Juniper
The Rebel Princess Episode 41-42 focuses on Wang Xuan’s (Awu) cousin from Langya, Wang Qian who had earlier been selected by the King as bride to the Hulan Prince. Wang Qian wants to persuade the Hulan envoy, her ex-kidnapper, Helan Zhen to take another girl to be the bride of the Hulan Prince and to do that, she has to meet him. She has kept the meeting from her husband, General Xiao Qi’s knowledge but he learns of it from his house keeper.
Meanwhile, cousin Wang Qian and her mother are up to no good. The mother wants the daughter to seduce Xiao Qi so that she can at least be his concubine and remain in the capital. First attempt failed as Xiao Qi rejected her advances so for the second attempt, Wang Qian drugs his water. It’s always the drug that makes the man feel hot at the collar (literally!) and hallucinate a bit. Despite drinking a few cups, he is still lucid enough to realise she isn’t his wife and tells her to move out with her mother the next day. The rejected girl jumps into the lake or whatever body of water there is in the mansion as a suicide attempt.
Wang Xuan has just returned from her dinner party for Helan Zhen where she impressed him with a Hulan dance. Too bad she didn’t go to her husband’s study as soon as she returned. They’d been arguing earlier as Xiao Qi was not pleased that she had to arrange a meeting with Helan Zhen just to save the brat cousin from being sent to Hulan. Wang Xuan tried to justify it by telling him he wouldn’t understand as he never had any family. I think she would sacrifice herself and her husband just to save anyone from the Wang family.
Waiting for Episode 43 to see how Xiao Qi gets himself out of this mess caused by his wife’s self-sacrificial tendencies. Surely she’d have guessed/suspected by now that her aunt and cousin are villains. She’ll probably rather believe them than the husband who has publicly declared at their second wedding ceremony that he’ll only have Wang Xuan as his wife for the rest of his life.
