"I couldn't force him at the tower that day, but you, Marquis, can!" Princess Yang Ying saw Wei Tingyu's stunned expression and began to explain.
"My imperial brother has a narrow mind and is selfish and incompetent!"
"The Marquis and I came to save him, but he treats the matter between the Marquis and me as nothing more than a transaction!"
"He is the ruler of a kingdom, and must be saved! But if he cannot be saved, then it is fate!"
Hearing Princess Yang Ying's words, Wei Tingyu was unexpectedly moved!
He wrapped his arms around the young girl, leaned down, and kissed her soundly on the forehead. "A'Ying! You have truly grown up!"
"You now have your own opinions, a generous heart, and you are very clever!"
"I believe your mother would be very proud of you in the afterlife!"
…
The next day, around noon, Wei Tingyu was leisurely strolling the streets near the guesthouse, enjoying the unique scenery of the An capital.
The An Kingdom was a transitional political entity, shifting from a nomadic to an agrarian society, so its streetscape still retained many nomadic characteristics.
Of course, the culture of the Central Plains had also greatly influenced the people here, especially some florists who sold flowers in styles that were very different from those of the Central Plains, possessing a distinct charm.
Many of the girls here would buy a flower and simply wear it in their hair.
Compared to gold and silver ornaments, this kind of decoration had a more savage and captivating beauty!
A thought suddenly came to Wei Tingyu's mind: what kind of scene and pleasure would it be if he bought some of these flowers and gave them to Ren Ruyi and Princess Yang Ying to wear?
Just as he was picking out two flowers, he suddenly heard a quarrel from a nearby shop.
"I said it's mine! Give it back!" When this girl's sharp reprimand reached his ears, Wei Tingyu was momentarily stunned.
This voice sounded somewhat familiar! It seemed like he had witnessed this scene in the original plot!
With that thought, Wei Tingyu no longer hesitated. He took the flowers he had just bought and walked straight into the shop.
As soon as he stepped inside, he heard the shopkeeper shout in a low voice, "Be careful!"
"Ah!" Then, a man groaned in pain and fell to the floor of the shop.
"Husband! Husband! Are you alright?" The man covered his face and was helped up by a young woman in a green dress next to him. But from the expression on his face, Wei Tingyu could guess that he had just been slapped hard!
As for who had slapped him... Wei Tingyu glanced to the side and saw a beautiful woman in a red riding suit, with her hair in a braid, standing in front of a shelf full of jewelry, exuding a heroic and dashing aura as she nonchalantly picked out ornaments!
He had guessed right, it was her!
Wei Tingyu thought to himself, and couldn't help but complain to the system a little!
It was true, just as this guy had said, that the important female characters in the story would actively approach him.
Chu Yue, the daughter of Duke Chu of the An Kingdom's Xisha tribe, a County Princess, could stir up a commotion just by buying jewelry, which he, a casual passerby, just happened to stumble upon...
To say that the system had no hand in this, Wei Tingyu would never believe it!
"Is being the Duke Chu's manor so great? Can a County Princess just hit people as she pleases?" The woman, seeing her husband's pained expression, was filled with anger. She turned to Chu Yue and shouted.
"I'll have you know, my father is a Censor!"
"When did I hit you?" Chu Yue turned around, a delicate frown on her beautiful brow, and asked with an impatient look.
At the same time, her maid quickly interjected, "It was clearly this young master who came up to snatch the hairpin without a word, and our County Princess just moved aside, and he fell on his own!"
"Yes! We all saw it!" Another woman watching from the side nodded and said, and many other customers around also chimed in in agreement.
Wei Tingyu was stunned upon hearing this. He hadn't seen the scene unfold earlier, so he had assumed that County Princess Chu Yue had indeed hit that man.
Now it seemed he had misunderstood? While this girl might be mischievous and willful, she wasn't a completely unreasonable person!
"Even so, the rule of a jewelry store is first come, first served!" The woman, who had claimed her father was a Censor, was first taken aback, then argued, "But my husband already had it in his hand, so why did you have to snatch it?"
But her words only confirmed to Wei Tingyu that Chu Yue hadn't hit her husband first!
And this woman had been able to preemptively pin the blame on her?
It seemed that these "little fairies" had existed since ancient times!
If not for Chu Yue's status as a County Princess, and the presence of so many eyewitnesses willing to testify, any ordinary woman would have been completely at a loss today, and would surely have been humiliated and bullied by this Censor's daughter!
"My husband already had it in his hand, why did you have to snatch it?" Of course, the Censor's daughter still thought she was in the right, and continued her incessant chatter.
"Sigh!" Chu Yue rolled her eyes in frustration at her words, then looked at the shopkeeper and said, "Shopkeeper..."
"Ah, yes!" The shopkeeper finally reacted. It was impossible for him not to speak now.
"This purple jade hairpin was brought in by the County Princess ten days ago for our store to polish!"
"Now the County Princess has come to retrieve the finished product, but she did not expect it to be favored by this young master when the servant was bringing it over!"
Upon hearing the shopkeeper's words, the woman immediately lowered her head and fell silent. It was now clear that she didn't even have the last shred of a "first come, first served" argument to stand on.
"Do you understand now?" Chu Yue was a bit playful. Seeing that the other party was speechless, she raised her eyebrows and said with a triumphant look.
"Hmph!" However, this Censor's daughter was also spoiled at home and couldn't stand such teasing and mockery. She immediately frowned, her eyes darted around, and she came up with another way to save face.
She let out a cold hmph, then said in a sarcastic tone, "Hairpins have always been chosen by men to give to women!"
"Some people don't know the difference between male and female! No wonder they have to buy their own hairpins!"
With these words, the triumphant expression on Chu Yue's face instantly turned cold.
She had always prided herself on being a woman who was equal to any man, so she rarely dressed in female attire.
She had rarely even stepped foot in a jewelry store like this since she was born.
The other woman's words were practically pointing a finger at her and calling her a tomboy with no feminine charm!
And as soon as the Censor's daughter spoke, the onlookers began to whisper and gossip.
And from the chatter of most of the people, it was clear that they agreed with her words.
Wei Tingyu, however, was noncommittal. He laughed inwardly at these people, who clearly didn't know a good thing when they saw it!
The An Kingdom was a political entity in transition from a nomadic to an agrarian society. Many of its nobles still retained some nomadic customs and habits, but were also making great efforts to be more like the Han.
But these people had long since forgotten, and how could they know the thrill and joy of a wild horse? Wei Tingyu found their views ridiculous.
"Watch your mouth!" Chu Yue, of course, was also frowning. She even threw the hairpin she was holding onto the shelf with a clang, and looked at the other woman out of the corner of her eye.
"Was I talking about you?" The other woman, seeing that Chu Yue was angry, became even more triumphant. She immediately said, "Why are you getting so worked up?"
"I only know that some people have already been betrothed!"
"But her fiancé doesn't even want to say a single word to her!"
"And what's more, as soon as he heard the news of the marriage decree, he rushed out of the capital to avoid it!"
"You wouldn't know, but he avoids her as if she were a venomous snake!"
Most of the onlookers were merchants or commoners who had no knowledge of such royal secrets! But the Censor's daughter was different. She babbled on, spilling the rumors that had been circulating in the An Kingdom's aristocratic circles these past few days.
For a time, the onlookers began to whisper among themselves, as everyone could tell that the woman's words were aimed directly at Chu Yue!
Wei Tingyu also frowned slightly. It seemed that this timeline had not been completely altered. At the very least, Chu Yue had still been betrothed to that fellow Li Tongguang under the An Emperor's auspices!
However, Li Tongguang and Chu Yue still had no liking for each other, so he didn't put this pearl of Xisha in his eyes at all.
But when he thought about it, Wei Tingyu knew something that others didn't!
Li Tongguang, Ren Ruyi's disciple, had a kind of twisted obsession with her from a young age...
Due to the change in the world's timeline, he had not yet truly met Li Tongguang, and the other party did not know that Ren Ruyi was by his side.
But he had never expected to run into Li Tongguang's fiancée before he even had a chance to deal with the fellow who had designs on Ren Ruyi!
The thought that this little wild horse was a married woman-to-be, betrothed by the An Emperor, and that her fiancé was the very same Li Tongguang who had his eyes on Ren Ruyi, made Wei Tingyu feel a surge of excitement!
"You're talking nonsense!" Chu Yue's maid, of course, couldn't stand it and immediately rebuked the other woman.
But the problem was that what the other woman was saying was also the truth. Although Li Tongguang had left the capital under the pretext of having official business, the news that he was very dissatisfied with the An Emperor's marriage decree had already spread throughout the aristocratic circles of the An capital.
His attitude toward Chu Yue was as cold as ice!
If the maid was so angry, there was no need to mention how Chu Yue, this little wild horse, felt!
She herself had never liked Li Tongguang, and her mind was filled with ways to get the An Emperor to annul the marriage! But that fellow had left the capital, and all these messy rumors had been piled onto her by the gossipy women of the An capital.
Now, to be publicly humiliated by this Censor's daughter in front of so many people, she naturally couldn't save face!
She was so angry that she raised her leather whip, intending to lash out at the other woman.
However, just as she raised her whip, a large hand suddenly reached out from behind her and firmly held her wrist!
Chu Yue's heart skipped a beat, because she could clearly feel that the hand had immense strength, so much so that she couldn't move her wrist at all!
Chu Yue had always prided herself on being a match for any man! And now, she was being restrained by a single hand?
Her first reaction was one of disbelief! And her next instinct was to turn her head and see who had such strength!
But the moment she turned her head, the slight frown of confusion on her face suddenly melted away!
Because in Chu Yue's eyes, she saw the face of a young man, handsome and filled with a heroic spirit!
He was not a delicate, powdered weakling, nor a burly man with a face full of beard.
The combination of gentleness and strength was something that made Chu Yue's heart pound with a sudden, fierce rhythm!
A jewel of the grasslands was not as shy as a Han girl. Seeing that the other person was also looking at her with a gentle smile, Chu Yue did not try to avoid his gaze at all. Instead, she looked back at him with an equally curious expression.
Wei Tingyu saw that Chu Yue's eyes were fixed on his, and that they were filled with an inquisitive look. He simply smiled and said, "You take so long to get one thing, how much longer am I supposed to wait for you out here?"
Upon hearing Wei Tingyu's words, the expression on Chu Yue's face became even more stunned!
From the sound of his words... he was waiting for me? But the problem is, do I know him? Did I have a date with him?
But no matter how hard Chu Yue's little brain tried to think, she could not find a single piece of information about this young man in front of her.
She was certain that unless she had amnesia, she had never met this person before!
"I told you I don't understand things like gold or jade... I only know about this!" Wei Tingyu found Chu Yue's bewildered expression utterly adorable. As he spoke, he took out the flowers he had just bought.
Then, in the stunned gazes of everyone, including Chu Yue, he took a gentle step forward and pinned the flower into her hair!
Chu Yue was completely dumbfounded. She had no idea what this man who had suddenly appeared out of nowhere was doing. It wasn't until he had put the flower in her hair that she realized!
He was helping her out! Saving her from being ridiculed by so many people and losing face.
Especially that Censor's daughter who had called her a tomboy. Now, a man had given her a flower, which was the best possible rebuttal to those words!
But the current situation seemed a little...
After all, she was, in name, the fiancée of Marquis Changqing, Li Tongguang! To accept a flower from another man in public like this... It was one hundred percent impossible to explain!
"I hope you like it!" Of course, Wei Tingyu knew what this little girl was thinking. If it were a typical Han girl, his brash action would have been met with a direct refusal.
But Chu Yue was different. This jewel of the grasslands was never afraid of anything!
Moreover, girls from the grasslands were not as strict about interacting with men from outside their families!
Of course, this intimate scene was also a first for Chu Yue in her entire life, so she was completely dumbfounded and had no idea how to react.
"If you don't like it, just throw it away!" Wei Tingyu saw that Chu Yue was still staring at him without saying a word, and he smiled and spoke again.
His meaning was simple. I'm just helping you out. If you feel awkward, you can just ignore me.
However, Chu Yue's eyes moved, and she remained silent, which was an implicit acceptance of the flower he had given her.
"Who are you?" At this moment, the Censor's daughter could no longer contain herself. She stared at Wei Tingyu and asked.
Of course, she could tell from Wei Tingyu's clothes and appearance that this man was either wealthy or noble, so before she figured out his true identity, she did not rashly insult him.
And with the Censor's daughter's question, everyone in the shop, including Chu Yue, also looked on with a curious expression.
"I am the Marquis of Jining!" Wei Tingyu smiled faintly, then nodded to the people around. "A pleasure, County Princess Chu Yue!"
Of course, his last words were directed at Chu Yue, which was a way of showing that of all the people present, she was the most special person in his eyes.
"Marquis, an honor!" Chu Yue was stunned, then subconsciously clasped her hands in a fist salute.
But she had only raised her hands halfway when she realized her mistake and quickly switched to the female curtsy!
This clumsy change of action, however, made Wei Tingyu laugh again.
And while Chu Yue hadn't been shy about being given a flower by a stranger in public, she blushed a little when Wei Tingyu laughed at her clumsy curtsy.
At this moment, she did feel a certain fondness for Wei Tingyu. For a young girl who was experiencing the first stirrings of love in her life, the laughter of the person she had a crush on was naturally the thing that made her the most nervous.
Because she was afraid of doing something wrong and being looked down upon by him! This was a completely subconscious reaction, and she herself hadn't realized it yet.
And when Wei Tingyu's title, the Marquis of Jining, was spoken, everyone present basically understood his true identity.