Chapter 153 Are You More Precious Than the Prince of Ning?

The woman wept bitterly on the ground, wailing, "You... Princess Ning, if you simply didn't want me to enter the Prince Ning Estate, you could have just said so. I ask for no official title, only that my child might be reunited with Prince Ning. Yet how can you possibly call me a liar?"

Xia Jiujiang sneered inwardly. Why did women nowadays love playing the innocent white lotus? Was it because the white lotus persona was so effective at arousing a man's protective instincts?

As the woman cried, the surrounding crowd began to murmur and gossip.

"She didn't even say she wanted to enter the Prince Ning Estate."

"You can't just leave a child wandering out in the world, can you?"

"What do you know? Princess Ning is simply taking precautions. If this child enters the Prince Ning Estate, he'll be the eldest son. If Princess Ning gives birth later on, won't her thunder be completely stolen?"

"I never took her for someone so calculating."

The onlookers clicked their tongues and began to criticize Princess Ning. Just as Xia Jiujiang was about to step in and help, Tian Xiaoyuan spoke up with a sharp, piercing gaze, "Because you are not from Hancheng at all! How could you possibly have been born and raised in Hancheng and shared a romantic entanglement with Prince Ning? You've been lying from the very beginning, which is naturally why I refuse to let you cross the threshold of the Prince Ning Estate."

The woman froze for a few seconds. "You... what gives you the right to say I'm not from Hancheng?!"

Tian Xiaoyuan reached out and grabbed the woman's hand. "Your hands are the dead giveaway."

The woman's hands were delicate, fair, and soft—the completely ordinary hands of a pampered woman, utterly devoid of any special traits.

Noticing the puzzled expressions of the surrounding crowd, Tian Xiaoyuan explained, "Hancheng is bitterly cold. Anyone who has ever lived there knows that Hancheng's cold penetrates straight to the marrow of your bones. The hands and feet of everyone who lives there develop sores, and even when they heal, they leave scars behind."

Xia Jiujiang had originally wanted to assist Tian Xiaoyuan, fearing she might be bullied due to her rural upbringing. But now it seemed Tian Xiaoyuan was not someone easily pushed around either. After all, this was a woman capable of subduing the Wolf King.

Tian Xiaoyuan continued, "Yet your hands are soft and tender; one look is enough to tell you've never set foot in Hancheng." With that, Tian Xiaoyuan exposed her own hands. Although they had been carefully maintained in later years, faint traces of small sores—scars left over from her childhood—were still visible.

While the people of Hancheng certainly had ways of keeping warm, children were delicate. If someone were truly born and raised in Hancheng, scars were an absolute certainty.

Tian Xiaoyuan had deliberately baited the woman by claiming that Prince Ning had grown up natively in Hancheng after being exiled there. She did this precisely to trick the woman into claiming she, too, was born and raised in Hancheng—otherwise, how else could she claim to have met Prince Ning? And just like that, the woman had walked right into Tian Xiaoyuan's trap.

The woman suddenly grew flustered. "I... I was raised in luxury, that's why! My family protected me well, so my hands never developed sores."

Tian Xiaoyuan burst into uncontrollable laughter. "You call yourself a person of luxury? Heh."

Displeased, the woman snapped angrily, "What is so funny about that?"

Tian Xiaoyuan reined in her smile. "In Hancheng, let alone someone like you, even someone as noble as Prince Ning developed sores and scars during his childhood. It's practically the mark of a Hancheng native. No matter how out of favor Prince Ning was when he was sent there, he was still a prince of the realm. Are you seriously trying to claim that your upbringing was more luxurious than a prince's?"

The biting chill of Hancheng was impossible to evade; it was winter all four seasons of the year. The climate was not only damp and freezing, but even the howling winds could lacerate skin. Therefore, no matter how much one hid indoors in Hancheng, it was impossible to completely avoid the wind forever.

With a single sentence, Tian Xiaoyuan blocked every possible exit for the woman. To claim she was more luxurious than a prince was tantamount to showing contempt for the Emperor! The Emperor had exiled Prince Ning to Hancheng, yet if he had lived more luxuriously than everyone else, wouldn't that imply the Emperor had mistreated him?

However, if she claimed her upbringing was *not* more luxurious than a prince's... well, if even the pampered Prince Ning had developed sores, how could she have escaped them? That would be equivalent to admitting she was not from Hancheng at all. Whichever way she turned, Tian Xiaoyuan's words had completely cornered her.

The woman took a deep breath and retorted, "Princess Ning is speaking from a position of ease without feeling any pain! Exactly what characteristics the people of Hancheng possess is entirely up to you to define. You simply don't want my child entering the Prince Ning Estate, terrified that someone else will steal your status. Who knows if everyone in Hancheng really gets sores? There's bound to be a special exception, isn't there?"

Seeing she was losing the argument, the woman resorted to making a scene and playing the rogue.

She pressed on, "Since the Princess has brought forth no evidence whatsoever to prove my son is not Prince Ning's child, why don't you let my son enter the Prince Ning Estate first? You can carry out whatever tests you like afterward..."

Putting it this way made the woman sound incredibly righteous and magnanimous. First, by mentioning tests, she signaled that she had nothing to fear from inspections inside the Prince Ning Estate.

Second, by demanding that her son enter the estate first, she made it appear as though her sole motivation was indeed for her child to acknowledge his ancestry and seek out Prince Ning.

She deftly avoided mentioning her own entry into the estate, using a tactical retreat wrapped in deep scheming.

However, Xia Jiujiang furrowed her brow. This woman was simply trying to buy time. Once inside the Prince Ning Estate, the farce that had just unfolded at the gates of the Prince Regent's Estate would become the prime subject of gossip for everyone's leisure hours, and it would take time for Prince Ning's estate to investigate and gather evidence.

Even if a conclusion were eventually reached, one was a public spectacle and the other was handled in private; the implications were entirely different, and it would do nothing to stem the tide of public opinion. This was precisely why, after Xia Jiujiang had previously been the subject of rumors, Jun Buwen had insisted on holding her in his arms while riding high and mighty through Zhuque Avenue to assert dominance.

Once the matter became known to all, the people behind the scenes would submit formal memorials to Emperor Zongkang. Given that Emperor Zongkang was already harboring lingering resentment over the Prince Regent allowing Prince Ning to return to the capital, what kind of expression would he possibly have for Prince Ning?

Xia Jiujiang couldn't help finding it somewhat strange. Prince Ning was, after all, Emperor Zongkang's son—why was the Emperor so indifferent toward his own flesh and blood? Yet when the Prince Regent fell critically ill, not only the entire Imperial Physician Bureau, but even Emperor Zongkang himself had rushed to the Prince Regent's Estate. The disparity in treatment was far too drastic!

Could it be that Emperor Zongkang was deliberately giving Prince Ning the cold shoulder to create a false impression for others that Prince Ning was out of favor?

The more she thought about it, the more tangled her thoughts became. Since some matters defied logic for now, she decided to set them aside and simply wait for the day when the clouds would part and the truth was brought to light.

Seeing that Tian Xiaoyuan remained silent, the woman sneered. "You keep shouting that I'm not from Hancheng, yet when it comes down to it, you're just too cowardly to let my son into the Prince Ning Estate! You're afraid to let Prince Ning know he has a son, and you're terrified my son will steal away his affection, aren't you?"

Tian Xiaoyuan started, "Who is scared to let your son into the Prince Ning Estate? Who is afraid of your son meeting Prince Ning? I—"

Xia Jiujiang suddenly reached out, grabbed Tian Xiaoyuan, and interrupted, "Why wait to return to the Prince Ning Estate for answers? This Princess can determine right here and now whether or not this child is actually of Prince Ning's bloodline."

Sensing that Tian Xiaoyuan was about to fall into her trap, the woman glared at Xia Jiujiang for suddenly cutting in. "The Princess Regent and Princess Ning are so thick as thieves," the woman spat, "Could it be that you're intentionally conspiring with her to keep my son out of the Prince Ning Estate?"

Xia Jiujiang smiled an eerie, mysterious smile. "What are you afraid of? I'm not going to use a human to test this, nor am I going to resort to any tricks. Besides, with so many people watching, nobody here is blind."

When the woman caught sight of that smile on Xia Jiujiang's face, a sudden wave of dread washed over her, and her complexion turned deathly pale. Yet, second-guessing herself, she thought: *What do I have to be afraid of? As long as I can worm my son into the Prince Ning Estate, a meteoric rise to power awaits us in the future!*