Chapter 278: Reconciled with His Majesty?

At the Prince Jing Mansion, Prince Jing had been nursing his bruised ego and hadn’t set foot in the palace for half a month.

He still went to the Ministry of Industry and the Research Institute, but the moment anyone mentioned the palace or the Emperor, he would insist his injuries were severe and that he needed to recuperate.

It didn’t matter how many fine gifts the Emperor sent—he simply refused to see her.

Prince Jing was in his garden, huffing and puffing as he polished some tools, when a figure appeared at the entrance. It was the Little Emperor, dressed in a pink brocade robe with his hair bound in a jade crown.

A smile graced his pretty face, making him look utterly well-behaved and adorable.

“Hmph!”

Prince Jing lowered his head and went back to his work, pretending not to have seen the Little Emperor at all.

Xiao Yang walked over, a wine jar in one hand and a few blueprints in the other.

Prince Jing shot a surprised glance at the complex blueprints but wasn’t particularly impressed. ‘So-so,’ he thought. ‘I’m not going to be swayed by a few drawings.’

Xiao Yang opened the wine jar and, as if by magic, produced two cups. She poured one and set it down beside Prince Jing, then poured another for herself.

“Uncle, please don’t be angry anymore. I’ve come to apologize.”

She raised her cup and drank it down. “I’ve never had much family. I thought I would spend my entire life alone, living in constant fear, perhaps to be crushed by the weight of power one day. I never expected to meet you and Big Brother.”

“I’m so grateful for your care and support. If you ignore me from now on, Uncle, who knows how the others will try to bully me.”

“But I’m very strong. I’m already a formidable Emperor. No one can defeat me. Even if someone tries to bully me, I won’t cry…”

Xiao Yang was clearly putting on a show, and she couldn’t even be bothered to make it a serious performance. Her eyes were full of deliberate mischief and cunning.

By the time she’d spoken her second sentence, Prince Jing had already picked up his wine cup. When he looked at the Emperor, his eyes were already glistening with tears.

Xiao Yang was suddenly flustered. “Hey, what are you doing? Why are you crying…?”

She had only just begun her performance when he completely derailed it.

Prince Jing turned his head away haughtily and said stubbornly, “Hmph, you’re seeing things.”

‘The great Prince Jing would never cry.’

When Xiao Lv and Xiao Hong returned, the sky was nearly dark. The Emperor and their father had been drinking all afternoon.

When they approached, the Emperor was passed out on the table, still clutching a wine jar. Their father, meanwhile, was drinking alone, lost in a sea of emotions.

He’d even remembered to pull the Emperor’s fur cloak more snugly around her, afraid she would get chilled by the night wind.

Seeing his two sons arrive, he immediately beckoned. “Ah Lu, quickly help His Majesty inside to rest.”

Xiao Lv glanced at the wine jars on the table—there were only seven or eight. ‘His Majesty is drunk, but Dad isn’t?’

Xiao Lv was suspicious.

“So, you and His Majesty have made up, Father?”

Prince Jing shot him an annoyed glare. “What nonsense is that? When have His Majesty and I ever been on bad terms?”

Xiao Lv was speechless. ‘Right. They’ve made up, so I’m not important anymore.’

Xiao Lv was about to call for a couple of serving women to help His Majesty to bed, but just then, Rong Yin arrived.

He gave the three of them a slight nod, his purpose clear. He stepped forward, swept His Majesty into his arms, and brazenly carried her away.

Xiao Hong had intended to leave, but after seeing His Majesty carried away, he sat down as well. The father and his two sons were now seated together at the table.

Xiao Lv took a fresh cup and poured himself some wine.

He was genuinely baffled. “Father, if His Majesty hadn’t come to coax you, how many more days were you planning to be angry?”

He didn’t know what to make of his own father. It wasn’t really anger, more like sulking at His Majesty. But this sulk had lasted for half a month. Everyone in the Capital City knew that the Emperor had saved Prince Jing, yet his father was the one giving His Majesty the cold shoulder. He was being condemned for it all over the city.

“His Majesty was sure to come.”

Prince Jing said with conviction, looking for all the world like someone flaunting the favor they receive.

‘Because he was His Majesty’s very, very best uncle.’

He was also bursting with pride. “The way His Majesty looked when she saved me with that arrow… absolutely magnificent.”

Xiao Lv was exasperated and speechless.

‘His Majesty shot an arrow to save him? Wasn’t she aiming *at* him?’

‘How was His Majesty magnificent in that moment? She was clearly a little lunatic!’

‘If Mu Yunlian and Xiao Ziling had made the slightest misstep, his father would be long dead.’

Not wanting to curse his own father, Xiao Lv quickly stopped that line of thought.

“And those words His Majesty said that day… you’re not taking them to heart at all, Father?”

Prince Jing retorted, “Did you take them to heart?”

Xiao Lv fell silent. Clearly, he wasn’t going to hold a grudge either. But the words had been said, after all, and they couldn’t just be unheard.

Prince Jing had an all-knowing expression on his face. “His Majesty is a little lunatic. She’s said far crazier things than that.”

“However…” Prince Jing sighed. “She said something today that really made me feel awful.”

“We see His Majesty as powerful and intelligent, a brilliant and benevolent ruler who can be a bit fierce, but… she lost her father at ten. Since childhood, she’s been forced by that venomous woman, the Empress Dowager, to disguise herself as a boy, enduring so much pressure and torment… And she doesn’t have any reliable brothers or sisters…”

As Prince Jing spoke, he couldn’t stop his voice from choking up. “Before His Majesty barged into this mansion, I, her uncle, never once thought to help her. I had no idea how much she was enduring…”

“It wasn’t we who helped His Majesty; it was His Majesty who helped us. If she hadn’t torn open the skies for us, you and I, father and son, wouldn’t be here today. We would have been crushed in the struggle for power.”

“She pulled us out of the mire, gave us immense trust and acceptance, and is leading the nation to become ever stronger. I, her uncle… I have failed him…”

His life had been too smooth—protected by his father, then his younger brother. But when it came to his niece, he, the elder, had stood by and done nothing for so many years.

He only thought of keeping his head down and living a pathetic life. Even when he was brutally oppressed, what little ambition he managed to muster was nothing to speak of.

People talk about how he and his sons helped His Majesty stabilize the court, but even without them, His Majesty could have secured her rule over the realm. She just would have had to kill a few more people.

He had failed his younger brother, and he had failed His Majesty.

He wasn’t really holding a grudge over some crazy talk; he just took this chance to throw a bit of a fit.

When outsiders spoke of the incident, they would only talk about how His Majesty saved him, and how he, in his ingratitude, threw a fit. No one would pay any mind to the rash words His Majesty had spoken.

Xiao Lv looked at Prince Jing, whose eyes were shimmering with tears. “Father, you’re drunk.”

Prince Jing got to his feet, swaying slightly.

The two brothers rushed to support him, but he steadied himself and waved them off.

“No need. I can get back on my own.”

Prince Jing was indeed drunk, but not incapacitated. He ambled slowly back to his own courtyard, trailed by two young servants.

Xiao Hong watched Prince Jing’s retreating figure. “Of all stratagems, conquering the heart is the most supreme.”

Xiao Lv replied, “Truth and lies… why is it so important to tell them apart?”

For the relationship between them and the Emperor to be seventy percent calculation and thirty percent sincerity was already a rare blessing.

The Emperor had Prince Jing wrapped around her little finger. And weren’t the two of them in the exact same position?

That day, even as they desperately charged forward, right up to the moment the Emperor released the arrow, they never believed she would actually kill Prince Jing.

The two of them had acted purely on instinct, rushing to save him. The moment they saw Mu Yunlian appear and make the save, they broke out in a cold sweat from shock, but they also shared a sense of ‘as expected.’