"Wife, I want to eat meat” 《娘子，我要吃肉》Chapter 72

The crown prince didn’t actually go very far in his month’s travel, after all he stopped over at Zhuozhou for a few days, he barely reached Wanyan city and stayed for a day before he returned.

Wanyan city was the annexed territory of the Zhao Prince, Zhao Princess was the empress’ older sister, what more the young princess was the beloved person of the Zhao Prince. This time the crown prince didn’t do anything, only when he left he swindled the young princess to the Imperial city, the Zhao Prince chased after the two children for two days, ultimately the young princess kicked up a fuss and rolled around on the ground stubbornly wanting to go and play with older brother crown prince outside, with a hardened heart abandoning the aged and weak Zhao Prince, following after the crown prince this beautiful boy.

For this reason, the Zhao Prince swore to raise his son from his first wife to become the number one beautiful man in the country, keeping his daughter who ran around outside all day long within his territory.

The Zhao Princess Xia Chu Zhi returned to the official residence with great difficulty, naturally she wouldn’t abandon her husband and son like the year before to run away with her daughter, as a result she temporarily forced down her restless heart, concentrating her thoughts and efforts on staying at home and helping her husband and educating her child, deciding to first weaken the enemy’s vigilance, then plan to make a move.

Therefore, when Xia Fen had just returned home he saw the crown prince like the fortune boy sitting below the Guanyin and the young princess standing at the gates, and the crown prince stood with a badly beaten Nu Ju under his foot, and the young princess single-handedly holding the powerless Bai Shu, the two tiny evil tyrants raised their heads at Xia Fen: “Little leopard, come down, fight with us.”

One was the biggest tyrant in the Imperial city the crown prince, one was a famous fierce girl of Wanyan city the young princess, they were people who could make anyone who was solely picked out in the young generation of Dayan to tremble with fear and wet themselves, right now they joined forces to become one force, deciding to extinguish the little leopard’s might, bring the two tyrants’ evil reputation even higher. The two of them had a lot of companions behind them, eunuchs, maids, old women all had their heads lowered, very calm and collected.

Xia Ling Mei’s carriage at the city gates had long ago been separated from Wang Yun Feng, she had sneakily left home, naturally she couldn’t come back with Wang Yun Feng, she could only switch to a carriage arranged by the old housekeeper by herself and enter from the side door, and Wang Yun Feng went to the main entrance with his son.

Xia Fen heard the declaration of war, the whiff of a fight burned into a raging inferno, as he was just about to jump from the horse, beating the two sworn enemies until tears and mucus overflowed, he had already at an earlier time received news that Wang Yun Feng had already come out, after greeting the crown prince, with a cold smile he asked: “The crown prince came to find my son to fight?”

The crown prince pulling along the young princess with great heroism returned the greeting, head high, chest out he said: “That’s right, this crown prince has already waited for quite a long time for this fight today, there ought to be an end to the grudges between Xia Fen and I.”

Wang Yun Feng nodded: “Indeed it ought to end. However, since it’s a competition, you 

ought to first choose a good place, invite a moral referee to judge, and have your parents attend to watch the fight, as well as a certain number of spectators, after both sides signs a life or death agreement…”

The crown prince `ah` once: “Parents attend?”

“Correct! The competition can be split into a literary competition, and can be a martial art competition. No matter what type of competition it is, its result can allow the emperor and empress to fully understand the depth of the crown prince’s education.”

The crown prince face soured: “Father emperor needs to deal with the court’s politics, mother empress will not rashly leave the palace.”

“Then,” Wang Yun Feng sighed, “is truly such a pity.” His expression basically didn’t show regret, instead it showed a bit of…relaxation!?

Wang Yun Feng again turned to the young princess, “Then the Zhao Prince and Zhao Princess…”

The young princess opened her mouth wide: “Mother imperial concubine has never known I fight, if father prince knew I lost, he will, he will punish me to embroider, boo hoo.” 

Embroidering and what not, was too cruel, too terrifying, too inhuman.

Wang Yun Feng showed great sympathy: “Such a pity.” Ah, this time he expressed true pity. It was such a pity to not be able to see the young princess be punished, that ought to make people so happy.

The big bad wolf in a loyal dog’s clothing wagged its tail, very calmly extinguishing the violent thoughts from the source, then holding Xia Fen by the back of his collar, to the dejected two castrated young tyrants he said: “Since the two of you are here, why not come into the residence and have some tea.”

Only when he was holding a cup of tea, did the crown prince return to his senses and mutter: “Lord Wang, you are simply an adult bullying the young, deceiving us right?”

Wang Yun Feng blew on the surface of the tea once, smiling gently: “How can it be. If the crown prince can really invite the emperor and empress to watch the competition, this Wang would allow Fen Er to exchange a few blows with you.”

The crown prince was a person who didn’t give up easily, every few days he would bring the young princess with him, sometimes he would even bring the empress’ first daughter Princess Ling to come and find Xia Fen to `chat`.

Because it was close to new year, the academy was on holiday. Xia Fen had been away from the academy for too long, there wasn’t time for him to participate in the exams, Wang Yun Feng specially took him to see the academy’s headmaster. Under the fixed gaze of two cold faced people, Xia Fen placed third in martial arts, third from the bottom for literary test, after he came back, it was impossible for him to sit on his bottom for three days. For this reason, His Highness the crown prince rejoicing in his misfortune would come to the Wang residence every day holding a book, shaking his head in front of Xia Fen writing characters and studying, then like a villain he made Wang Yun Feng personally check his work, several times it caused Xia Fen so much hate he almost directly beat the crown prince up.

It was hard to come by for the young princess to comfort Xia Fen: “Actually you are much better than me, you’re third from the bottom up, I’m tenth from the bottom up, in this aspect, I should call you elder brother.”

Eavesdropping the conversation Xiao Bai ran to Hei Zi with cheeks streaming with tears: “What is actually better third or tenth?”

“Of course it’s third.”

“Then if it’s from the bottom up?”

“En, it’s still third.”

Xiao Bai got emotional, Xiao Bai ran to Juan Shu to solve the issue.

Juan Shu tweaked his ears and scratched his cheeks for a while, suddenly realising he said: “Maybe, it’s because the young master’s name is no good. If his name was like mine filled with literary reputation, ink stick, just hearing it you’ll know I have self-restraint and talent…”

Xiao Bai repeatedly spoke Juan Shu’s name several times: “There isn’t anything different, Hei Zi’s name flows right off the tongue.”

Juan Shu lifted the brush pot in the study and hit Xiao Bai’s body: “What do you know! A xiao bai,[1] actually dare to look down on me! What’s good about Hei Zi, he’s not as good as Bai Yan!”

Consequently, the passing Bai Yan glanced at the two people with extreme distaste: “The young master studied little, naturally his exam would not be good. This has nothing to do with his name.” Again rubbing his jaw, “Perhaps, the young master because of proximity to certain influences, he’s been living with you group of illiterates for too long, naturally he has also become illiterate.”

“You’re the illiterate one!” Juan Shu and Xiao Bai flew into rage out of humiliation, one after another picking up things to throw at Bai Yan.

In the Wang family, there were no illiterates, absolutely!

When it was twenty-forth of December, it unexpectedly snowed a little, this was the first snow of the winter, and was the first time Xia Fen saw snow. This person who was born on the seaside, a child who grew up in the sea water it was the first time he saw such a sparkling and translucent yet pure and limpid thing, he was so happy he rolled about in the snow.

Early in the morning Xia Ling Mei had already sat in the main hall, organising everyone to clean and sanitise. Wu Sheng and Kong Xian had also come, raising their own arms to lend a hand in the huge clean up. Every family and every household were busy, the crown prince and the young princess couldn’t stay in the palace, they ran here to find Xia Fen. At this sort of time, there weren’t many people surrounding them to serve them, Xia Ling Mei had closed off Xia Fen’s courtyard, allowing the three children to play inside, only sending a few young maids and old maids to wait on them, repeatedly urging them to not run off anywhere to play.

Xia Fen had his own private room to practice martial arts, it was deliberately constructed for him by Wang Yun Feng, the room wasn’t big, it could hold up to twenty children rolling around and wrestling inside it, on the walls hung the weapons Xia Fen had brought back from Zhuozhou,.

They were so happy, each of them picked out a weapon to exchange blows with each other. The weapons were blunt, untouched by blood. The three of them were forced by the old maids to change into specially sewn practice garments, wearing bamboo woven with leather helmets, knees, wrists, stomach, waist and back were protected by furs, in between the layers even more cotton were used. The young princess even didn’t want to wear a skirt, wearing boy’s clothes, she picked a long sword brandishing it as she advanced towards Xia Fen.

Xia Fen endured the beating, the young maids keeping watch at the side cupped their little cheeks in their hands and together screeched in alarm; the crown prince fell, the old maids wept bitter tears as if it had happened to themselves, calling for their ancestors and calling for Guanyin; when the young princess was hit that she leaned unsteadily from side to side, the group of spectators calmly chatted. Ah, the young princess had rough skin and thick flesh, when she was at the Xia residence was beaten quite a lot, now wrapped up in layers upon layers even if she was beaten even more she wouldn’t feel pain, it’s fine, it’s fine.

What’s more, the young princess was a monkey, have you seen a monkey scared to be beaten? It was more of a blessing if she didn’t beat up someone.

Ah, ah, ah, the back of the young master’s leg is being stepped on by the young princess! Young princess you’re the worse, how can you bully our young master = =

A fierce battle played out carefree and uninhibited, when Xia Ling Mei opened the room door to call them out to eat, she saw three small beasts tired to the point of lying on the floor, crying out in pain.

The insanely angry Xia Ling Mei punished them to copy from a book in the afternoon, if they didn’t finish copying they couldn’t sleep, and very wickedly tied their hair up to hang from the roof beam, their head suspended by the beam only strings were missing.

The crown prince has grown to this age, he has copied memorials to the emperor, copied scriptures, copied legal codes, but he has never copied the <Family Rules>. It couldn’t be not said, it proved itself to be the residence of imperial censor Wang, the fixed framework of the family’s rules, there was a system of strict punishment for every wrong, from the smallest thing of dropping your chopsticks while eating, to the big thing of you taking advantage of your position to bully people and take liberties with a woman from an ordinary family, so long as you make a mistake, you will be punished that bitter tears will stream down your cheeks, only itching to throw yourself into the world for the interest of others, but also absolutely do not reincarnate into the Wang family = =

Recently Xia Fen had been together with his father, he had already at an earlier time been used to being punished a lot, holding a writing brush in each hand he wrote at a tremendous speed, that speed; the young princess following at the Zhao Princess’s side, every time she caused trouble she had to copy books and write characters, she also easily took on the task, even her mouth could hold a writing brush to make another copy; only His highness the crown prince, sincerely and honestly sitting upright with his writing brush perfectly straight holding this never seen before thousands of words <Family Rules>, inside him tens of thousands of beasts ran violently past, outwardly he still held one writing bush in one hand and one piece of paper, one stroke one line…

Copy, copy, copy!

Boo hoo, father emperor, I ought to listen to you, I should have soon realised Lord Wang is that wolf in sheep’s clothing! His whole family are beasts, not only the big bully the small but also a family that likes to treat as guilty those associated with an offender, it was too loathsome.

The new year came step by step, when the crown prince’s hair was falling out, Xia Fen was learning by heart, the young princess was embroidering.

The day before the last day of the new year, the emperor threw a banquet, inviting to the officials in the court to enjoy and celebrate together.

For the first time Wang Yun Feng brought his first wife and son, through the gates of the palace.

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[1] Idiot.