"You've heard I'm to marry Li Fengfeng?" the Second Prince asked Mei Meili plainly.
"Yes, your highness," she said with gentleness.
She knew he disliked the woman, as they all did, but what could be done?
He needed the Prime Minister's support now more than ever; so did Bai Li and her brothers. In the face of that, it seemed like the only path.
And yet, what was he sacrificing? It could be his entire chance at happiness.
Li Fengfeng would be his wife! It seemed an impossibility she could make him happy… And she would for sure make the lives of any concubines he might take unbearable; if she let them live, Meili thought with a shudder of fear.
"It's not what I want," he said miserably. "I know she was behind the attack on you during the Royal Hunt. Probably she was the mastermind behind pushing you into this lake too," he said, without looking at her.
He stared, dry eyed, across the water, his face an inscrutable mask, a far cry from his usual teasing self.
