"...how many men in this world do you think are as devoted to their first wife as Prince Yu?"
"Prince Yu?"
Cui Lingyao's pupils widened for a moment. She couldn't believe what she was hearing.
"From what I know, Prince Yu made a huge spectacle of taking a concubine back then. On the wedding day, he even made the Princess Consort personally offer a toast to the new couple in front of so many guests. That was a complete humiliation for his main wife. What's more, the day after the concubine entered the household, the Princess Consort drowned and died. Who knows what was really going on behind the scenes?"
Her brow furrowed tightly. "How can such behavior be considered 'deeply devoted' in the eyes of outsiders?"
'If that's the case, then are the standards for 'deeply devoted' in this world a little too low?'
By now, their carriage had long since left the Tea Garden and was traveling down Xuanwu Street.
The Capital City was neatly laid out. Xuanwu Street was not far from the Imperial City and was the street most frequented by high-ranking officials and nobles, making it particularly clean and grand.
The sides of the street were lined with vendors hawking their wares and bustling with common folk. The road in the middle was wide enough for carriages, and occasionally, nobles on horseback would gallop past.
Just as Cui Lingyao said this, a few men on tall horses happened to pass by the Shen Family's carriage.
The man in the lead wore a black riding habit. He had broad shoulders, a narrow waist, and a cold, stern face.
His hearing was excellent. Through the thick wall of the carriage, her words reached his ears, clear as day.
An extra layer of frost settled over his already cold expression.
Li Yong, following behind him, was also a skilled martial artist and naturally heard it too. His back stiffened instantly, and a chill shot up his spine.
'To think that even now, in the Capital City, someone would dare to bring up the events of three years ago.'
Everyone knew that the late Princess Consort was his master's most sensitive subject.
Li Yong suppressed the creeping chill and looked over at the carriage beside them.
It was engraved with the Shen family crest.
He cursed his bad luck inwardly. Just as he was about to shout and stop the young lady of the Shen Family from brazenly gossiping about the Royal Family, another woman's voice sounded from inside.
"How can you blame Prince Yu for that!"
Inside the carriage, Shen Hanyue, who had been lounging lazily, paled when she heard Cui Lingyao's disrespectful words about Xie Jinbai.
"Did you know that Consort Li is the current Empress's own niece? The Empress brought her to the palace to be raised from a young age. She grew up with Prince Yu and waited for him for years, hopelessly in love. She was the Empress's choice for Prince Yu's main wife!"
Cui Lingyao nodded.
'Of course she knew.'
Shen Hanyue sat up straight, her voice grave. "Then do you also know that while both were from a Marquis Mansion, Consort Li was from the Empress's maternal family and had known Prince Yu for years? If Miss Cui of the Changping Marquis Mansion hadn't won Prince Yu's heart, prompting him to defy all opposition and insist on giving his beloved the status of main wife, Miss Cui would have never surpassed her to become the main wife."
Cui Lingyao lowered her lashes, recalling the past she thought she had almost forgotten.
Shen Hanyue was right. Back then, the Empress had indeed been determined to marry her niece to her son. Li Wanrong's infatuation with Xie Jinbai was as intense as the original owner of this body's obsession with Shen Tingyu.
But Xie Jinbai liked her.
Years ago, when she first arrived in the Da Yue Dynasty, she was only ten.
Xie Jinbai was a Prince. Even though they moved in the same aristocratic circles, she never found an opportunity to meet him.
The first time she saw him was at her older brother's coming-of-age ceremony when she was fifteen.
He was only sixteen at the time—an age for flamboyance and high spirits, for fine clothes and fast horses—but he was reserved and indifferent.
His tall, slender figure stood there, exuding an air of unapproachable aloofness.
But winning him over wasn't actually too difficult. Within a year, her 'Conquest Value' had reached fifty.
And with the Conquest Value at only fifty, Xie Jinbai had already made up his mind to marry her.
For her sake, he defied everyone's opinions, disobeyed the Empress several times, and insisted on giving her the full, formal rites of marriage reserved for a main wife.
Cui Lingyao had married him to complete her mission and go back to save her brother; it wasn't because she had any real feelings for him.
But she had to admit, in the two years after their marriage, they had been a very loving couple. Even when they had occasional quarrels, just as she was about to give in for the sake of her mission, he would already be coaxing her.
Such a cold person, yet he would hold her on his lap and coax her.
And that coaxing would soon lead them to the bed.
Cui Lingyao didn't think she liked him all that much, but being intimate with him wasn't as unpleasant as she had expected.
They were as sweet as honey in those days.
It was probably because things were going so well that his Conquest Value rose generously.
In two years, it shot straight to one hundred percent.
It was the system-certified 'Unyielding Devotion,' which triggered the so-called 'cool-down period.'
Everything that happened after that was a mockery.
Shen Hanyue was still talking: "Prince Yu defied everyone's objections to give his beloved the status of main wife. For more than two years, he didn't take any other women. Even when the Princess Consort failed to become pregnant and His Majesty wanted to bestow several concubines upon him to continue the bloodline, he repeatedly refused."
"In the end, it was because Consort Li had waited for him for so many years, delaying her own marriage prospects. At the Empress's suggestion, he had no choice but to relent and fulfill his cousin's devotion. That's how she came to enter the mansion as a concubine, but she was the *only* concubine."
For someone of Xie Jinbai's status to have only one concubine—and one he took only after his wife had been childless for two years—was practically unheard of in the Capital City.
"As for the toast on the wedding day... he must have been trying to satisfy the Empress. It was definitely not a deliberate attempt to humiliate the Princess Consort."
Although Shen Hanyue didn't know the inside story of those past events, she said with conviction, "And the Princess Consort's accidental drowning couldn't possibly have been ordered by Prince Yu. In the entire Capital City, from His Majesty and the Empress down to the street vendors, who doesn't know how devoted Prince Yu was to his first wife?"
"..." Cui Lingyao fell silent.
She had always felt that when it came to whether Xie Jinbai was a good man, no one had more right to speak than she, the person involved.
He was a moody, lustful, and incredibly domineering man.
Three years ago, perhaps his heart had never changed.
He had only ever loved her.
But his words, his actions, everything he did—it all made her and everyone else believe his affections had shifted.
Now, because she hadn't died, she had the chance to learn that there might have been a hidden story behind it all.
'But what if she had really died?'
When a person dies, all is naught. She would have never known anything.
'Yet in the eyes of others, this was his image.'
Shen Hanyue was still speaking. "After the Princess Consort died, Prince Yu rarely even returned to the Capital City. He's twenty-four now and has no children. As for that Consort Li in his rear courtyard, I heard she was secretly put to death that very day."
At this point, she lowered her voice. "You weren't in the Capital City back then, so you don't know what a huge uproar Princess Consort Yu's accidental death caused. That year, Prince Yu's Mansion first closed its doors to all visitors for no reason. Prince Yu himself didn't leave the mansion for a month. He didn't even attend the New Year's Eve palace banquet to pay his respects. The Empress personally went to Prince Yu's Mansion but couldn't even get through the main gate. No one knew what was happening."