Impressive, My Lady

"Oh my, Bailu, look, she really dropped her jade pendant. The next step must be to extort us!" Su Li said with a smug face, as if saying, "I saw through her scheme, I'm so clever!"

Bailu exclaimed, "Amazing, my lady! So what do we do now?!"

"Run away quickly! What if this imposter pulls some other trick on us!" Su Li and Bailu exchanged a glance, each grabbing a hand, and slammed the door shut with a bang.

With a loud bang, the door shut. Princess Mingyu stared at the firmly closed door dumbfounded.

What's going on here?

She clearly planned to give that ungrateful village woman — who was holding General Xiao back from returning to the capital — a lesson, to show what a true royal princess looks like, hoping the woman would feel inferior and know she wasn’t worthy of Xiao Zetian, and quietly back off.

But why does this whole script feel so off?

No matter how she looks at it, it seems she ended up being mocked and scolded by those two village women, pointed at and called a shrewish hag disguised as a princess trying to extort them?

How the heck did things end up like this?

What happened to the royal elegance, the princess’s aura?

At Su Li’s house, Su Li and Bailu peeked out from the door and saw Princess Mingyu’s face turning green with anger, standing dumbfounded in place, smoke practically rising from her head.

Bailu covered her mouth, laughing, "My lady, you’re so smart, you saw through their fake act at a glance! I almost believed it at first, nearly got fooled!"

Su Li glanced at Bailu, who was smiling brightly, and suddenly said, "That princess though, she really is a genuine princess."

Bailu’s mouth immediately formed an O shape: "What? She, she really is a princess? The Mingyu Princess of Chu Kingdom?!"

Su Li nodded seriously, "Yes, she is indeed the Mingyu Princess of Chu Kingdom."

Bailu was instantly confused: "Lady, you obviously knew she was the Mingyu Princess of Chu Kingdom, so why did you just call her an imposter?"

Su Li tapped Bailu’s head: "Silly girl, I just said you were smart, now you’re acting dumb again. Look at her attitude—she’s clearly here to cause trouble, coming in all high and mighty, demanding I kneel to her. I don’t like her, so I don’t want to kneel. If I admit she’s a princess, I have to kneel out of respect. So I deliberately called her an imposter. One, so I don’t have to kneel; two, since she can’t prove it, she can’t do anything to me."

Bailu’s face instantly turned pale: "B-But lady, we just offended a princess! She brought guards with knives. What if they come in and kill us all? Those guards look fierce and know martial arts. If they really come in, they could slaughter our whole family!"

Just as Bailu finished speaking, they heard Princess Mingyu’s furious voice outside: "Lüluo, you useless thing, just standing there watching your mistress be insulted, are you mute?!"

Lüluo whimpered and sobbed, hurriedly saying, "Princess, your servant... your servant is useless!"

*Smack!*

Princess Mingyu slapped Lüluo hard across the face, scolding, "Useless thing!"

Lüluo trembled and knelt at Princess Mingyu’s feet, repeatedly kowtowing with all her might.

Princess Mingyu stopped looking at Lüluo and shouted to the guards with knives, "Those two village women were disrespectful to me. Go in now, chop off the heads of those two wretched women and bring them to me! Then capture everyone in this house and exile them to the frontier as laborers!"

The guards immediately drew their swords: "Yes, Princess!"

With that, a group of highly skilled guards, swords in hand, marched straight toward the gate of Su Li’s courtyard.