Complete Confidence!

Compared to the lively banquet on the Third Princess's side.

The procession returning to Wude Hall was silent to a frightening degree.

The imperial elite guards clad in heavy armor were like moving walls of iron. Their footsteps were heavy, and the muted clinks of colliding armor carried an air of utter dejection.

They had thought this would be a sure-win chance to show their faces. Who would have thought they would not even catch a single hair?

It would have been stranger if they were not depressed.

At this moment.

Inside the carriage, Li Huaian rested with her eyes closed. Her exquisite features were obscured by shadow; only her faintly rising chest and the hand beneath her sleeve, clenched so tightly that her knuckles had turned white, revealed the storm she was forcibly holding down within.

The black carriage curtains hung low, shutting out every prying gaze.

Outside the carriage, the many trusted attendants who had accompanied her were all silent as cicadas in winter.

Only when the carriage came to a steady stop before Wude Hall did Li Huaian decline the maidservant's support and slowly step down on her own, allowing the invisible pressure in the air to ease somewhat.

Under countless watching eyes.

The Eldest Princess did not look back. Not the slightest hint of disappointment could be seen between her brows. She merely walked straight toward Wude Hall, her faintly sighing command drifting on the wind:

"Dismissed."

The trusted attendants all cupped their hands and answered in unison. They bowed, watching that cold and solitary figure vanish through the hall doors.

Yet the suppressed fury and sense of humiliation did not fade with her departure. Instead, they silently spread and fermented through the crowd.

By the time most of them had left Wude Hall and dispersed