Chapter 71

Chapter 71 – I Don’t Want To Go! (2)

“Yaoyao!” Lu Xiangzhi came over with a smile. “Eldest Brother visits us! He has invited us to go hunting in the mountains together. Are you going or not?”

Quite stupefied by the turn of events, Ye Zhen couldn’t respond for a second, and had only woken from her stupor by the time Lu Xiangzhi snapped a finger in front of her face.

Her days would never go peacefully with Lu Lungzhi breathing on this very land!

“Yaoyao? Did you hear me? Eldest Brother is here!”

She muttered a faint “Pardon” before giving curtseying to Lu Lingzhi.

“Eldest Brother, have you come to Zhuangzi to bathe in the hot springs?”

Before Lu Lingzhi could even answer, Lu Xiangzhi spoke with delight. “Aha! You really didn’t hear me. Eldest brother didn’t come to Zhuangzi. He went hunting in the mountains with others. He heard that we were in Zhuangzi, so he specially came to invite us. Father has agreed to let us go.”

She didn’t want to go! Ye Zhen knew that if she hunted with them, she would definitely meet Mo Rongzhan.

“Brother, I have to learn etiquette from Teacher Shan today, the exam will be held in a few days. I can’t be distracted anymore, otherwise, I will lose my one hundred taels!”

“What one hundred taels?” Lu Lingzhi asked curiously.

Hands on his stomach, Lu Xiangzhi laughed at how absurd it sounded, his sister ordering him to bet on her name!

He told Lu Lingzhi everything about it, the ladies throwing bets on Ye Zhen’s success or failure in entering the Academy for Women and her persistence in making her money grow by nagging him to participate.

My, my, it never occurred to him that his sister didn’t have a faint heart. Even risking a hundred taels!

“Since Yaoyao doesn’t want to go, we can’t help it. I’ll just hunt with Fourth Brother and get my third sister a rabbit upon my return.”

At the back of his mind, Lu Lingzhi also didn’t want Ye Zhen to accompany them, especially in the presence of Mo Rongzhan. He only went to Zhuangzi to invite Lu Xiangzhi alone, not exactly wanting Ye Zhen to be in the emperor’s company.

If she went about appearing the same way she had when she first arrived in the capital, dark, thin, and simply unattractive, it would have been fine to bring her with them.

But she was now different, undisputedly.

Though she wasn’t as fair as Lu Wushuang, she bore a pair of delicate eyes. In addition to that, her delicate figure seemed to have been womanlier as time passed by.

In simple, unswayed words, Lu Lingzhi didn’t trust the emperor. Who knows, just by the simple sight of her, Mo Rongzhan would be attracted in a heartbeat!

Most of all, his sister Lu Wushuang had a dangerous temperament. If the emperor really liked her, Ye Zhen would not have a good life even if she entered the palace. The most terrible thing was that someone would notice her resemblance to the late Wang Fei Ye.

How should he explain it then?

Such things, if neglected, could turn into a catastrophe.

Ye Zhen nodded smilingly and said to Lu Xiangzhi, “Brother, go ahead and I’ll wait for you here in Zhuangzi.”

When Lu Xiangzhi saw that his sister really didn’t want to go, he ceased his persuasions. “Well, we must leave now. Sister, I will be back in no time.”

*

Amidst the scorching heat of the afternoon, Lu Lingzhi brought Lu Xiangzhi to the mountain, joining them were a few men and of course, the emperor.

Upon their arrival, Tang Zhen immediately noticed the absence of the third miss! He asked disappointedly. “Xiangzhi! Why didn’t your sister come?”

“Marquis Tang, my sister needs to study with Teacher Shan, so she, unfortunately, cannot come today. If you want to win back the silver whip, you’d better wait for another time.”

There were other men around who were all acquaintances, if not a friend of Lu Xiangzhi. But one man, who permeated an air of indifference, forbidding anyone to look straight at his eyes, caught his interest.

Who was this man?

He stood calm and restrained beside Tang Zhen.

Mo Rongzhan’s eyes sank slightly. He was now certain that the woman he met last night was the third miss Tang Zhen had mentioned.

Since she was a miss from the Lu Family, he lost at least three points of interest in her.

There was already Lu Wushuang in the Inner Palace. No more girls from the Lu Family can enter the palace. Otherwise, the Lu Family would be held up too much.