Chapter Twenty-Six
The first snowfall of early winter in Beijing this year was a heavy one.
Gu Leyao went to bed early and got up early yesterday. She got out of bed, changed her clothes, and when she was about to go out, she found that the heavy snow had blocked the door.
It took quite a while for the servants of the Prince's Palace to clear the road.
While Gu Leyao and Li Heng were having dinner, they were still talking about the heavy snow in the capital. "Last night it was just light snow, but I didn't expect that the snow would have blocked the door this morning."
However, the heavy snow wasn't without its advantages. Gu Leyao suddenly suggested, "This snow is really heavy! Shall we build a snowman?"
Li Heng didn't say anything, but the little prince gulped down the hot soup in his bowl and jumped up, "Building a snowman is great! I want to build a snowman!"
He doesn't want to study, he wants to build a snowman!
Gu Leyao was from the South in her previous life and had never built a snowman before. When she heard the Crown Prince agree to the suggestion of building a snowman, she became excited as well. "Yes, we should build a snowman. It's rare for it to snow so heavily!"
The two, one big and one small, hit it off immediately and got to work. After dinner, they both changed into thick fur coats.
The young prince wore the rabbit fur hat and gloves that Gu Leyao had made for him, and Gu Leyao also wore a rabbit fur scarf. The two of them looked like a mother rabbit playing in the snow with her little rabbit.
The two of them exerted a great deal of effort, huffing and puffing as they surrounded a snowman. It had a round, big head and a short, chubby body. The snowman was white, plump, and short, looking quite adorable.
Gu Leyao placed two grapes near the snowman's eyes, while the little prince used a carrot as the snowman's mouth.
Gu Leyao and the young prince were building a snowman outside, while Li Heng sat inside with a charcoal fire burning. He asked someone to open the window so he could see the two of them, one big and one small, building a snowman.
Li Heng looked at it and felt that something was missing, so he had someone find an unused gray hat and put it on the snowman's head.
Gu Leyao and the young prince turned around and smiled at Li Heng. Gu Leyao said, "Perfect!"
The little prince also said, "The snowman we built is so beautiful! It's the most beautiful snowman in the world!"
Li Heng couldn't help but laugh as he watched from inside the house. It wasn't that he didn't want to go out and build a snowman, but Gu Leyao wouldn't allow him to stay outside for too long. Li Heng's health had only just begun to recover, and he couldn't stay outside for too long, otherwise the cold air would enter his body, and he would suffer from unbearable pain again in rainy or snowy weather.
Gu Leyao and the young prince spent the whole morning building the snowman. By noon, they were shivering and complaining about the cold, unable to eat anything. Li Heng gave them a lecture before they took off their shoes and socks and lay on the heated kang to warm themselves.
Li Heng had the cook brew a bowl of sweet and spicy brown sugar ginger water, and gave one bowl to each of the two people.
The brown sugar ginger water was made with old ginger and was very spicy. Gu Leyao and Li Hao, the young prince, both drank it while holding their noses.
After finishing their drink, the two curled up in their warm quilt, feeling the scorching heat of the heated kang bed, and sweated profusely.
The little prince felt very uncomfortable being sick. He frowned and said, "Auntie, we can't play like this anymore. Building snowmen was so much fun, but now I feel so uncomfortable."
Gu Leyao felt like her back was being steamed by the kang (heated brick bed). She turned herself over and nodded slowly but in agreement, "That's true. It was really fun when we were playing, but it's really uncomfortable now."
Li Heng was so angry at their conversation that he almost laughed. He turned to Li Qi and told him to tell the person who was tending the kang (heated brick bed) to add more firewood.
Burn them hard, make them sweat it out, and drain the water from their brains!
Building a snowman on a freezing cold day, two out of the three people in my family collapsed!
*
Gu Leyao and the young prince lay in bed for half a day, sweating profusely, and eventually fell asleep in a daze.
When the two of them woke up, it was already eight or nine o'clock at night, and it was pitch black outside.
Seeing that the two women were sleeping soundly, Li Heng asked Li Qi to escort him back to his courtyard to sleep.
The young prince hadn't eaten dinner, and his stomach was growling with hunger. Gu Leyao got out of bed, took two plates of snacks to the heated kang (a traditional heated brick bed), and invited the young prince to eat with her.
The dessert was just the most ordinary mung bean cake. Gu Leyao and Chun Tao planted some mung beans in the yard, and the harvested mung beans were all plump.
Gu Leyao added a little honey to the mung bean cake, making it dry and sweet.
Normally, there are plenty of foods in the Prince's mansion, so a simple pastry like mung bean cake wouldn't stand out.
But now, the little prince was eating heartily, praising it repeatedly, "Auntie, I think this is so delicious! It's better than the hamburgers, fried chicken, milk tea, and hot pot I ate before, and even better than all of them combined."
As he spoke, he took a big bite of the mung bean cake and chewed it in his mouth.
Seeing that he was eating so quickly, Gu Leyao poured a cup of tea for the little prince, and took a bite of mung bean cake herself. She chewed it and swallowed it. "You think it tastes good now because we are all hungry. When you are not hungry, of course you won't taste anything good."
The young prince thought for a moment, then smiled, "That's certainly true!"
The food itself didn't change, but when he was hungry, it tasted even better. The little prince decided that from now on he would only eat when he felt hungry!
After a satisfying meal, Gu Leyao and the young prince nestled on the heated kang bed, both staring at the ceiling, but neither could fall asleep.
They had slept too much during the day, and now, at midnight, they were unusually awake.
The young prince patted his full belly and suddenly asked, "Auntie, how many days have I been at the Prince's residence?"
Gu Leyao thought for a moment, "It must have been more than half a month, I've forgotten which day you came, but I remember the chrysanthemums were still in bloom when you came!"
The crown prince couldn't sleep, tossing and turning on the heated kang like a worm, finally rubbing his head against Gu Leyao's arm. "Auntie, do you think Mother misses me?"
Gu Leyao was also resting her head on her arm, looking at the top of the bed curtains. There was a red lotus leaf there, with a chubby baby sitting on it, which seemed to symbolize the wish for an early birth of a son.
After a while, she said, "The Empress is your mother, of course she misses you!"
The little prince pouted, "But Mother has a new baby in her belly now, and I can see that Father and Mother really like that new baby, so they can't see me anymore."
His parents used to always notice his little moods, but now they always have happy faces and talk about the unborn baby.
Li Chong felt that his father and mother no longer cared about him.
Gu Leyao immediately understood the Crown Prince's unspoken meaning: the Crown Prince was facing the problem of having a second child.
In the past, there were often videos and blog posts online discussing how parents in families with two children should balance the relationship between their eldest and youngest child.
Although bloggers have offered many opinions and solutions through their posts and writings, the fundamental issue of having two children remains unresolved.
As far as Gu Leyao knew, the Crown Prince was the Emperor and Empress's only child. From birth until now, he had always lived the life of an only child. The Emperor and Empress doted on the Crown Prince. Although they were strict with his education, they still doted on him in daily life.
It's perfectly normal for the young prince to be unable to accept the sudden news that the Empress is pregnant and that he might have a younger brother or sister. His parents will have to divide their care and love for him among the other children.
Having a second child can create a sense of loss for one child, which seems to be an unsolvable problem. A person's care and love are limited, and if they are given to another person, the care and love the first person receives will inevitably decrease.
Gu Leyao thought for a while, imagining herself speaking in a cool, adult-like manner, saying something philosophical that would instantly resolve the Crown Prince's predicament.
However, she grew up in an orphanage before she transmigrated, and her parents were already very distant people to her.
Her mother treated her very well when she was alive, but her father abandoned her in an orphanage after her mother passed away. Now, looking back, Gu Leyao has forgotten even her father's face.
How can someone who has never received parental love comfort another person?
Gu Leyao thought for a while and decided to combine her original experiences with her own to tell the little prince, "Chong'er, have you ever heard about my background?"
The young prince is still too young; no one will tell him about Gu Leyao's background.
He shook his head, curious, "How did my royal aunt grow up?"
Gu Leyao organized her thoughts and began to recount the original owner's life story. "When my mother gave birth to me, a bad person switched me with her child. I should have grown up in the capital like you, with no worries about food or clothing, but I was switched to a village. There, I was always hungry and beaten. I didn't know I was actually the daughter of a nobleman in the capital; I thought I was really the child of a peasant woman in the mountains. But even the children of peasant women in the mountains weren't beaten and tortured every day, and weren't even allowed to eat their fill, so I ran away from that home. I ran into the mountains, and when I was so hungry that I had no strength left, I was taken in by a kind-hearted old doctor who had a bad temper." "I raised him. Although he made me do chores, I was well-fed there and grew up safely. After I grew up, the couple who had abused me came back. By this time, the old doctor who had raised me had also passed away. The couple somehow found out about me and wanted to send me to someone to bring good luck in marriage, so they could get a large sum of money. I was quite lucky; my biological parents found out that their child had been switched and sent someone to bring me back to the capital. But after I returned to the capital, they felt that I was not as generous, not as dignified, and not as good as their adopted daughter in every way. So they treated me, their real daughter, worse than their adopted daughter."
The young prince clenched his fists and said angrily, "How could they do this? The reason you didn't behave as well as that fake daughter is because you haven't learned etiquette and didn't grow up in the capital! You've suffered so much, they should make it up to you. Aunt, where are your father and mother? I'm going to punish them severely."
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
