Bonus chapter for 13,000 nutrient solutions: "He came back crying..."
It's suspected that he was scolded by the Crown Prince.
The wet nurse was even more embarrassed than the abusive prince, and quickly explained, "Our prince has difficulty speaking, so he doesn't like to talk. In fact, he is intelligent and can understand everything. Mr. Han, please don't treat His Highness like an ordinary child."
Han Fei remained in a daze for a long time, subconsciously staring into the prince's eyes.
He has difficulty speaking, so he doesn't like to talk.
They even understand that stuttering is embarrassing.
Han Fei thought that this young prince was not only incredibly handsome, but also incredibly charming.
Thinking of his two-year-old son still playing in the mud, his face contorted for a moment.
"Your Highness, please extend your hand if I have been impolite to you."
The young prince hesitated for a moment, staring at Han Fei with a puzzled look for a long time. It was unclear whether he was trying to understand the sentence. Han Fei did not repeat it.
A moment later, he slowly stretched out his little hand.
With a 'snap'.
His palms immediately turned red.
The wet nurse was terrified. She hugged the prince, furious and about to explode, "Mr. Han, how could you do this!"
Han Fei ignored him and kept staring at the young prince.
His eyes quickly reddened, his little hands were curled up behind his back, his chest and abdomen rose and fell, and the corners of his mouth twitched slightly. He looked like he was about to cry, but he managed to hold it back.
"No!" she cried out to the wet nurse, her eyes brimming with tears.
Now, even Han Fei is a little jealous of the King of Qin.
Marrying such a popular queen was one thing, but their children were not only exceptionally intelligent, but also impeccably temperamental.
Han Fei simply closed the door, shutting the crown prince out. "Your Highness, please come back tomorrow with your tuition fees for becoming my disciple!"
The young prince stood alone at the door, looking up at his wet nurse.
The wet nurse bent down and took his little hand, gently massaging it. "The tuition fee is the money you have to give when you become an apprentice. Like me, I receive a monthly allowance from the Queen. The allowance is money that can be used to buy things or food."
She took out a gold ingot from her waist sash. These were for the Crown Prince's expenses, although he didn't need to spend much while staying in the palace.
The young prince took the gold ingot, touched it, looked at it, and opened his mouth to take a bite.
The wet nurse was horrified and quickly stopped her, "Your Highness, you can't eat it. Although it can be used to exchange for food, it is not edible itself."
That's a really convoluted logic.
The young prince clutched the gold ingot and shook his head in annoyance.
When his father and mother returned to the palace, he threw himself into their arms and began to complain, "Hit them!"
"How is my baby? What happened?" Banban picked him up and looked at the wet nurse beside her.
The wet nurse had no choice but to explain in detail what had happened that afternoon.
Banban: "..." He turned his head and glared at Ying Zheng.
Ying Zheng remained unperturbed, saying, "It's no big deal to scold Han Fei; why would he bother with a child?" With that, he turned and ordered Han Fei to be flogged, stating that Han Fei had punished the crown prince before he had formally become a disciple, which was an act of usurpation.
Banban was slightly surprised. "Cousin, isn't this too harsh? I'm afraid Han Fei will hate you."
"The point is to make him hate me. Zhao'er treats him kindly, and by comparing the two, his heart will naturally gravitate towards Zhao'er."
After saying this, Banban was stunned. Her cousin's next words followed immediately: "I ordered the destruction of the State of Han. This is a blood feud. He can no longer serve me wholeheartedly, otherwise he would not be Han Fei. Zhao'er is different." He slowly said to his cousin, "I will never let our child follow the path I have walked."
What path did he take?
Cheng Jiao returned to Qin alone and was made crown prince, but the entire court still sided with him. The Qin court was occupied by the Chu faction, and the powerful and wealthy merchants all supported Cheng Jiao's ascension to the throne.
Unable to be employed by the Zhao faction, he walked a long and arduous path alone, painstakingly winning over military generals, which prevented him from being overthrown in the year he ascended the throne at the age of thirteen.
He wanted to personally build his own team for his and his cousin's child, and he wouldn't let him weather those storms again.
Banban felt a sudden lump in her throat, and gently stroked his head. How could she not understand? Her cousin had never been properly loved by their father, so he wanted to be a good father and make up for those missing years himself.
This kind of doting on Zhao'er is actually a way of loving oneself.
Zhao'er was bewildered. He didn't understand why his mother's eyes were red from crying when he was the one who was being beaten, and why his father was only busy hugging and comforting his mother, ignoring him.
He raised his hands high, crying, "Mother! Father!"
Nobody cared.
He pouted, and all the pent-up grievances he had held back for so long finally burst forth, and he wailed, "Ahhhhhh!"
The couple were gazing tenderly at each other, speechless.
The enchanting sound lingers in the air.
He cried for a long time, so we took him downstairs to breastfeed, but he refused to drink. When the wet nurse approached, he pushed her away. When asked, he said, "Food! Food!"
The wet nurse was in a dilemma. "His Highness is still young, and it's not good to wean him too early."
“The Crown Prince is a man of his mind. If he doesn’t want to drink, then he won’t drink no matter what. Does the wet nurse have any good ideas? Can he drink cow’s milk or goat’s milk? Or should we let him eat with us? I see him making a fuss about wanting to eat.”
The wet nurse pondered for a moment, "His Highness is already a year and a half old, and in principle he can use cow's milk. How about this, I will express some breast milk every day and mix it with cow's milk to feed His Highness. He probably won't be able to tell that it's breast milk."
"At other times, Your Highness can have three meals a day. Whether it is breast milk or cow's milk, it can be used as a supplementary food. There is no need to eat it three times a day."
Banban breathed a sigh of relief. "Then we'll have to trouble the wet nurse. If the Crown Prince eats well, the King and I will reward you again."
Ying Zheng leaned to one side, pretending to read a book; he didn't want to interrupt on this topic.
He only put down his book after the wet nurse left.
“I think he’s trying to act like an adult and compete with Han Fei,” he said.
My son is too smart; I always have to consider whether it's better to go along with him or to correct him.
Since Han Fei asked Zhao'er to pay tuition and formally become his disciple, it meant he intended to teach him seriously.
The next day, Banban carefully prepared ten strips of dried meat, tied them together with red string, and packed the remaining gold ingots and land deeds separately. He carried the box containing the land deeds himself, while the rest were handed over to the eunuch and the wet nurse.
After getting everything ready, I woke Zhao'er up early in the morning and helped him get dressed, wash up, and have breakfast. I patted his little face and said, "Go find your teacher. Be sure to treat him with respect. He came all the way from Han to Qin to teach you. He's all alone and he's only close to you."
Zhao'er blinked slowly, understood for a while, nodded vigorously, and shook the box in her hand, "Mom, bye-bye!"
The word 'bye-bye' was learned by Zhao'er from her. Ying Zheng would occasionally do it on purpose, and hearing the father and son say goodbye was adorably incongruous.
Before he could even walk steadily, he was already thinking about running, his thick, black hair swaying back and forth.
The happier they were when they left, the more miserable they were when they returned at noon.
Upon asking, Banban learned that Han Fei had come up to him and started teaching him some difficult questions without explaining them to him. He couldn't answer them, let alone understand them. Every time this happened, Han Fei would use the same words Han Fei used to insult others to criticize him, simply calling him a fool. He said this more than ten times that morning, which deeply hurt the little prince.
When Ying Zheng heard about this, he laughed and tossed the naphthalene fruit into the air and caught it. He pointed at him and said, "It's good to curb his arrogance. You can't bear to scold him." He couldn't scold him either. He had heard the word "idiot" from his father. He himself was like that. How could his child believe him if he didn't set a good example?
Banban kicked his foot, then turned to coax the child, "Then we won't go this afternoon, okay?"
Zhao'er sobbed, hesitated slightly, and remained silent out of reluctance.
"What is there that you don't know? Come and ask your father." Ying Zheng grabbed his son by the collar and pulled him in front of him.
Zhao'er did ask, and when he opened his mouth, he uttered a long sentence in a jumbled mess, his words sounding like a string of paste, and he even drooled as he spoke.
Ying Zheng: "..." Silently put the child down and took a handkerchief to wipe his hands.
"Did you understand what he said?" Banban asked hesitantly.
Ying Zheng: "...No."
So there's a reason why this child doesn't like to speak in long sentences. He can pronounce short sentences accurately, but if they're a little longer, his mouth just seems to go out of control.
Zhao'er got angry, "Ahhh!"
"If your own mouth is useless, then don't get angry with others." Ying Zheng glanced at him, then pondered, "It's time to find a study companion."
The fact that the Crown Prince of Qin began seeking out a tutor at the age of one and a half to prepare for his studies was astonishing anywhere. When the rulers of the other states learned of this, all they could do was scoff and insult him: "What are you pretending for?!"
Is your son really that smart?
Banban said dejectedly, "Luckily, Geng'er is already grown up. Otherwise, I would be worried that he would lead Zhao'er astray if he were to be his study companion."
Ying Zheng pondered the matter for a whole night, and the next day he chose someone: Meng Huan.
Meng Huan is Meng Tian's eldest son, and he is four years old this year.
Banban pouted: "I think my cousin favors the Meng family, especially Meng Tian."
"What's wrong with Meng Tian?" Ying Zheng asked in return.
"..." Banban stubbornly replied, "How would I know?" After thinking it over carefully, she realized that only Meng Tian's eldest son was the most suitable, so she felt relieved and said, "Then let's go with him."
As she spoke, she suddenly remembered someone, "Cousin, Mr. Ji Hao's son must be all grown up by now, right?"
Ying Zheng nodded. "His name is Ji Wushi, and he must be sixteen this year."
"Has he ever been married? We even attended his full-moon celebration back then."
"You want to act as a matchmaker for him?"
"That's not it. It's just that he's Mr. Ji Hao's son, and he probably has some talent. It would be a pity if he wasted his time in Qin."
Ying Zheng remained silent for a moment, then comforted him, "I have already sent people to observe him. If he is capable, I will not let him go to waste."
Noticing the strange pause in her cousin's words, Banban felt a slight sense of doubt. "What's wrong?"
Ying Zheng sighed, took her hand and placed it on his lap, "After Lü Buwei was dismissed, Ji Wushi's protests were the loudest. Lü Buwei had been kind to him and the Xue family, and he had recognized Lü Buwei as his adoptive father in his early years..."
With just a few words, Banban understood his meaning and fell silent.
"But it was the late king and my cousin who instructed Lü Buwei to treat them well back then. Otherwise, why would Lü Buwei meddle in this matter? Doesn't he know right from wrong?"
Lü Buwei was indeed talented, and Ji Wushi may well have been impressed by him.
"Not killing him is already out of respect for the late Mr. Ji Hao. There are some rumors in Shu that Lü Buwei did not really commit suicide by poison, but that I poisoned him with wine. Ji Wushi probably believes it."
Furthermore, Ji Hao's death was to protect the Queen's maternal family. No matter how you look at it, it was Ying Zheng and Banban who wronged Ji Hao's family.
Her biological father died for the King and Queen of Qin, and she felt the same way about her adoptive father.
Banban felt uncomfortable hearing these words; a lump formed in her throat, leaving her feeling neither able to swallow nor let go.
After a long pause, she said sadly, "It's Zhao's fault."
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Author's Note: This chapter is an extra chapter for 13,000 nutrient solutions!
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