Chapter 506: Schemes Within Schemes at the Hongmen Banquet (8)

Chapter 506: Plots Within Plots at the Hongmen Banquet (8)

"Now I see."

Su Rao understood—she grasped Yun Ji's meaning. Love makes the heart impossible to hide. And this "Xianmu Yaling" was an impostor. She didn’t love Rong Feng, so she’d overlooked this detail.

"Rao Rao, there’s more."

Yun Ji continued, referring to how Xiao Yu and the Eagle Wing troops had so firmly insisted Xianmu Yaling had been captured by Su Rao.

Seeing this "Xianmu Yaling," Yun Ji formed two conjectures.

First possibility:

Xianmu Yaling had been captured within Rong Palace and imprisoned in the underground palace. Xiao Yu, as her personal maid, must have been seized as well. The Eagle Wing guard was one of Xianyi Chishaou’s elite shadow guards, always at her side for protection.

Thus, the only way Xiao Yu and the guard would lie to Prince Yi—claiming they’d been captured outside the royal city—was if this impostor had ordered it. The real Princess Changle would never command such deceit.

Second possibility:

Xiao Yu was also a plant by Zhu Xian. The real maid might have been drugged like the princess, or killed. The guard truly had been captured in the woods—deceived into believing remnants of the former dynasty had taken them both before their "rescue."

"Such deceitful tactics are their signature."

When the impostor saw Xianyi Chishaou, she coughed weakly but resisted throwing herself into his arms, gripping his hand tightly as if she’d feared never seeing him again.

Su Rao needed no further proof. No doubt remained.

They’d even replicated the princess’s dynamic with her uncle—his military strictness, her refusal to act spoiled. The effort was meticulous.

But overdoing the details backfired.

In Su Rao’s quarters, the real princess had been brimming with resentment when meeting her uncle. Though Su Rao had been in the outer chamber, that single cry of "Uncle" had laid bare her anguish.

Even the strongest person shows vulnerability when reunited with family after suffering.

Su Rao, the outsider, saw this clearly. As for Xianyi Chishaou—whether he noticed or not, having met the real princess, he’d surely assess this impostor rationally.

"Princess Changle," Old Ding interjected as uncle and niece reunited, "with Prince Yi, His Majesty, and the Crown Prince present, no one can harm you now. Speak the truth."

The princess’s appearance thrust Su Rao into the storm’s center. No evidence was needed beyond her accusation.

As Zhu Xian’s Princess Changle, her word was evidence—irrefutable.

Why would she falsely accuse Su Rao? Their past rivalry over Rong Feng had been trivial. Now, with her wedding imminent and their love affirmed, why court trouble?

"This ‘gracious’ princess would love to hear," Su Rao drawled as the impostor entered, leaning on Rong Feng, "how I supposedly imprisoned her in the hidden chamber of Elegant Retreat instead of just killing her outright."

Though frail, the impostor’s glare at Su Rao seethed with hatred—mirroring Xiao Yu’s—as if only Su Rao’s death could atone for her suffering.

Clutching Xianyi Chishaou’s hand, she hissed under Su Rao’s defiant taunts:

After waking in a pitch-black, sealed cell, trapped in a coffin-like container, she’d lost track of time.

On her last conscious night, Su Rao had appeared with tools, sculpting a mask perfectly matching her face.

As Su Rao finished, shouts erupted outside—she caught fragments of soldiers’ voices—before everything went black. She awoke only after Old Ding the physician rescued her.

"Cough... *hack*... cough..."

In just these few short sentences, Xianmu Yaling could no longer hold back her coughing fits. Rong Feng hurriedly helped her sit down, and the look he cast at Su Rao now carried a suppressed fury—a rare expression for him. Even knowing Su Rao was the fallen dynasty’s princess, even aware of her intentions to disrupt his Daliang, Rong Feng had never shown such emotion before.

Beneath that fury simmered disappointment. He had once believed Su Rao to be the kindred spirit he’d spent years searching for—only to realize he had been mistaken from the very beginning. Born as the princess of the fallen dynasty, perhaps she had long been blinded by hatred.

Xianyi Chishaou also turned his gaze back. From this imposter’s account, it was not hard to deduce that Su Rao had captured her to create an identical replica through disguise.

And this, Xianyi Chishaou had already witnessed today.

Moreover, Xianyi Chishaou had long known that Su Rao was none other than Young Master Xiao, the master of the Lian Pavilion, whose disguise skills were unmatched. She was also the leader of the Freedom Pavilion, who had once schemed against him. If her goal was to pit Zhu Xian against Daliang by using a fake Xianmu Yaling to deceive and manipulate him—would she do it?

Xianyi Chishaou's gaze now seemed uncertain.

Because this "Xianmu Yaling" felt like the real one—every gesture, even the faint dimple at the corner of her lips when she smiled at Rong Feng, was flawlessly replicated. Not even Rong Feng, who loved Xianmu Yaling deeply, could spot the deception—not because his affection was shallow, but because the disguise was too masterful.

Flickering lamplight painted the hall in wavering colors as Su Rao and Xianyi Chishaou locked eyes once more. In that exchange, despite the shadow of his eyelids obscuring a third of his gaze, Su Rao saw it clearly—

He *wanted* to trust her—but this ‘Xianmu Yaling’ left him torn.

Which Changle was real? Which was the imposter?

It was not a matter of emotional distrust, but of rational uncertainty. As Zhu Xian’s Xianyi Prince, now shouldering the kingdom after his brother's passing, he couldn’t gamble recklessly again—not with the fate of Zhu Xian, not on the heart of a princess from the fallen dynasty.