Shirley placed her sword inside her space ring and looked at Felicia, "We need him alive. Using him, we can kill his subordinates altogether!"
Felicia was taken aback, not able to understand her intent.
"I want you to live!" Shirley replied stubbornly. Her voice was filled with melancholy.
"Let’s move on!" She uttered with a longing expression on her face.
Felicia was stunned, a single tear dropped down from her eyes, "How... can I? ... I betrayed you..."
Shirley took a deep breath and replied, "Moving on doesn’t mean you forget about things. It just means you have to accept what had happened and continue living on."
"But..." Felicia uttered, her voice trembling from the influx of guilt that sought to break her.
Shirley held her shoulders tightly and tenaciously replied, "I will talk to our twenty-seventh brother about your matter. If he doesn’t admit and take responsibility, I’ll kill him myself!"
"I... " Felicia shook her head as she crawled back.
Shirley hurriedly embraced her tightly as if she wouldn’t let her go, "It’s fine, nothing happened to me, alright. It’s true that you have betrayed me, but our close relationship is still salvageable! I don’t want to make another mistake! I don’t want to lose you too!"
Felicia broke down, crying her heart out while hugging Shirley.
"I’ll stop being playful! I’ll change myself as well!" Shirley softly whispered.
Felicia nodded her head as she tightly hugged Shirley.
After some time, when they separated, they looked at each other as they thought about the earlier events.
"Let’s thank him at the banquet tomorrow for saving us." Nodding their heads in sync, they felt incredibly grateful in their hearts.
After their reconciliation, the night passed tranquilly while they tied up the miserable Gart with an energy seal and hid him in the secret passage for the time being.
....
The next day, in a Royal Palace, the banquet proceeded as planned.
Numerous guests and youths were present at the scene, talking and laughing with each other, while some others were calmly looking at the banquet with discerning eyes.
Shirley and Felicia attended the banquet normally as if nothing happened. They were greeted by the guests and were wished for her birthday. Naturally, many youths demonstrated their valour and heroic nature to her, but she was unmoved by their advances which seemed comical after experiencing yesterday’s incident.
She politely and directly declined all of their advances with a pitiful face which caused Emperor Ashton’s expression to go awry, but a little surprised.
He knew that with his daughter’s temperament, she would mislead and play with them for quite a while before turning down their advances. He had no idea why she would immediately turn them down. He had a vague doubt, but he was just not sure.
Outside, Shirley had a bright face, but the entire time she was mentally distracted, searching for a silhouette in the crowd that still hadn’t arrived.
Obviously, the person she wanted to see the most right now was Davis. She wanted to thank him for saving both of them yesterday, but her heart felt complex emotions that she couldn’t comprehend.
"Is this longing?" Shirley sipped a drink as she stirred the cup. She then sighed, thinking that he chose not to attend after experiencing that awkward incident yesterday.
"Crown Prince Davis didn’t come?" Beside her, Felicia also searched for him but couldn’t find.
"He didn’t..." Shirley replied as she stood up. She walked up to her father who was conversing with some elders, "Royal Father, I have something to talk."
"Haha, hmm? Excuse me." Emperor Ashton replied to the elders and turned his head, "Alright, I have something to ask you as well."
Shirley felt confused but nodded her head.
They headed to an empty place before Shirley opened up her mouth, coming straight to the point, "Isn’t Prince Davis attending the banquet?"
"He left." Came a quick answer that shook Shirley to her core.
"He left?" She asked with a dumbfounded face.
"Hahaha, look at your face! I’m just kidding." Emperor Ashton laughed as his eyes gauged her reaction when suddenly his expression changed, "Don’t you know?"
Shirley shook her head, "I don’t know..."
"The whole capital is buzzing with yesterday night’s event, and you say you don’t know? Oh my, what were you doing yesterday night? With an angry expression, he berated, "When will you stop being so playful!? Pay attention to the events that are going on!"
"Yes!" Shirley put her head down and acknowledged his words.
Emperor Ashton went dumbfounded, looking at his daughter’s remorseful figure. When had his daughter ever acknowledged his teachings? He felt weird before explaining what had happened last night.
Shirley’s expression went from shock to guilt.
"Is Evelynn fine?" She asked with an incredibly worried expression.
Emperor Ashton replied, "She is... The Loret Empire sure is resourceful. They even gave their son a pill treasure capable of saving Fourth Stage Experts. Well, I guess it doesn’t even matter since they even have a mighty expert backing them up."
Looking at her worried expression, he warned her, "Don’t you dare to visit him or Evelynn at this time. He looks like he would kill anyone at the slightest displeasure."
Shirley nodded her head absentmindedly. It was unknown what she was thinking about.
"By the way," With an inquisitive expression on his face, he asked, "Did Prince Davis visit you last night?"
Shirley froze, she knew that with Hana’s statement, they used her as a bait to lure Davis away from Evelynn.
As if realising something, she replied, "He did come, but he quickly left as if he had felt danger somewhere. Now that I think about it, he must have noticed something was wrong once I said that I didn’t invite him."
"Oh, I see..." Emperor Ashton slowly nodded his head while he kept looking at her reactions.
"That’s it then, I’ll go greet the guests!" Shirley smiled as she left. Her quick-witted playful mind helped her escape his questioning, ironically.
Emperor Ashton had his eyes narrowed as he looked at her back, "Her palace guards said that only my daughter Felicia arrived there yesterday night. Could it be that Prince Davis bypassed the formations and met her secretly? No, something’s definitely wrong!!’