Chapter 56
Mu Heming raised his head, his eyes sparkling again.
He made a pinky promise with Mu Yulu, then took her hand and pulled her towards the kitchen.
Mu Yulu grabbed him, "Even though this is your home, we're still stealing food. How can we steal things openly through the front door?"
She pulled him through the side door, subtly reminding him, "Remember, if you ever need to steal food again, just go in through this door. There's usually no one here."
Then she led him through a winding path to a stove, on which were placed some delicate pastries that looked steaming hot as if they had just come out of the pot.
Mu Yulu looked around and was about to reach for it when she heard Mu Heming say, "I don't want to eat this."
Mu Yulu looked down at him: "What would you like to eat?"
Mu Heming thought about it carefully for a moment, and then stated his request: "I want to eat noodles."
Mu Yulu couldn't help but twitch her lips again. She took a deep breath and patiently told him, "There are people everywhere here. How can I cook noodles for you? If we wait any longer, all these pastries will be taken away, and you won't even have this to eat."
As she spoke, she reached for the snacks on the stove again: "Listen to me, don't be picky, just eat this one."
Mu Heming snorted, stomped his foot, turned his head away, and pouted, showing that he simply wouldn't eat.
Mu Yulu frowned and glared at him. She wanted to say that he was being picky and that he wasn't really hungry, but when she saw how small and thin he was, she suppressed the nameless anger in her heart.
She glanced around furtively, then found a stove that was temporarily unused and hurriedly started a fire to boil water for her little darling to cook noodles.
"I don't have much food on hand right now, and I don't have much time either, so I can only cook you a simple bowl of plain noodles," Mu Yulu said while cooking the noodles.
When she turned around after cooking the noodles, she found the little one sitting obediently beside her, craning his neck to look into the pot, his big, watery eyes filled with tears. She couldn't tell if it was from the steam from the stove or from being moved to tears by her.
Mu Yulu felt even more heartbroken.
This poor child, a bowl of plain noodles makes him so happy, I don't know how those palace servants treat him so badly on a daily basis.
Looking back now, the reason he didn't eat pastries wasn't because he was picky, but because he had never eaten these kinds of things before, so he couldn't get used to them.
Mu Yulu imagined this to herself, holding a bowl of noodles in one hand and chopsticks in the other, while Mu Heming pulled her sleeve and followed her out.
Mu Heming obediently followed her out, and the two of them came to an inconspicuous corner on the west side of the kitchen.
Mu Yulu led him to sit down in the corridor, used chopsticks to cool the noodles down, and then handed him the bowl: "Eat quickly, and then go back. I'm leaving soon too."
Mu Heming held the bowl of noodles and ate it in big mouthfuls, sniffling as he ate, as if he were really crying.
Mu Yulu couldn't bear to look away and gazed at the brightly lit palace downstairs. After hesitating for a while, she waited until Mu Heming had almost finished his bowl of noodles before turning to him and saying, "Can you usually leave the palace? If you can, come to the Number One Restaurant Under Heaven, and I'll cook for you then."
As she spoke, she took out a handkerchief and wiped his mouth. "You're not that old. Is there no one in the palace to take care of you?"
He shook his head, unsure whether it was because there was no one to take care of him in the palace, or whether he was refuting Mu Yulu's claim that he was too young.
He swallowed the noodles in his mouth before saying, "I'm twelve years old this year, which is not young anymore."
Mu Yulu couldn't help but laugh after hearing this; she really was still just a child.
She instructed Mu Heming, "My name is Mu Yulu. If you have the chance to leave the palace, you can come directly to me. Remember that?"
Mu Heming nodded, holding the bowl, his big eyes blinking as he gazed at her. Then he said earnestly, "Sister, I like you."
Just then, a clear, deep voice sounded from behind: "What are you doing?"
Mu Yulu froze.
It was that same voice again, the one she could recognize even if it turned to ashes.
How could I be so unlucky? I was only eating noodles for a short while, and I still managed to run into Mu Qinhan?
Mu Heming, who was standing next to him, was also startled, but he reacted quickly. He put down his bowl of noodles and ran over to Mu Qinhan, saying, "Uncle, this sister is taking me to eat noodles."
Mu Yulu sighed deeply in her heart, stiffly turned around, and saw a tall figure standing with his hands behind his back in the shadows of the corridor.
He stood in the shadows, his dark brocade robe motionless, making his figure appear as tall and straight as a solitary peak.
Who else could it be but Mu Qinhan?
The dim candlelight in the corridor outlined the sharply defined profile of his face. At this moment, his calm and unwavering eyes looked past the young prince Mu Heming and focused their gaze on Mu Yulu's face.
The air seemed to freeze. Mu Yulu sighed inwardly, avoided Mu Qinhan's gaze, and bowed to him.
Mu Qinhan's gaze did not linger on her for long before he quickly looked away and turned to Mu Heming, his voice revealing neither joy nor anger: "Why aren't you coming over here yet?"
Mu Heming had originally stopped in front of him, but upon hearing what he said, he had no choice but to move forward a little further, shuffling over step by step, and then raised his hand to grab the hem of Mu Qinhan's robe.
Mu Yulu watched this scene out of the corner of her eye, and no matter how she looked at it, she felt that something was wrong with the situation.
This little guy seems to know Mu Qinhan quite well?
Mu Qinhan seemed to be protecting him a lot?
She immediately realized that, given Mu Qinhan's favor towards him, the Ninth Prince couldn't possibly be having a bad time in the palace.
Then why did he pitifully try to trick her into cooking noodles for him?
The more she thought about it, the more something seemed off; she felt like she'd been tricked by this brat.
At this moment, a group of panicked palace servants and eunuchs rushed out from the corner of the corridor ahead. The head eunuch was already pale, and when he saw Mu Qinhan, he was so frightened that he was scared out of his wits.
He led everyone to kneel down in unison, their foreheads slamming heavily against the cold palace bricks: "Your Highness, please forgive us! Your Highness, please forgive us! It was our negligence that we failed to keep a close eye on the Ninth Prince."
Mu Qinhan did not speak immediately. He stood still, his gaze slowly sweeping over the trembling crowd kneeling on the ground, finally settling on the head eunuch.
"Drag him out." The voice wasn't loud, and even carried a hint of indifference, but to everyone's ears, it was like a thunderclap from a clear sky.
Everyone knew that the chief eunuch was going to lose his life here today.
"Your Highness, spare me! Your Highness, spare me!" The chief eunuch was speechless and could only keep begging Mu Qinhan to spare his life.
But the next second, his mouth was covered by the guards brought by Mu Qinhan, and they dragged him away without any mercy.
The palace servants kneeling on the ground trembled like leaves, not daring to even breathe.
Mu Qinhan's icy gaze swept over them again, and everyone felt a chill run down their spines.
"If there is a next time, I will make sure the Ninth Prince is out of your sight for even half a step," Mu Qinhan's voice was even deeper than before when he spoke again, each word striking the silent corridor clearly: "Even if all of you had a hundred heads, it wouldn't be enough for me to chop them off."
The crowd responded with a trembling voice, then knelt even deeper on the ground, almost burying their heads in the cracks between the bricks.
Mu Yulu felt a chill run up her spine. She couldn't help but wonder, was such a brutal scene really suitable for a child to see? Was she sure it wouldn't leave Mu Heming with any psychological trauma?
Thinking this, she mustered her courage and slightly raised the corner of her eye to look at Mu Qinhan's position.
But they found that Mu Heming, who was standing next to Mu Qinhan, was not frightened at all, but was grinning smugly.
Mu Yulu lowered her eyes again. Well, she was overthinking it. The child had the blood of the Mu family flowing in his veins and looked exactly like Mu Qinhan. How could he be afraid?
She should be the one feeling scared.
After dealing with the palace servants, Mu Qinhan turned his gaze back to Mu Yulu: "What are you doing in the palace?"
Mu Yulu didn't want to look at him, so she pretended to be respectful and dared not raise her head, and spoke with her head down: "This commoner has come to the palace to offer dishes for the Third Prince's birthday banquet."
She seemed to hear Mu Qinhan chuckle, but the laughter was faint and carried a hint of coldness: "I didn't know you were one of the people serving the dishes today?"
He abruptly changed the subject and said, "Qi Zhizhi sent you, didn't he?"
Mu Yulu broke out in a cold sweat. For some reason, she felt that Mu Qinhan's words carried a warning tone.
She started thinking rapidly again.
Why did Mu Qinhan suddenly bring up Qi Zhizhi? Was he threatening her again?
If she doesn't keep her distance from Qi Zhizhi, what does he plan to do? Will he go looking for trouble with the World's Number One Restaurant?
Just as she was lost in thought, Mu Qinhan took Mu Heming's hand, said nothing more, and turned to leave.
The footsteps faded into the distance in the empty corridor. Only after confirming that Mu Qinhan had truly left did Mu Yulu slowly raise her head.
This corridor is usually not frequented by many people, so there are very few palace lanterns. At this moment, under the deep twilight, like a thin veil, the vermilion pillars cast long shadows, cutting the winding corridor into sections of interwoven light and shadow.
Mu Qinhan held Mu Heming's hand as they walked along the long corridor, and suddenly stopped when they were almost at the end.
He lowered his head and asked him, "Why did you go to her to cook noodles for you just now?"
Mu Heming looked up at him and said, "She's very beautiful. I think the way she cooks noodles reminds me of my mother. Uncle, I like her."
Mu Qinhan stared at him silently. After a long while, he bent down and knelt on one knee, so that he was at the same height as Mu Heming. He then looked up and met Mu Qinhan's gaze. "You know that the chief eunuch is your third brother's man, so you did this on purpose today. You deliberately wanted me to kill him, didn't you?"
Mu Heming neither dodged nor avoided the question, but nodded frankly.
Mu Qinhan's eyes flickered slightly. "Don't worry, I won't let you live the kind of life I had when I was a child."
As he spoke, he reached out and picked him up, letting him rest his head on his shoulder, then continued walking forward. "But you can't like her."
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
