Valiant Princess

Five: First step

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Crown Prince Long Dongji

(Yang Yang)

Seeing that the Crown Princess is behaving casually and light-heartedly with her imperial siblings made all the guests to happily continue with their conversations while enjoying the performances as well. Crown Prince Long Dongji smiles happily and looks at his future wife, Lady Mudan1, daughter of the late General Shizi2.

Lady Mudan smiles back at him and, when she realizes that Crown Princess Long Fenghuang is looking at her as well, she smiles at her too. The Crown Princess nods at her and raises her teacup towards her future sister-in-law. Lady Mudan feels happy that the Crown Princess seems to be better now, her temperament has improved greatly too. In the past, she has thought that the Crown Princess is someone with great beauty, but her temper overshadowed her beauty most of the times. Almost no one is willing to have any sort of connection with the Crown Princess including the one intended to be her future husband, the impenetrable General Bing Xiaji. Lady Mudan has a feeling that he even loathed the Crown Princess whereas the Crown Princess is madly in love with him. Seeing the Crown Princess acting cold towards the General made her feels vindicated somehow. That cold man always rejected the poor Crown Princess and that made her acts more and more uncontrollable towards others. He caused that.

"Evil man", she thought when she looks at that incorrigible man sitting across her table. As if he can read her mind, he smiles and raises his wine cup towards her. She calmly looks away and sneered in the process.

Crown Princess Long Fenghuang saw the brief exchanges between the General and Lady

Mudan, she smiles underneath her veil. Interesting she thought to herself. She even ponders whether her future sister-in-law can be her ally soon. She smiles even more. Once again, she acted as if she is there just to assess her surrounding in silence. During her other lifetime, she had ignored everyone else around her, she never even tried to get acquainted with her sisters-in-law. Her life solely revolves around that man. He is her world... She, on the other hand, means absolutely nothing to him. With that thought, she no longer smiles. She looks at him briefly before she bows her head down to stare at her small pair of hands.

Empress Huihuang feels that her daughter has shut herself out once more. Her daughter seems to be somewhat distant; she did treat her siblings warmly unlike in the past but that's that. Most of the times, she just sits there and continues to sip on her tea in silence. Sometimes, she seems to be assessing her surrounding, but she just calmly sits there while one of her fingers is tapping on the table softly. Huli continues to fan her daughter slowly while Congming sometimes whispers to her daughter. All 3 of them seems to be acting as if the banquet has absolutely nothing to do with them. Her husband suddenly coughs then he looks at her face. She then looks at her husband as well.

"It is time..." he said.

She worriedly says, "Is it... Can't it be later?"

He smiles and holds onto her hand to assure her that it will be alright. The Emperor then instructed the imperial musicians to stop playing their respective instruments. Once again, the banquet hall is in complete silence.

He then says, "Today, we are celebrating for the well-being of our oldest daughter, Fenghuang. And, we think it is the right time to announce her engagement with General Bing Xiaji, son of Prime Minister Bing Xi. They will be married on ..."

Suddenly, a sound of something is breaking to pieces can be heard throughout the hall. Empress Huihuang gasps when she saw what had caused the noise. Crown Princess Long Fenghuang’s right palm is profusely bleeding. The teacup in her small hand had broken into pieces resulting in multiple deep cuts. Drip by drip, her blood is dripping onto the table. She did not say anything. She did not even move. She just sits there in silence while her blood continues to drip onto the table. Emperor Long Feng shouts to call for an imperial doctor to check on his beloved daughter. Surprisingly, the Crown Princess raises her bloody hand to stop the imperial doctor to even come near to her table, the hem of her white coloured sleeve is now soaked with her blood.

She then said, "Imperial father, do forgive this daughter for being rude but this daughter implores to father that the wedding shall only happen when she reaches 18 years of age" and she then kneels and bows in front of him.

"This ungrateful daughter begs imperial father to grant her wish. This daughter has always wanted to visit her maternal grandparents and stays with them for the time being to recuperate, study and prepares herself to be an excellent wife to the great General Bing Xiaji."

Emperor Long Feng is a bit flabbergasted by this sudden move made by his daughter. Empress Huihuang looks at her husband and her daughter before saying, "Is that what you really want?"

The Crown Princess still bowing and answers, "Yes. That is what this daughter wishes to do unless the General thinks otherwise."

General Bing Xiaji flinches as he can feel that the damnable princess is saying his name with disgust although not that glaringly, but he can still feel it in the tone of her voice, "This General has nothing to say. Whatever Her Royal Highness wants, this General will follow."

She looks up and turns to look at him and say, "Good. Good for us. That will be done by this princess of course. Soon, we will leave the imperial palace for the time being and will only be back occasionally for important matters only. Our personal maidservants and Xiao Yu will be following us of course. We wish not to be disturbed if we are staying with our maternal grandparents. Especially by you."

The Emperor just sighed and look at his daughter, "It will be done according to your words then. When will you leave?"

The Crown Princess stands up, "The sooner the better. This daughter will be going back to our palace now. Everyone, please continue to enjoy this celebration. Thank you for being here to celebrate it with the imperial family. We have to go back now..." Huli suddenly takes her injured hand and pour a white powder on it. Congming then takes out a thin gauze then wrap her injured hand. Slowly, the three of them leave the banquet hall in silence.

General Bing Xiaji seeing this new version of the princess grips the corner of his table. This is not what he had imagined earlier today. He thought that she will be happy and insisted on early marriage but, now, she insisted for him to wait for 5 years. His plan must be postponed due to this new development.

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1. ** Peony

2. ** Lion