Née Yao"s tears trickled down. "That"s why I"m sad. He"s treating me like this for a woman! Does he not remember at all the sacrifices I"ve made for him all these years?? He"s forgotten how I"ve protected and raised him until now!"
Yao Chenggu was both anguished and angry to see his crying daughter thus.
"Alright, alright. Don"t cry. Just do as Dafu wishes for now. I"ll talk this over with your mom later on and see how we go about this in the future."
What else could née Yao do but nod?
She knew that her dad"s words were on the gentle side. If she"d repeated her words to née Ma, it"d be another fiery lecture in store for her.
Qin Yining headed back to the Park of Resplendent Radiance, hand-in-hand with Pang Xiao. "You shouldn"t have done that. Life hasn"t been easy for mom. After all these years, she didn"t marry again out of consideration for you. You should be more filial to her."
"I know," sighed Pang Xiao. "I will be properly filial to her. But neither can she treat you like this either. It looks to me that she"d still like to hang on to her authority. If she likes to keep the house in order, then let her. All we have to do is close our doors and live our life. You can keep our park in order as much as you like."
He turned apologetically towards his wife at this point. "My darling, you"re suffering because of me. I want to give the entire manor to you, but that"s my mom. I"m afraid of causing her to take sick with anger."
"I understand. I don"t care whether I"m in charge of a park or a manor. I just want the family to get along happily and peacefully. Mom loves and cherishes you, which is why she"s also giving me a thorough inspection. I hope you understand her efforts. She"s not doing this to make life hard for me, but because she cares about you."
Pang Xiao was both touched and delighted to hear his darling speak thus. He couldn"t help but wrap his arm around his slender waist.
Seeing him bend down as well, Qin Yining immediately understood what he wished to do. She pushed him aside with a reddened face. "What are you doing? This is outside in broad daylight!"
He"d actually only wanted to hug her, but seeing her shyly cuddle into him after her misunderstanding reminded him of the soul-devouring sensations of last night. Pa.s.sion gripped him. "You"re right, we can"t do this outside. We need to go back to our house first."
Crimson flooded her cheeks when she heard his purposeful twisting of her concern.
"You"re awful! How come I"ve never discovered how evil you are!"
"Me? Evil? Oh I can be even more evil." Pang Xiao huffed onto his finger and attacked her ticklish spots.
Terrified of being tickled, Qin Yining ran all the way back to their room and slammed the door shut.
Leaning on the door, the prince peered into the room through the door crack. "If you won"t let me come in, I"m going to go find some other girl!"
The princess consort burst out laughing at the joke. "Go find another one if you have the ability to!"
"Alright, just you wait." He turned and left.
The sound of footsteps traveling away worried Qin Yining. She knew he was teasing, but curiosity compelled her to open the door.
Right into Pang Xiao"s smiling face.
"Didn"t, didn"t you leave?"
"I did. I came back when I heard you open the door." His hand around her waist, Pang Xiao bent down to capture her cherry-red lips with his. Kicking the door shut with his foot and back, he carried her into the inner room.
Her blus.h.i.+ng protests proved completely ineffective. In the end, she didn"t even have the energy to eat dinner. Collapsing in the middle of the soft, sateen sheets and sleeping until the end of time was all that she could do.
When Zhao Kunjia"s wife came to deliver the verification tokens, it was Jiyun and Bingtang who accepted them.
The granny servant knew that Pang Xiao and née Yao weren"t on the best of terms at the moment. She craned her neck for a peek at what the situation was inside the house. However, Bingtang wasn"t a fan of people like this.
"Their Highnesses are discussing matters of court and are currently busy. If Zhao-mama has any instructions, go ahead and tell me. I"ll pa.s.s it along to the princess consort later."
"Aiyo, that"s fine then. I"ll be off then." Zhao-mama scampered away.
The two maids looked at each other, both blus.h.i.+ng slightly and chuckling.
On the morning of the third day, when it was tradition to return to the bride"s home, Qin Yining still rose early to greet née Ma and née Yao first.
"We"ll be visiting my family for a quick visit today and to introduce His Highness to my family. We"ll return by early evening."
Née Yao was just as demure and gentle as always, as if nothing unpleasant had happened.
"Do give our greetings to your parents, and don"t forget the gifts we"ve prepared."
Qin Yining smiled. "Yes, thank you, mom."
"What"s a bit of thanks for between family?" chuckled née Ma. "I hear you gave all the servants in the park their orders this morning?"
"That"s right. Your granddaughter-in-law is silly and spent quite a lot of time thinking about how to settle affairs in our residence. Thankfully we don"t have many servants, so it wasn"t that hard to sort out."
"You"re much too humble. I hear that you set up quite a neat system for your servants."