The midnight bell at the Prince's residence had just struck, and the bronze bells on the eaves tinkled softly in the night breeze. The flickering candlelight reflected on the window paper of the east wing of the main courtyard. Shen Weiwan suddenly sat up from under her nine-curve quilt, her fingers clasped tightly around her chest. A suppressed retching startled Xiao Yu, who sat up like a carp, his moon-white nightgown slipping off his shoulders, revealing his well-defined chest. "Weiwei, are you feeling unwell again?"
"Ugh—" Chen Weiwan staggered and pointed to the toilet behind the screen, the coral beads in her hair rustling. "Quick! Help me to the toilet!"
Xiao Yu stretched out his long arm and lifted her up horizontally, dragging the quilt across the ground in a half-arc. He placed her next to the carved toilet, but Shen Weiwan frowned and remained motionless, her fingertips poking at the lotus pattern on the glaze. "This white porcelain looks chillingly cold. Test the temperature first."
"Toilet...test the temperature?" Xiao Yu's black jade pupils suddenly shrank, and the sleepiness he felt at midnight was completely dispelled by this bizarre request.
"What else?" Chen Weiwan rubbed her swollen temples, her eyes wide open. "Last month, Mrs. Liu said that the daughter-in-law from the next street had a miscarriage after sitting on an icy toilet. Do you want me to suffer the same?"
Xiao Yu squatted down, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. The knees of his black pajamas rubbed against the cool blue bricks. As soon as his fingertips touched the toilet seat, he was slapped away by Shen Weiwan: "You can't touch it with your hands! You have to use your face!"
"Chen Weiwan!" Xiao Yu gritted his teeth, veins throbbing in his forehead. "You are deliberately making fun of me!"
"Who told you to get me pregnant with this debt collector!" Chen Weiwan put her hands on her hips, the hem of her moon-white nightgown brushing the edge of the toilet. "Go! Otherwise, I'll pour the twenty years of daughter's red wine you've hidden behind the rockery into the toilet to pickle!"
Xiao Yu looked up at the sky and sighed, ultimately unable to resist the cunning light in her eyes. He carefully moved his face closer to the toilet seat. The cold glaze pressed against his cheekbone, and he shuddered. "It's warm, okay?"
Only then did Shen Weiwan sit down with satisfaction, her fingertips gripping the back of his collar as an armrest, and she leaned on his back, laughing so hard that her shoulders trembled: "The Seventh Prince is testing the temperature of the toilet with his wife. Tomorrow I will have someone carve a plaque with the words 'Clean Bucket Guard' and hang it in your study!"
Xiao Yu pinched her cheek with his backhand, his stubble brushing against her nose. "Then when you were having morning sickness last night and you shouted 'I want stinky tofu dipped in osmanthus honey', I'm afraid Madam Taifu would have laughed herself to death."
"How dare you mention it!" Chen Weiwan pinched the soft flesh of his arm as the two of them made quite a racket in the toilet. Chuntao stood outside the door, holding a cup of warm water, her ears red as blood. The night watchman beside her lowered his head even lower, his shoulders shaking from trying to suppress laughter. An old butler, leaning on a cane, passed by, overhearing the laughter and shaking his head at Chuntao. "His Highness the Seventh Prince is a 'wife-watching stone'; soon he'll probably learn to sing lullabies to the toilet."
After Shen Weiwan vomited, her whole body went limp. When Xiao Yu carried her back to the bed, she suddenly grabbed his collar and said, "I'm so thirsty! I want to drink iced sour plum soup. It has to be the jar buried under the pear tree last year!"
"Where can I find iced sour plum soup at midnight?" Xiao Yu coaxed her, "How about some warm water first?"
"No!" Shen Weiwan kicked open the quilt and rubbed his calf with her jade feet. "If you don't go to the ice cellar to get it, I will throw the Duan inkstone in your study into the well to feed the fish!"
Xiao Yu reluctantly donned his fur coat and headed for the underground ice cellar. When the heavy elmwood door opened, a biting chill washed over him. He walked back, clutching the jar of sour plum soup wrapped in a brocade quilt. Passing the garden, he ran into the night watchmen. Seeing their master running wildly under the moonlight in the middle of the night, clutching the jar, the guards lowered their heads to stifle laughter, their chuckles piercing through the cracks in their armor, remarkably clear in the stillness of the night.
Back in the bedroom, Shen Weiwan drank half a cup of iced sour plum soup and suddenly pointed at the banana leaves under the full moon outside the window: "Xiao Yu, look, does the moon look like the sesame cake you bought yesterday?"
Xiao Yu looked in the direction she pointed. The moonlight sprinkled on the leaves: "It looks like the bowl of sour plum soup you didn't finish."
"You're tricking me again!" Shen Weiwan picked up the embroidered pillow and threw it over. "It's obviously a sesame cake! I want to eat it now!"
When the freshly baked sesame cakes from the kitchen were brought over, she pointed at the crystal fruit plate and said, "I don't want to eat anymore. Peel some grapes and feed them to me." Xiao Yu patiently peeled a crystal grape, but she suddenly slapped his hand away: "Your nails are too long. The grapes you peeled smell fishy!"
"So I cut it?"
"No!" Shen Weiwan shook her head, her hair brushing across his wrist, "Who will scratch my back after I cut it?"
Xiao Yu pinched her face, rubbing his fingertips across her pale lips: "Chen Weiwan, your morning sickness is fake, but you're really torturing me, right?"
"Nonsense!" She blinked her big, innocent eyes and poked his chest with her fingertips. "During morning sickness, pregnant women are the most vulnerable! If you don't take care of me, do you expect the baby in my belly to take care of you?"
After tossing and turning until the rooster crowed in the early morning, Shen Weiwan finally fell asleep in his arms, but Xiao Yu was so tired that the dark circles under his eyes could have stained the teacup. Just as he was about to close his eyes, she suddenly sat up and pointed at his court robe draped over the back of the chair: "This stone blue is too dark, it hurts my eyes, change to something brighter!"
Xiao Yu looked out the window at the pale sky, wanting to cry but unable to. "I just wore the red court robe yesterday..."
"Then change to bright yellow!"
"Yellow is the emperor's robe..."
"Then change to peach pink!"
Half an hour later, the Seventh Prince, Xiao Yu, donned the peach-pink, cloud-patterned brocade robe that had been hidden at the bottom of a chest for ten years, and, with all his might, mounted his Qilin horse. In the Golden Throne Hall, the entire court, civil and military officials, saw the usually austere Seventh Prince dressed like a moving peach blossom, their faces livid with suppressed laughter. The Emperor stroked his goatee and laughed uncontrollably, "Yu'er, dressed like this today, are you going to the Hundred Flowers Banquet in the Imperial Garden?"
Xiao Yu's face flushed red as he bowed and said, "Your Highness said pink... is eye-catching."
After leaving the court, he galloped back to the palace. As soon as he stepped through the door, he heard the lion's roar from the main courtyard: "Xiao Yu! Where the hell have you been? I'm hungry!"
This chapter is not finished yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content!
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
