Simply Trading

Or, to be more exact, the remains of what was a large and elaborate breakfast. There was what seemed to be a huge bowl that once contained porridge, with nothing but a few tiny puffy white sc.r.a.ps stuck to its sides. And a grease-stained plate that looked big enough for at least six strands of deep fried flour sticks and another saucer that looked like it once held pickled vegetable bits.

All in all, it gave the impression that a small family of four or five had descended on the table and wiped it clean of the food that had been presented there!

Yet, the only one seated at the table was his mother! The d.u.c.h.ess! Feng Xueli!

As usual, his mother was attended by a whole group of maids. With her status as d.u.c.h.ess, it was only to be expected that there would be at least five or six of them present around her at all times, ready to handle any sort of small matter that she might dictate. And at the moment of the Second Ducal Prince"s arrival, all six of them were staring at their mistress as if they had all been shocked out of their senses.

As if they were staring at a monster who had somehow taken over their mistress" skin!

Yet, to be fair, Li Sanlang was similar awed by his mother"s appet.i.te. He had never seen her eat that much before, although he had to say that she had a very healthy appet.i.te, and did not stint herself when it came to food. How she managed to maintain her girlish figure in spite of that, he certainly had no idea.

But this was the first time that he was confronted with the sight of her demolishing such large amount. And in the early morning, no less! What had happened to make her devour enough for a whole family like that?

All at once, Li Sanlang was no longer confident about how he was going to talk her out of sending him to pick out a bride from the Marquis of Yue"an City"s Mid-autumn festivities. In fact, he was no longer sure that that was the topic that she intended to broach with him! Surely it couldn"t be the fact that she wanted a daughter-in-law that prompted her to gorge herself like that!
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Was it?

"Ah! Sanlang. You are here. Good."

The woman looked up then, and reached for a napkin to dab at the corners of her lips. As Li Changhai almost took a step back. Quite frankly, she gave the impression of one of Li Changhai"s maternal grandfather"s general, wiping his grease-stained cheeks with a grimy army uniform sleeve!

Then he realized that it was his mother"s eyes, and the glare that they held, that had given him that feeling. Was this really his mother? She had never lost her temper in front of him, and he had never given her cause to be angry with him, so he had never seen her like this before. All at once, he promised himself that he would not give her cause to do so. Li Sanlang was strangely certain that he would not survive, if she ever unleashed it at him.

He was even willing to head over the Southern Marquisate at once, and pay court to his cursed young fifth daughter, if that was what his mother ordered him to do right now!

"Come, come. Sit down. I have some rather urgent news for you," she called out to him again, waving for him to take a stool as she flicked her other hand at her maids. Clearly signalling them to clear away the mess that she had left on her small parlor table.

Li Sanlang trembled a little as he heard that. The words that his mother used had even distracted him from the short pause that her personal maids took, before the six of them started to clear the table in a hurry. One of them even dropped a spoon, and scurried to s.n.a.t.c.h it up from the floor. Yet, the Second Ducal Prince was only fixated on the determined look on his mother"s face, as he found himself wondering if indeed she had decided to get him a wife!

But the d.u.c.h.ess merely scowled at the clumsiness of her girls, and simply waited until all of them were all gone from her rooms before she turned back to her only son. And she even gestured for him to pour the tea in the set that was the only thing left on the table in front of her, before she spoke. Her lips seemed to thin into pale lines as she began to share what was bothering her, as he did just that:

"I have just returned from an all night interrogation, performed on the un-lamented Zhou Jinhu. It seems your Elder Sister was the one who had sent him, after all. Although you might be surprised that his target was not you."

Eh? What was that? The Second Ducal Prince almost fell off his stool as soon as his mother finished her first sentence. Then he let his breath out in relief. This had nothing to do with the Yue"an Marquis" machinations in the far South after all! And he didn"t have to head all the way there, to pay court to some teenage girl whom he had never seen before!

Then Li Changhai"s breath started to quicken again. This was about Fatty Zhou and his eldest sibling then? And did his mother just say that she was in attendance? During the interrogation itself? How did she manage that? How did she convince his father to allow that?

But she was going on, so he didn"t dare to interrupt her. Who could say what she had done, to squeeze this information out of the rascal? Didn"t she say that she was in attendance, during the session that had taken the whole night? Little wonder then that she had such a healthy appet.i.te after that.

Then he thought about it again, and swallowed. To think that his mother had witnessed a full interrogation, with all the tricks that the interrogators would have used on Fatty Zhou. And she could still eat like that? It was enough to turn his stomach.

He had better not do anything to upset his mother, he reminded himself.

But the d.u.c.h.ess was already going on: "It seems that your Eldest Sister considered her self gravely insulted by that Qin Feng fellow who was eating with us, a few nights ago. He was the main target of Zhou Jinhu"s a.s.sault. Instigated by your "dear sister", of course."

That was something that made him blink again. And he cringed at the moment that the news sunk in. This was terrible! What would Qin Feng think, if he knew that he was being targeted by the sister of the man whom he had gone through so much trouble to save?

* * *