Over the past weeks, Qiang Jingyi had been coming to 'The Calmness of Heavens' every single day just to see Lin Xinglan. Lin Xinglan didn't have a problem with it, it was just that the fourth prince would stay there from when it opened until it was time to close.
Every time, Lin Xinglan couldn't work properly because Qiang Jingyi would always make her stay in the private room and be with him. It became too much as the servants started to gossip that Lin Xinglan was meeting with her lover, and even the owner confronted it with her.
Lin Xinglan wanted to strangle someone, despite the urge, she explained things to the owner. The owner was so shocked and surprised to know that the child he took in actually knew the fourth prince and the prince was even in the teahouse everyday to see her.
"You, child! You're really something, aren't you? Being friends with the famous fourth prince!" The owner exclaimed.
"Please, Old Bao! It's nothing big. The little prince is here daily because he just wants to talk to me since it has been a long time." Lin Xinglan secretly rolled her eyes.
"You even have the guts to call him little- Ah, what should this old one do with you?..." He sighed, "Well... Is the fourth prince treating you well?"
Lin Xinglan nodded, "En, he's good to me so you don't have to worry!"
"If that is so then that's great. You should be more careful, a commoner being friends with a prince is not something normal. Bad things will happen if outsiders know about this."
"Xinglan knows, Old Bao." She smiled.
The owner didn't forget to warn Lin Xinglan that just because she was hanging out with the fourth prince, she couldn't neglect doing her work properly.
After their talk, she got ambushed by Moyu and Bin's questions, Lin Xinglan patiently explained a short version of what was going on; her reunion with her childhood friend and that friend was now visiting her everyday to hang out.
Moyu and Bin looked at Lin Xinglan suspicious, they didn't really believe her because it was hard to since Lin Xinglan was a girl and to be with a man alone in a private room, they couldn't stop thinking about the possibility. Lin Xinglan didn't care much whether they believed her or not, she didn't blame them either.
Lin Xinglan went back to the private room where Qiang Jingyi was inside, she took a deep breath and opened the door. She saw how he sat in an elegant way yet, she could see that he was bored. But the moment his eyes met hers, he no longer looked bored.
"Took you long enough." Qiang Jingyi stated.
The corner of Lin Xinglan's left eye twitched in annoyance.
"Just so you know, this is all your fault to begin with. I had to get interrogated by the owner and servants."
By that, Qiang Jingyi could tell what had happened to her, he was amused.
"What are you saying? Wasn't it Lan that said I could visit you whenever I wanted?"
Lin Xinglan stayed quiet while she averted her eyes from him, she couldn't refute him because what he said was the truth.
She quietly said, "Okay, I admit defeat."
Qiang Jingyi chuckled in response, his Lan always gave up so easily and quick when she knew he was right.
Lin Xinglan sighed, she took a seat and refilled tea in Qiang Jingyi's teacup. The light aroma hit her nose the moment she poured the tea from the porcelain kettle to the teacup.
"The crown prince never completed the mission, right?" Lin Xinglan curiously asked.
The crown prince didn't seem to be a smart person so she presumed he couldn't complete it and angered the Emperor. But the Emperor did favor the prince so he might had let the prince go this time.
"No," Qiang Jingyi instantly destroyed Lin Xinglan's presumption, "He completed it."
"Huh?" She was startled.
"He found a scapegoat to replace the true culprit behind the prime minister's disappearance."
"Oh."
Lin Xinglan's eyes were focused on the tea kettle, it seemed like she was thinking deeply about something which made Qiang Jingyi unable to resist asking her what she was thinking.
"Uhm... I was just thinking that the prime minister is perhaps dead, he has been gone so many days already. Who knows, maybe he got kidnapped by someone and then got tortured along the way. The culprit probably wanted to get information out of him..." She didn't finish her sentence when she looked up to see Qiang Jingyi's expression, "Haha, I was only joking."
Lin Xinglan laughed and waved her hand. She had just carelessly said what she thought. She didn't think what she said was actually true since it was only something that would usually appear in the novels she read.
The hidden guard, Shu Ya, who had always been hiding in the shadows, felt like his eyes would pop out any second from shock. Ever since he started to follow his master to the teahouse, he had thought Lin Xinglan was nothing special and his master was only there because she was his childhood friend. But listening to Lin Xinglan talk about things no common girls would talk about, he thought she was a strange girl.
When she mentioned about the prime minister being kidnapped and tortured, he couldn't help but to feel as if Lin Xinglan knew the truth. He sighed in relief when she said she only joked, he took off his white mask to wipe off the cold sweat beads. This young girl his master took a liking was actually really frightening in a way, ah!
Qiang Jingyi licked his dry lips and thought that Lin Xinglan was the first one to be able to keep shocking him whether it was intentionally or not.
"Oh right! I need to buy more cat food today." Lin Xinglan suddenly said. She remembered that the cat food was almost gone.
"You have a cat?"
"Yeah. Well, I found him three years ago. Want to see him?"
"Alright." Qiang Jingyi wanted to refuse but then he saw her happy look.
He watched Lin Xinglan exiting the room and after a short moment, she came back with a black cat with beautiful emerald eyes in her arms.
Qiang Jingyi raised both of his brows and said, "I didn't think that this is where Xing had been all this time."
"This is your cat?!" Lin Xinglan shouted in surprise. She never thought that the cat was actually the prince's, more like she never expected that he would even own one.
Qiang Jingyi confirmed, "En."
Lin Xinglan suddenly showed him a bright smile, leaving him confused.
"I'll be right back." After that, she left the room again.
When she came back, she handed over a long list to Qiang Jingyi. He took it and checked what was written, when he was done, he looked up to see that Lin Xinglan had already taking her hand out with her palm facing upward.
With a serious look on her face, she said, "That's how much money I spent on the cat and if I add the interest for these past three years, you owe me 100 Gold in total."
100 Gold?! This, this.. Isn't this simply a scam? This girl has guts trying to swindle money from a prince! Most importantly, it's the famous fourth prince and her childhood friend! Shu Ya inwardly cried out loudly.
Qiang Jingyi didn't try to hide amusement showing in his eyes, he never knew she had this kind of side, and she didn't even bat an eye when she was swindling money out of him in a broad daylight. The price for spending money on the cat was barely 2 Gold.
Lin Xinglan casually asked, "What?"
"Okay, I will bring 100 Gold with me tomorrow."
"Good, then I guess I will give back Xing to you."
Lin Xinglan was about to pick up the black cat but got stopped when Qiang Jingyi turned her down.
"It's fine, you can keep him. I'm too busy to take care of him anyway."
Lin Xinglan narrowed her eyes at him, "Is it okay for a prince to leave his own cat to a commoner like me to take care of?"
"It's fine because it's you."
"If you want me to take care of it, I'll be using your money. I don't want to spend my money on a cat when I have to take care of myself first." Lin Xinglan stated as she ignored the fact that she had already received 100 Gold so she wasn't really poor anymore.
If she was compared to other normal commoners then she was fairly rich but still poor if she compared to other rich people.
Qiang Jingyi laughed but nevertheless agreed, he only took in the cat because it somehow reminded him of Lin Xinglan, hence the cat's name. It was as mysterious as her, popping out of nowhere in a forest.
They talked to each other until the sun went down and it was time for the teahouse to close so Qiang Jingyi had to bitterly leave Lin Xinglan.
The day after, there were rumors going on everywhere about how the crown prince actually completed the prime minister case. The Emperor was naturally satisfied over the crown prince's achievement and even praised him for his intelligence and hard work.
However, only the ones with actual brain knew the crown prince used a scapegoat and only secretly shook their head toward the Emperor's foolishness in disappointment. Though, it was better off to leave it as it was to avoid having the heads rolling off from the officials' bodies.
Lin Xinglan never saw Zaki Yaman again ever since the last time they met, she had asked Qiang Jingyi about it and with a dissatisfied expression, he said:
"He's busy with work. You shouldn't think about irrelevant people."
Lin Xinglan never understood why Qiang Jingyi would act the way he did every time she mentioned Zaki Yaman or another man. Just because she was his first childhood friend, didn't mean he should be acting possessive all the time, he was also intimate with her even though she told him not to be. Lin Xinglan was sighing over his silly act, didn't he care that people would misunderstood them if they saw them being so close?
Out of blue, someone slammed the door open, it all happened so fast it startled Lin Xinglan so much that she jumped up from her seat.
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Thank you for the heart-warm comments! Makes me so happy-
I actually forgot that it was Chinese New Year until you mentioned it. Yeah, my bad.
Also, yes, I will update more often during my holiday. So, there will be bonus chapters.