The princess was ordained by Heaven.

At this moment, the palace servants who had received Zheng Jin's instructions returned.

He carried a food box and avoided people as he walked until he stopped four or five steps away from Zheng Jin.

"Second Princess, the things you ordered have been brought."

Zheng Jin quickly said, "Quickly, these are pastries that I specially prepared for Prince Ding. You must be hungry after all this commotion."

Perhaps to escape Zheng Xun's questioning, Ding Kang jumped and skipped to the palace servants and snatched the food box: "Yay! Cake!"

Zheng Jin smiled mysteriously: "That's right, Gao Gao, you should eat quickly."

Zheng Jiao tilted her head towards her suspiciously and asked in a low voice, "You're really that kind?"

Zheng Jin smiled gently: "Of course, I'm beautiful inside and out!"

When the food box was opened, a foul stench filled the air, and Ding Kang's expression changed in a complex way as he looked at the brownish-yellow object inside.

"Why aren't you eating? Don't you like it?" Zheng Jin asked gently.

Ding Kang's face turned bitter, and he said dryly, "This doesn't look appetizing."

"It's delicious, try some. Do you need me to have someone feed you?"

Zheng Jiao covered her nose: "What did you serve him?"

If it really is that thing, she'll start to suspect that her sister is a pervert.

Zheng Jin reassured him, "Don't worry, it's good stuff, it's just that the taste and appearance are a bit irritating. I just wanted to see how far he could pretend to be stupid."

Zheng Jiao breathed a sigh of relief, remained silent for a moment, and then said with difficulty, "Promise me, you must throw away that food box."

Zheng Jin looked at her as if she were an idiot: "Why throw it away? Why not just give it to someone you don't like in the future?"

She felt that the food box and its contents matched the image of the seventh prince of the Brown Kingdom quite well.

Zheng Jiao groaned in pain and silently moved away from her.

Zheng Jiao tilted her head slightly:

I always thought my second sister was a fairy from a painting or a spirit from a book, possessing an ethereal and otherworldly aura. But today, she suddenly seems to have fallen to the ground.

Zheng Jin remained completely calm.

She was just an ordinary mortal; there was no need for her to aspire to be a fairy or a spirit.

Zheng Jiao was overwhelmed by the stench, pinched her nose, and urged Ding Kang in a muffled voice, "Eat quickly!"

Ding Kang slammed the food box on the ground and yelled, "I quit!"

Who would want to eat this garbage? Is he some kind of despicable person?

Zhao: !!!

Zheng Xun: "I thought it could last a little longer."

She couldn't help but look at Zheng Jin with admiration: "I've really broadened my horizons. Second sister really knows everything and always has a way to deal with things."

Zheng Jin felt guilty, because she didn't actually know everything.

Zhao rushed up to Ding Kang: "You lied to me!"

A deep sense of disappointment welled up, washing away the surface of the sand and revealing the anger in Zhao's heart. For a moment, she was unable to express her feelings.

For Ding Kang's sake, she went to great lengths to find doctors and medicines, and schemed and plotted everywhere, fearing that if she lost her status, she would be unable to protect him.

She's only so young, yet her face is already wrinkled, and her reputation as a shrew has spread throughout the capital.

She could have remarried, she could have abandoned him, but she couldn't bear to see him suffer.

I wonder if he felt even a little bit guilty when he pretended to be stupid and saw her exhaustedly trying to cover up his dirty deeds.

No, she was wrong. He wouldn't feel guilty; he would only be pleased that she had him completely manipulated.

The Empress sighed, "If only I had known this would happen, I wouldn't have done it in the first place."

Zheng Xun said coldly, "There's no such thing as 'if only I had known this would happen.' She just felt that Ding Kang had betrayed her maternal love, but she felt no remorse for those whom Ding Kang killed."

The emperor turned his head to look at her, not understanding why her words contained such indifference and a calm acceptance of something.

With so much time already passed, it was time for this "entertainment" performance to come to an end.

He frowned and coughed lightly.

The Empress cast a worried look at him: "Has Your Majesty caught a cold?"

Some of the others were still savoring the gossip they had just heard, while others were thinking about when they could finally beat Ding Kang up. No one noticed that he had made a sound.

emperor:……

Li Xiaojun suppressed a laugh, raised her voice, and coughed lightly to remind everyone to look over.

Only then did everyone realize that there was an emperor present.

The emperor pretended that the awkward moment had never happened and said as usual, "I don't think Zhao and Ding Kang are in the mood to participate in the Thousand Autumns Festival, so let them go back first."

His title did not include the name of the Duke of Dingguo's Mansion, and any intelligent person would have guessed that the Duke of Dingguo's Mansion was probably in danger.

However, both Zhao and Ding Kang were shrewd but lacked wisdom, so they didn't realize this at all.

Ding Kang's feigned madness was already a crime of deceiving the emperor. They felt guilty and, although they were ashamed to be kicked out of the banquet in the middle, they did not dare to be presumptuous and could only slink away.

The banquet only returned to its lively state after these two oddballs were gone.

The banquet did not begin until evening at Taiping Hall.

The Taiping Hall is extremely spacious. To prevent guests from behaving improperly after drinking, male and female guests are seated on opposite sides, with a flat area in the middle.

The floor was covered with a gorgeous carpet, on which dancers gracefully swayed. The banquet was filled with the sounds of clinking glasses and a harmonious atmosphere.

When Zheng Xun saw that Zheng Jin had left the main hall of Taiping Palace at some point, she had an idea and quickly followed after her.

Zheng Jin came out to sober up.

She had carefully prepared the wine at the banquet; she knew about wine and loved it, but before she knew it, she had drunk a few too many glasses.

But the banquet was going to last a long time, and she couldn't get drunk in front of everyone.

She leaned against the railing of the corridor. The evening breeze wasn't too hot. The unnamed tree next to her seemed to have burned out the last bit of green in summer, and the edges of its leaves were turning yellowish.

"Ajin."

Suddenly, a boy's clear voice came from the right front.

In that instant, Zheng Jin seemed to smell the aroma of wine from that evening when she took a nap at her adoptive parents' house after drinking.

Reason told her it couldn't be that person, but her body had already involuntarily leaned out.

Following the long eaves, she saw a boy leaning against the railing in the pavilion not far away.

He was dressed in a neatly tailored violet-red robe, his hair was styled high and tied only with a gold and red ribbon, and he waved to her with a bright smile, calling her name.

"Ajin!"

He climbed down from the railing, traversed the intricate garden, and came to her side, his smile as bright as the morning sun: "I found you!"

Zheng Jin called out to him in a daze, "Nie Zhao..."

"Here!" Nie Zhao replied crisply and loudly, his arm resting on the railing, separated from her by a row of railings.

Zheng Jin snapped out of her daze, rolled up her sleeves expressionlessly, and said, "You little brat, are you tired of living?! What did you call me?!"

Nie Zhao felt a chill run down his spine, his mind racing, and finally managed to unearth a memory.

His mouth moved faster than his brain, and he blurted out, "Ah... no! Master Jin!"

Zheng Jin gracefully lowered her sleeves: "You're smart to know what's good for you."

When they parted, he promised to return in two months, but he left her alone to see off her adoptive parents and wait in the mountains for half a year. Finally, the person who came to take her back to her family arrived.

He once said that if she didn't return in two months, she would be his boss forever.

She had been waiting for this day for a long time.

“Ah Jin, your eyes are red.”