Pei Yuan was carrying two large bags in his hands. He put one bag on the table and asked Bao Ning, "She came to see you again?"

Bao Ning nodded, "Didn't you say yesterday that you would give her a warning?"

She was a little annoyed, "It seems to be useless."

"Don't think too much." Pei Yuan didn't seem surprised that Su Mingyu came again. Instead, he asked, "Have you eaten?"

"No, I'm waiting for you to come back." Bao Ning was led astray by him and looked out the window, "It's still daylight, why are you back so early?"

"I'm back to feed you." Pei Yuan threw the other bag in his hand into Bao Ning's arms, "Wei Meng went to the capital and brought back a lot of good things. He is a greedy person. What he says is delicious must be delicious. Take a look at what's inside."

As he said, He unbuttoned his front again and took out a bag of still hot duck in soy sauce: "I bought this on the street in Lihu, from a new duck restaurant next to Ruyi Tower. It's just right that we haven't cooked yet, come and eat."

Baoning smelled the aroma of duck and was already hungry. Now that she was craving for it, she immediately put Su Mingyue's troubles behind her.

She first unbuttoned the bag that Wei Meng had given her. There were several steamed buns and naan wrapped in oil paper, half a pound of beef, half a pound of donkey meat, and a lot of sweet and greasy cakes, which looked fancy. Wei Meng and Pei Yuan didn't eat sweet things, so they must have been brought specially for her.

"General Wei is really thoughtful. I'll treat him to dinner some other day!" Bao Ning was very happy. She went to the table again to watch Pei Yuan break the duck legs.

The plump, tender and delicious leg meat was shiny and looked very good. It was still warm because Pei Yuan had held it in his arms all the way. Bao Ning asked, "How much is the duck?"

"I don't know." Pei Yuan looked at her with drooping eyelids, "Are you the kind of person who asks the price when buying things? I'll throw a silver ingot out and I won't even ask for change."

Bao Ning laughed at him, "You're just pretending to be generous and bragging."

"Eat yours." Pei Yuan snorted coldly, wrapped the leg bone with a piece of oil paper, and handed it to Bao Ning, "Stretch your neck to eat, don't dirty the bed."

He broke off the other leg and stuffed it into Bao Ning's hand, then took the duck's butt and half of the duck's breast out, blew a whistle, and the two dogs came running.

Pei Yuan threw the meat on the ground, looked at them for a while, and went back to the house.

"Jixiang is a female dog. It looks so wild, but it's actually a female dog." Pei Yuan asked Bao Ning, "Do you think that Jixiang and Ah Huang will fall in love with each other after living together day and night?"

Bao Ning said, "It's not that important. It's good for them to stay in the family. It's good if they fall in love with each other."

Pei Yuan laughed softly.

He sat down and started eating. After a while, he said, "I didn't hit Su Mingyou. I wanted to see what else she could do."

Speaking of her, Bao Ning frowned, "I just think my sister-in-law is weird. Her words seem to have a hidden meaning, but if you say she really did anything bad, it's not true. If I get angry with her, it will make me look petty. Besides, it's normal for a pregnant woman to be emotionally unstable..."

She thought of the dog-tooth bracelet, swallowed the meat in her mouth, wiped her hands, and took it out to show Pei Yuan, "Look, my sister-in-law gave me this today."

Pei Yuan said, "I know. I told Chen Jia, and he reported it to me earlier."

Bao Ning found that Pei Yuan was not right. When he spoke today, he was always very calm, not as arrogant as before. And he was in the mood to chat with her, and even cared about whether Jixiang was a male or female dog. Baoning bit the bone in his mouth, looked at Pei Yuan for a while, and asked in a low voice: "What happened?"

"I just remembered something." Pei Yuan turned the bracelet between his fingers twice, suddenly threw it to the ground, and asked Baoning, "Do you believe in fate?"

Baoning hesitated and said: "Well... It's okay."

"What does 'not bad' mean?" Pei Yuan laughed. "I didn't believe it before. My father had an imperial teacher named Gong, who specialized in spirit writing and was pretty accurate in his predictions. I didn't like him. Others said he had an immortal look, but I cursed him behind his back, saying he was like a white-haired monkey. Once, Pei Xiao reported me to my father, and he beat me up. Pei Xiao, that villain, started reporting when he was seven or eight years old, but later he stopped doing such petty thefts. Maybe his mother warned him that it made him look unpresentable...so later, Pei Xiao tried hard to be a presentable person."

Baoning laughed as he listened to his story.

Pei Yuan continued, "Later, I found that on the walls of my mother's palace and on her jewelry, there were all strange things, such as peach wood, dog teeth, and a hidden image of Zhong Kui. It was not until she died that I learned that this was because she had a bad fate. The Imperial Master Gong said that she had a ghost fate, not only did she not have all the five blessings, but she also damaged people's yang energy, and being a concubine would ruin the country's fortune. But my father was young and energetic at the time, and he insisted on taking her into the palace. Guess what happened?"

Bao Ning asked, "What happened?"

"The year she entered the palace, the dike of the Yangtze River broke, and the river water rushed thousands of miles, flooding thousands of acres of fertile fields. People said that the saying of ghosts came true."

Baoning shuddered: "But this can't be said. Something happens in the Yangtze River every few years, and there are so many concubines who entered the palace with Concubine Xian, how can they all be blamed on her?"

Pei Yuan said: "She is the most favored, so she is the target of the spear. Besides, as an emperor, he should always love the country more, Any clues, as long as they threaten his kingdom, will make him panic, which is understandable. The bad thing is that he is an emperor who loves beauties. He thinks that the beauty has a bad fate, but he is reluctant to let her go, so he follows the method of Master Gong, changes the name of the palace, makes her wear some messy ornaments, and forces her to secretly drink talisman water on the 15th of every month, in order to make up for the misfortunes brought by her fate. "

Bao Ning found it strange, but behind the strangeness, it was reasonable.

She slowly grabbed Pei Yuan's hand, wanting to give him some comfort.

"I don't know whether my father was good to her, but he was good to me. If my mother hadn't died and I hadn't investigated, he would never have told me these things. I am grateful to him." Pei Yuan paused and continued, "But my mother is dead."

"I don't even know how she died."

"I remember that I was about eight or nine years old, and I broke the string on the jade pendant when I was shooting birds with a bow." Pei Yuan and Bao Ning compared, he closed one eye, as if shooting an arrow, and laughed twice, "She is clumsy, to be honest, I don't know what my father likes about my mother besides her face, she can't even sew a piece of clothing... Back to the story, she went to find Concubine Gao to fix the string of the jade pendant. Concubine Gao is Pei Xiao's mother, she was just Lady Gao at that time, they were good sisters. It's really ironic, how can there be sisters in the palace, she is too naive."

"And then she never came back." Pei Yuan said, "Later her body was found in the lake, three days later. Her face was so swollen that we couldn't see it clearly. We could only recognize her by her clothes. My father asked someone to investigate, and they said that it was a concubine named Luo who entered the palace in the same year as her who pushed her down. They said the concubine did it out of jealousy. The Supreme Court Minister's surname was Yan, probably Yan Weichang. He handled the case very efficiently. The concubine named Luo was executed, and my mother was buried. Her posthumous title was Duanping."

Baoning looked into Pei Yuan's eyes. He was extremely calm, without any of the sadness he should have.

Baoning felt sad. She was reluctant to listen any further, but she had to face the past with Pei Yuan.

"If things had ended here, it would have been the end." Pei Yuan narrowed his eyes, "But later, when I was twelve years old, I accidentally stumbled into the rockery, and found a skeleton deep in the cave. In the skeleton's hand was clutching my jade pendant with a broken lace."

"So, how did she die? Which one was she? I begged my father to investigate, and he told me that the dead are gone, and the tomb should not be disturbed, so let her rest in peace."

"Is she really resting in peace?"

Baoning didn't know what expression to make, nor did she know how to comfort Pei Yuan. He seemed to have really let it go now. When he talked about the past, his every frown and anger seemed like an outsider, but it was just like this that made Baoning feel scared. She was afraid that Pei Yuan suppressed all these deep in his heart, and just covered it up with calmness on the surface. Baoning would rather Pei Yuan hug her and cry now. She didn't want Pei Yuan to be too tough, at least not in front of her.

Baoning had a vague premonition in her heart, if it was the emperor who killed Concubine Xian, when everything was revealed, would Pei Yuan collapse again?

"We don't want to think about this anymore!" Baoning suddenly stepped forward and hugged Pei Yuan, "Don't think about it for now."

Pei Yuan smiled and said, "I have to thank my sister-in-law for this. If she hadn't been thinking about provoking you with these things all day, I really wouldn't have found a chance to tell you."

Baoning raised her head and kissed his chin.

Pei Yuan hugged her and asked, "Is the duck with sauce delicious? You have a big appetite. You can eat two duck legs and didn't even leave me a layer of skin."

He changed the subject. Bao Ning's heart was still heavy. She didn't mention that matter anymore and followed Pei Yuan's words and said, "It's okay, but the duck is not fat enough. I heard that ducks that only eat bamboo or lotus leaves will taste better when they grow up to be made into duck with sauce. It has a natural and refreshing fragrance."

The atmosphere in the room changed in an instant.

Pei Yuan said "hmm", and then asked: "Ducks eat bamboo, such a hard thing, won't it scratch their throats?"

Baoning paused: "I've never been a duck, how do I know..."

Pei Yuan said: "Let's raise one and try it in the future."

He held Baoning up and let her stand barefoot on the bed. He straightened her clothes and asked with a frown: "Do you have any black or white clothes? Don't wear red."

Baoning asked confusedly: "What are we going to do?"

Pei Yuan replied: "Today is the anniversary of your mother-in-law's death. I will take you to burn some incense for her. We can't go to the Taimiao, so the corner of the wall at the gate of the courtyard will be fine. You should wear plain clothes, not bright red or green." It

was already dark outside. Bao Ning hurried to the closet to find clothes, complaining to him: "Why didn't you tell me earlier! You should have told me a few days in advance so that I could prepare things."

"There's nothing to prepare, it's just a formality, and it can also be regarded as taking you to say hello to her." Pei Yuan cleaned up the leftovers on the table, without looking up, and said, "Wear more clothes, it's cold at night."

...

Zhao Qian tidied himself up, looked left and right in front of the mirror, and when he saw that there was indeed nothing wrong, he took out the lip balm and smeared it on his lips, and walked out.

He was thinking all the way about what to say to Pei Yuan when he saw him later, how to quietly leave a lip print on his collar, and then get away safely.

Don't blame him for the tacky and disgusting tricks he came up with. The more tacky the method, the better it works. As long as it can get the job done, it doesn't matter what method it is.

Baoning's yard was pitch black, and the lights in the main house were off. Zhao Qian was wondering, and when he looked to the side, he saw a strange fire in the corner of the wall.