Maybe fate wasn't done with her yet.

By the time Yifia pitched forward, she'd already thought of her last words. But in a stroke of luck, the unfinished branches snagged her collar. She got stuck there on the spot.

As feeling slowly returned to her numb legs, pain rushed in. It felt like countless tiny bugs gnawing at her skin.

And of all times, she couldn't move now!

The rustling from the bushes wasn't loud. There was also some distance between them, so it didn't catch Prince Caroy's attention. He looked at Amelia as she walked up to him, his brows still tightly furrowed. His mood was obviously terrible.

Even though Prince Caroy and Amelia had known each other for ten years, aside from their engagement, their relationship was clearly mediocre at best. There was no childhood-sweetheart affection between them, no unspoken understanding.

If anything, they were distant and cold, each finding the other more unpleasant the longer they looked.

"Amelia, I know you don't like me either. So why haven't you asked your father to break off the engagement?"

Prince Caroy looked at Amelia's exquisite, stunning face. She was like a perfect doll displayed in a shop window, flawless in every way. But he didn't like her at all. He even despised her. The curve of his lips was full of mockery, and his words came out edged with anger, with none of the grace a gentleman should have had.

His aggressive tone, like a bitter, resentful spouse, took quite a bit away from his handsome face.

But Amelia didn't panic under that questioning. She flicked open the folded fan in her hand with a swish. The delicate gold embroidery on the fan glittered under the sunlight. As she waved it lightly, a rich sweet fragrance drifted out.

Her gorgeous face wore a polite smile. Her violet eyes glimmered with a dark light as she replied without giving an inch, "Your Highness, why don't you go ask His Majesty the King to break off the engagement yourself?"

"You!"

Amelia knew exactly how to strike at a weak point.

She looked at Prince Caroy's face, flushed red with anger, and couldn't help letting out a soft laugh. Then she continued, "There's a saying from the mysterious Eastern lands: Do not impose on others what you yourself do not desire."

"If Your Highness wants to break off the engagement, you can go to His Majesty the King, Duke Barren, or even the bishop of the church. Any of them could help guide someone who's lost his way. But you can't have me stand in front and charge for you... After all, I'm only a weak woman. I can't sway the decisions of my elders."

In that instant, it was as if all his clothes had been stripped away, leaving him standing there completely bare.

His thoughts and schemes were laid out in plain sight.

Prince Caroy's face turned ashen. He resisted the urge to turn and leave on the spot. Taking a deep breath, he decided he couldn't waste this chance meeting.

He didn't want to spend the rest of his life married to Amelia!

"Amelia, I think we both feel the same way. Neither of us wants to become a pawn in someone else's hands, used however they please. We want to control our own lives and our own freedom."

Amelia's mockery had already made it clear she wouldn't be easy to win over.

That also made Prince Caroy straighten out his attitude. He continued in a more sincere tone, "If the engagement goes through smoothly, Duke Barren will have to pay an enormous price. He may even lose the rights to maritime trade... Even for your family's sake, please cooperate with me."

Prince Caroy didn't bother hiding it. He directly invited Amelia to resist the arranged marriage with him.

The price of destroying the engagement might be high, but it was still within what he could bear.

He was the royal family's only heir. Even if his father got angry, it would only last for a while.

Rather than using marriage ties to bind the Barren Family to the royal side, Prince Caroy would rather use force to make the Barren Family bow their heads.

Or even destroy the Barren Family once and for all.

At that thought, Prince Caroy lowered his eyes, which were filled with ruthlessness.

He could also go through with the engagement to Amelia first, then find another excuse later to deal with the Barren Family. But once the marriage was formed, the two sides would be tightly connected. Making a move then would come with many obstacles.

And once he ascended the throne, there absolutely couldn't be any stain on his name.

So he needed to cut ties now... Prince Caroy had once told his father what he thought, but the current king was hesitant in everything he did and lacking in courage. Instead, he had harshly scolded Prince Caroy for his recklessness.

His father's cowardice disappointed Prince Caroy deeply.

But it didn't matter.

His father was already old.

He would inherit the throne very soon.

"Your Highness, please don't take me for a fool. You'd better hide those little thoughts of yours. If someone else notices them, that'll be very bad for you."

Amelia dismissed Prince Caroy's invitation with utter disdain.

She raised the fan in her hand to half-cover her face and arched one brow. Her violet eyes held the look of someone watching a joke unfold. She seemed to be mocking Prince Caroy's poor acting. It was so easy to see the ambition leaking through.

And he was even putting on such a clumsy performance right in front of her. How boring.

Compared to the dull Prince Caroy, Amelia would rather play with a mischievous little bird. At least a cute little thing could please the eye and lift her mood along with it.

The last time they met, that little bird had been wary and guarded. She wondered what this meeting would be like?

At the thought of that pleasant image, Amelia's eyes curved with a smile. But Prince Caroy, standing opposite her, thought she was laughing at him. He clenched his fists in fury.

There wasn't a single decent person in the Barren Family!

The young prince's self-control clearly wasn't polished enough. He turned and stormed off without even a polite farewell. For a noble, that kind of rude attitude should never have appeared.

But Amelia didn't care. She treated him like someone unimportant. Prince Caroy wasn't worthy of her attention... Right now, she was thinking about how to catch that cute little bird.

If she walked over directly, she'd scare her, wouldn't she?

Should she use a few little tricks instead~

While Amelia was thinking that, Yifia saw the prince leave. She really wanted to greet Amelia and praise how pretty she looked in the academy uniform skirt. But the situation was obviously wrong for that, so it was better to pretend she wasn't here and quietly slip away.

After all, the contents of the conversation between the prince and the duke's daughter were not something that should get out, and Yifia had heard every single word from beginning to end!

If she got caught, she wouldn't be able to clear herself even if she jumped into the Yellow River!

Yifia sneakily raised a hand and tugged at the branch, trying to free herself from her current hanging-on-a-branch state. But whether it was the wrong angle or not enough force, no matter what she did, she couldn't separate her collar from the branch.

If anything, it only got more tangled.

Had this branch become sentient or what?!

"Meow!!!"

Just as Yifia was wrestling with the branch, a shrill cat cry suddenly rang out by her feet. It startled her so badly that she shuddered, and her whole body nearly toppled out together with the branch.

Yifia looked down in alarm and saw a black cat that had come from who knew where. It circled obediently around her feet, rubbing its head against her from time to time. It actually looked pretty cute.

That was, until it opened its mouth.

The noise hit like a horror movie sound effect.

"Eh, Asmodeus, you're here too? Come out now. We should get going."

The cat's cries didn't just scare Yifia. They also drew Amelia over.

Yifia quickly lifted her foot and nudged the black cat with her toe, hoping it would take the hint and leave already.

But the black cat seemed to think Yifia was playing with it. Not only did it refuse to leave, it meowed even louder.

Seeing that, Yifia could only cling to the branch with ostrich-like denial and pretend she didn't exist.

By then, Amelia had already followed the sound of the meowing to the bushes. She seemed to spot the black cat's shadow and directly crouched down right in front of Yifia. Only a layer of branches and green leaves separated them.

Luckily, Amelia's attention was all on the cat. Otherwise, she would've found Yifia in the bushes in seconds.

At such a critical moment, just as Yifia instinctively held her breath, there came a crack. The damned branch snapped at exactly that moment. Her whole body immediately pitched forward out of control.

This time, she was really done for!

Still clutching the broken branch, Yifia squeezed her eyes shut. In that instant, she'd already pictured the miserable outcome of smashing face-first into the ground. But after waiting for a while, no pain came.

Instead, it felt like she'd fallen into a soft cloud.

Yifia opened one eye in confusion, only to find that by some absurd coincidence, she'd fallen right onto Amelia. Her face was buried in the overflowing softness of Amelia's chest.

Help, she was about to suffocate!!!