Chapter 14

 

“Xiao Hua, don’t you want to clean up?” Long Lian asked when she saw Xiao Hua sitting on her bed after finishing her bath.

 

“I will just wash my face.”

 

Xiao Hua could stand and walk without problems as the burn was much better now thanks to the medicine. The medicine made by the Third Prince was amazingly effective.

 

Surprisingly, Long Lian followed Xiao Hua and watches her washing her face with a copper basin filled with warm water. Actually, Xiao Hua could guess that Long Lian wanted to say something, so she decided to just wait until she decided to talk.

 

“Xiao Hua, do you hate me?”

 

Xiao Hua halted in the middle of face drying with a clean cloth provided and looked at Xiao Hua with surprise. “I don't. Why did you think so?”

 

“I… towards commoner…I’m not polite. I had not realized my rudeness until Third Brother pointed it out to me.”

 

Xiao Hua was not really surprised that the Third Prince would be concerned about commoners. He was gentle and kind towards everyone, which was a rarity for a royalty. But for Long Lian to broaden her views with just one sentence…this shows that Long Lian was truly different from those selfish and narrow-minded princesses from those Chinese novels she had read.

 

This type of princess, Xia Hua does not hate.

 

“Ah Lian is a princess. Most princesses do not know much about commoners. But Ah Lian knows so why would I hate you?”

 

With teary eyes, Long Lian suddenly embraced Xiao Hua. She had been hugged by the princess for so many times in the past that she was no longer surprised about it. “Xiao Hua, you are so nice to me.”

 

…Is she nice to Ah Lian? Princess, are you saying that the Xiao Hua that feed you her leftovers is nice? Or the Xiao Hua that speak only a few words of concern yet did not offer her hand to help you is nice?

 

It sounds so pitiful hearing that. (×﹏×)

 

“Only mother, father, and my brothers truly cares about me. The maids and other ladies only treated me well because I’m a princess. I don’t have a true friend that really cares about me.”

 

“That’s not true…”

 

Long Lian untangles herself from the smaller girl. “Once, I had embarrassed myself for being caught in a scandal with a minister’s son. Mother had pleaded to father not to marry me to him, and fortunately, father agreed in the end. But with the reputation of being ‘ruined’, no madams dared to offer their son to marry me. Even those that I had always viewed as my friend had distanced themselves from me. There are some that asked for my hand in marriage but they only have plans to use me.”

 

That sounds like a novel… oh wait, she’s living in a novel now. But Le XiaoTing did not know Princess Long Lian had this past. The novel did not mention this!

 

“Then… are you… with that man…”

 

“No! That scoundrel dared to enter the room I’m using to change my dirty clothes, and a group of ladies that came over to visit me saw that scene. They were quick to spread the rumors.”

 

“What? Did you and that guy not explain what really happened?” Xiao Hua asked in shock.

 

Long Lian smiled bitterly. “No matter how much I tried to explain, no one believes me, other than my mother and my brothers.”

 

“Did you not prove your virginity? With the red dot on your arm?”

 

“Red dot? What is that?” Long Lian lifted her sleeve and reveal a pale, slender arm. There was no red dot on it.

 

Seeing the genuine confusion on the princess’s face, Xiao Hua realized that the red dot that proves a ladies’ innocence did not exist in this world. Actually, she did not even know if it actually exists in her original world as she only found out about it from the historical novels.

 

Pity, she thought that she could finally know about its true origin and how it worked.

 

“N-Nothing, I was muddle-headed and remember some facts wrong.” Xiao Hua tried to cover her mistake. “I truly believe that Ah Lian is innocent.”

 

“Xiao Hua is a good friend!”

 

Le XiaoTing had sympathized with Long Lian when she read the novel. This strong and kind princess does not deserve to have such a terrible fate. She always thought that the author hated Long Lian so much to set her in a terrible situation one after another.

 

But now that Le XiaoTing was living as Xiao Hua, she will try to help Long Lian! It was great that the Third Prince had saved them earlier. It prevented Long Lian from falling onto the dirty Munzhu King’s hands!

 

Xiao Hua had little to no power to save Long Lian as a maid, but that does not make her powerless! She had felt that the current Third Prince was different than the novel’s Third Prince.

 

In the novel, the Third Prince always dressed in dark colored clothes with a portion of his long and silky hair pinned up with a gold crown, which helped others to easily identify him as a male. But most readers in the novel had actually wondered if he was actually a female in disguise with how beautiful he was described! There were a large group of readers that even bet on the Third Prince’s true gender being a female!

 

But the Third Prince before Xiao Hua was dressed in light colored clothes that emphasized his beauty with his long hair let loose to play with the wind; giving off a lazy and seductive atmosphere yet no one could doubt him as a female with that wide shoulders and tall stature, along with his authoritative aura.

 

And that Adam apple, of course.

 

Another difference was his intimidating guards and his four not so simple inner maids that knew martial arts. Any person with common sense would already know something was wrong!

 

Feeling her body getting pulled to a direction, Xiao Hua came out from her inner musing to find the older girl had pulled her to one of the bed.

 

“Xiao Hua, let’s sleep together,” Long Lian suggested sweetly.

 

Mother, please forgive your daughter, for she might stray to the wrong path. Beautiful things are the strongest temptation! (⁄ ⁄•⁄ω⁄•⁄ ⁄)

 

“T-That is not appropriate!”

 

“What’s not appropriate? We are both females, there is nothing forbidden about it.”

 

Princess, should Xiao Hua introduce you about girl and girl- No! Xiao Hua smacked her dirty mind inwardly. Ah Lian should remain pure!

 

“It’s improper,” Xiao Hua said firmly.

 

“We are both girls!”

 

“Xiao Hua snores when she sleeps,” Xiao Hua said with an expressionless face. “Xiao Hua also tends to fling her legs around. Xiao Hua also talks in her sleep.”

 

“Xiao Hua, do you forget that we shared the same room before?” Long Lian asked with a sharp piercing gaze, easily poking a large hole on her lies.

 

Xiao Hua could feel her poker face starting to crack. “... Xiao Hua suddenly wants some fresh air. Princess, please head to bed first.”

 

Xiao Liu, one of the Third Prince’s top guards, was tasked to guard the princess and the new personal maid, Xiao Hua. Although he wondered why the Third Prince would pick that scrawny girl as his maid, he did not dare to question his master’s decision.

 

He was serious with his duty and his eyes never remained at the same spot every three seconds. His ears were focused on every sound that was out of place.

 

But suddenly a small shriek came from the tent behind him, where the two people he was assigned to guard stayed in. He would have darted right in if he had not heard a playful giggle straight after that.

 

Xiao Liu blushed as his ears caught every single giggle and gasp coming from the tent. His youthful mind could not prevent himself from imagining the colorful scene of what could happen inside the tent. It was only a while later that the sounds stopped, but it took Xiao Liu a lot longer to calm himself and focus back on his task.

 

When the morning arrived and an older guard relieved Xiao Liu’s night shift, he wondered why the young boy blushed when he asked about his night shift.

 

Could it be that this boy got a crush on the princess?

 

Xiao Liu might have been an adult of twenty years old but he spends all those years devoted to the safety of their prince and training himself to be stronger. He might not even know what could have happened between men and women.

 

Hmm…Maybe it was time to give Xiao Liu the talk about bedroom matters.