"Wife, I want to eat meat” 《娘子，我要吃肉》Chapter 76

T/N: SURPRISE!!! 

I decided as a thank you for supporting my blog, whether you stumbled across it accidentally, or was following my previous translations, to translate one chapter per day until the end of this novel (which is Chapter 80)

This means the final chapter will be on Saturday as a usual update! 

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To be honest, recently doubt was buried in Wang Zi Feng’s heart, considering whether he should ask.

If it was before, he definitely would say whatever he wanted. A man, open-hearted, what can he not say, what can he not ask.

Fortunately, each and every person by his side were men with extensive experience, even his personal child companions young Bai Shu and young Nu Ju had their own secrets. Ah, excluding Nu Ju, that youngster was even more stupid than him.

The crown prince and young princess taught him before, the more secrets someone has the quicker they grow up, and even more powerful. Therefore, without possible excuse, Wang Zi Feng had a secret, moreover he was still pondering whether he should keep this secret a secret.

He worried for over ten days over this secret, until the crown prince and young princess unexpectedly appeared at the Wang residence, trying in vain to coax him to leave.

“Why have you come just now?”

“You think this young princess didn’t want to come?” The young princess whined loudly, a bellyful of resentment: “the imperial concubines in the rear court are too hateful, if they’re not avoiding my playing as if a cow was being tickled, then they would tease my embroidered mandarin duck is a duck, and say in the future I won’t be able to find a husband. Humph, who says a woman has to marry! My Lord father said, as long as I want, I don’t have to marry anyone, if I see a young man that is talented and handsome, I can just marry that person into the family.”

Wang Zi Feng did not understand the business between men and women, he only knew the young princess was the hero amongst the girls at Bailu academy, a strong figure he had decided was exactly like him. A strong person’s thinking did not need to be understood by anyone else, they only need to sympathise with others.

The crown prince was already calmly flipping through the copybook Wang Zi Feng had recently transcribed, he couldn’t help admit, there was a lot of power in the characters written by this young leopard, had the shadow of a not yet mature excellent penmanship, supposedly someday he would definitely exceed others, becoming exceedingly imposing.

These last few days the crown prince had also been shut inside the palace, seized by the emperor every day to read through the memorials to the emperor to evaluate them, listen to the court councillors discuss politics, occasionally asking him for his opinion. Young children did not understand to accept a compromise, and does not know about the knife above the word endure, as the crown prince he liked the powerful army and happy to talk idly about important matters. Perhaps the emperor wanted to start disciplining the crown prince’s temper, the praises he used to always give the crown prince rarely appeared, in contrast, rather he began to repeatedly analyse the current state of the country with the crown prince, the circumstances of the people and elements of a success or failure of war, make him confront all the court councillor generals together, victory in `a battlefield of words in a debate`. The crown prince was totally refuted by the group of officials, his self-confidence over and over trampled under their foot, teased by people secretly and examined, bitterly he couldn’t help say.

“Father emperor is too hateful.” After the crown prince prattled to the two people, he said this with a sigh.

The young princess clenched her fists: “That’s right, adults are so hateful.”

Wang Zi Feng thought about his secret, and deeply expressed his agreement: “They are wolves in sheep’s clothing, moreover they like to lie to people.”

The crown prince and young princess was interested: “What did Lord Wang lie to you about?”

Wang Zi Feng’s tiny fist banged on the table: “He’s always busy hiding in the house with mother, saying he’s making a younger brother or sister for me. But it’s been so many days, I haven’t seen my younger brother or sister come out. He lied to me.”

“He also won’t allow me to go find my mother, saying I’ll disturb my mother’s rest. And force me to learn by heart, saying the more I study, the quicker my younger brother or sister will come out. Even more make me practice writing characters, saying the more words I write, later the more clever my younger brother or sister will be…”

The crown prince stroked his chin, pondering he said: “When mother gave birth to younger sister, father never said these things to me.”

The young princess also puffed out her cheeks thinking about it for a while: “When my Imperial mother had my younger brother in her belly, Prince father also didn’t say these things.”

The two spoke together in chorus: “Lord Wang is a liar.”

“Right!” Wang Zi Feng agreed, thinking about it again: “Then when will my younger brother or sister be born? How do they get out from my mother’s stomach?”

The young princess laughed as she raised her hand: “This Prince father has said before, he said I came out of Imperial mother’s armpit.”

“Ah, this crown prince hung on Empress mother’s waist for ten months, naturally having grown I fell to the ground.”

Wang Zi Feng was even more furious, incessantly pounding on the table: “My father said I made my way out from the sole of mother’s feet.”

“Lord Wang is so bad!” The two other felt indignant at the injustice, however you think of it, armpit and waist were better than the sole of one’s feet!

“Such a bad daddy, don’t pay any attention to him, we’ll go out and play.” The young princess started to steer the well-behaved child.

Wang Zi Feng almost immediately threw the writing brush: “Let’s go, I know a dog’s entrance, we can climb out.”

The crown prince like an explosive chestnut hit him on the head: “We’ll climb the walls!”

The young princess shook her head: “My Prince father said, climbing walls is a skill.”

Regardless if it’s a skill that is very troublesome, the three brats acted together outside of the imperial palace’s forbidden guards, they swung their way out.

Truthfully they’ve played many times outside the palace, they already long ago knew the things they ought to see or do. Only they kept on thinking about that lion from that day, in the end they exhausted all their ideas to get their hands on it. The crown prince even deliberately sent people to ask, Zhuang Hei Zi said that unusual animal had already been escorted out at an earlier time, in any case it was someone else’s goods, sending it off as soon as possible to report back for money, there was no reason to keep it all along.

However, there were always all sorts of novel things in the hired bodyguards office, every few days the three children would go look around once, despising and sneering, then dribbling drool they would agree to come again next time. Over time, the people at the hired bodyguards office knew the second manager had three little friends, seeing them they no longer stopped them. Only it was very strange, every time they went to find Zhuang Hei Zi, the bossy young woman of that hired bodyguards office manager Lady Luo Luo would always follow by their side, extremely tense yet could not be chased away with abuse.

A month passed in this free and unfettered manner, at the beginning of February Bailu academy once again started, the students one by one rushed over from all directions of Dayan.

Wang Yun Feng always worried that Wang Zi Feng would be teased by others because he was no good at studying, every day after school he would wait for him to come back and personally teach him. The contents that the teacher taught that day, Wang Zi Feng did not care whether he understood it or not, Wang Yun Feng broke down the important things to explain to him one more time. The difference was, there was plenty of word-by-word reading and plenty of quoting chapters and verses with the lectures at the academy, different from lecturing. Wang Zi Feng was only interested in fighting and war, he did not like hearing about those bookish scholars. Wang Yun Feng cleverly changed those classical stories, changing them to stories about generals in barracks, or use the matters of Jianghu heroes to guide, and actually changed those bookish stories to glint and flash of cold steel and unfolding on a magnificent scale. Then understand the content of the textbook via comprehensive study, allowing Wang Zi Feng to deduce many things from one case, it was rather effective.

It had to be said, even though Wang Zi Feng was very obsessed with his younger brother or sister, he felt Wang Yun Feng lied to him, but with regard to studying, Wang Yun Feng was even more reliable compared to those teachers, and made him admire him even more, thinking that his father as a scholar without the stress to truss a chicken, was really amazing knowing so many stories about battles. Truthfully, what he didn’t know, many of the stories were revised by Wang Yun Feng.

Ah, such a kind-hearted lie!

April, the weather was gradually becoming delightful.

Xia Ling Mei took off her spring clothes, every day she started to have people support her to walk around a couple of times in the courtyard. Her tummy was soon seven months old, in the winter she still couldn’t feel it, switching over to thin clothes in the early summer then did she notice her stomach was fairly big. The physician afraid that she would suffer giving birth, repeatedly urged her to move around a few laps every day, it would be good for her body.

Wang Yun Feng left the residence too early every day to go to morning court, in the morning he would finish looking over the documents with his colleagues at the office, after drinking tea and chatted, he would hurriedly rush home to eat lunch. Then taking advantage of not having a break before lunch, he would support Xia Ling Mei to walk round twice in the courtyard, in the afternoon he would again go to the office, at night he would pick up his son from the academy to return home, the father and son gather, study and write in the study, after testing his knowledge they would wait for dinner, finally one on either side they went on a walk with Xia Ling Mei.

One day Wang Zi Feng could no longer bear it and asked his mother, whether he really was born from the sole of her foot, hearing this Xia Ling Mei poked her son’s head and laughed for a very long time. Wang Zi Feng sold out his father without the slightest hesitation, at that time Xia Ling Mei was just sitting on the couch underneath the willow tree, a green plum in her mouth, her son had just finished speaking, Xia Ling Mei from who knows where took out a long whip, beating Wang Yun Feng up.

Wang Yun Feng now all year round was swaying by the side of the fierce woman, he had long ago perfected the skill of being as lithe as a swallow, usually it’s very hard for him to learn. Xia Ling Mei thrashed twice her whip, lacking in strength, and not daring to harm the unborn child, both times the whip didn’t go wide, pointing her finger at Wang Yun Feng: “You stand still, allow me to thrash you for a bit before we speak again.”

The grand and stern faced Imperial censor Wang stared blankly for a long time, struggling between whether to be a slave to the wife or not be a slave to the wife for a long while, finally he said to his son who was taking joy in calamity and delight in his disaster: “Fen Er, dad is wrong. You weren’t born from the sole of your mother’s foot, you were drawn out from her coral whip.”

“Wang---- Yun---- Feng!” The tigress showed her complete power, unable to move, unable to run, unable to scold, simply throwing her arm, she pulled Wang Zi Feng to return to the house with her: “From today on, you can be with your son born from the coral whip!”

It wasn’t enough just returning home, at the same time she called out to Hei Zi: “Keep a watch on this house, don’t allow anyone from the Wang family to enter, for each one which comes give them a kick for me, if a pair arrives beat them both up.”

That night, Juan Shu and Xiao Bai helped Wang Yun Feng climb in over the wall, to fail eventually.

The second night, Xiao Bai lead Hei Zi away, Juan Shu sneakily opened the courtyard door to let Wang Yun Feng in, who knew the lock had been changed, still failing eventually.

The third night, the old housekeeper led the attack, saying he needed to report the account to the mistress, Wang Yun Feng changed into a disguise by Juan Shu attempted to follow, he was personally caught by Wang Zi Feng, expelled far away from the house, again failing eventually.

The forth night, Wang Zi Feng was practicing martial arts to one side, Xia Ling Mei was drinking warm tea in the pavilion, biting on some pastries, hearing her son ask: “Mother, where did I actually come from?”

“Of course you were born from your mother’s stomach ah!”

Wang Zi Feng was doubtful, putting his weapons he hugged his mother’s stomach and listened for a very long time, finally muttering: “Younger brother or sister why have you still not come out, if you won’t come out still, watermelons will be ripe.”

Xia Ling Mei stroked the top of her son’s hair, ai, guessing that when the child was born, watermelons maybe just ripe.

Unknowingly, it was soon Qingming[1].

Most large influential families moved around all year round, away from the main family for hundreds of thousands li, therefore when they settled down they would build an ancestral hall. The Wang clan leader had at an earlier time in March left to travel thousands of li with the older generation to the distant ancestral tomb, the females and younger generation also accompanied them. There were too many men who were officials or were studying, and would gather together at the ancestral hall to offer sacrifice at Qingming.

Xia Ling Mei was getting bigger, and several days ago Wang Zi Feng had taken Wang Zi Feng to offer sacrifice, the court was on a break during Qingming, the officials had five days vacation, Bailu academy also stopped its lessons. Just by chance the crown prince and the young princess came from the academy, just in time to see Wang Zi Feng just finish a beautiful fight, head high, chest out like a general returning victorious he strode over.

The crown prince laughed asking: “You stirred up trouble again?”

Wang Zi Feng said: “When did I, they were the ones who bullied me. Precisely when the teacher was repeating a lesson, the speed of my recitation was not as good as theirs, they talked about it continuously from morning to afternoon, and thought of a poem to make fun of me. If I don’t beat them up, they would still treat me as a soft shrimp.”

The crown prince laughed haha evilly, not speaking again. The three of them bringing with them a large group of bodyguards and companions wondered about unhurried to the Wang residence, there was non helping it, the crown prince and the young princess were not willing to return to the palace well-behaved to be tormented by the emperor and empress and imperial concubines in turn, therefore in the end they agreed by chance to first go and play for a bit at the Wang residence, causing so much disturbance to the point of impossibility before being driven away by Wang Yun Feng.

A lot of people wandered about the main street today, most wearing white clothing, following behind them servants carrying pigs and goats, obviously returning to offer sacrifice to their ancestors, and amongst these people, these three brats again by chance met Zhuang Hei Zi.

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[1] A festival to “sweep the tombs” and pay respect to ancestors.