"Seventh Consort, my prince—please wait!"
The voice was thin, breathless, desperate.
Hua Jing froze.
That voice…
She knew that voice.
Turning sharply, her eyes fell upon the frail figure stumbling toward them.
Mei Rong.
The maid from before. The Jiang family's maid—the one she had spoken to at the wedding banquet, the one who had been so anxious, her eyes darting around as though she held a terrible secret she dared not reveal.
Now, she was in complete ruin.
Her hair was disheveled, her robes torn and dirt-streaked, her feet bare and bruised from the rough ground. But most striking of all—
Her slightly swollen belly.
She was pregnant.
Hua Jing's heart clenched.
No.
Jiang Lei's child.
She had known. Of course, she had known.
She had planned to use this very fact to ruin the wedding, to throw Mei Rong into the banquet hall at the right moment, to watch Hua Ling's carefully built future with Jiang Lei come crumbling down.
