The Dragon's Flower

XH 119

Xiao Hua quickly pulled her hand away from the Third Prince's grip. It would be better to have lesser people know about their relationship, especially from the hero and heroine. They might use her as leverage against the third prince to get rid of him from the throne competition.

Although the Third Prince said he supported the Crown Prince to be the next Emperor, he had not declared that he would step out from the competition so he still has the choice to compete for the throne if anything happened to the Crown Prince.

The Third Prince gave her a look but allowed her to pull away, knowing that it was a wise choice to keep more of his advantages hidden in his sleeves. "Second Imperial brother, what a coincidence," the Third Prince said charmingly, even giving the man he hated a smile that revealed nothing but gentleness.

Xiao Hua truly marvelled at how he could restrain his great hatred towards his murderer, to be able to smile and happily chatting with Long Shan. If it was her, she would have already picked up all the sharp things that her hands could reach and starts attacking.

Le XiaoTing could still remember when she was very angry with her fellow roommate in her university days. She regretted offering her roommate to use her shampoo once but her roommate translated it as permission to use it as long as she wanted. As a result, Le XiaoTing had to restock her shampoo a month earlier than it should. She was tight on money and with how her inconsiderate roommate could not get a clue when she had already complained to her, she had no choice but to prank her roommate in a way that would permanently stop her.

The end result of her prank was her roommate forced to cut off most of her hair but it worked as Le XiaoTing wished for as her roommate and never touch her stuff ever again. Le XiaoTing's smile that was full of promise to do more evil was the one that stopped her roommate to even think of retaliating.

Xiao Hua suddenly felt scared. She had easily angered the Empress, but what if she secretly remembered all her deeds and repays her three-fold when her guard was down?

"Third Imperial brother," the Second Prince greeted indifferently.

Liu Chu Chu curtsied gracefully, followed by the two maids behind them. "Greetings to the Third Prince."

Xiao Hua quickly followed along. "Greetings to the Second Prince and Fifth Miss Liu."

Today the golden couple was dressed in matching attire. The heroine, forever dressed in red despite the colour would be too bold for certain events, was spotted in another red attire but with splashes of white on her clothes. The hero, forever dressed in white, was dressed in white attire with similar splashes of red like the heroine's attire.

Their looks complement each other pretty well. Not to mention their...preference, even their ability was matching! The hero, Long Shan, possessed ice elements, and the heroine, Liu Chu Chu, possessed water element! One supply water, one freezing it, how harmonious!

Long Shan's eyes drifted onto Xiao Hua for a second before looking away. It would be inappropriate for him to look at another female. It was only because she was Long Zhu's personal maid did he spare her a glance, only due to curiosity. He had heard of the Emperor and Empress being dissatisfied with Long Zhu because of his favouritism towards his personal maid.

However, the maid could not be considered as the most beautiful female in Guilin, but there was something adorable the way she gripped onto her fingers nervously with her eyes wandering around while trying to be sneaky in stealing few glances of him and Chu Chu. 

As for Liu Chu Chu, she appraised Xiao Hua openly, as both were females. However, her gaze was not friendly but filled with dislike. Liu Chu Chu does not know why her heart would feel sour and immediately dislike that maid. She just felt as if that maid had taken something that should be hers.

Long Zhu disliked the attention his little flower gotten. "Second Imperial Brother is here to visit Imperial Concubine He?"

"Yes. Concubine mother wishes to spend more time with Chu Chu," the Second Prince confirmed. "How is Mother Empress doing?"

Without needing to ask, both knew that the other was here to visit their blood mother. After all, they were at the courtyard that concubines stayed in. It so happened that the Empress' residence was located near the harem so that if anything happened, she could be reached easily to deal with the matter.

"Mother Empress is doing fine. Second Imperial brother should visit Mother Empress often. She is our rightful mother," The Third Prince chastised lightly.

Xiao Hua noticed the atmosphere turned slightly colder, seemingly coming from the Second Prince. Liu Chu Chu subtly reached out to hold his hand and the chill slowly decreased.

"Third Imperial brother does not need to worry. I will visit Mother Empress when she is free to accept my visitation. I've visited her just a few days ago, but she is too busy to meet me. I've sent some health products so that Mother Empress could take care of her health."

The Third Prince smile turned even wider, his tone slightly chastising, "That's strange, Second Imperial brother. Whenever I visit Mother Empress, she would always spare some time for me despite her busy schedule."

Xiao Hua: '...' These two ah... if the Empress is able to hear their conversation, she might be overjoyed. But why are they bragging the wrong stuff? If they truly care about the busy Empress, help her lessen her workload then, stupid sons!

Too irritated at these two princes, even if one of them was her boyfriend, she looked away and caught a pair of eyes filled with hostility.

Xiao Hua blinked, her irritation was forgotten as her mind was occupied in wondered who was this person. The hostile eyes belonged to a maid that was standing a few feet behind the Second Prince and she did not even bother concealing her glare towards Xiao Hua.

Honestly, Xiao Hua had never seen this girl before, especially when she was obviously the Second Prince's servant. Le XiaoTing might be pretty bad in remembering people's faces, but she doubted she has seen her before.

It was not a beautiful face, as it was pretty rough looking with thin eyes and wide mouth. As if to make up with a plain face, she has a curvy body that could capture the male's attention to look at her for the second time. She was dressed in light green clothes that were the servants of the Second Prince's uniform and her hair was pinned up with a simple hairpin.

The existence of the hairpin indicated that she was not a low ranking maid, so she must be the Second Prince's inner maid. Xiao Hua does not get to indulge her curiosity as the Second Prince and heroine no longer have the patience to play insults and made excuses to leave. 

"Could she be Pang Pang or Tang Tang?" Xiao Hua mumbled as she watched the backs of the two green uniform maids.

Pang Pang and Tang Tang were the two maidservants that were especially loyal to the heroine. However, Pang Pang was described as chubby and Tang Tang with missing teeth from too many sweets. But the hostile maid was curvy, not chubby and both the servants' teeth looked nice enough with no missing tooth.

"Pang Pang and Tang Tang?"

Xiao Hua blinked. "Third Prince, you knew them?"

The Third Prince nodded. "They are Tian Zi and Tian Chi. I bought them from the slave market."

In the novel, Liu Chu Chu was lacking servants so she decided to visit the slave market, which the location was revealed by her cheap father. The original Liu Chu Chu's father was a great merchant that was involved with a lot of underground business. She found the pitiful two girls and brought them back but did not change their name because Liu Chu Chu wanted them to retain something that was solely theirs.

Tian Chi was actually one of the heroine's small cheats! She was previously known as Pang Pang and Xiao Hua knew it even if Tian Chi was not chubby. Tian Chi loves eating while Tian Zi prefers sweets. Both of them were known as 'Foodie Duo' among the readers!

Pang Pang, now known as Tian Chi, could heal people using her spiritual energy and that was why she needs to eat a lot of food to replenish her energy!

But for the Third Prince to take away a small cheat from the heroine... this young lady gives you a 'Like', darling boyfriend!  

The Third Prince took her hand and gently pulls her along to continue walking to the exit. "Coincidentally, I found them at the slave marketplace. If the seller did not mention their name, I would not have recognized them."

"Then you know about Pang Pang- er, Tian Chi's ability?"

"Yes. That's one of the reasons why I took them away."

"...Thank you for saving them," Xiao Hua said softly, her eyes feeling warm and teary, remembering what she read about the foodie duo's ending. 

"I did not save them."

"You did," Xiao Hua said firmly. "You saved them from being killed for saving Liu Chu Chu."

"They could be killed in the future for protecting me," the Third Prince pointed out.

"But you would never carelessly have them risk their lives to save yours."

"They will need to risk their life for mine as they are my inner maids."

Xiao Hua huffed in frustration and looked around. Seeing that they were alone, she demanded, "Then what's your excuse when you treat the original Xiao Hua well?"

"I wish to repay the gratitude so I treat you well."

"Which Liu Chu Chu will not do! Actually, she might, but she would never go as far as how you did. She would think that giving them nice food and a good place to live in will be enough. She would never be like you, treating them well and make sure their indulgence does not risk their health."

Xiao Hua knew that Tian Chi eats a lot yet her body did not expand sideways, which was a feat she envied. As for Tian Zi, she enjoys eating sweets but she restrained herself not to eat much and managed to keep her teeth in a proper state.

"Unhealthy servants would be no use to me," the Third Prince explained, and he was confused when Xiao Hua smiled even brightly.

"No matter what excuse you use, to me, you saved them." And because I know you are kind no matter how much you deny it.