32. The Bitter Tears

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Chapter 32.

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recap: in the previous chapter, Yi Ran decided to investigate and find people who still believed the late Crown Prince and Crown Princess were framed and unjustly executed. She managed to narrow down to Astronomer Wei. Su Yan visited Yi Ran for a casual talk and grew jealous of the woman's beauty. Back at her quarters, First Prince refused to visit her for dinner and it turned out that the pair were not as loving as the rumours turned out to be.

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With the last final stroke of her brush dipped in white paint, she twisted her wrist that had turned slightly sore from painting for too long. However, looking down at the big and smooth pebble she had just painted on, she let a satisfactory smile spread on her face. Lifting up her head, she saw a petite and slender figure dressed in pale yellow silk that draped her body like curtains, the long dresses messily splayed out on the cold wooden floor. The woman dressed in that subtly noble dress propped her head up with her hand, the other hand almost letting go the roll of book she was reading earlier and her head was already tipping off for a while.

"Princess, First Princess." Yi Ran waved her hand in front of First Princess, who by the third time Yi Ran called out her name, opened her eyes slightly and was met with the sharp daylight piercing into her eyes.

"Ah...I fell asleep?"

"The painting is done already." Yi Ran gently lifted the pebble with her fingers and swiftly turned it around, facing the princess.

"Woah...so this is how your cat Yi Rong looks like? So white...like snow."

"Do you like it? Just keep it."

"Really? Then I will keep it." First Princess stretched her arms out, lifting her sleeves in the process as she fetched the pebble into her hands, carefully blowing small cold winds onto the paint to dry them faster. Seeing how the First Princess was so delighted and very much immersed in the painting, Yi Ran made up her mind and spoke her request.

"That...First Princess...can you help me arrange something?"

"What?" First Princess lifted her eyes from the pebble.

"But you must not tell anyone!"

"What is it?"

"I...want to meet the Head Imperial Astronomer."

"Huh? What for?"

"I..." She began rethinking the excuse she had Bian Li helped conjure up before. Would First Princess think of her as being a dangerously ambitious woman if she said she wanted to ask for the Astronomer to look at the stars for the Yu family? Even she herself found that reason being too presumptuous, let alone others. Blinking her anxiety away, she saw the white painting on the stone and thought of a brilliant idea instead.

"I want him to see if Yi Rong will be pregnant anytime soon. That cat is female, but she has never gotten pregnant, not even once. I want to know when I can have small little Yi Rongs." At the end of her sentence, she realised how dumb she just sounded and internally imagined herself banging her head against the table for it.

"Wh-what...?" First Princess laughed at the ridiculous request for sometime before she managed to calm herself down.

"Such a request, do you really need the Head Imperial Astronomer to interfere? The Capital City should have a lot of fortune tellers, right?"

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