But—” I was still organizing my words to explain that falling for the Crown Prince was even less reliable than falling for Feng Yuxi, when she had already begun looking dreamy, pressing the handkerchief against her cheek and saying: “If I could marry the Crown Prince, I might become the empress in the future…” I was speechless, knowing that nothing I said at this moment would get through to her. She daydreamed for a while, lowering her head and sniffing the handkerchief.
“
White flowers with red stamens, half-open and half-hidden, eerily similar to plum blossoms but with only four petals, precisely a yahua flower. The yahua flower embroidered on this handkerchief was extremely similar to the one I had given to An Jin in terms of angle and form, but the color and pattern were different, clearly not the same piece.
My younger sister, noticing me staring at her handkerchief, said coyly, “He gave me this too.” The Crown Prince? I suddenly felt strange. How could the Crown Prince have a handkerchief like this?
“By the way, the Prince also asked how your second sister’s injury was,” my younger sister asked, seeing my odd expression. “What’s wrong?” I shook my head. The fact that the Crown Prince’s handkerchief had such a pattern could not be a coincidence. He deliberately gave this handkerchief to my younger sister, presumably to arouse my curiosity.
And I was indeed curious. If embroidering a yahua flower was just a coincidence, there was no reason for the angle and half-open, half-hidden form to be so similar. An Jin had always kept the handkerchief I gave him close to his body, and with his personality, he would never casually display it in front of others, let alone to the Crown Prince with whom he had long-standing grievances.
Despite my curiosity, I wasn’t foolish enough to actively seek clarification. More worrying was my younger sister’s situation.
The number of girls in Yan Feng City dreaming of marrying the Crown Prince was probably similar to those dreaming of marrying An Jin, but An Jin already had a wife, while the Crown Prince did not. Therefore, although the Crown Prince kept many concubines in Qifeng Palace, more and more girls hoped to marry him and monopolize his affection.
