"What do you think of this speed?" Wei Kangnuan asked, seated behind Peng Mingzhu on the horse, in control of reins for the horse.
At the moment, the horse was running...at a walking speed.
This completely enraged her. Being forced to sit next to someone annoying and not only that, having to run at such a slow speed when she was already used to having her Akhal-Teke run at a casual speed of about 30 miles per hour when no sprinting, completely went against all of her habits.
"Okay," Peng Mingzhu answered with a black face. "By the way...why couldn't you let me ride my own horse?"
"It's more entertaining," Wei Kangnuan answered, his grin reaching til his eyes.
"Entertaining you say?" Peng Mingzhu sounded out threateningly. "I'll show you entertainment then…"
As she said so, she immediately leaned forward for a quick moment for a boost and then tilted her head backward to hit him. Catching him off guard with her actions, she then elbowed him with enough strength to throw him off the horse.
Grabbing the reins, Peng Mingzhu stopped the horse and turned it back to face the prince laying butt flat on the ground, "How does it feel, Your Highness? To lie on the ground? Is it entertaining enough for you?"
Standing up while rubbing his butt that was in pain, Wei Kangnuan joked as he got back on the horse, "Indeed, it was very entertaining. So entertaining that this prince would think that you wanted to kill this prince."
"Your Highness is very smart. I indeed really wish to murder you at this moment," Peng Mingzhu said in annoyance.
Hearing her agreeing with his jester, Wei Kangnuan laughed out loud, "I'm very surprised you didn't fall off sleeping on a tree branch."
"I'm very used to it," Peng Mingzhu told him as she thought back on her past.
"Hm… Is that so?" Wei Kangnuan questioned as he motioned the horse to continue its same pace. "Even after all the hiding and scouting this prince has done, this prince is still not used to sleeping on such a thin tree branch. Maybe this prince should have you teach this prince how to do it?"
"No," Peng Mingzhu immediately rejected.
She refused to teach this bastard of a prince anything. She would rather teach an annoying spoiled brat from a rich second generation rather than teach him anything.
Hearing her flat out reject him as a student, he continued to laugh loudly as though this was the happiest day of his life.
She truly could not take his laughing and joking anymore.
With a sigh of annoyance, Peng Mingzhu asked, "Your Highness, when will we reach the capital?"
"With the speed we are traveling at, it will take about another 2-3 days," Wei Kangnuan answered, tightening arms around her. "Why?"
"Because I really do not want to sit with you anymore," Peng Mingzhu replied with a dark face after hearing the number.
She has decided. She would take control of the reins or she may challenge the prince to a fight in annoyance instead.
Tensing her waist and grabbing onto the reins, she hit the sides of the horse with enough strength for the horse to know that she wanted it to speed up. Once the horse sped up to the speed that she loved, she finally stopped torturing the horse with her commands.
At the current speed that they were traveling, if the person sitting on top with her was any other person rather than the prince, they would be slowing down again because the speed was so fast that one could feel the wind slapping their face.
Leading the horse towards the capital, Wei Kangnuan remarked, "I never knew you could travel so fast."
"My friends we used to hold horse races. If I can't even ride a horse at this speed, I'd be a loser," Peng Mingzhu told him while thinking about the horse races she had with Xiao Qiqiang.
"How many times did you win out of all the horse races you guys held?" Wei Kangnuan asked, interested in knowing about her horse races.
"Hm...maybe 7 out of 10?" Peng Mingzhu answered with uncertainty.
"You are not sure of the number?" Wei Kangnuan asked.
"It's too hard to get a correct estimate. We've held so many that it's impossible to recount them all," Peng Mingzhu told him. "Besides, over half of the time we were all cheating by placing obstacles in front of each other just to win."
"Obstacles?" Wei Kangnuan chuckled, imagining the image of her trying to avoid the obstacles on top of a horse or trying to organize obstacles to be placed in front of the other competitors. "You guys must be close to still want to race even after knowing about the cheating?"
Generally, if you were friends with each other, you would see the cheating as a joke or a prank. However, if you were not friends, you would get angry and claim, "You're cheating, so the winner is me!"
Friends, in the face of everything, would and will always stick with each other. Fake friends on the other hand would only do things to satisfy you or themselves for whatever purposes it is that they had.
"We're all orphans that met each other along the way," Peng Mingzhu stated so happily as she remembered her friends.
'Orphans?' Wei Kangnuan thought. 'Didn't she say that she had a horrible mother?'
"What do you mean along the way?" Wei Kangnuan asked, making sure to let go of any details about her life.
If he wanted to romance her into marrying him, then he needed to learn everything about her, whether it be her likings or dislikings towards something.
"Nothing," Peng Mingzhu lied with a straight face. "Running at this speed, tell me, how long until we reach the capital?"
Even though Wei Kangnuan knew that she was changing the topic, he made sure not to expose her, so he answered, "About 2-3 hours."
"Huh… That's not so long," Peng Mingzhu commented before asking more questions. "What's the capital like?"
Thinking about the question seriously, Wei Kangnuan answered, "The capital is very festive and active. However, it is also very deep and discriminative."
"Well, that's expected," Peng Mingzhu stated as she already expected as such from a capital city.
"You should be careful about going anywhere in the capital without me by your side," Wei Kangnuan warned, though he knew that she could survive independently even without him since he understood that she had everything she needed to travel alone - he just did not know where she placed those items or hid them since she carried no bags with her.
Of course, he would never know that the black tattoo on her wrist which he saw when she bathed was a storage container. He only assumed that it was a tattoo of some type of flower since he could not see the tattoo on her wrist clearly.
"That's unneeded," Peng Mingzhu rejected. "I can survive in the capital even without your help."
Sighing at her honesty, Wei Kangnuan asked in a pitiful tone, "Say, do you not know how to rely on people's help? You are getting help from the second prince of the empire. Do you know how many people want my help which you are rejecting?"
"Your Highness, I really do not need your help," Peng Mingzhu honestly told him. "Not only that, I have read before that merchants hold quite a lot of power, equivalent to the imperial family. As long as they have enough assets and contributions to the economy, then they are strong enough to reject the advances of the imperial power."
"Even if that is true…" Wei Kangnuan pitifully sighed.
Ignoring what the prince planned to say next, Peng Mingzhu interrupted him, "By the way, if you can, I hope you can keep my existence here a secret."
"Why should I help you?" Wei Kangnuan immediately whined as he felt that since they met she has only insulted him thus far.
"If you do this for me, I'll do whatever you want me to do," Peng Mingzhu promised as she also knew that she has been pretty hard on him even though he has been helping her out, someone who was only a stranger to him.
"I want you to marry me," Wei Kangnuan instantly requested. "I want nothing else."
Heaving a huge sigh to keep her patience, Peng Mingzhu said, "Your Highness, marriage is not a small thing. Please remember too that you are a prince, not a common citizen. All marriages pertaining to you should go through His Majesty."
"No," Wei Kangnuan shook his head. "Royal Father has already announced to the world that I have the power to choose whoever I want to marry. It's because of this that those old men finally stopped requesting my father to marry their daughters to me and instead turning to me."
"Oh…" Peng Mingzhu dumbly bobbed her head to say that she understood, but was in pretty deep shock.
'The emperor of this empire allows his children to choose their own brides?!' she internally screamed.