The Flirtatious Prince and His Savage Concubine

In the carriage back to the Prince's Mansion, the atmosphere seemed a bit dull and depressing. Nan Wangyu sat on one side, her beautiful and sharp eyes staring straight at Lu Lingxi opposite her, her gaze was like a torch, as if she wanted to see through her, but she never said a word.

Lu Lingxi felt uncomfortable under this burning gaze, and she turned her head slightly to try to avoid Nan Wangyu's oppressive gaze. However, no matter how she dodged, she could not escape the other's gaze.

As time passed, the silence in the carriage became more and more suffocating. Nan Wangyu's face gradually became gloomy. He bit his lips tightly, and there seemed to be a ball of anger burning in his heart.

Lu Lingxi seemed a little uneasy, clutching the corners of his clothes tightly with both hands, and even a layer of fine beads of sweat seeped out of his forehead.

In order to break the awkward atmosphere, Lu Lingxi laughed dryly and said, "Hehe, father is still strong despite his old age. We will have another brother or sister soon."

Nan Wangyu did not respond to Lu Lingxi's question, and said angrily, "Lingxi, you knelt down on the broken porcelain pieces yourself, right?"

"Yes, go and report me to father." Lu Lingxi said desperately.

Nan Wangyu stepped forward and held Lu Lingxi's hand tightly, his brows furrowed, his eyes flashing with a mixture of anger and pity, and his voice unconsciously rose a few degrees: "Lingxi! How can you hurt yourself like this? Don't you know how worried this will make me? Seeing these scars on your body, my heart feels like it's being pricked by needles!" As he spoke, he gently stroked the shocking wounds on Lu Lingxi's knees and sighed.

Lu Lingxi comforted Nan Wangyu in return: "Don't worry, it's just some superficial injuries, it will heal in a few days."

Nan Wangyu touched Lu Lingxi's swollen left face lovingly: "Does it hurt? Why do you have to make yourself like this? Just tolerate her for a while, and if you suffer any grievances, come back and tell me, and I will help you get revenge."

Lu Lingxi nodded and answered honestly: "It hurts, but it's worth it. From now on, I won't have to go to the palace from time to time to act with Queen Gu. She was also punished by my father, and the power in the palace was divided. She was also branded as abusing her daughter-in-law. This time I made a profit."

Nan Wangyu pushed Lu Lingxi's forehead with his finger and said helplessly: "What did you gain? You wounded yourself all over, while others didn't even have a scratch. Do you think you gained? You hurt the enemy 800 times and hurt yourself 10,000 times. Don't do such things again in the future. No matter what happens, avoid the sharp edge first and protect yourself. The most important thing is to protect yourself."

"But you know what happened today. She is determined to blame me. I can't hide away. I am tired of having these meaningless arguments with her. It is best to make a big fuss and solve it all at once so that everyone can be at peace. If there are only a few quarrels today and nothing else happens, even if you and the emperor come to seek justice for me, you won't be able to do it. I have no choice but to do this."

Nan Wangyu blamed himself and sighed: "Alas! In the final analysis, it was me who failed to protect you. Don't worry, I won't let you get hurt in vain. I will definitely ask her to compensate you."

Lu Lingxi smiled and said, "That's great."

I don't know what method Nan Wangyu used, but Queen Gu's compensation was delivered to the Prince's Mansion the next day. However, it was not called compensation, but a reward for her good and innovative Hundred Flowers Banquet, which won praises from all the ladies and young ladies.

Lu Lingxi took her reward and began to recover at home. During the recovery period, Nan Wangyu took care of her meticulously except for the time when he was in court and handling government affairs. Dressing and feeding her were all done properly. It only took Lu Lingxi a few days to change from being shy and unnatural at the beginning to getting used to it. Later, she even felt that she was not used to it without Nan Wangyu doing these things for her.

It took Lu Lingxi more than twenty days to recover from his injury, and in the blink of an eye it was the beginning of summer.

On this day, the emperor of the Southern Expedition would lead all the officials to the hunting ground in the southern suburbs to hold a summer welcoming ceremony. The emperor and his officials would all wear red formal clothes and red jade pendants, and even the horses and carriage flags would be red to express their prayers for a good harvest and good wishes.

When Lu Lingxi heard about it, she also wanted to go, and pestered Nan Wangyu for a long time before letting her go. However, she was not allowed to ride a horse, only a carriage. In fact, Lu Lingxi's knee healed in ten days, and she could walk freely. But Nan Wangyu refused to let Lu Lingxi move more, and asked her to rest for a while. Lu Lingxi was locked up in the palace during this period, and she was almost bored.

She was so happy to be able to go out and participate in the summer blessing ceremony that she opened the carriage curtains and looked around happily along the way.

Along the way, you can always see groups of children, gathered together, sometimes quiet, sometimes cheering. Lu Lingxi asked: "What are those children doing together? They are so happy!"

Chunhong and Liulu were not as excited as Lu Lingxi, and they sat in the car in a well-behaved manner. Liulu looked at the direction of Lu Lingxi's finger and replied, "They are fighting eggs. Miss, you don't even remember this? You used to love fighting eggs the most."

Lu Lingxi said calmly: "I don't have any impression of it. What is 'egg fighting'?"

Chunhong explained slowly, "The so-called egg fighting is that every household cooks whole eggs, soaks them in cold water for a few minutes, then puts them in a pre-woven silk mesh bag and hangs them around the children's necks. The children then gather in groups of three or five to play the egg fighting game. The eggs are divided into two ends, the pointed one is the head and the round one is the tail. In the egg fighting, the egg heads fight the egg heads, and the egg tails fight the egg tails. One by one, the broken one admits defeat, and finally the winner is determined. The egg with the winning head is ranked first, and its egg is called the big king; the egg with the winning tail is ranked second, and its egg is called the small king or the second king."

Lu Lingxi nodded, "It's really fun, I want to play it now too."

Liu Lu burst her fantasy without hesitation: "My Lady, that's a toy for children. No one will want to play with you if you go there now."

Lu Lingxi enviously said, "It's great to be a child, carefree and with fun games."

Seeing that Lu Lingxi was really envious, Liu Lu comforted him, "Your Majesty, on the day of the Beginning of Summer, there will not only be an egg-fighting game, but also a new food tasting event, as the saying goes, 'The Beginning of Summer sees three new things'."

"Oh? Which three new ones?"

"The three new things are cherries, green plums, and wheat. The food that the royal family used to welcome the summer and pray for blessings and taste the new things was even more abundant, with "nine meat dishes and thirteen vegetarian dishes". The nine meat dishes were crucian carp, salted eggs, snails, brine chicken, pickled vegetables, marinated shrimps, and cherry meat; the thirteen vegetarian dishes included cherries, plums, wheat silkworms, bamboo shoots, broad beans, spears, peas, cucumbers, lettuce, grass heads, radishes, roses, and pine flowers."

It sounded quite tempting. Lu Lingxi asked uncertainly, "These are all for sacrifice, right? Can we eat them?"

Liu Lu smiled and said, "Don't worry, since it's available, you can definitely eat it. As long as you want to eat it, even if it's what His Majesty wants, His Royal Highness can get it for you."

Lu Lingxi felt a chill: "Liu Lu, if you don't know how to use metaphors, then don't use them randomly. What do I need the food in my father's mouth for? Eh... saliva..."

Along the way, Lu Lingxi chatted with Chunhong and Liulu about this and that, and soon arrived at the place for praying. As soon as they got off the carriage, Concubine Shang, Concubine Wang, Crown Prince's Concubines Li and Zhu, Crown Prince's Concubines Liu and Wu, and Su, who was demoted from the position of Concubine, and other Crown Prince's concubines all came to pay their respects to Lu Lingxi, and they all said in unison: "Hello, Crown Princess!"

It was quite a big event. Lu Lingxi felt like it was a military parade and suddenly wanted to say, "Hello, comrades!"

But reason still made Lu Lingxi say politely: "Okay, everyone stand up."

Liu Lu whispered behind her, "I don't know what His Royal Highness is thinking. Why bring them all along? It's not easy for the Crown Princess to change her mind about him, but now he's letting these people hang around in front of His Royal Highness. Isn't this making His Royal Highness feel uncomfortable?"

Chunhong pulled her sleeve and said, "You shouldn't say that. His Royal Highness has his own reasons for doing things. We, as servants, shouldn't talk about our masters behind their backs."

The scene was quite grand, and the Emperor of Nanzheng and the officials also noticed it. The officials at the back, who were quite brave, whispered to their friends, "No wonder His Royal Highness the Crown Prince is so lucky. He treats his concubines equally, and brings them all to such an occasion."

The friend agreed, "Who says it's not true? There are family members in our house who like to join in the fun, but they only bring their wives and legitimate children with them. Concubines and illegitimate children are definitely not allowed to accompany them. Even Your Majesty, because the Queen made a mistake and was under house arrest, he didn't bring any concubines with him."

The two chatted for a while, and only shut up when Emperor Nan Zheng started talking.