The little princess' mind was read, and the court and harem were eating melons

The system didn't even need to say too much. Just from these few sentences, Li Qingyi could imagine the rest of the situation.

Human nature is sometimes so strange.

It is not uncommon for people who appear to have a good relationship with each other actually to dislike each other in their hearts. Some people will sincerely feel happy for a brother who is better than themselves, while others will only feel inferior and resentful when faced with such a situation.

After all, it always seems easier to drag others down than to strive to improve yourself.

This seems to be the case with Qi Bailin and Zhang Nianran.

Li Qingyi had a system cheat, so he could naturally figure out the twists and turns quickly.

The Seventh Princess was also capable, and together with the Ninth Princess who was late in receiving the news, the two of them quickly figured out the cause of the incident.

Qi Bailin was jealous of Zhang Nianran, and from the bottom of his heart he only recognized Li Ningyan as his "brother".

Li Ningyan had an accident recently and can no longer attend the imperial examination that he had originally planned to take part in next year. However, Zhang Nianran, whom Qi Bailin hates in his heart, can continue to concentrate on his studies and may even be the dark horse in next year's imperial examination. Who knows, he may pass it in one fell swoop. The distance between them will only get bigger and bigger.

Then, Qi Bailin learned from Li Ningyan's servant that Prince Lin intended to marry the girl from the Chen family to his good-for-nothing brother Li Ningmu. While thinking that Prince Lin was too partial, he suddenly had an idea and came up with a crooked idea.

This led to the misfortune that Zhang Nianran and Chen Zhi encountered today.

Speaking of which, these two people also suffered from unprovoked misfortune.

By the time they figured out the situation, it was already late. Although it was not yet dark and the sun had not yet set, they were now on the outskirts of the city. If the time to return to the city and the palace was counted, it was indeed late.

The Seventh Princess stroked her little sister who had fallen asleep in her arms at some point, and exchanged glances with the Ninth Princess.

Then, the Seventh Princess turned around and took Li Qingyi to the Ninth Princess's carriage. The Ninth Princess stayed where she was and had Qi Bailin detained first. She also confirmed that Zhang Nianran's leg would be almost recovered in three months, and after calculating that she could still catch up with the imperial examination, she asked the Zhang family to take Zhang Nianran back first.

As for the Chen family...

Chen Qicong moved his lips. At this time, he actually wanted to arrange for Chen Zhi to live with him first. As a daughter, Chen Zhi's life in the Chen family was really not very good.

Why is Chen Zhi here today?

Because Mrs. Chen received a message from Prince Lin's Mansion, saying that Princess Lin wanted to meet Chen Zhi, and the implication was that if Princess Lin was satisfied, the marriage would be settled.

So, Mrs. Chen took Chen Zhi out without even verifying anything.

But in fact, the person who delivered the message to her was not from Princess Lin's side, nor was he from the Lin Palace. It was just that Qi Bailin borrowed Li Ningyan's badge and asked his servant to pretend to be a servant from the Lin Palace in order to deceive Madam Chen.

But in this matter, did Mrs. Chen have good intentions?

Nor is it.

If she really had good intentions, she wouldn't have brought Chen Zhi out without any hints. In fact, because the schedule was decided in a hurry, Chen Zhi didn't dress up today and looked a little gray.

But it's not true that Madam Chen was against this marriage. The Ninth Princess could see that Madam Chen wanted to use Chen Zhi to climb up to the Lin Wang Mansion, but at the same time she didn't want Chen Zhi to have a good life, so there was this seemingly contradictory arrangement.

The Ninth Princess herself is also a woman, a daughter. Comparing the situation at her own family with that at Chen Zhi, she naturally felt a bit of pity for her.

But although the Ninth Princess is younger than Chen Zhi, having grown up in the palace since childhood, she always passively experiences more things than her peers. So the Ninth Princess figured out early on that she could only help those whom she wanted to help.

This point overlaps with Li Qingyi in some ways.

In the end, the Ninth Princess only left a maid by her side to escort the Chen mother and daughter home without saying much.

Li Qingyi is also young. When adults feel sleepy, they can rely on willpower to hold on for a while, but when children feel sleepy, sometimes they have no control over it at all. They fall asleep in the blink of an eye, and when they wake up, they don’t even know when they fell asleep.

So, when Li Qingyi opened his eyes and found himself in the Qianqing Palace, he was only slightly surprised, but soon figured out what was going on.

"Father." Li Qingyi touched his eyes, yawned slightly, and walked out of the inner hall. While calling the emperor, he squinted his eyes and looked around to see if his two sisters were there.

"Well, awake?"

It was already dark outside, and candles were lit inside. But what was interesting was that glass lamps had been placed in the emperor's office at some point, making this room brighter than other rooms.

Li Qingyi took another look at it and muttered to himself that this was probably something Wang Xuan had done. He just didn't know when she had made it and why he hadn't received any news about it.

The emperor noticed her look and smiled: "Why? Do you like this lamp? This was sent in from outside the palace by the little girl surnamed Wang this afternoon. I got sixteen of them, two without patterns, and the other fourteen with seven pairs of patterns. If you like, go pick one yourself later."

"But I heard that the Queen also collected quite a few, and the concubines and princesses in the harem also have some, but the patterns are different."

Li Qingyi: ...

It turned out that I missed this incident because I was out of the palace.

Li Qingyi walked to the emperor and stretched out his hands to let his father pick him up. After his vision was raised, he could see the two transparent glass lamps more clearly, but he didn't look at them for long.

Mainly, it causes eye irritation when looking straight ahead.

Li Qingyi asked the emperor: "Father, was it my seventh sister who sent me back?"

The emperor nodded slightly: "Yes, I already know about the affairs of the Zhang and Chen families."

Li Qingyi heard this and guessed that the Seventh Princess probably didn't hide any news. There was nothing to hide. The Seventh Princess and the Ninth Princess had no interest in the Zhang, Qi, and Chen families. As for the Lin Palace...

To them, the Prince Lin's Mansion was just a relative with some blood relationship, and they were not sure about other things. With the intelligence of the Ninth Princess, she would probably discover that the relationship between the Emperor and the Prince Lin's Mansion was not as harmonious as it seemed.

Then there is no need to hide any news for the Lin Wang Mansion.

Li Qingyi asked: "Will the emperor take care of this matter?"

Emperor: "Well, this is a small matter. Unless the Zhang family and the Qi family break up and bring this matter to the court, I will not care."

The emperor is the emperor, the Lord of Heaven, but he is also a human being. It is impossible for him to be in charge of everything. His diligence is not just about these things.

What's more, the one who got into trouble today was a merchant's daughter, and the other was the son of an official, so they were both commoners.

If an official caused such a thing, the emperor would at least take part in it.

If the emperor were to question these commoners about what they had done, it would probably be inappropriate and would easily lead to unnecessary misunderstandings.