084, New Year's Eve
084, New Year's Eve
“Knock knock—”
It was quiet all around at night, and Lu Mingfei, who was in the house, heard a slight knock on the door.
Knowing that Zhao Lang might come over tonight, he returned to his room after making dumplings in the main house. Ever since their three rooms had separated and moved out to celebrate, their family no longer stayed up on New Year's Eve. The family was busy from the beginning of the year to the end, and finally had a few days of rest. So on New Year's Eve, after eating and making dumplings, they would go back to their rooms to sleep, and everyone would sleep in a little later the next day.
He was sitting in the room reading a book and hadn't fallen asleep when there was a knock on the door. As soon as he heard the knock, he put down the book in his hand and came to open the door for the person outside.
As expected, when the door opened, he saw the young master standing outside who was familiar to him. Lu Mingfei reached out and pulled Zhao Lang into the house, lowering his voice and asking him, "Did you just come out of the palace?" In fact, the door of his house was not bolted, and anyone outside could push it open with a little force.
But today, the young master probably knew that he was still awake in the room, so he knocked on the door and waited for him to open it. Otherwise, if he was asleep, the young master would have opened the door directly and come in.
"Yeah." Zhao Lang took off his cloak and hat and handed them to the young man standing next to him.
Lu Mingfei naturally took Zhao Lang's cloak and hat, hung them on the clothes hanger beside him, and asked Zhao Lang: "Have you eaten yet?"
Zhao Lang shook his head, staring at Lu Mingfei with calm eyes. The dishes at tonight's palace banquet were all frozen solid, and he didn't touch a single bite.
"Then you sit here and warm yourself by the fire. I'll get you something to eat." Lu Mingfei pulled Zhao Lang to the place where he had just stood up and sat him down. He then took his coat and put it on, lit the small lantern on the table, then held the lantern, opened the door and went out.
There is no moonlight outside tonight, and it is pitch black all around.
When he came out, he glanced at the room where his parents lived. It was quiet over there, and it looked like everyone inside had gone to bed. As for the other room, there was no sound either. The people inside should also be asleep, he thought.
With the light from the small lantern, Lu Mingfei came to the kitchen, pushed the door open quietly, and found a clean small pot half filled with mutton soup. He also took a large bowl and filled it with uncooked dumplings and took them out.
When he got the things and returned to his room, Zhao Lang was sitting in the same seat he had been sitting in, flipping through the book he had just read.
Lu Mingfei put the small pot on the fireplace to heat it up, and said to Zhao Lang in a low voice, "I'll heat up the soup. You drink a bowl of soup, and I'll put the dumplings in the soup to cook."
Zhao Lang said "hmm" and put the book in his hand back on the table.
"Have some snacks to fill your stomach first." There happened to be some snacks on the table in his room, so Lu Mingfei took them and gave them to Zhao Lang. He also poured a cup of hot water for the young master and put it on the small table.
He then pulled over the low stool he usually used to rest his feet and sat down. He looked up at the young master's handsome face, which was as beautiful as a sculpture, and couldn't help but complain to the young master, "I really don't know what the emperor is thinking. He invites you to the palace to attend the Nashi Laozi banquet every year, but why can't he provide you with a hot meal?"
"Every year you go home hungry. How can you invite people to your home like this?"
Hearing Lu Mingfei's merciless complaints about the emperor, the corners of Zhao Lang's mouth curled up slightly.
"You're still laughing. If I had no way to refuse, I would have asked you not to attend those palace banquets in the future. It's winter and you can't even stay at home to celebrate the New Year. You have to go to the palace. It's really painful." It was rare to see the young master laugh, but Lu Mingfei didn't really laugh.
Zhao Lang picked up the cup and took a sip of water, his calm eyes looking at the young man in front of him who was looking up at him.
Lu Mingfei was used to the young master's behavior, so he picked up some melon seeds and started cracking them. While cracking the seeds, he chatted with the young master: "Nothing happened to you in the palace tonight, did it?"
"No." Zhao Lang did not mention that the second prince and the third prince came to pick a fight with him and were repelled by Qi Jun.
"I think so too. Who can bully you?"
However, Lu Mingfei then thought that Zhao Lang was a hostage in the capital. There were the emperor and so many princes above him, as well as officials in the capital and the young masters of those officials' families. It seemed that Zhao Lang had little chance of winning against these people.
Otherwise, Prince Ding would not have been so helpless as to send his legitimate son to the capital as a hostage.
He and Zhao Lang had known each other for so many years, but he had never heard that Prince Ding and Princess Ding had ever visited Zhao Lang in Kyoto Prefecture. Thinking that Zhao Lang had been here since he was about seven or eight years old, and had never met his parents and relatives in all these years, Lu Mingfei felt a little sorry for this teenager.
Although the young master had a cold face all day and didn't like to talk, he knew that this was the young master's way of protecting himself.
"When you're out and about, don't take the initiative to cause trouble. If someone provokes you, endure it if you can, and then find an opportunity to put them in a sack later. Don't confront people in person. We can be gentlemen in front of others and mean behind their backs, and that's fine." He was just worried that Zhao Lang's character was too straightforward and would suffer in public. If it were someone else, Lu Mingfei would definitely not teach them this way, but if it was Zhao Lang, who cares? He could endure it for now and then find someone to settle the score later, whether it was a dirty trick or something like that. As long as the young master didn't suffer, it was fine.
Zhao Lang looked at the young man who was muttering to him. Although they were speaking in the same voice, Qi Jun's voice was very annoying. However, the young man's muttering in front of him warmed his heart.
"The mutton soup should be hot. I'll serve you a bowl." Smelling the aroma of mutton soup, Lu Mingfei stood up, took a bowl and filled it with soup and meat for Zhao Lang to eat. "Do you want to eat mutton soup?" he asked the young master.
"Yeah." Zhao Lang took the bowl and nodded.
"This bowl is a little hot, use this cloth to cushion your hands." Lu Mingfei took a clean handkerchief from the table and gave it to Zhao Lang to cushion the bottom of the bowl to prevent the young master's hands from being burned. Seeing that the young master was holding the bowl without moving, he remembered that he had forgotten to get chopsticks for the young master, and hurriedly handed the chopsticks to the young master.
Zhao Lang held the bowl and took a sip of the mutton soup before picking up the chopsticks to pick up the meat in the bowl and started eating.
Although they were both eating with the same bowl in hand, Lu Mingfei felt that the young master was very elegant while eating. This was how a young master from an aristocratic family should eat! It looked very pleasing to the eye!
Thinking of the last time when someone followed Zhao Lang, he asked the young master who was eating: "Did any guards follow you out? Have they eaten? Do you want to send them some food?" Otherwise, it doesn't seem good to let the employees who protect the young master stand guard outside with empty stomachs during the New Year.
"Don't worry about them." Zhao Lang raised his head and looked at those who worried too much.
"I'll cook some more dumplings and give them a bowl later. After all, they are here to protect you, and it's not good to let them go hungry." Seeing that the pot for the soup was too small, Lu Mingfei went to the kitchen in the dark and got a bigger pot to cook the dumplings.
This time he walked to the door of his room and was about to open it and go in when he heard his father calling him.
"Ming Fei? Is that you?"
“…Father, it’s me.”
"What are you doing in the kitchen?"
"...I suddenly want to eat dumplings. I want to cook a bowl of dumplings and eat them before going to sleep."
"Oh, go to bed quickly after eating, don't stay up too late."
"good."
Hearing the sound of the window falling, Lu Mingfei's tense body relaxed. He quickly pushed open the door and went inside, reaching out to pat his little heart which was frightened by his father.
Zhao Lang looked at the young man who was patting his chest, and the corners of his mouth curled up. He had also heard the talking outside in the house.
"You're still laughing!" Lu Mingfei looked at the person who was laughing and couldn't help but glared at him.
This time he placed a pot of cold water in the fireplace and hung it up. When the water was almost boiling, he poured the dumplings in and cooked them. After the water boiled, he gently pushed the dumplings in the pot with a spoon to prevent them from sticking together.
Then he poured cold water into the pot twice. After all the dumplings in the pot floated up, he used a thicker cloth to pad his hands and took the pot out.
As the boy cooked dumplings for him, Zhao Lang kept staring at Lu Mingfei's back. He recalled his childhood in Beijun. Back then, every New Year's Eve, his mother would ask the cook at the mansion to cook a pot of dumplings. However, back then, he always ate a full stomach and refused to eat dumplings when it was too late.
"The dumplings are ready, please enjoy. I forgot to bring vinegar just now, wait a minute, I'll go get you a bowl of vinegar." When Lu Mingfei brought the dumplings to the young master, he forgot that he had forgotten to bring vinegar from the kitchen just now, so he prepared to go to the kitchen to get vinegar again.
But this time, Zhao Lang grabbed Lu Mingfei's hand and said to him, "No need to go, it's okay."
"That's fine. The meat filling in these dumplings is flavorful. If you don't like jealousy, don't take it." Lu Mingfei thought Zhao Lang didn't like jealousy, so he didn't take it. There were still a lot of dumplings left in the pot. He took them and asked Zhao Lang: "There are still some dumplings here. Do you want some?"
"If you can't finish it, I can pack it up and give it to your guards?" He knew that it was impossible for Zhao Lang to come to him alone, and there must be guards following him to protect Zhao Lang.
"Give them to them." Zhao Lang looked at the dumplings in the pot. Although he wanted to eat them all, he had just finished half a pot of mutton soup and couldn't eat so many dumplings. He had to let Lu Mingfei take them to his guards. "Put them at the door. Someone will come to get them."
"Okay." There was still a little mutton soup and mutton left in the other pot. Lu Mingfei poured the mutton soup and mutton into the dumplings, and then put the pot of dumplings on the windowsill outside the door.
After the window was closed, he saw a hand reaching out from outside and taking away the pot he had placed on the windowsill.
This book will be updated tomorrow night at 8 o'clock
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