No. 013 Unlucky Soul

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Chapter 13

His Highness the Crown Prince entered Xuanyang Hall just then. His voice was not loud, yet it seemed to cross the entire hall and reach the Eldest Princess's ears.

"Your Highness, there's one thing you've got wrong. None of Ming Xi's honor or happiness came from you, so none of it could have been taken from your daughter, could it?"

The Eldest Princess was at a loss for words.

Everything Luo Mingxi had now came from the emperor's favor. It had nothing to do with the Eldest Princess.

"But she only has all this because she was known as my daughter! Otherwise, how would she ever have caught His Majesty's or the Crown Prince's eye? If my daughter, my own flesh and blood, had been by my side from birth, wouldn't all of this have been hers?"

The Crown Prince glanced at the emperor, who had a hand to his forehead and clearly wanted no part of this. He took charge of the conversation himself.

"Your Highness must be joking. Anyone other than Ming Xi would mean nothing to my father or me. Ming Xi has her honor and standing because she is Luo Mingxi, and no one else."

The Eldest Princess was having none of it. "But isn't she only here because she was my daughter?" How could they leave her out of it?

Wen Que, who had been standing off to the side like a wallflower and watching the spectacle, was amused.

The Crown Prince is still being too polite. With that brain of hers, the Eldest Princess probably won't even grasp what he's implying. She keeps saying Junior Sister has all this because she was her daughter, but in the emperor's and Crown Prince's eyes, the Eldest Princess herself means nothing.

The Eldest Princess just can't face that. She's clinging to one argument now: if Junior Sister hadn't been switched at birth, she would never have had the chance to appear before the emperor, much less win his favor.

Tsk.

Hearing Wen Que's thoughts, Luo Mingxi clicked her tongue too. Her mother—oh, no longer her mother—really did have a poor head on her shoulders. In the past, even without any affection between them, Luo Mingxi had remembered the debt of being borne and raised. Those who cultivated took cause and effect seriously. But now it was clear the woman had no intention of parting on decent terms. She wanted to grind Luo Mingxi straight into the mud.

Suddenly, none of it seemed so important. It was as if the heaviest straw weighing on her heart had vanished.

In that instant, the aura around Luo Mingxi changed dramatically.

The emperor and the Crown Prince were sensitive enough to notice the change at once, though neither could say what had caused it. Only the Eldest Princess, steeped in her own emotions, took Luo Mingxi's change as a sign that the girl had no respect for her and was trying to pressure her.

"Luo Mingxi!"

Oh, Junior Sister! Is she about to advance? But this is neither the time nor the place...

Before Wen Que's thought had even finished, she was at Luo Mingxi's side, reaching out to catch her wrist.

"Junior Sister!"

Snap out of it!

Luo Mingxi gave Wen Que a speechless look. What did she mean, snap out of it? Luo Mingxi wasn't asleep! Who did Wen Que take her for? And what kind of place was this? As if she could advance here!

But looking at the hand on her wrist, the genuine concern in Wen Que's eyes, and the looks her imperial uncle and cousin the Crown Prince turned toward her at the same time, Luo Mingxi felt that it would be no problem at all.

Luo Mingxi smiled and gently pushed Wen Que back. Then she looked up at the Eldest Princess, standing alone in the vast hall of Xuanyang Hall as though she faced every one of them. She seemed to bear countless hurts and grievances, like duckweed with nowhere to take root—pitiful, helpless, and at odds with the whole world.

"Mother... Oh, I suppose you no longer want me to call you that. Your Highness, you believe I owe you a great deal. How would you have me repay you? This identity, this standing, this name—I can give them all up."

Without them, she was still Luo Mingxi. She was herself, never a clinging vine that could survive only by depending on someone else.

"But if you want my life, I won't agree. After all, you weren't the one who gave it to me, were you?"

The Eldest Princess's face went deathly pale. Before this, she could still have used the debt of bearing and raising Luo Mingxi to hold sway over her. Now that was impossible.

She had thought only that losing this identity would strip Luo Mingxi of everything she had to be proud of. It had never occurred to her that once Luo Mingxi cast it off, she herself would lose her hold on the girl.

And as for raising her, she had never done so for a single day.

Luo Mingxi had survived this long entirely through her own good fortune. She could no longer count how many times she had nearly lost her life to mistreatment as a child. The Eldest Princess paid so little attention to her that the servants naturally trimmed their sails to the wind. A peaceful, easy childhood had been out of the question for Luo Mingxi. The only reason they had not bullied her openly was that she was the sole daughter of the Eldest Princess and her consort.