Thales stared solemnly at the sausage on his plate. He held his breath and slowly raised his knife according to Professor Jines' posture in his memory.
One second.
Two seconds.
Three seconds.
Finally, the prince heaved a deep sigh.
He loosened his grip and put the knife and fork back on the sides of the plate, giving up on eating.
Thales raised his head with a headache and looked at the other side of the dining table. The blonde girl glared at him with her green eyes, pouted, and stared at him in dissatisfaction. She did not even move the food in front of her.
From the moment they entered the archduchess' dining room, Saroma chased Ginghes and the two maids out with a cold expression, despite the unified objections of Ginghes and the two maids. Surprisingly, Ginghes only expressed her objection symbolically and then complied with the archduchess' wishes, which was very rare in the past.
"Alright." Thales could only brace himself and said, "Our esteemed archduchess, do you have any opinions about my dining posture?"
Saroma snorted softly and stared at him for a full three seconds before she pouted and said, "Again."
Thales was stunned.
Thales was stunned. "What?"
"You're talking to me like this again," the girl said in displeasure with a sullen expression, "'Our esteemed archduchess' is a tone that makes people want to beat you up."
Thales widened his eyes and looked at her helplessly. He smiled and said, "But this is the proper way to address the archduchess, especially when it's our cute and charming —"
The sound of metal clashing against metal suddenly rose.
* Thud! *
Thales stared at Saroma in a daze. The sullen girl had just stabbed the plate of beef in front of her into two.
The cut was smooth.
Saroma was still staring at him with a frown. Her eyes were filled with unhappiness.
The teenage prince's Adam's apple bobbed a little.
He took a deep breath and stopped smiling. He suppressed the urge to tease the girl with a playful tone to the deepest part of his stomach.
'Looks like she's in a really bad mood.
'Then …'
* Thud! * Another crisp sound of metal clashing against the plate was heard. The beef on Saroma's plate was cut into three pieces.
Thales felt a chill in his heart.
'Alarm.
Alarm! '
It was even scarier than when she did that two years ago.
Thales immediately put away the expression on his face and calmly stared at Saroma, who pouted.
"I'm sorry." The prince looked into Saroma's eyes with sincerity. "It's my fault … From just now until now, I've neglected your feelings."
Saroma's eyes moved, and her stern face relaxed a little.
When Thales saw her dejected look, he could not help but lower his head and sigh.
In the next second, the prince decisively left his seat and walked towards the girl.
Saroma was slightly shocked.
As she watched Thales get closer and closer, she seemed a little uncomfortable. Her whole body shrank slightly like a hedgehog.
The girl pursed her lips and snorted in a low voice, "What are you doing?"
Thales did not answer her.
The prince walked straight to the side of Saroma, whose eyes were filled with suspicion. He pulled out a chair by the side of the dining table and sat down quietly.
"Hey, remember, I'm your friend." The prince leaned forward and rested his arm on the dining table. He stared at Saroma seriously and flashed a gentle smile. "You know, you can trust me."
"You can tell me anything."
Saroma's breathing became slightly erratic, but she still tried her best to maintain that dissatisfied expression and snorted through her nose.
But Thales was still very patient. He looked at her gently and did not shift his gaze.
One second.
Two seconds.
This time, Saroma, who had been keeping a straight face, felt a little embarrassed under his stare.
The girl cleared her throat unnaturally and turned her head away.
But Thales still stared at her with a burning gaze.
Finally, Saroma could not stand his stare anymore. She took a deep breath in resignation and blew it upwards forcefully.
She looked up and saw the hair on her forehead being blown up by the wind.
"Forget it."
"It's nothing." Saroma pouted and glanced at Thales. She lowered her head with a gloomy expression. "It's just my own bad temper."
"No." Thales shook his head.
"Saroma." The prince exhaled and tried his best to speak slowly. "Good girl.
I know that today must be very difficult for you.
"On the day of the state affairs hearing, those disobedient vassals …"
Saroma turned her head around abruptly. Her breathing quickened.
"Hmph." She stared at Thales angrily and asked sarcastically, "Difficult?
"Difficult? How can that be?"
I am the Archduchess of Dragon Clouds City, the only one in the past seven hundred years, the only one …
"I control the most powerful territory in Eckstedt. How can it be difficult …" Saroma's breathing became heavier. The girl crossed her arms and said with an unpleasant expression,
Thales stared at her quietly.
"… My vassals are among the most loyal." Saroma snorted angrily. "They are powerful and wise. With them around, Dragon Clouds City is as stable as the Sighing Mountains …
"I don't have to worry about anything, including my own. Everything in Dragon Clouds City is running in an orderly manner. The Walton Family is as prosperous as ever …"
Saroma seemed to have turned on a chatterbox. She opened and closed her mouth wider and wider. The girl's expression also became angrier.
"So how can it be difficult for me? Compared to a certain hostage prince who trembles in fear and is afraid that I will eat him whole one day, I am simply the luckiest girl in the world … Urgh!"
The girl was stunned.
Her mouth was gagged.
Saroma watched Thales' actions in astonishment and felt the thing in her mouth.
At some point in time, the prince had already sat beside Saroma.
Thales stared straight into Saroma's clear eyes.
The girl was a little at a loss. Her face was slightly red.
Then …
The second prince exhaled and calmly pulled out the spoon in his hand from the dumbfounded Saroma's mouth.
"If this spoon of beans can't appease your anger," Thales said with a smile. He turned around and scooped another spoonful of beans from his plate and shook it in front of Saroma. "I still have another spoonful."
Saroma only reacted then. Her slightly red face showed signs of anger from embarrassment. With her mouth full of beans, she hummed a few times in extreme dissatisfaction.
Thales continued smiling with his eyes narrowed. He shook the spoonful of beans in his hand at her.
"That's right!
"Bite them to pieces!"
"That will appease your anger!"
Saroma pouted her mouth, which was stuffed full of beans, and glared at him in dissatisfaction for a whole three seconds.
Thales smiled in response.
In the end, the girl with a displeased expression let out a heavy "hmph".
She turned her head away and stared at Thales from the corner of her eyes. She chewed the beans in her mouth vigorously as if she was angry.
The chewiness made it seem as if she was not chewing beans, but Thales' flesh.
The prince winked at her. There was a smile in his eyes.
'Seriously, she used to be very nice to me …
'Where did the pitiful and cute Little Rascal who likes to hide behind me, speak softly, and talk softly to me?'
Thales looked at Saroma, not knowing whether to laugh or cry.
He looked at the girl who was glaring at him as if she was demonstrating her power.
He looked at her cheeks, which were bulging from the stuffing. As she chewed harder and harder, her cheeks trembled.
"I've shrunk … Hmm, I've said it before." The girl chewed and swallowed the beans in her mouth with great difficulty. She said angrily to the prince, "I'm not unhappy at all … Hmm!"
Thales expressionlessly delivered the second spoonful of beans to Saroma's mouth.
The prince held back the laughter in his heart. When he tried to pull the spoon back, he realized that he could not pull it back. Saroma bit the spoon hard, and her gaze at that moment could already kill.
"Here, be good. The most important thing for a person is to be happy …" Thales resisted the twitching of his shoulders and pulled the spoon out of her mouth with great difficulty. He watched as Saroma angrily began to chew harder than the first spoonful.
Although the archduchess' gaze was still terrifying, the prince suddenly felt at that moment that the life before him was not so bad.
'Fortunately, she's quite cute like this.'
Thales gradually became absent-minded.
And when did she change from a careful girl to the way she was now?
'Ah, probably one day.'
'Was it two years ago, when she came looking for me with sleepy eyes, holding a blood-stained bedsheet in a panic and sneakily with red eyes before dawn?
'And after that day, I was chased from my room on the sixth floor to the Blood Court by Ginghes, the female official who heard the commotion.
'Or was it a year ago, when she blushed and put on a corset, and I mocked her with my gaze in the library?
'It's all thanks to that female official, Ginghes, who tirelessly taught her lady to abide by the precepts of being a noble woman.
'Or was it the first time she wore a formal dress and combed her hair like a lady's, stood in front of me anxiously and excitedly, only to be angered by the prince who laughed so hard that he turned around and left?
'I don't remember.
'Anyway, it's become like this without me realizing it.
'The girl who used to be young and timid.
'She's grown up slowly in the high walls and snow of Heroic Spirit Palace and Dragon Clouds City.
'She will eventually transform into an existence that they are not familiar with.
'Archduchess Saroma Walton.
'But …'
Thales recalled the past when they met, and he could not help but feel sad.
'Is this really what she wants? Will she really be happy?
Become a … Walton? '
Thales, who had a lot on his mind, sighed and ate a mouthful of beans.
At this moment …
"Hey!"
Saroma's anxious voice interrupted him.
The girl's voice sounded a little surprised and a little hurried.
Thales snapped out of his daze and looked at Saroma's expression in surprise. The archduchess' face was abnormally red. She was hesitant and nervous as she extended her right hand to him, as if she wanted to remind him of something.
"Hmm?" The prince finished chewing the beans in his mouth in a few bites and raised his eyebrows in confusion. "What is it?"
Thales noticed that something was wrong. Saroma's face was completely red, and even the tips of her ears were red. It was especially conspicuous against her blonde hair.
'Why is she blushing?
'The last time I saw her like this was when she wore a formal dress for a banquet and came to ask for my opinion.
'What's going on?'
"That …" Saroma stared at him in a daze. She wanted to say something, but stopped. Her red face twitched slightly, as if she was very embarrassed.
Her hesitant and timid demeanor reminded Thales of when she was young.
Finally, under Thales' puzzled gaze, Saroma lowered her head gently and used her fringe to cover her face. She said in a voice as soft as a mosquito,
"Nothing."
The archduchess did not speak anymore. She just stared at the table in a daze.
Baffled, Thales shrugged. He still did not quite understand why Saroma was blushing.
The prince shook his head and sighed at how strange women were.
Just as he lowered his head and was about to scoop a spoonful of stew into his mouth …
Thales' gaze swept past the spoon in his hand.
* Clang! *
The prince's heart trembled violently. The spoon in his hand fell on the dining plate and clanked back and forth.
Thales sat where he was in a daze. He looked at the familiar spoon, and then at Saroma, whose face was so red that the tips of her ears could be seen. He felt incredibly awkward.
He could not help but smile sheepishly. "Umm, that …
"I wanted to remind you just now." Saroma's voice was so sharp and thin that it was almost inaudible. "It's just that you were too fast."
Thales felt a headache coming on. While he was glad that no one saw this scene, he used his last bit of rationality to swallow back the words "It's okay, I don't mind" that were on the tip of his tongue.
The atmosphere at the dining table instantly became very awkward.
However, Saroma, who had just lowered her head, seemed to be dissatisfied when she saw Thales' reaction.
She raised her gaze slightly.
"Hmph, you did it on purpose, didn't you?" The young girl snorted softly. "Ginghes said —"
"Ah, that's right!" Thales slapped his head hard and stiffly changed the topic. "I remember now!"
Under the archduchess' indignant gaze that said "How dare you!", the second prince took out a small but exquisite rectangular wooden box from his chest pocket. There were simple decorative carvings on it.
"Here," Thales said nonchalantly. He only wanted to use this matter to dilute the current awkwardness.
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