Lu Yanzhao approached the kitchen and heard voices coming from inside. He was a little suspicious: Who had come to his house?

"Mmm, it tastes really good, much better than that stinky mandarin fish. I love it." Zhou Yu sighed with satisfaction, picked up the bowl and gulped down the soup in one go.

"If you like, I have a lot of delicious and stinky foods here. As long as you pay, I'll teach you how to make them all." Gu Nanjiao rested her chin on her hand, looking at Zhou Yu with a half-smile.

Lu Yanzhao lifted the curtain and saw the two chatting casually, completely unaware of his arrival. When he saw that Gu Nanjiao had only touched a few bites of snail rice noodles, Lu Yanzhao breathed a sigh of relief.

He intended to slip away quietly, but the noise disturbed the two of them.

Gu Nanjiao quickly hugged the bowl in front of her and chuckled awkwardly, "When did you arrive? You didn't even make a sound."

"Are you secretly eating snail rice noodles again?"

"Oh, well, I only had a few bites, I was just craving something sweet."

Looking at the refined and elegant Lu Yanzhao, Zhou Yu couldn't help but sigh in her heart: Gu Nanjiao is so lucky. How did she manage to marry such an exceptional man? If only she could have such a stunningly handsome man.

Zhou Yu, being quite tactful, nudged Gu Nanjiao with her elbow and whispered, "I won't disturb you two lovers' reminiscing any longer. I'll head back now. Remember what you promised me, don't forget it."

Zhou Yu slipped away quickly, and Lu Yanzhao's eyes were terrifying, as if she were the sinner who had lured Gu Nanjiao to eat snail rice noodles.

Sitting in the carriage, Zhou Yu rested her chin on her hand, lost in thought. Looking around the entire capital, the only person whose appearance could rival Lu Yanzhao's was the white-robed young man she had met that day.

Thinking of the grudges between the two when they were young, Zhou Yu sighed. Bai Luochen regarded her as an enemy, and the Zhou family and the Bai family were not on good terms. It would be as difficult as climbing to heaven to get a man like that!

The carriage moved along and stopped intermittently, then suddenly braked sharply. The driver exclaimed, and Zhou Yu almost fell out of the carriage.

"Yu'er, it's your father!" Zhou's father's voice rang out from outside the carriage.

Zhou Yu lifted the curtain and found that his father had a stubble beard, messy hair with a few stubbles, and his clothes were wrinkled and dirty at the hem. He looked extremely disheveled.

"Father!" Zhou Yu called out, jumped off the carriage, and helped his father up.

Suddenly remembering something, Zhou Yu abruptly released her father's hand and said coldly, "Are you going to make me marry that idiot again?"

Although her father loved her very much, she would never agree to marry an old, ugly, and mentally challenged man.

Zhou's father felt a little guilty. After a while, he tugged at Zhou Yu's sleeve and said, "Yu'er, although the son of the Vice Minister of War is a bit honest, he comes from a wealthy family and has military power. You won't suffer if you marry him."

He initially felt sorry for Zhou Yu and couldn't bear to see her marry into the family. Unexpectedly, she cruelly took the house away and returned to her maternal grandparents' home with her third concubine.

The First Madam constantly berated him for being incompetent, unable to even control a concubine or a concubine's daughter. Driven by his male pride, Zhou's father, his head throbbing with anger, stormed off to intercept Zhou Yu's carriage.

"Father, aren't you the one who loves me the most? How could you bear to let your daughter marry him?" Zhou Yu was a little sad. She turned around to get into the carriage, but was stopped by her father.

"Yu'er, please save your brother! Your sister said that as long as you marry into the family of the Vice Minister of War, your brother will be released."

Zhou Yu closed his eyes, exhaled a breath of stale air, and said with a mixture of annoyance and amusement, "So that's why you were so insistent on marrying me off to that idiot. It was Zhou Wan's terrible idea. What? Does Father think the Vice Minister of War has more power than the Crown Prince?"

"My sister doesn't want to help, and she's trying to drag me into this mess. Father, think it over carefully. This time, my brother and grandfather are in prison, and no one can save them. Do you think the Vice Minister of War dares to offend His Majesty?"

One sentence left Zhou's father stunned on the spot. By the time he came to his senses, Zhou Yu's carriage had already driven far away.

Zhou's father hurriedly chased after her: "Yu'er, give your father some money. I haven't eaten all day."

...

Lu Yanzhao carried Gu Nanjiao back to the room and put his head against her stomach to listen. Apart from hearing gurgling sounds, there was no other movement.

Gu Nanjiao was a little embarrassed: "Well, he's still small, so the fetal movements aren't very noticeable. Also, I'm hungry."

Suddenly, a light kiss landed on her eyelids. Gu Nanjiao looked up and saw Lu Yanzhao smiling intoxicatingly: "How about I feed you to your heart's content?"

Upon hearing his words, Gu Nanjiao was in turmoil. Her heart pounded rapidly, and something seemed to be spreading through her boiling blood and gathering at the tip of her heart.

She swallowed hard; they hadn't been together for three months, and she missed them terribly.

Gu Nanjiao suddenly stood up, straddled Lu Yanzhao's lap, hooked her arms around his neck, and slowly brought her face closer.

The clean, refreshing scent emanating from him reached her nostrils, and Gu Nanjiao realized that she was sitting in the wrong place. She was startled, her cheeks quickly flushed, and her heart pounded faster and faster like a drum.

Suddenly, Lu Yanzhao whispered in her ear, "I bought some top-quality lotus cakes to feed you, but you're sitting on my lap, how am I supposed to get them?"

this…

This...this!

How embarrassing! She thought Lu Yanzhao meant feeding her, but it turned out he meant feeding her pastries.

Gu Nanjiao slid off Lu Yanzhao somewhat dejectedly, and sat down silently with her head down.

"Do you want to?" Lu Yanzhao bent down and leaned close to her ear, his warm breath making her ear tickle.

"Stop flirting with me!" Gu Nanjiao turned her head away in annoyance.

Honestly, he's not even going to do *that* with her, yet he still tries to flirt with her. This man is such a jerk.

Lu Yanzhao sighed softly, "Since my wife thinks so, I will grant your wish. Anyway, the doctor said that the three-month danger period has passed."

As he spoke, he tucked Gu Nanjiao's loose hair behind her ear, ran his fingertips across her delicate cheek, and then moved his hand down to cup her chin and kiss her.

Lu Yanzhao was extremely gentle, carefully protecting the person in his arms.

Gu Nanjiao had never been so satisfied. In the past, Lu Yanzhao was always rude and unruly, and she would always beg for mercy with whimpering.

Perhaps because of her pregnancy, Gu Nanjiao enjoyed a rare moment of relaxation.

After their lovemaking, Gu Nanjiao hooked her arm around Lu Yanzhao's neck and asked, "Do you prefer a boy or a girl?"

"I want both boys and girls, preferably twins, a boy and a girl."

Gu Nanjiao asked, puzzled, "Why?"

If you're pregnant with twins, your belly will be as big as an exploding ball.

Thinking of the stretch marks on her stomach and her loose belly, Gu Nanjiao suddenly let go of her hands and lay down on the bed with a look of utter despair.

"What's wrong?" Lu Yanzhao leaned closer and gently kissed her cheek. "Aren't twins good? They only have to suffer once."

He couldn't bear to see Gu Nanjiao suffer a second time. Lin Ji wrote to say that Yingniang had given birth to a son, as if she had walked through the gates of hell and survived by the skin of her teeth.