T/N: SURPRISE!!!
I decided as a thank you for supporting my blog, whether you stumbled across it accidentally, or was following my previous translations, to translate one chapter per day until the end of this novel (which is Chapter 80)
This means the final chapter will be on Sat.u.r.day as a usual update!
*********************************************************
To be honest,recently doubt was buried in w.a.n.g Zi Feng’s heart, considering whether heshould ask.
If it wasbefore, he definitely would say whatever he wanted. A man, open-hearted, whatcan he not say, what can he not ask.
Fortunately,each and every person by his side were men with extensive experience, even hispersonal child companions young Bai Shu and young Nu Ju had their own secrets.Ah, excluding Nu Ju, that youngster was even more stupid than him.
The crownprince and young princess taught him before, the more secrets someone has thequicker they grow up, and even more powerful. Therefore, without possibleexcuse, w.a.n.g Zi Feng had a secret, moreover he was still pondering whether heshould keep this secret a secret.
He worriedfor over ten days over this secret, until the crown prince and young princessunexpectedly appeared at the w.a.n.g residence, trying in vain to coax him toleave.
“Why haveyou come just now?”
“You thinkthis young princess didn’t want to come?” The young princess whined loudly, abellyful of resentment: “the imperial concubines in the rear court are toohateful, if they’re not avoiding my playing as if a cow was being tickled, thenthey would tease my embroidered mandarin duck is a duck, and say in the futureI won’t be able to find a husband. Humph, who says a woman has to marry! My Lordfather said, as long as I want, I don’t have to marry anyone, if I see a youngman that is talented and handsome, I can just marry that person into thefamily.”
w.a.n.g ZiFeng did not understand the business between men and women, he only knew theyoung princess was the hero amongst the girls at Bailu academy, a strong figurehe had decided was exactly like him. A strong person’s thinking did not need tobe understood by anyone else, they only need to sympathise with others.
The crownprince was already calmly flipping through the copybook w.a.n.g Zi Feng hadrecently transcribed, he couldn’t help admit, there was a lot of power in thecharacters written by this young leopard, had the shadow of a not yet matureexcellent penmanship, supposedly someday he would definitely exceed others,becoming exceedingly imposing.
These lastfew days the crown prince had also been shut inside the palace, seized by theemperor every day to read through the memorials to the emperor to evaluatethem, listen to the court councillors discuss politics, occasionally asking himfor his opinion. Young children did not understand to accept a compromise, anddoes not know about the knife above the word endure, as the crown prince heliked the powerful army and happy to talk idly about important matters. Perhapsthe emperor wanted to start disciplining the crown prince’s temper, the praiseshe used to always give the crown prince rarely appeared, in contrast, rather hebegan to repeatedly a.n.a.lyse the current state of the country with the crownprince, the circ.u.mstances of the people and elements of a success or failure ofwar, make him confront all the court councillor generals together, victory in`a battlefield of words in a debate`. The crown prince was totally refuted bythe group of officials, his self-confidence over and over trampled under theirfoot, teased by people secretly and examined, bitterly he couldn’t help say.
“Fatheremperor is too hateful.” After the crown prince prattled to the two people, hesaid this with a sigh.
The youngprincess clenched her fists: “That’s right, adults are so hateful.”
w.a.n.g ZiFeng thought about his secret, and deeply expressed his agreement: “They arewolves in sheep’s clothing, moreover they like to lie to people.”
The crownprince and young princess was interested: “What did Lord w.a.n.g lie to youabout?”
w.a.n.g ZiFeng’s tiny fist banged on the table: “He’s always busy hiding in the housewith mother, saying he’s making a younger brother or sister for me. But it’sbeen so many days, I haven’t seen my younger brother or sister come out. Helied to me.”
“He alsowon’t allow me to go find my mother, saying I’ll disturb my mother’s rest. Andforce me to learn by heart, saying the more I study, the quicker my youngerbrother or sister will come out. Even more make me practice writing characters,saying the more words I write, later the more clever my younger brother orsister will be…”
The crownprince stroked his chin, pondering he said: “When mother gave birth to youngersister, father never said these things to me.”
The youngprincess also puffed out her cheeks thinking about it for a while: “When myImperial mother had my younger brother in her belly, Prince father also didn’tsay these things.”
The twospoke together in chorus: “Lord w.a.n.g is a liar.”
“Right!”w.a.n.g Zi Feng agreed, thinking about it again: “Then when will my youngerbrother or sister be born? How do they get out from my mother’s stomach?”
The youngprincess laughed as she raised her hand: “This Prince father has said before,he said I came out of Imperial mother’s armpit.”
“Ah, thiscrown prince hung on Empress mother’s waist for ten months, naturally havinggrown I fell to the ground.”
w.a.n.g ZiFeng was even more furious, incessantly pounding on the table: “My father saidI made my way out from the sole of mother’s feet.”
“Lord w.a.n.gis so bad!” The two other felt indignant at the injustice, however you think ofit, armpit and waist were better than the sole of one’s feet!
“Such a baddaddy, don’t pay any attention to him, we’ll go out and play.” The youngprincess started to steer the well-behaved child.
w.a.n.g ZiFeng almost immediately threw the writing brush: “Let’s go, I know a dog’sentrance, we can climb out.”
The crown princelike an explosive chestnut hit him on the head: “We’ll climb the walls!”
The youngprincess shook her head: “My Prince father said, climbing walls is a skill.”
Regardlessif it’s a skill that is very troublesome, the three brats acted together outsideof the imperial palace’s forbidden guards, they swung their way out.
Truthfullythey’ve played many times outside the palace, they already long ago knew thethings they ought to see or do. Only they kept on thinking about that lion fromthat day, in the end they exhausted all their ideas to get their hands on it.The crown prince even deliberately sent people to ask, Zhuang Hei Zi said thatunusual animal had already been escorted out at an earlier time, in any case itwas someone else’s goods, sending it off as soon as possible to report back formoney, there was no reason to keep it all along.
However,there were always all sorts of novel things in the hired bodyguards office,every few days the three children would go look around once, despising andsneering, then dribbling drool they would agree to come again next time. Overtime, the people at the hired bodyguards office knew the second manager hadthree little friends, seeing them they no longer stopped them. Only it was verystrange, every time they went to find Zhuang Hei Zi, the bossy young woman ofthat hired bodyguards office manager Lady Luo Luo would always follow by theirside, extremely tense yet could not be chased away with abuse.
A monthpa.s.sed in this free and unfettered manner, at the beginning of February Bailuacademy once again started, the students one by one rushed over from alldirections of Dayan.
w.a.n.g YunFeng always worried that w.a.n.g Zi Feng would be teased by others because he wasno good at studying, every day after school he would wait for him to come backand personally teach him. The contents that the teacher taught that day, w.a.n.gZi Feng did not care whether he understood it or not, w.a.n.g Yun Feng broke downthe important things to explain to him one more time. The difference was, therewas plenty of word-by-word reading and plenty of quoting chapters and verseswith the lectures at the academy, different from lecturing. w.a.n.g Zi Feng wasonly interested in fighting and war, he did not like hearing about those bookishscholars. w.a.n.g Yun Feng cleverly changed those cla.s.sical stories, changing themto stories about generals in barracks, or use the matters of Jianghu heroes toguide, and actually changed those bookish stories to glint and flash of coldsteel and unfolding on a magnificent scale. Then understand the content of thetextbook via comprehensive study, allowing w.a.n.g Zi Feng to deduce many thingsfrom one case, it was rather effective.
It had tobe said, even though w.a.n.g Zi Feng was very obsessed with his younger brother orsister, he felt w.a.n.g Yun Feng lied to him, but with regard to studying, w.a.n.gYun Feng was even more reliable compared to those teachers, and made him admirehim even more, thinking that his father as a scholar without the stress totruss a chicken, was really amazing knowing so many stories about battles.Truthfully, what he didn’t know, many of the stories were revised by w.a.n.g YunFeng.
Ah, such akind-hearted lie!
April, theweather was gradually becoming delightful.
Xia LingMei took off her spring clothes, every day she started to have people supporther to walk around a couple of times in the courtyard. Her tummy was soon sevenmonths old, in the winter she still couldn’t feel it, switching over to thinclothes in the early summer then did she notice her stomach was fairly big. Thephysician afraid that she would suffer giving birth, repeatedly urged her tomove around a few laps every day, it would be good for her body.
w.a.n.g YunFeng left the residence too early every day to go to morning court, in themorning he would finish looking over the doc.u.ments with his colleagues at theoffice, after drinking tea and chatted, he would hurriedly rush home to eatlunch. Then taking advantage of not having a break before lunch, he wouldsupport Xia Ling Mei to walk round twice in the courtyard, in the afternoon hewould again go to the office, at night he would pick up his son from theacademy to return home, the father and son gather, study and writein the study, after testing his knowledge they would wait for dinner, finallyone on either side they went on a walk with Xia Ling Mei.
One dayw.a.n.g Zi Feng could no longer bear it and asked his mother, whether he reallywas born from the sole of her foot, hearing this Xia Ling Mei poked her son’shead and laughed for a very long time. w.a.n.g Zi Feng sold out his father withoutthe slightest hesitation, at that time Xia Ling Mei was just sitting on thecouch underneath the willow tree, a green plum in her mouth, her son had justfinished speaking, Xia Ling Mei from who knows where took out a long whip,beating w.a.n.g Yun Feng up.
w.a.n.g YunFeng now all year round was swaying by the side of the fierce woman, he hadlong ago perfected the skill of being as lithe as a swallow, usually it’s very hardfor him to learn. Xia Ling Mei thrashed twice her whip, lacking in strength,and not daring to harm the unborn child, both times the whip didn’t go wide,pointing her finger at w.a.n.g Yun Feng: “You stand still, allow me to thrash youfor a bit before we speak again.”
The grandand stern faced Imperial censor w.a.n.g stared blankly for a long time, strugglingbetween whether to be a slave to the wife or not be a slave to the wife for along while, finally he said to his son who was taking joy in calamity anddelight in his disaster: “Fen Er, dad is wrong. You weren’t born from the soleof your mother’s foot, you were drawn out from her coral whip.”
“w.a.n.g----Yun---- Feng!” The tigress showed her complete power, unable to move, unable torun, unable to scold, simply throwing her arm, she pulled w.a.n.g Zi Feng toreturn to the house with her: “From today on, you can be with your son bornfrom the coral whip!”
It wasn’tenough just returning home, at the same time she called out to Hei Zi: “Keep awatch on this house, don’t allow anyone from the w.a.n.g family to enter, for eachone which comes give them a kick for me, if a pair arrives beat them both up.”
That night,Juan Shu and Xiao Bai helped w.a.n.g Yun Feng climb in over the wall, to faileventually.
The secondnight, Xiao Bai lead Hei Zi away, Juan Shu sneakily opened the courtyard doorto let w.a.n.g Yun Feng in, who knew the lock had been changed, still failingeventually.
The thirdnight, the old housekeeper led the attack, saying he needed to report theaccount to the mistress, w.a.n.g Yun Feng changed into a disguise by Juan Shuattempted to follow, he was personally caught by w.a.n.g Zi Feng, expelled faraway from the house, again failing eventually.
The forthnight, w.a.n.g Zi Feng was practicing martial arts to one side, Xia Ling Mei wasdrinking warm tea in the pavilion, biting on some pastries, hearing her sonask: “Mother, where did I actually come from?”
“Of courseyou were born from your mother’s stomach ah!”
w.a.n.g ZiFeng was doubtful, putting his weapons he hugged his mother’s stomach andlistened for a very long time, finally muttering: “Younger brother or sisterwhy have you still not come out, if you won’t come out still, watermelons willbe ripe.”
Xia LingMei stroked the top of her son’s hair, ai, guessing that when the child wasborn, watermelons maybe just ripe.
Unknowingly,it was soon Qingming.
Most largeinfluential families moved around all year round, away from the main family forhundreds of thousands li, therefore when they settled downthey would build an ancestral hall. The w.a.n.g clan leader had at an earlier timein March left to travel thousands of liwith the older generation to the distant ancestral tomb, the females andyounger generation also accompanied them. There were too many men who wereofficials or were studying, and would gather together at the ancestral hall tooffer sacrifice at Qingming.
Xia LingMei was getting bigger, and several days ago w.a.n.g Zi Feng had taken w.a.n.g ZiFeng to offer sacrifice, the court was on a break during Qingming, the officialshad five days vacation, Bailu academy also stopped its lessons. Just by chancethe crown prince and the young princess came from the academy, just in time tosee w.a.n.g Zi Feng just finish a beautiful fight, head high, chest out like ageneral returning victorious he strode over.
The crownprince laughed asking: “You stirred up trouble again?”
w.a.n.g ZiFeng said: “When did I, they were the ones who bullied me. Precisely when theteacher was repeating a lesson, the speed of my recitation was not as good astheirs, they talked about it continuously from morning to afternoon, andthought of a poem to make fun of me. If I don’t beat them up, they would stilltreat me as a soft shrimp.”
The crownprince laughed haha evilly, not speaking again. The three of them bringing withthem a large group of bodyguards and companions wondered about unhurried to thew.a.n.g residence, there was non helping it, the crown prince and the youngprincess were not willing to return to the palace well-behaved to be tormented bythe emperor and empress and imperial concubines in turn, therefore in the endthey agreed by chance to first go and play for a bit at the w.a.n.g residence,causing so much disturbance to the point of impossibility before being drivenaway by w.a.n.g Yun Feng.
A lot of peoplewandered about the main street today, most wearing white clothing, followingbehind them servants carrying pigs and goats, obviously returning to offersacrifice to their ancestors, and amongst these people, these three brats againby chance met Zhuang Hei Zi.