Obsessively Raised by My Doll 22

Chapter 22

—She is this Princess’s person.

—Tell me, am I right?

In this atmosphere, it seemed impossible to say no.

Lu Dieqing pressed her lips together and nodded cautiously. “Mhm.”

She was so nervous her palms were sweating. Unsure of how the Crown Princess would punish her, she couldn’t even utter another word.

However, after she nodded, a trace of satisfaction appeared in the Crown Princess’s eyes, and she personally led her out of the palace gate.

The little girl was a bit dumbfounded.

*

Lu Dieqing left the imperial palace as she had wished.

This imperial city, which had stood tall since before she was born, contained the imperial power, the princes and princesses, the palace maids and eunuchs, and of course, hostages like her and her parents, who weren’t even citizens of the Chaoying Kingdom.

A person is lowly when they are far from home.

She had heard her mother say this.

It was said that every place nurtures a different kind of spirit in a person. That was why every place had a different totem.

The totem of the Chaoying Kingdom was the bamboo and cherry blossom.

It symbolized noble purity, but it was also beautiful and powerful. It emitted a special fragrance that attracted birds and beasts, only to put them into a state of shock. That was why the bamboo and cherry blossom was once used as a special weapon to help the Chaoying royal family conquer the world.

Thus, only the Chaoying royal family was qualified to embroider such a totem on their clothes.

Like the Crown Princess… the person standing before her now.

Oh, to be precise, the Crown Princess wasn’t standing beside her, but riding a horse.

Lu Dieqing had become the little palace maid leading the horse.

As the horse clopped along, she followed with small, hurried steps. Though she held the reins, her pace was two steps behind the horse, making it seem as if the horse were leading her. Her petite figure looked inexplicably cute.

Though Zheng Xuening was on the horse, her peripheral vision was constantly on the girl leading it.

From her vantage point, she could see the top of the little girl’s head and her slender, fair neck—so fragile, it seemed that if she had appeared a moment later, she would have lost her completely.

Zheng Xuening remained silent.

Lu Dieqing was also recalling the scene from just now.

The Crown Princess, high and mighty, had only to open her mouth to make the guards’ faces change drastically. They didn’t dare say another word, and just like that, she had become someone belonging exclusively to Changning Palace.

The palace gate that had confined her and her parents for over a decade had let her out so easily.

The sky outside was so vast, unenclosed by city walls.

The marketplace was just ahead. A few more steps and she could walk over and see it. There were pedestrians on the street, some on horseback, some in sedan chairs.

Everything in this marketplace looked fresh and full of life.

Seeing the wide world outside, Lu Dieqing should have been happy.

But looking at the Crown Princess on horseback beside her, she felt… nervous, constrained, and ashamed.

Sob, sob, sob. She had taken the Crown Princess’s waist token and was about to sneak out of the palace, only to run into the owner herself.

Could there be anything more embarrassing than this?

She was so ashamed.

Lu Dieqing hung her head, not daring to look at the Crown Princess at all. She could only look down at the dirt on the ground, the clopping of the horse’s hooves, and… the bamboo and cherry blossom on the hem of the Crown Princess’s robes.

Before this, Lu Dieqing had never looked closely at the shape of the bamboo and cherry blossom. But today, perhaps because the time was passing so agonizingly due to her embarrassment, she involuntarily focused her gaze on the totem and subconsciously began to count its petals.

One, two, three…

She counted as seriously and patiently as she had counted her private savings in bed last night. But a cool, clear voice suddenly came from above her head.

“What are you looking down for? Look up.”

Zheng Xuening looked at the shrinking Lu Dieqing and frowned, a trace of frost appearing on her pretty face.

Lu Dieqing obediently raised her head. Her small, palm-sized face was topped with blinking eyes, looking up at the Crown Princess with a watery gaze.

“Your Highness… I’m sorry.”

After a long internal struggle, Lu Dieqing finally chose to apologize.

She had indeed done something wrong.

The sudden apology made Zheng Xuening’s cold eyes pause, her expression becoming complicated.

“What have you done wrong?”

She realized that listening to Lu Dieqing’s soft whispers at night as a wooden doll, and then seeing her so constrained during the day as the Crown Princess, made her feel very displeased.

She couldn’t stand seeing Lu Dieqing look so afraid.

Was she that scary?

Didn’t she just say last night that she was approachable?

Why was she so scared of her today?

Zheng Xuening stared at Lu Dieqing without blinking, her gaze probing and implicitly sharp and deep.

No one could withstand such a gaze from the Crown Princess.

Lu Dieqing was about to turn into a shrunken mimosa plant.

“…Your Highness gave me the waist token, but I wanted to use it to sneak out of the palace… I’m sorry…”

The little girl, bravely admitting her mistake, had a soft voice. With a blink of her eyes, she could melt a person’s heart.

Zheng Xuening was silent for a moment, unable to be fierce even if she wanted to.

“What I have given you, what wrong is there in you using it?”

She pressed her lips together, the line of her mouth almost a straight line.

Lu Dieqing was like a little animal that had been pardoned, looking up at her in disbelief.

“Your Highness doesn’t blame me?”

Unable to bear her timid appearance, Zheng Xuening dismounted. Her waist was incredibly slender, but her legs were long.

“Heh, in your eyes, am I so harsh and unreasonable?”

Zheng Xuening was quite angry, her head even starting to hurt. She had even forgotten to use the formal “This Princess.”

When she was on the horse, she had an air of noble command. Now that she had dismounted and was standing face-to-face with Lu Dieqing, she still looked unattainable.

When Zheng Xuening’s face turned cold, she looked even more like a flower on a high mountain, her gaze full of sharpness, different from ordinary women, carrying a natural authority.

Lu Dieqing wasn’t afraid of her appearance, nor was she afraid of the way she looked at her…

She couldn’t describe the feeling.

When their eyes met, she just felt that she was half a head shorter than the Crown Princess. This half a head wasn’t just because the other was taller than her; it also included something else.

Status, power, the difference between a great nation and a subordinate small nation.

Just this short step’s distance held too many indescribable chasms.

This suddenly touched her.

“Your Highness, why do you pay attention to the puppetry manuals?”

How could someone like the Crown Princess, born into such honor and privilege, notice the puppetry tradition and even be interested in it?

If a person’s life was happy, they wouldn’t specifically pursue something so ethereal in the hopes of saving themselves.

Zheng Xuening met her gaze for a moment, then suddenly leaned in.

The distance between them was abruptly closed. Lu Dieqing was a little nervous, but thinking of the Crown Princess’s kindness towards her, she endured the discomfort and just quietly looked at her.

Her skin was fair, her dark hair smooth and soft, her features small and exquisite. Up close, she was even more moving. The coarse linen couldn’t hide the brilliance of her beauty.

Zheng Xuening could almost smell the faint fragrance on the girl’s body.

That cheap soap-bean scent, for some reason, seemed serene and rather pleasant on Lu Dieqing.

She stared into the little girl’s eyes, seemingly thinking about how to answer her previous question.

“And you?” she asked instead of answering.

Lu Dieqing’s lips parted. She was a little embarrassed, but she still answered honestly.

“I’m a hostage. If I can become a puppeteer, I think I can raise my status and let my parents live a good life.”

This was not something she should have said in front of the Crown Princess of Chaoying, but she couldn’t help the feeling of closeness in her heart and accidentally said it.

After speaking, Lu Dieqing knew she had misspoken. Her little face flushed, and her almond eyes blinked as she looked at Zheng Xuening.

“Your Highness…” she wanted to explain something.

Zheng Xuening looked at her deeply and reached out to stroke her ear.

Lu Dieqing’s body flinched. Her bright almond eyes widened suddenly, like a startled cat.

Zheng Xuening’s tone seemed somewhat gentle, giving Lu Dieqing the illusion that the Crown Princess felt a trace of pity for her.

“What kind of good life do you want to live?”