dognovel Chapter 158 Bewitching
Chapter 158 Bewitching
This is a problem that Jiang Xing has been avoiding facing in his heart. Although the princess has always been difficult for him to see through and control, Ji Qingyan's position is unlikely to be good either.
"This is a matter between the prince and the princess. No one else needs to interfere for now. Farewell!"
He subconsciously stood up and was about to leave.
The panic in Ji Qingyan's eyes flashed away, and she grabbed his sleeve.
"Your Highness, are you scared? You don't even have the courage to listen to me?"
Jiang Xing lowered his head and broke free from her hand: "Miss Ji, there is no need to say these words to provoke me. I am not someone who will be provoked."
Hearing this, Ji Qingyan smiled and said, "Then Your Majesty, are you really not curious about why the princess is so different now than she was before?"
She poured herself a cup of tea and asked, "Did she tell the prince that she had a dream, or that she had received guidance from a master, or that she had seen through someone?"
Ji Qingyan's thoughtful expression was very lifelike, even a bit solemn, which coincided with the look on Lu Xuan's face when he told him that everything came from his dream.
Jiang Xing's heart sank for no reason.
His eyes darkened and his expression turned a little colder: "What do you know?"
Hearing this, Ji Qingyan's heart moved, it seemed that it was true.
She gestured for Jiang Xing to sit down. "The prince and princess have been married for two months. Counting back twenty-two days, the princess begged Si Luan to propose marriage on her birthday."
Jiang Xing's eyes trembled.
He remembered that when he was choosing a concubine, on the day when he decided on Axuan, Ji Bozhou did go to propose marriage.
Seeing Jiang Xing's slightly moved expression, Ji Qingyan lowered her head and smiled: "I know that during the selection of concubines, because of Song Chuchu, Lu Xuan only painted a picture of autumn mountain life, and did not participate in dancing or musical instruments."
"But do you know why she was able to paint that mountain painting with her left hand even though her right hand was injured? Did you ever see her use her left hand so flexibly again?"
Jiang Xing was dragged by her back to his original seat.
He tightened his grip on the teacup, his eyes slightly raised, and he still maintained his composure.
But my heart was already in a mess, with my thoughts all over the place.
Ji Qingyan seemed to know that he would have this reaction, and she said to herself, "Because it was practice for Si Luan. She once stayed up all night for half a month just for him, just to create a mountain dwelling painting that he could use to chat and feast with others.
And because of this, her right hand couldn't move for half a year, so during that half month, she learned to paint that one picture with her left hand, and only that one picture."
Jiang Xing paused, his heart ached for a moment, and his palms were wet with sweat.
My throat felt like it was filled with firewood, ready to catch fire with just the slightest touch.
Ji Qingyan leisurely stirred the tea leaves in the teacup as her voice continued, "She spent nineteen years in the former Song family mansion, nineteen years as a distinguished lady, and nineteen years studying etiquette, poetry, and literature. Why do you think she was able to persevere? What did she want?"
Jiang Xing was stunned.
He actually couldn't answer it.
At this moment, he suddenly realized that he knew nothing about the princess, and even couldn't understand the most basic past.
The indifferent sarcasm on his face became stiff, and he tried hard to remain calm, not wanting Ji Qingyan to see his uneasiness.
"So, Miss Ji Er knows?"
Ji Qingyan had already seen the unrest in Jiang Xing's heart from his hands, and said calmly: "Your Highness's attitude is finally right now. I won't harm you, I just told Your Highness what I should say, so there is no need to be so hostile."
"Because the princess never thought of being your princess from the beginning. She wanted to be the queen because of the Song family mansion and the phoenix fortune predicted by Taoist Baopuzi. Everything she did was for the man on the throne!"
Something in Jiang Xing's heart suddenly shattered.
He inexplicably remembered that Lu Xuan once said that he had the imperial purple aura.
Is that true, or...
His stiff smile cracked a little: "These are just Miss Ji's speculations, right? She was in the Earl's Mansion at the time, and she was forced to do it by the old lady. It was not her original intention!"
Ji Qingyan did not refute him, but smiled and said: "Your Highness is right. Later, that was indeed not her intention."
She paused for a moment: "Because she fell in love with Si Luan."
"Your Highness may not know how crazy she was in the past. She is not the calm and calculated princess you see now."
"To make Siluan's favorite dessert, she would risk being scolded by the Bo Mansion and personally go to the mountains to pick the hard-to-find honeycomb, getting stung all over by bees. She could also run to Ji Mansion anytime Siluan summoned her, often even at night. She could learn a piece of zither music for him, practicing until her fingers were ulcerated, just for Siluan's words of hard work. She could even do..."
"Enough!" Jiang Xing interrupted her.
He could no longer conceal his emotions, and his cold face was covered with the wind and snow.
The unprecedented sorrow and heartache could not deceive him. Every word Ji Qingyan said was like a torture on his heart, tearing the love he had felt for all these days and his soul into pieces.
Seeing that Jiang Xing was angry, Ji Qingyan achieved her goal and stopped talking.
She poured her a cup of warm tea and said warmly, "If Your Majesty doesn't like it, then I won't talk about her and Si Luan anymore. There's so much, and it wouldn't take just a day or two to fully recount all of her crazy efforts."
Jiang Xing stood up again. He was fed up with the Ji family's boasting about their former princess. It made him look like a lowly fool.
Ji Qingyan said calmly, "Let's get back to the point. Your Highness wants to know the answer to why she has changed so much."
She always managed to catch the hook that he cared about most.
Jiang Xing paused as he was about to leave, glaring at her angrily: "You'd better say something that this prince will be convinced of!"
Ji Qingyan smiled knowingly: "Whether you believe it or not depends on your Highness. You clearly had so much time and opportunity to see through the clues, why didn't the princess give you an answer?"
She played with the teacup, half-smiling, "Doesn't this mean that in the eyes of the princess, the prince is not worthy of her?"
Jiang Xing was fed up with Ji Qingyan's behavior.
In the past, he always sat in front of others and pondered. Although this woman knew how to capture people's minds, her motives for doing this really made him sneer.
His face darkened, his thin lips were pressed into a straight line, and a murderous storm was brewing in his eyes.
Under Jiang Xing's murderous gaze, Ji Qingyan finally stopped talking.
Seeing him like this, she felt a little bored. "Okay, you, I know you care about the princess."
She refilled his teacup: "The reason why the princess is so different from before is not because she had a dream or met some master. It's because she and Song Chuchu have both been reborn!"
"Rebirth?!"
Jiang Xing stared at her, unable to believe what he heard.
Is there such a ridiculous thing in the world?
His heart was beating like a drum, and the huge sound made it impossible for him to sit still.
Seeing his strong reaction, Ji Qingyan knew he must be completely clueless. She decided to add fuel to the fire, "In her previous life, she married Si Luan, but something must have happened to her, and she harbored resentment towards him. However, this also suggests that the person she cared about most, the person she chose first, was Si Luan, right?"
She told Jiang Xing everything that Song Chuchu had said to Ji Xiangli.
"If Song Chuchu hadn't been sentenced to death for having an affair with the Third Prince, you could have gone and asked her if that was the truth!"
She paused and said, "Perhaps Lu Xuan told you another story, but Your Highness, who do you think is more credible now?"
Jiang Xing recalled the dream that Lu Xuan had once described, and he understood that it was not a dream at all, but a real past life!
Because she had already experienced a lifetime, this was her second life.
He was clear about Lu Xuan's attitude towards Ji Bozhou, including her past experiences, which she had already mentioned.
But he didn't expect that she would go to such lengths for him.
Ji Qingyan looked at the changing expression on his face sarcastically. "The whole capital knows that Prince Jin and Princess are deeply in love, but there's some truth to this rumor. I'm sure His Royal Highness Prince Jin knows this better than anyone else. Your marriage is just a contractual one. After the marriage is concluded, you'll have to separate, right?"
Jiang Xing felt as if his throat was blocked by a huge fist. He could only listen to Ji Qingyan's ridicule and sneers, and could not say anything in rebuttal.
Shen Yuanci's face suddenly appeared in his mind, and the inner struggle and pain made him almost breathless.
Ji Qingyan continued speaking, her voice full of temptation: "Then Your Majesty, will you still choose to believe her? Even if she is now just a lonely ghost, an anomaly that is not tolerated by the secrets of heaven?"
The endless stream of news wove into a huge silkworm cocoon, binding Jiang Xing layer by layer inside, making him feel the illusion and impermanence of this world.
What is true? What is fake again?
He naturally trusted Axuan, but for no reason he suddenly felt panicky.
He closed his eyes, rubbed his brows and tried to think carefully for a while, but suddenly fell into a soft embrace.