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Su Xiaoxiao patted Xiaohu’s head.
“Xiaohu, do you like playing the zither?”
Xiaohu thought for a moment and said, “I do!”
“Then let's formally apprentice under Uncle Ling. So that you can learn from him every day.”
Xiaohu nodded eagerly. “Okay!”
“……” Deng An nearly burst into tears.
⸻
Several days later, Yuchi Xiu and the man in white robes and a bamboo hat returned to the capital.
The white-robbed man went to the Wei estate to report back to the old Madam Wei.
Yuchi Xiu, meanwhile, found Wei Ting near Lihua Lane.
Wei Ting sat inside a carriage, with an icy expression.
Yuchi Xiu asked one of the shadow guards, “What’s wrong with the lord?”
The shadow guard replied, “Frustrated, what else?”
Wei Ting’s voice cut cold as steel. “Tired of living, are you?”
The shadow guard shrank back and hastily signed with hand gestures.
In short: Their lord’s romance with the little chubby girl was facing hardships. His treatment was downgraded. Back in the countryside they could share a bed. Here, she kicked him into the next room.
Yuchi Xiu lifted the curtain and sat down beside Wei Ting.
“No way, My Lord, you still haven’t won her over? Don’t tell me… are you incapable?”
Wei Ting gave him a frosty sidelong glance. “Is your skull particularly hard today*?”
*stubbornly behaving unwisely
Yuchi Xiu grinned.
“Hard skull or not, I don’t know. But I know one thing, I’m definitely better than you at handling women. If it were me, I would have already cooked the raw rice* into a done deal long ago!”
*had cooked the raw rice : what’s done is done; it’s too late to change anything now; the things that have been done cannot be changed.
Wei Ting sneered.
“Really? Then you cooked the rice with Su Yuniang?”
“Cough—cough!”
The king of empty boasts choked violently.
“I’ve got nothing to do with her! She was the one who acted frivolously toward me! I never had any improper thoughts towards her!”
Wei Ting gave a cold snort. “It’s best if you don’t.”
If that little girl found out that his own assassin had charmed Su Yuniang away, she would definitely explode in fury.
“My Lord, do you actually want to be with that little girl or not? If you do, you’d better act sooner rather than later. She’s from the Qin family, and Old Madam Wei will never approve of you two being together. You’ve got to cook the raw rice into cooked rice first! Then, even if Old Madam doesn’t approve, she will have no choice but to accept it.”
Yuchi Xiu had just learned of Su Xiaoxiao’s true identity from the shadow guards.
He was more than happy to watch the drama unfold, never one to fear adding fuel to the fire.
Wei Ting was shameless, but he had never actually been promiscuous in this regard.
With his usual icy demeanor, he said, “And who asked for your rotten ideas?”
Yuchi Xiu sighed deeply, putting on a tone of earnest advice.
“How come it is considered rotten? I’m doing this for your own good. Don’t be embarrassed, every man has a first time. If you’re worried she’ll reject you, I’ll teach you a trick! Go buy a jug of wine, pretend to be drunk at night, and ‘accidentally’ walk into her room. If she doesn’t throw you out, that means she accepts your closeness, so grab the chance! And if she complains the next day, just say you drank too much and don’t remember. That way it won’t be awkward!”
One of the shadow guards couldn’t help sticking his head through the carriage curtain, asking doubtfully,
“Isn’t that just taking advantage of her?”
Yuchi Xiu, spouting nonsense, retorted, “What do you know? That’s called courage! If that girl doesn’t agree, she’ll definitely kick your young master right out. Don’t worry about her, she’s not the type to suffer a loss. You’d better worry about your young master instead. He’ll either get kicked out, or squeezed dry by that little girl like a persimmon…”
Wei Ting’s face was cold as ice.
“What kind of nonsense is this? I won’t do it.”
A quarter of an hour later, Wei Ting returned home, while carrying a jar of wine back home.