Princess, Please Fall in Love with Me

Chapter 5 : Rose, Long Since Grown with Thorny Edges

In the garden, a girl of about eleven or twelve carefully took out the pastry she had hidden earlier and began to savor it with relish.

In her arms, she held a sword almost as tall as she was.

Sitting on the grass, the girl leisurely enjoyed the hard-won treat.

Although her clothes appeared luxurious, a closer look revealed that the edges of her dress were patched in several places.

Golden hair, purple eyes—though born into the noble royal family, she was like a transparent person, unnoticed, to the point that the clothes she wore had aged beyond reckoning.

This was the sixth Princess of the Austin Empire, Yiwen Kelake.

From the banquet, my gaze had been fixed on the shadows, where a small figure darted back and forth silently, unnoticed by the crowd of nobles.

Even if the nobles paid her no mind, the guards at the entrance were not to be trifled with.

To slip into the banquet hall unnoticed, one had to live in the palace and be clever enough to evade the palace guards.

The Sixth Princess, who had killed me in my past life, was now just an eleven- or twelve-year-old girl.

Though I was only a ten-year-old girl myself, with the combat techniques and fighting skills from my past life, there was no way I would lose to her.

But if I could be reborn, did that mean she might also have the chance to be reborn?

Still, I was likely her only enemy, wasn’t I?

There was no way I could be assassinated and usurped by someone even more useless than me, right?

At that moment, a commotion came from not far away.

I quickly ducked back into the bushes to observe.

A few young noblemen, who looked like ordinary aristocrats, had slipped out, finding the banquet dull.

Indeed, the royal family held this companion selection to curry favor with other great houses in the future.

These minor nobles were, at best, just there to fill seats and flatter.

“Hey, whose daughter are you? Why are you here?”

The young noblemen spotted Yiwen eating her pastry.

Hearing their shouts, she didn’t even spare them a glance, only quietly staring at the sword in her hand.

“Look at her clothes—probably a servant’s child, stealing her master’s old rags.”

I hid nearby, watching from the shadows.

I wanted to see how the girl would handle this mockery.

Back then, I had let such taunts cloud my judgment, fiercely fighting them.

The outcome? Heh.

The soldiers who arrived treated me as an intruder, locked me up without food or water, abused me for days, and then threw me out of the palace.

Dragging my battered body, I crawled back to the mansion.

At that time, I might still have held hope for that so-called “family,” thinking I could return.

The mansion didn’t care about the life or death of a bastard child.

They just casually tossed me back into the dungeon of the duke estate.

In truth, when I was in the palace, the Duke had recognized me but let the soldiers take me away.

Perhaps my death would have been more valuable to the duke estate.

My thoughts returned to the present.

The young noblemen had surrounded Yiwen, who sat still, mocking her with sneers.

The bolder ones even began tugging at her clothes.

“Hmph, these tattered clothes actually look expensive. You must have stolen them from your master’s house, you little thief!”

But the moment one of them reached for Yiwen, a scream rang out.

The girl’s sharp blade had already struck his hand, the keen edge drawing a shallow cut.

“Ah! My hand! What are you doing?!”

“Doing? Killing.”

Yiwen gripped her silver sword and slowly stood, its tip pointed at them.

“The second son of Count Aksu, and you two—your status is too low for me to bother remembering.You’ve insulted a royal princess.Shouldn’t I just kill you?”

Her gaze carried a contemptuous coldness, as if killing them here was a trivial matter.

But from her slightly trembling hand gripping the sword, she likely had never actually killed anyone, only holding the silver sword to feign composure.

“Nonsense! I’ve seen all the princes and princesses, and you—you’re definitely fake!”

“If I’m fake, then I can kill you here, can’t I?”

Her small frame, bluffing like this, did scare them.

The leader, clutching his bleeding wound, retreated in a rage.

“You wait! I’m going to get the soldiers to arrest you!”

Seeing the cowardly boys leave, Yiwen, with a dark expression, carefully wiped the blade that had cut her foe and lazily sat back down.

The noble boys ran frantically out of the garden’s perimeter, about to find nearby soldiers, when their vision went black.

All of them collapsed into the grass.

“Really, if they bring the guards, how am I supposed to carry out my assassination plan?”

With a few swift chops, I easily knocked out the already panicked boys.

By the time the guards found them, it would likely be dark.

After dealing with the unnecessary trouble, I casually wiped my hands and returned to the garden.

Yiwen was hugging her silver sword, leaning quietly against a tree.

A butterfly had landed on her head, and she seemed to have fallen asleep.

I crouched in the nearby bushes, holding a fork I had swiped from the banquet, watching her defenseless form.

My right hand itches to act.

If I took her out here, everything would proceed as it did in my past life, methodically.

Without this unknown variable, I could truly ascend to that position.

But for some reason, my hand, gripping the weapon, hesitated.

I stared quietly at the golden-haired girl before me.

The her from earlier was entirely different from this gentle, sleeping figure.

If I realized anything, it was that I saw my past self in her.

The difference was, she was calmer, more decisive.

It seemed that in my past life, I wasn’t killed because I overlooked this inconspicuous variable, but because she hid herself too mysteriously, too calmly.

Like a hunting falcon, waiting for the prey to let its guard down before delivering a fatal strike.

She was like a crystal rose in the palace—beautiful, delicate, as if she’d shatter at a touch.

But that fragile flower had grown sharp thorns.

I had been reborn, my identity and gender changed, and the events I experienced had shifted.

Lina hadn’t been killed by me, and I had become a child of the duke estate.

The sunlight gradually lost its gentleness, turning into a piercing, mischievous glare.

Yiwen, under the tree, woke irritably.

Seeing the girl who had been standing behind her all along, Yiwen merely stood calmly and walked up to me.

“Why didn’t you just kill me?”

Yiwen stared coldly at my hidden right hand, which was now empty.

In the distance, a patrolling soldier was startled by a sudden gust.

A silver fork had embedded itself tightly into the nearby wall.