You Hit My Heart by Kylie Stanford

Chapter 2048: A Surprise Move sᴇaʀᴄh thᴇ ꜰindNʘvel.ɴet website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

The head guard knelt on the ground with a thud.

"Your Highness, please punish me alone. It was my dereliction of duty."

The other guards also knelt but did not plead for themselves. Instead, they spoke in unison, "Please punish us, Your Highness."

According to palace rules and their own sense of honor, pleading for oneself or accepting someone else's plea was seen as weakness and disgrace. Family honor was more important than life itself, so there was no other choice.

Clint waved his hand, and an attendant hurried to prepare cherries.

Joyce clenched her fist, biting down hard, her gaze becoming sharp.

Clint raised an eyebrow. "What? Are you not confident?"

"Confidence is not the key issue," Joyce said through gritted teeth.

"Then what is the key issue?" Clint asked curiously.

"You wouldn't understand even if I told you," Joyce replied dismissively. She stretched her arms, doing some warm-up exercises. After all, she wasn't training every day now, and lives were at stake; she had to be cautious.

Clint patted the coffee table beside him. "Sit. Let them prepare while you have a cup of tea with me."

After a moment's thought, Joyce sat down next to him.

"Why do you have to do this?" she asked. "If you're doing it to show me something, it's unnecessary."

"Rules are rules," Clint smiled. "Besides, I'm looking forward to seeing your skills firsthand."

"If you just want to see me shoot, you could take me to the shooting range. The effect would be the same," Joyce frowned. "Why risk their safety?"

glanced at Joyce, his eyes gleaming. "A shooting range is so dull and boring compared to

all he cared about?

Joyce a

in one go. The refreshing green tea cooled her lungs and calmed her chest. Anger was a shooter's worst enemy; she

tea, she set the cup down in

on his face. He genuinely wanted to see her abilities and felt

the attendant brought

signal, the guards stood up and lined up in

walked over and placed

handed Clint a pistol

pistol carefully before handing it to

too far by giving her a large-caliber one; otherwise, no matter how accurate her shooting was, the bullet might graze

her hand, feeling its weight thoroughly. She closed her eyes to mentally simulate its model, recoil, wind speed, trajectory, and drop before opening them again quickly. "We can start now," she said abruptly,

stood about ten meters away

Standing firm.

held their breath-including the attendants and maids watching nearby. Some timid maids dared not turn their backs for fear of disrespecting the prince; they could only lower their heads deeply. The row of guards was extremely

all selected through rigorous processes and had basic composure; they

was that their fear-induced trembling might affect

guard trembling

for

Turning to Clint:

I fire a few practice shots into the sky or forest first? It's been a while since I handled a

while

me; I'll fire some practice shots into the sky and forest first. When I'm ready to start for real, I'll let you

hearing this and

in

in the sky-birds flying by-and then at

toward the trembling young guard's cherry-topped head. With a bang followed by several rapid

practicing on trees when she suddenly stopped shooting and dusted