Ten Months On

Chapter 46: Are you done yet?

Shen Yi held his wife's hand dearly. He brought her hands close to his lips and kissed it gently, provoking his younger brother.

His eyes were gentle as he eyed Su Chen's visage.

Mm. The Da Li's cumbersome garb also looks good on his wife.

Shen Yi smiled but his eyes were cold.

Too bad that the clothes were what another man had chosen for his wife.

His gentle look appeared again as he took out a cloak passed by Sui and placed it around Su Chen's shoulders.

"Are you done playing now?"

He gently pulled a loose hair back behind her ear.

"Shall we go home?"

The maids were all gawking when they saw the soft exchange in front of them.

This man had looked like an experienced fighter and to be honest, very much like the typical male chauvinist of their country, expecting the woman to be obedient and subservient but not seeing them as their equal. Yet, the gentle man before them was shockingly different from their original impression.

Even the most loving husbands in Da Li would not be so outwardly loving in front of others like the Second Prince. Gentle, yes. Polite, yes. And of course, not many men were willing to be without another woman or two. So many of the Da Li men were frivolous romantics, with the scholars among them romanticising their love affairs and the fighters among them enjoying the attention of the women.

It wasn't that such behaviours were terrible. It was just how Da Li worked as a country.

Relationships between men and women... were unreliable. It was always the women who carved their hearts out and the men who would throw these hearts around as they please.

In any case, wasn't their Wangye the perfect example?

He had an official wife but divorced her for her more beautiful sister.

Now he wanted a new mistress in his life, discarding his new beautiful official wife.

The desires of men were insatiable.

But the Second Prince before them had not even declared words of celibacy nor sworn any love vows, but all that were there could see that no one else came into his eyes.

Not even the prettiest young maid in the hall held an iota of his attention.

They were lost in their observations when another entourage entered the hall.

"Second Brother."

A gentle voice spoke up.

There, joining the tiny party in the hall was of course, the exquisite Madam Su Li who can steal your soul away with a look.

She came in shining in a glamorous palace dress of resplendent red and gold, making her usually white lotus face shine with a seductive light.

Her make-up was slightly more imposing than usual, and she walked regally as if she was the Empress. Her face looked oddly pale yet it merely offset the bright red lipstick she had on that gave her innocent beauty a maturity.

As she walked in with the help of her maids, she curstied to Sun Rui in respect.

Sun Rui merely glanced at her bruefly before looking away indifferently.

Instead of waiting for him to give her permission to stand, Su Li smiled and gracefully stood up to join him by his side at the main seat.

"Second Brother! This is the first time that Su Li has seen you. You are as dashing and manly as Father Emperor! To think that we had not met till now. It's a pleasure to finally meet Second Brother."

Su Li spoke sweetly with a hint of awe and appreciation. Her voice was pleasant to hear causing those around to warm up to her.

But her words and tone caused those around to cringe.

She was a Crown Princess! Not a young  inexperienced miss that can call herself by name to her brother-in-law! Nor should she say such blatant words!!

Su Li smiled as if she did not see the faces of the servants and their shocked expressions. However, her smile seemed to grow slightly colder causing the servants to shiver and keep their faces down. It would spell their death if Madam knew their true thoughts.

Shen Yi did not even turn to Su Li.

He simply pulled the hood of the robe, covering Su Chen's face and ensuring that she was kept warm.

Shen Yi felt amused by Su Chen's obedient attitude.

The handsome tall man bent slightly to whisper something in her ear. Whatever he whispered stunned Su Chen so much that she had stepped backwards slightly then turned her head away, hiding her face further as if bashful from what Shen Yi had whispered to her.

Shen Yi laughed openly and held her closer to him.

Sun Rui gritted his teeth, keeping an amicable face as his fingers clenched around the seat's armrest.

Su Li's expression was also stiff at being blatantly ignored. She also felt stifled as she did not managed to see a clear view of the slut's face.

Su Li felt angry and frutrated by the wench in Second Prince's arn. In any case, the whore did not deserve to be anyone's wife! Especially when that slut was so shameless to seduce other people's husbands!! Su Li had seen the chests of jewelry being sent to the slut this morning and now it was revealed that the slut was her sister-in-law???

Su Li's anger peaked but her gentle angel-like expression remained.

She pursed her lips gently, her sorrowful face distracting the servants in the room.

"Second Brother, are you leaving? Why don"t you and Second Sister join us for dinner?"

Sun Rui's face was impassive as if he was in tacit approval of Su Li's words.

But only he himself knew that he was currently wracked with complicated strong emotions.

He didn't know how to explain it himself.

As he saw his "wife" in the arms of another man, not resisting, acting demure and lovingly, he never realised that hell could be so real on Earth.

And when he thought of the fact that his wife belonged to someone else with no room for him to come in anymore, it was agony.

He felt like he was going crazy in his head. Why was he the only to know how their love should be?

This woman was his.

And another man can try to take her.

But he won't succeed.

But before Sun Rui could say anything, Shen Yi's voice cut into the couple's thoughts.

"Crown Prince. Now that I have my wife back, I'm off!"

Shen Yi waved casually and actually

Walked away.

No long polite words where the two express their reluctance to be unable to join the Crown Prince and Crown Princess for dinner.

No excuses given.

No cordial words.

In fact, Shen Yi left so quickly that the couple in the hall were stunned.

Even the stewards were stunned as the entourage had left without even waiting for them to guide them out.

When Steward Hung came back to reality to run after the couple, he could only see an empty door and a confused door guardsman looking at him blankly.

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A/N: Thank you all for your support/ votes and comments! I'm reaching the end of my stockpile so updates might be sparser cos I like to edit chapters before I release them.

If you're following my other books, updates are ... unconfirmed cos I've already reached the last of my stockpile 😂 I've written some chapters but I'm thinking to revise them.

Updates will be more regular once stockpile is built up when I'm less busy after the next few weeks. 😁