Chapter 144: A taste of his genuine heart 1 (1/2)

The next day, at the crown prince's mansion

Getting drunk at banquets often comes with long-lasting repercussions, some manageable while a few could be disastrous. Most disastrous repercussions are often life-changing, a fact of which coating discovered the next morning after the banquet. She had woken up with a splitting headache and a few other aches.

However, none of them was as painful as the heartache she had received when she turned to her side and saw a white inner cotton shirt draped over a fair slim male chest some steps away from the bed. She had just woken from what she could only describe as a terrible sleep. To her understanding sleeping was meant to relax both body and mind but that was not the case when she woke from sleep this morning.

She was far from feeling relaxed or even remotely replenished, her head hurt. As did her waist and she had the awfully strange urge to empty her bowels. Xia Ying blinked her eyes, as the sun rays seemed to be focused solely on her eyes and nowhere else. She opened her eyes slowly to let them get accustomed to the lightning before opening them wide.

She gasped as Zhongshan Ling turned over, hand spread at both sides as his attendance walked around him and carefully pined up his court uniform. She held her hands to her mouth to prevent herself from making any sound and alerting him that she was awake.

She glanced around the corners of the to within her eyesight, to confirm if the was indeed her room and not his. She had drank quite a lot of wine yesterday, she feared that she might have acted a little strange.

”why is he here' she thought, sneaking glances at him through the transparent bed curtains that were pulled down when they went to bed. Xia Yong tried to remember what happened last night but her memory was hazy. She could only remember will the moment, the Crown Prince supported her into the waiting carriage after they had taken their leave.

They had stayed a little longer because of the guests that approached the last night. They couldn't send the guests away and we're forced to attend to them since they were members of the Crown Prince's maternal family. They had been away from the capital for over a decade and a half so most of the night was spent making introductions.

Xia Ying didn't like this type of relatives that were of no help and only wanted to munch off you. The members of the family were so shameless that the women tried to act like elders. Which was irritating to her, these women were of a lower class than her. The Tong family was a fourth-ranked family who couldn't be considered fully noble since they had started as butchers.

Their family status was only improved after the last two generations write and passed the Imperial exams. Their light ranking results had won't be later generations a position in court, they were identified as a literary family after some time but soon went into decline.

To save their declining social status they send their only daughter into the palace, back then it had caused quite a stir in the capital because their daughter had a long-standing engagement to the concubine born son of the Emperor's uncle, Prince Xing. The family had shamelessly ended tbs engagement and pushed her into the palace.

The entire family munched off her position as an Imperial concubine for a while, they had made quite a mess of things for a while. Especially after the Crown Prince was born, however, their sandcastle stumbled when Imperial concubine Tong died. Xia Ying didn't like associating with incompetent fools like them but was forced to do so out of respect to the Crown Prince.

She was highly irritated when those low-class women dared to act like elders and advice her on her marriage and how to treat the Crown Prince. She felt like telling them off completely but could only ignore them and drink a few cups of wine to calm herself.

She cursed her luck on marrying into such a family, that she a direct defendant of the previous Emperor was forced to deal with people like them. The cups of wine were few and didn't make her drunk, it was seeing Su Liya and Lu Yaozhu acting so intimate with each other in public no less that pushed her over the edge.

She nearly spat blood watching them, it also didn't help that the principal wife of the leader of the second branch of the Tong family choose that moment to comment on the couple's ”improper” actions in public. Her annoying monologue about a talented General like Lu Yaozhu being married to a hussy like Su Liya. Drove her heavily to her drink, she didn't bother hiding her distaste at them.

The Crown Prince noticed her actions and tried to hold her back but she was already too tipsy to reason with. He could only make an excuse for her and lead her away. Her splitting headache the next day was the price she paid for her bold actions, last night. She moved her head gently on the pillow, in a useless attempt to reduce the ache.