, blood instantly staining my collar.

At the same time, the pouch at my waist fell off.

I glanced at it and clicked my tongue; it was a careless mistake. This pouch was the hush money Qi Yu gave me last night, which led to her mistaking me for someone else.

“Wretch!”

“A lowly girl dares to seduce my Prince Consort!”

The servants in the mansion shrank back under the corridor, trembling with fear.

Qi Yu hurried over, his face pale: “Your Highness, this is a misunderstanding…”

Princess Yurou sneered with hostility, slapping him across the face: “Do you take me for a fool? How could your pouch be with her?”

Qi Yu’s face flushed red, his jaw clenched, enduring the humiliation.

I covered my face, kowtowing and crying: “Your Highness, I picked up this pouch in the garden last night…”

“I was just about to ask the Eldest Young Master if it might have been left behind by a guest.”

“Picked it up?” She laughed coldly, “Who are you trying to fool? Where did you go last night? Who did you meet?”

I went to kill someone.

But I couldn’t say that.

As I hesitated over how to fabricate a story, a clear and cold voice came from behind: “Your Highness, Yuan Qiao was in my room last night.”

Shen Yunian walked over, wrapping a cloak around my shoulders with intimate gestures: “I drank too much last night and offended Yuan Qiao.”

“The Prince Consort was resting in the guest room; Your Highness must have misunderstood something.”

As he spoke, he lifted a bit of bloodstain on my skirt, accidentally stained during the murder last night.

This bit of blood was enough to let imaginations run wild.

I buried my head in his embrace at the right moment, looking like a mortified young girl on the verge of death.

My acting has always been convincing, whatever I perform looks genuine.

The princess’s intelligence wasn’t very accurate; for a moment, half-truths and half-lies, she squinted her eyes and scrutinized us.

After a while, she snorted coldly and tossed out a sentence: “In that case, Lord Shen must give the young lady an explanation.”

This hurdle was passed, with unexpected gains.

After the princess left, the two elders of the Shen Family were so angry they trembled, dragging Shen Yunian to the ancestral hall for punishment.

“You fool! No matter how much you like Yuan Qiao, you should marry her properly!”

“You’ve wasted your education!”

Shen Yunian didn’t refute a single word.

Because he had to accept this matter, otherwise, the princess’s hurdle couldn’t be overcome.

Afterwards, the Mistress held my hand with deep guilt, saying the Shen Family owed me and must make Shen Yunian take responsibility.

I lowered my head and feigned embarrassment, but my mind was calculating clearly.

Shen Yunian is not my ideal husband; his thoughts are too deep, his ambitions too great. But to firmly grasp the Shen Family’s big tree, making some compromises, what’s the harm?

I could laugh out loud even in my dreams.

The title of Young Lady Shen sounds quite nice, much better than being an adopted daughter whose future marriage is uncertain!