“Miss, are you a pervert?”
A layer of mist gradually formed in Shiya’s eyes, and her voice began to tremble slightly.
“No, you idiot, that’s not what I meant at all!”
The Leonora who had just stormed in with such aggression suddenly panicked, pulled her hand back, and quickly denied it.
Then the dress slipped down the girl’s voluptuous curves, revealing large patches of snow-white, delicate skin.
The duchess’s daughter’s long, narrow eyebrows twitched sharply, and she pressed her hand back up in an instant.
Unfortunately, because she used a little more force this time, Leonora’s hand sank deep into the softness, surrounded by a gentle, squeezing sensation.
Her head seemed to ring with a loud noise.
Leonora swallowed, unable to resist instinct, and secretly curled her pinky finger just a little.
A soft whimper escaped the girl’s lips as her body trembled, letting out an incomprehensible murmur.
“Miss, are you sure you’re not just being a pervert?”
“Do you want to take a look? If it weren’t for me, you’d have been exposed.”
“Ah… Right, right. It’s my first time being attacked by a strange female pervert, so I got a little too concerned.”
Leonora took a deep breath to maintain the elegant composure befitting a duke’s daughter.
She reached out her other hand to pull the strap back up for the girl.
But someone was quicker.
Elena lifted both hands, adjusted Shiya’s dress, then, as if warding off a thief, slowly pushed Leonora away.
She even slapped away the young lady’s misbehaving little hand.
Only then did she counter with a flat, sarcastic remark:
“I didn’t expect someone from the Selestine family to not only enjoy peeping but also rush over to grope others.”
Facing the other heroine of this mandarin duck bathing show, Leonora was anything but polite.
“Forcing another girl to do something like that out in the open—truly, the Crown Princess who’s been wandering the streets all these years is still far too crude.”
The situation seemed to escalate into personal attacks from the very start.
Elena just glanced briefly at the sharp-tongued young lady, not even deigning to give her a full look.
“I was just helping Shiya take a bath. She didn’t refuse.”
Didn’t she?
Shiya looked at the princess with a resentful gaze.
The Crown Princess could lie without batting an eye, and Shiya didn’t dare to expose her.
But the girl’s silence, in Leonora’s eyes, meant exactly that—
She allowed the princess to wash her body.
The beautiful maple-red hair began to bristle.
In a state of extreme anger, the young lady let out a cold smile instead.
“Heh. It seems Princess Elena has been used to serving this one as a maid since childhood. Even now, that subservience hasn’t changed.”
Elena’s face instantly darkened.
She hadn’t expected Leonora’s investigation into her to be so thorough—
Digging up her most shameful past.
Emotions flared up, and Elena, no longer caring about maintaining a ladylike image for Shiya, threw out her trump card.
She lightly pressed her lips together, raised two slender fingers, and waved them slightly in front of her.
“It has nothing to do with that.”
“Since Shiya danced alone for me earlier, and finally scattered flower petals before me with her dress completely unguarded,”
“I had to help her relax, wash off the sweat as a reward, right?”
The cunning princess deliberately blurred the timeline.
To an outsider, it sounded like Shiya had proactively shown herself off to her, begging for favor.
“Hey, Elena, is this something you can just casually say to others?”
Shiya panicked, clinging to Elena’s arm like a little koala.
“And please don’t make that accident sound so ambiguous.”
But before the princess could respond, the young lady had already ruthlessly grabbed Shiya’s ear.
“Is what she said true?”
Shiya whimpered in pain, her hands pressing against Leonora’s fingertips that were pulling her ear.
“Miss, that’s a traditional custom of Flower God Village. It’s a dance every Flower God Bride who’s innocently persecuted is forced to learn during the sacrifice ceremony.”
The girl explained with all her might.
But Leonora was completely shocked.
Her eyes twitched violently, and her body trembled with rage.
“What ceremony? What bride? You have to dance like that before marrying in this village?”
“Is that a proper folk custom?”
“Shiya, you actually went behind my back to learn such an indecent practice, and then danced it for that princess?”
“Also,” Elena, who had been watching from the side the whole time, leaned in with a faint smile and whispered intimately into Leonora’s ear,
“Shiya’s long hair—it’s exactly the same shade as her snow-white hair.”
Elena was pouring oil on the fire.
But the young lady actually conjured a fireball and viciously pressed it into her face.
A flash of the golden Holy Sword, and Elena casually blew the fireball away with just wind pressure.
Leonora wasn’t about to back down.
She struck the ground with the tip of her staff, and in an instant, a sky full of fire crows circled overhead.
Not only that, as time passed, an iron beast gradually approached the three on the coast.
An enormous shadow loomed over them, its powerful pressure enough to make any flesh-and-blood body tremble.
On the deck, an entire knight squadron embroidered with the Selestine family crest stood ready.
All they needed was the young lady’s order.
Or for Elena to launch an attack threatening enough to endanger Leonora.
Just when the situation was at its most tense,
a girl with chestnut short hair, holding a charred black hatchet, walked over to Shiya without regard for the occasion, gently tugging at her sleeve.
“Sister Shiya…”
Ilya kept her head down, her voice choked with sobs.
Anyone could tell she had been crying hard.
“What’s wrong, little crybaby? Did you find Hai En?”
Shiya’s voice was extremely slow and soft, her gaze full of tenderness.
She crouched down to hug little Ilya and wiped away her tears with a handkerchief.
Ilya held out the blackened hatchet in front of Shiya, sniffled, her voice hoarse—she couldn’t utter a single word.
Shiya’s gentle brows pressed down.
She tried to force a smile to comfort the girl but found she couldn’t.
Her fingers ran through Ilya’s chestnut hair.
She hesitated, then bent down and gently placed a kiss on the girl’s forehead.
“Let’s go bury Hai En next to Mr. Yige’er and Miss Selanti’s graves.”
Under the disbelieving gazes of Elena and Leonora, she stood up, took Ilya’s hand, and walked away without looking back.
She didn’t spare another glance at the two old rivals who had been bickering for so long.
No one could figure out whether Hai En had lit the first flame, burning himself out to bring the villagers of Flower God Village the initial spark of hope, or if, before that, he had been devoured by the enraged Flower God Core.
All Shiya and Ilya could do was lay him to rest beside Yige’er and Selanti, facing the sea.
Looking out at the vast, unknown ocean full of endless possibilities.
Elena and Leonora stood silently under a dilapidated eaves in the distance, watching the two girls shovel dirt little by little to fill the grave.
Just then, the Old Village Chief came up to the princess and the young lady.
After a long silence, he spoke softly.
“Princess Elena, perhaps raising this request now will break the heavy atmosphere.”
Elena, her emotions a little suppressed, didn’t speak.
She just nodded slightly, signaling him to continue.
“Though many sacrificed their lives in this war against the Flower God Core, the Flower God himself hasn’t truly been killed.”
“To be more precise, he has never crawled back from the underworld from the very beginning.”
“The chaos stirred up in Flower God Village now is entirely because he is exercising his authority as a flower.”
“If we don’t kill him completely, one day this bloodthirsty, greedy god will surely return and take revenge on all of us.”
“So I humbly beg for your help, Princess Elena.”
“At the upcoming Flower God Festival in the Imperial Capital—”
“Complete the feat of slaying a god once again after a hundred years, and cast the god out of this stage ruled by humans.”
“As long as that idiot isn’t involved, I can lend a hand too.”
Leonora spoke casually from the side.
The two prodigies were unexpectedly in sync at that moment.
Elena also spoke up in time:
“As long as Shiya isn’t put in danger, I’ll do what I can.”
But this princess would never imagine that, in the near future, she would personally tear up every promise to protect the girl.
“Shiya…”
“If you don’t confess soon, I’ll have to spank you.”