When powerful people fight, the servants can only stand by and watch.
A-Li and Gui De’s attendants could only stare helplessly for a long while. Finally, their savior arrived.
The moment Jiaojiao stepped in to stop the fight, several attendants rushed forward and pulled the two princes apart.
Jiaojiao helped the gray-clothed “Third Imperial Brother” to his feet. Only then did she notice a trace of blood at the corner of his lips. It ran along his jaw and down his neck.
His face was unnaturally pale, making the bright red blood look even more striking.
The sight of the blood reflected in Jiaojiao’s clear, round eyes. Tears quickly filled her eyes, and the hand supporting him began to tremble slightly.
He was looking at her too.
His cold gaze carried a hint of scrutiny, but his expression remained completely emotionless.
Jiaojiao had no time to notice his expression, however.
After helping him stand steadily, she swallowed nervously, gathered herself, and turned toward the “future tyrant.”
The moment she saw that face, her first thought was that male-oriented novel writers really had strange priorities when describing men.
They spent far too much time describing their abilities and far too little describing their looks.
Gui Heng was supposed to be the number-one male lead in the entire novel. He should have been superior to every other man in every possible way.
But although the “future tyrant” standing before her was tall and handsome enough, his appearance was nowhere near as striking as the brief glimpse she had gotten of the “Third Imperial Brother” just now.
His appearance did not matter that much.
What mattered was that, deep down, he really was a genuine tyrant.
What had just happened was proof enough.
She had to be extremely careful around him.
But she still could not hold herself back.
“Y-You… that was too much.”
Jiaojiao sniffed and softly scolded him.
“You hit him so hard…”
As she spoke, she grabbed the sleeve of the “Third Imperial Brother” beside her and pulled him behind her, shielding him with her body.
Only after doing so did she notice that half of his sleeve had been torn away.
His forearm was covered with scratches from being dragged across the ground, with thin streams of blood slowly seeping from them.
The sight was so pitiful that Jiaojiao’s eyes immediately stung.
She blinked her long eyelashes, and two clear tears rolled down her soft, full cheeks.
The Third Prince, Gui De, who was dressed in purple, panicked.
“Hey, Jiaojiao, don’t cry! I already got beaten badly enough. If Father sees you crying because of this, won’t he beat me again?”
Years of experience had taught him one thing:
Anyone who dared to make this little princess cry was basically asking to die.
Jiaojiao held back her sobs and tried to reason with him.
“You’re all brothers. Why did you have to be so cruel?”
“Brothers? He deserves to be called my brother?”
Gui De’s eyebrows shot up in anger. He spat toward the person behind her.
The gray-clothed young man did not even react. His face remained cold and indifferent.
Seeing that she could not reason with him, Jiaojiao angrily stamped her foot and glared at him with her tear-reddened eyes.
“You little brat! It’s all your fault!”
Gui De had no idea what to do. In the end, he decided to make things worse.
“You’re the one who made Jiaojiao angry! I’ll beat you until you learn your lesson—”
His fist, as big as a sandbag, suddenly stopped in midair.
His eyes widened.
Lin Jiaojiao stood in front of the gray-clothed young man with tears in her eyes, spreading both arms like a mother hen protecting her chick.
“Don’t you dare touch him!”
The entire scene fell silent.
Not only was Gui De frozen in place, Jiaojiao herself was stunned.
She had acted completely on instinct.
Now that she realized what she had done, she immediately regretted it and tried to explain.
“I-I didn’t mean…”
The young girl’s large eyes were filled with tears that trembled on the verge of falling. The tip of her nose was red, and her voice shook badly.
She raised her chin, trying to make herself look more intimidating.
But fine beads of sweat had already appeared along her delicate neck.
I’m doomed.
Did I just get myself put on the future tyrant’s death list the very first time I met him?
But she had no choice.
No one understood better than she did how precious life and a healthy body were.
No matter what, she could not stand by and watch someone get beaten to death right in front of her.
Just then, she heard a soft scoff behind her.
It was very faint, carrying a trace of disdain and coldness.
Jiaojiao hesitated and was about to turn around when an angry shout suddenly came from not far away.
“Third Brother, have you gone mad? How dare you even hit Jiaojiao?”
A crowd of people appeared ahead.
The Empress had finally arrived, bringing a large group of attendants with her.
…
Several palace attendants hurried forward and began explaining what had happened, talking over one another as they tried to calm the Empress’s anger.
But Jiaojiao’s attention was completely focused on what the Empress had just shouted.
What did the Empress say?
Jiaojiao remained standing with both arms stretched out in front of her, like someone offering herself up as a sacrifice.
She felt her body slowly turning to stone.
She desperately wanted to turn around and look, but an instinctive fear rose inside her.
She did not dare move her stiff neck.
Th-Third Brother?
If the person wearing purple in front of me is really the Third Prince, then the person standing behind me… could it be…
“Your Highness!”
Everything went black before Jiaojiao’s eyes.
She fainted cleanly and completely.
A pair of hands caught her.
A disheveled woman knelt at the entrance of a palace, crying miserably as she desperately bowed to the owner of those hands.
“Your Majesty, please, for the sake of the fact that we are brother and sister, spare me…”
“Spare you?”
The dark figure before her had broad shoulders and a narrow waist. He was so tall that it seemed as though one man alone could block out all the sunlight in the world.
He held the woman’s thin shoulders and slowly bent down.
He studied her dirty face with an amused, almost playful expression.
“I am your flesh and blood. Have you ever shown me any mercy?”
“Back when we were young, you humiliated me. I have never forgotten it.”
The man’s voice was cold and hard, like jade striking against ice.
After saying those words, he released her.
The woman, already too weak to stand on her own, lost his support.
She collapsed to the ground like a pile of broken mud.
“Your Highness! Your Highness!”
Lin Jiaojiao suddenly opened her eyes.
Yuqiu was wiping the sweat from her forehead. Her voice was full of concern.
“Your Highness, did you have a nightmare? You kept crying, and no matter how much I called you, you wouldn’t wake up.”
Jiaojiao raised a hand to touch her face.
Sure enough, her cheeks were covered in cold tears.
The terrifying scene from her dream still seemed to be right before her eyes.
Jiaojiao nervously looked around, checking her surroundings again and again. She breathed softly and rapidly for quite a while before finally calming down.
With Cuixue’s help, she drank some sweet tea.
She struggled to swallow it and gave a small, trembling sob.
“It’s all because of the Third Prince and Fifth Prince. They couldn’t even pick a proper place to fight. Look how badly they frightened our princess!”
Cuixue muttered angrily.
Yuqiu slapped the back of her hand, finally making her stop talking.
Jiaojiao sat blankly on the bed while the palace maids carefully wiped her cheeks.
The door moved.
Someone strode inside.
Before the person even appeared, his voice came first.
“Jiaojiao, you’re awake?”
It was Gui De, still dressed in purple.
Aunt Du followed helplessly behind him. Clearly, she had failed to stop him.
Jiaojiao’s feelings became incredibly complicated when she saw that purple outfit.
She could not believe she had made such a mistake the very first time she met the future tyrant.
Where was the overpowered hero she had read about?
How did he end up being beaten by someone else?
But…
Jiaojiao slowly calmed down and let out a long breath.
After thinking carefully about what had happened, she realized that she actually should not have mistaken them.
The original author had not spent much time describing the male lead’s handsome appearance, but he had clearly written about his most distinctive features.
Because Gui Heng’s biological mother came from a foreign ethnic group, he had inherited several physical traits that were different from those of people from the Central Plains.
For example, there was a subtle hint of deep purple in his black eyes.
And his hair was naturally curly.
The two of them had been fighting so fiercely that their hair ornaments had become crooked, leaving their hair scattered across their faces.
And one of them…
The ends of his hair had clearly been curled.
Jiaojiao hugged the quilt around herself, staring blankly as she recalled what had happened.
Her slender fingers twisted nervously together.
“What’s wrong? Are you still angry?”
Gui De walked over with a grin.
Her attention was forcibly pulled back to the present.
Just seeing him now gave her a headache.
Unfortunately, Gui De completely failed to read the situation and plopped himself down beside her bed.
Jiaojiao helplessly spoke in a soft voice.
“Third Imperial Brother, we’re all brothers. Why did you have to hit him so hard?”
She hesitated before adding,
“If there was some misunderstanding, you could have just…”
“Jiaojiao, are you all right?”
Gui De looked at her strangely.
“You know what Fifth Brother is like. If you don’t beat him up, he won’t behave.”
Jiaojiao immediately became nervous.
“What did you do to him?”
Gui De shrugged.
“What could I do to him?”
Jiaojiao thought for a moment before cautiously asking,
“What did the Empress say?”
“Her Majesty was the same as always. She gave both of us twenty strokes.”
Gui De spoke casually.
“She cut his monthly allowance for two months and ordered him to stay confined for a month to reflect on his actions. Damn it, I got dragged into it and had to listen to a long lecture too!”
The moment Gui De finished speaking, he regretted it.
Jiaojiao’s clear, round eyes widened slightly.
She looked as though she could not believe what she had just heard.
A moment later, tears slowly gathered in her eyes.
Gui De immediately had a bad feeling.
Sure enough, the spoiled little princess’s eyes quickly turned red, and her voice became choked with tears.
“You call that giving both of you the same punishment?”
This was clearly the two of them teaming up to bully him!
Gui De froze.
He watched helplessly as a deep pink flush spread across the corners of the girl’s eyes.
Tears shimmered in her crystal-clear eyes, trembling on the verge of falling.
He shamelessly took the handkerchief from Aunt Du.
“Good Jiaojiao, don’t cry yet…”
Jiaojiao pressed her lips together and instinctively moved away from his hand.
After being rejected several times, Gui De’s expression darkened too.
Among all the brothers, he had always been the closest to Jiaojiao.
There was a simple reason.
Princess Jiaoran and the Third Prince had similarly bad tempers. They both loved eating and playing, and their personalities had always matched well.
Besides, their father adored her so much that even a fool would know it was worth trying to win her favor.
So when had she suddenly become so hostile toward him?
Being treated as though he were something disgusting was unpleasant.
Gui De was not the type to patiently serve others either.
He threw the handkerchief aside and glared at her darkly, forcing himself to hold back his temper.
“The way you’re talking makes it sound like your Third Brother is some kind of villain. Do you think I attacked him for no reason?”
He pointed angrily at himself.
“Let me tell you, that bastard is bold. He actually stuck a needle inside the collar of my clothes! Look!”
Gui De leaned closer and lowered his head, pulling down the back of his collar.
Jiaojiao frowned.
There really was a tiny wound on the young man’s fair neck. The blood had already dried, and several small bloodstains remained on the inside of his collar.
Gui De straightened his clothes and sat back down.
He looked at Jiaojiao.
“Tell me. Doesn’t he deserve to be beaten?”
Jiaojiao was silent for a moment.
Then she asked,
“Gui… Fifth Brother, how did he do it?”
“He…”
This time, Gui De was the one left speechless.
Normally, he would have proudly bragged about how he had stolen something precious from someone else.
But for some reason, when he looked into those large, clear eyes that seemed even more transparent because they were wet with tears, he suddenly felt that…
The details of how he had forcibly taken what belonged to someone else were strangely difficult to say out loud.
Jiaojiao continued staring at him.
Her gaze made him increasingly uncomfortable.
After a long moment, he muttered,
“…Don’t worry about that. The point is, he put it in there.”
Jiaojiao stared at him for a while longer.
Gui De was so nervous that he started sweating.
Finally, she slowly said,
“Oh.”
She struggled to sit up, took a sip of tea to moisten her dry, cracked lips, and then closed her eyes.
“Third Imperial Brother, you can leave. Right now… I don’t want to see you.”
After saying that, Jiaojiao turned around, clearly showing that she was dismissing him.
Gui De could hardly believe his ears.
What terrible crime had he committed?
She was actually throwing him out just because of that bastard?
Was this a joke?
The proud young prince angrily stood up and kicked over the small stool he had been sitting on.
Then he turned around and walked away.
“Wait!”
The girl’s voice came from behind him.
It was soft and gentle, with a slight hoarseness from crying, like half-melted honey.
Gui De was secretly delighted.
He turned around.
“Jiaojiao, I knew you couldn’t bear to send Third Brother away…”
“You leave by yourself.”
Jiaojiao’s cheeks puffed up.
She was genuinely angry.
“And leave that piece of clothing behind.”
Gui De stormed out furiously.
Aunt Du hurried after him to see him off.
She received quite a lecture from him, along with demands that she take good care of the princess and make sure she did not fall and injure herself again.
Otherwise, after finally recovering from her illness, she might have suffered brain damage from the fall.
Knowing how bad the princess’s temper was, Gui De had only dared to say all this after walking around two palace walls.
Aunt Du sent him away with a smile.
When she returned, she saw Lin Jiaojiao trying to get out of bed.
“What are you going to do, Your Highness?”
“I want to go see Fifth Brother.”
Aunt Du was shocked.
“Why would you want to see him?”
Jiaojiao was caught off guard by the question.
Her face became slightly warm.
“I… I want to see how badly Fifth Brother is hurt.”
“Your Highness, have you forgotten that the Fifth Prince has been confined to his residence?”
Aunt Du gently wiped her face clean.
“Being confined was the Empress’s decision. If you go to visit him now… it might only make things worse for him.”
Jiaojiao stared blankly for a moment.
Then she suddenly sat upright.
“I want to see Father.”