Cuddling with the Cold Female Protagonist – Chapter 31

Volume 2: The Captivating Splendor of Jingdu

Dual Crisis

Actually, Su Ban’s idea was very simple. She just wanted to let this great-granddaughter, born of a concubine, and her fulang see the world, so she let them go to the First Prince’s residence to admire the flowers.

After all, the young ladies and gentlemen gathered there were all considered to be “dragons and phoenixes among people”​¹, and talking with them would broaden their horizons.

            

Ji Qingchi had rarely gone out lately. Firstly, Ji Qingxuan’s blockade against her was getting tighter and tighter, and she didn’t dare to act rashly without being completely sure of herself. Secondly, she didn’t want to expose her whereabouts and affect Su Yi, so she had been staying cooped up in the Marquis’s residence.

Now that there was such an opportunity to proactively interact with the imperial family, of course, she wouldn’t miss it, so she took the initiative to tell Su Yi that she wanted to go and have a look.

Su Yi was originally worried that she would be afraid of being exposed and wouldn’t go, but unexpectedly, before she even opened her mouth, Ji Qingchi said she wanted to go together.

            

Since the female protagonist was going, then she naturally had to accompany her.

The next day, Su Yi dressed neatly and, together with Ji Qingchi, went to the main entrance to take sedan chairs​² to the First Prince’s residence.

Su Tianci gave her a cold sneer and then entered a sedan chair first. Su Yi pretended not to see him and also entered a sedan chair with Ji Qingchi.

            

Although it was said to be all the young ladies and gentlemen, in fact, only she and Su Tianci were from the Pingyang Marquis residence.

When they arrived at the First Prince’s residence, someone soon led them to a rather large garden.

As soon as they entered, the voices of women and men talking inside came rushing over like a tide.

            

Ji Qingchi was right. The First Prince was keen on matchmaking. He held this kind of social gathering from time to time, and each time he would invite the unmarried young ladies and gentlemen from powerful and noble families.

He himself was already married, and to avoid suspicion, he and his feizhu​³ did not attend. He would only send the serving maids and young male servants, and then send people in from time to time to inquire about the situation.

The maid announced the name of the Pingyang Marquis residence, “The young ladies and gentlemen of the Pingyang Marquis residence have arrived.”

            

Hearing the words “Pingyang Marquis,” the women and men who were still talking immediately turned around with great interest.

As everyone knew, the Su family produced beauties.

Su Tianci was the outstanding figure of the Su family’s generation. Some time ago, it was heard that Lord Su had allowed another concubine-born young lady to live in the Marquis’s residence, and portraits of the concubine-born young lady were widely circulated. They had long wanted to know what that concubine-born young lady looked like.

            

When they saw Su Yi, everyone couldn’t help but sigh inwardly. She was indeed of outstanding appearance, even more outstanding than Su Tianci, who had been pampered and raised. No wonder Lord Su let her live in the residence as soon as her birthday celebration was over.

When they saw Ji Qingchi beside Su Yi clearly, they all shook their heads. They had also heard about the marriage of the Su family’s young lady. This gentleman standing beside Su Yi must be Su Yi’s fulang. It’s just that her appearance was not outstanding, and she was really not worthy of that Miss Su.

While many people were sizing them up, among the crowd, Su Tianci covered his face with a fan, a trace of viciousness flashing in his eyes. He said to the young male servant beside him, “How is it? Is everything ready?”

            

“It’s ready.” The young male servant took out a bottle of medicine from his sleeve. “This is the famous ‘Fast Joy Powder’​⁴. As long as it’s given to that sickly person and her fulang, they will be disgraced in this Prince’s residence today.”

“Don’t give it to them together. You lure them apart and administer the drug separately. Today, I not only want Su Yi, that sickly person, and her fulang to be disgraced, I also want her to die in bed.” Su Tianci had been clear about the dirty​⁵ matters of the inner courtyard since he was a child, and he knew how to use vicious methods to destroy a person.

Since Su Yi had lived in the Marquis’s residence, a small half of what originally belonged to him had been snatched away by Su Yi. Even his grandmother was dissatisfied with him. He had also heard that his great-grandmother had the idea of adopting Su Yi.

            

How could this be!

He was the legitimate descendant of the Su family. Everything in the Su family belonged to him. The position of Marquis belonged to him, and the property and land also belonged to him! He would definitely not let Su Yi take away anything that belonged to him!

Su Yi had been staying in the Pingyang Marquis residence, watched over by his great-grandmother, so he had no way to strike. This time, Su Yi had finally come out, and he must make her die.

            

“But young master, Su Yi is, after all, a member of the Su family. If she dies in such an undignified manner, will it damage the reputation of our Marquis’s residence? Also, this is the First Prince’s residence. If he investigates…”

“What’s there to be afraid of! Just be clean with your actions! Besides, Su Yi is just a concubine-born, lower than wild grass. At that time, just say she’s some unknown bastard​⁶, push the blame, and who would dare to say anything bad about our Marquis’s residence?”

Su Tianci sneered, “Stop talking nonsense and go quickly. I must see the result today.”

            

“Yes.” The young male servant agreed, covering his sleeve, and taking advantage of the crowd, he slipped out to prepare.

The people in the garden were all young ladies and gentlemen from the powerful and noble families of the capital city. After Su Tianci finished giving his instructions, he went to talk to his friends, navigating the circle of young ladies and gentlemen like a fish in water​⁷, chatting very happily.

But Su Yi didn’t recognize any of them. She had only brought one maid, Yan Can, and before entering the garden, she had asked her to pour tea for them, wanting her to help them find a quiet place, but she couldn’t, so she could only awkwardly find a corner and prepare to pull Ji Qingchi in to hide.

            

It could be seen that this First Prince was very skilled at matchmaking. The garden was full of women and men talking and laughing, and there were many people playing flutes and painting, creating a romantic​⁸ environment, making it easy for people to fall in love.

But none of this had anything to do with Su Yi. She led Ji Qingchi, dodging four or five people who tried to strike up a conversation with her, and was about to continue rushing forward when she was unexpectedly called out, “Is this the young lady from the Su residence?”

She looked up strangely and saw two women slowly walking towards them.

            

One woman was wearing a white jiaoyi​⁹, with only a white jade hairpin holding her hair, and boots and clothes embroidered with four-clawed white dragons. She had phoenix eyes​¹⁰ and looked elegant and refined.

The other was dressed the same, but used a jade crown to neatly tie up her hair. Her eyes were sharp and fierce, like an eagle’s, making people very uncomfortable.

Su Yi saw their clothes and knew that they must be Ji Qingchi’s sisters, but she didn’t know which imperial daughters they were.

            

Ji Qingchi was behind her, but she couldn’t turn her head to ask, so she could only guess in her heart, while carefully answering, “This commoner is. May I ask if the two of you are imperial daughters?”

“Hahaha.” The woman in white laughed, “That’s right. Miss Su might as well guess, which imperial daughters are we?”

Before Su Yi could answer, the woman in indigo clothes had already spoken first, “Second Imperial Sister, don’t tease her.”

            

She said indifferently to Su Yi, “This Palace​¹¹ ranks fifth. This is This Palace’s Second Imperial Sister. Miss Su… I’ve heard so much about you.”

Here it comes, finally meeting the Fifth Imperial Daughter, Ji Qingxuan, who framed the female protagonist, in person.

Su Yi suppressed her trembling heart and slightly raised her head to look at Ji Qingxuan, who introduced herself.

            

Sure enough, she had a sinister feeling. As expected of Ji Qingchi’s sister.

This Fifth Imperial Daughter was different from the female protagonist’s acquired ruthlessness. She had a somewhat inherently sinister feeling.

For the sake of the throne, she would strike at her own sisters without hesitation. It seemed that Ji Qingchi’s younger sister and father had died at her hands.

            

The person beside her said she was her Second Imperial Sister, so she must be the Second Imperial Daughter, Ji Qingyun​¹². This imperial daughter had no interest in the throne and only wanted to be a carefree prince​¹³, so she never participated in the fight for the throne and only focused on romantic affairs.

These two people’s actions were completely extreme, and they were actually together today.

Su Yi remembered that Ji Qingchi was still standing behind her, and fearing that she would reveal herself in front of her enemy, she quickly took a step back and bowed with her, “This commoner and her fulang greet the two Imperial Daughters. This commoner was not polite in her words just now, please forgive this commoner.”

            

Ji Qingyun helped her up and said with a smile, “No need to be so polite. A beautiful woman like Miss Su can be forgiven for anything.”

Ji Qingxuan did not speak. Her eyes went past Su Yi and looked at Ji Qingchi behind her, frowning.

For some reason, this quiet, handsome man who kept his head down gave her a feeling very similar to Ji Qingchi.

            

As soon as she thought of Ji Qingchi’s name, Ji Qingxuan felt a surge of violence that she couldn’t vent.

She had painstakingly designed a hunt to take her life, but unexpectedly, she was lucky enough to escape. Her people chased her to Fengcheng but found no news. She thought she was dead, but when she arrived in the capital, someone saw her whereabouts again.

It’s just that no matter how she sent people to search, she couldn’t find where she was hiding. The shadow guard of Ji Qingchi that she had bought was also found dead in the suburbs the day before yesterday.

            

Without exception, all of this was related to Ji Qingchi.

If it weren’t for the person she sent to pretend to be Ji Qingchi who was still alive and well, staying in the outer residence​¹⁴ she had prepared, she would really think that Ji Qingchi had returned to the imperial palace.

Ji Qingxuan spoke slowly, her eyes firmly locked on Ji Qingchi, “This gentleman looks very familiar. He is Miss Su’s fulang, right? May I ask where he is from?”

            

Su Yi was helped up and heard her say this, and her heart suddenly jumped. No, if the female protagonist continued to stay here, she would be exposed sooner or later.

Thinking of this, she held her forehead and fell backwards. Ji Qingchi subconsciously supported her.

Ji Qingyun was startled. She hadn’t done anything. This Miss Su wouldn’t be like those men who liked to “play dead”​¹⁵ and prepare to blackmail her, right?

            

“Miss Su, this is…”

Ji Qingchi was about to answer when she felt a hand on her waist. She looked down and saw Su Yi gently blinking at her.

She immediately understood that Su Yi was pretending.

            

Her heart relaxed, but the hand hidden in her sleeve clenched into a fist, and she didn’t speak again.

Su Yi was relieved and pretended to be weak, saying, “This commoner has been weak and sickly since childhood, and now she has fallen ill again. Please forgive this commoner, Your Highnesses. This commoner wants to go down and rest first.”

“So that’s how it is.” Seeing that her pale face didn’t look fake, Ji Qingyun breathed a sigh of relief. Before she could speak, Ji Qingxuan had already called out, “Someone, go and send Miss Su and her fulang to the guest rooms of the Prince’s residence to rest.”

            

She gave a look to the shadow guard hiding in the dark, and her right hand, hidden in her sleeve, pointed at Ji Qingchi. The shadow guard understood, and soon four maids came over to help Su Yi.

Her movements were small but couldn’t be hidden from Ji Qingchi. She used a clever force to pull Su Yi back from the maids’ hands into her arms, deliberately holding her tongue and slurring her words, “Let this commoner do it. Several jiejie, please lead the way.”

The maids glanced at Ji Qingxuan, and seeing that she didn’t object, two of them walked in front to lead the way, and two of them followed behind them.

            

It was like an escort, which made Ji Qingchi very uncomfortable.

After they left, Ji Qingxuan immediately turned her back and secretly ordered the shadow guard, “Better to kill a thousand innocent people than to let one escape. You go and lure that quiet, handsome man away, take the opportunity to kill him, be clean, destroy the corpse and erase the traces, and don’t let anyone find out.”

“Yes.”

            

On the other side, seeing Su Yi leave, Su Tianci couldn’t help it anymore. He asked another young male servant who was following him to inform the ambushing people to act, “Be sure to be clean, and don’t let others suspect us.”

“Yes!”

Ji Qingchi and the others walked to the courtyard where the guest rooms were located. Suddenly, two young male servants wearing the clothes of the Prince’s residence walked over and bowed to them, “You two, these guest rooms are separated for women and men. The women’s guest rooms are in the east courtyard.”

            

Ji Qingchi immediately hugged Su Yi tightly and looked at them vigilantly, “But my Qizhu has fallen ill, and I need to take her to rest.”

Two young male servants looked at each other, stepped back a few steps, “Then young master can first send this Miss to rest, then leave. Otherwise, this is the Prince’s residence, everything should be proper​¹⁶, there must not be any improper behavior.”

It was common for the imperial family to protect their reputation. Although Ji Qingchi was suspicious, she couldn’t find fault with it, so she could only frown and nod, “Okay.”

            

She carried Su Yi into the guest room, and the maids who followed them still didn’t leave. Su Yi opened her eyes and nodded gently to her, “Fulang, put me down, and you go to the guest room to rest too. This is the Prince’s residence, so it must be very safe.”

“…Okay.” Ji Qingchi hesitated and was about to leave when several young male servants came in.

One was holding incense, one was holding tea, and three others were each holding a basin of water.

            

It was too strange, and Ji Qingchi immediately became suspicious.

She immediately took a few steps back, retreating to Su Yi’s bedside, one hand in a claw shape, protecting Su Yi, and the other hand drew the soft sword​¹⁷ from her waist, and said coldly, “What are you doing?”

Su Yi also found something abnormal and quickly sat up and tugged at her sleeve, “Fulang, be ca—”

            

The word “careful” hadn’t been spoken yet when the maids suddenly attacked, slamming the door shut and revealing their weapons.

The young male servants were stunned for a moment, but after regaining their senses, they also picked up the basins of water and splashed them at Su Yi and Ji Qingchi.

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The author has something to say:

            

Before Ji Qingchi completely falls in love, she will not leave, so I have been setting the stage a little slowly, but it’s almost there, I estimate that there will be one or two more chapters before she can go back to being an imperial daughter.

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