Chapter 140: No escape
“What’s your name? My name is Mo Feng. I’m ten years old. Before asking someone else’s name, you should declare your own first. I know the rules.”
“…Liu Yusheng, sixteen years old.” Liu Yusheng was in between tears and laughter. Why was this half grown boy here?
“Oh,” the boy nodded. “You’re a few years older than me. I should call you Sister Liu. No, I have to call you Aunt Liu.”
If he dared to call her sister, his uncle might chop him up. He was a younger generation, right?
“…” Liu Yusheng decided that she didn’t want to talk to this little kid.
How could she be an aunt?
“Where do you live? I’m living here, but both my parents are dead, so I usually live alone.”
“Who are the people in your family? Are they treating you well? There’s no one left in my family, just an uncle, and he doesn’t care much about me.”
“Do you have any brothers or sisters? Will they take you out to play? It would be lonely if they don’t. Like me, I never had anyone to play with.”
Every time the boy asked a question, he would automatically share his current status on the issue. It was probably a firm adherence to his so-called “rules”.
At first, Liu Yusheng just sat there and listened to the boy’s monologue on the windowsill, but as she listened, she felt a little pity for him.
He seemed to be very talkative, because no one usually talked to him.
And if he could enter the guest house without being stopped, he must belong to this house.
“Why aren’t you answering me? That’s rude, you know? How can you do this when I’ve shared to you everything I have!” The boy frowned in annoyance.
Liu Yusheng poured two cups of water and walked to the window sill. She handed one to the teenager and drank one herself.
“You must be thirsty after talking for so long. Drink a mouthful of water to moisten your throat.”
“…” The boy took the cup of water and drank it all. His throat felt indeed much more comfortable.
“Do you want to know about my family?” Leaning against the window sill and looking across the window from the boy, Liu Yusheng smiled, “There’s too much to say and it probably won’t be finished for three days and three nights. Are you sure you want to listen?”
“Of course I do! You talk, I listen.”
“Okay, I’ll start then. Have you ever heard of Xinghua Village? A beautiful place where the people are extremely nice, hardworking, simple, and kind. It is also where the winery that is famous for its Xinghua fruit wine is…”
The young woman’s voice was very clear, and her speech was neither fast nor slow, with a kind of soft tail tone, which was pleasant to the ears.
The boy listened and became fascinated.
The next moment, the clear and gentle tone of the young girl’s voice filled the guest house, as well as the occasional scream of the boy.
“Whoa! Your grandfather is so old yet still climbs trees to pick fruit?”
“Gee, your grandmother is too powerful. She can keep hitting people with a broom!”
“How could your father be so stupid as to throw the farming tools to your second uncle so he could hug you?”
T/N: The Lu’s escapades are perfect for nighttime stories… It’s really enjoyable listening to some elders telling their stories around the fire…
“The same is true for your second uncle. He leaves an opening during a brawl. Let me tell you. When I was eight years old, I knocked out three strong men at once!”
Wei Zi felt that he had come at a bad time. The story was so passionately told that the boy got utterly absorbed in it. He simply couldn’t butt in there to interrupt.
But if he didn’t go in and call him, she probably wouldn’t finish the story even after dark.
By then, his master’s face would be darker than the sky.
“Young Master, it’s time to go back.” It was time to take his medicine.
The boy stiffened. He obviously understood why Wei Zi appeared. His imperial uncle must have already known that he was here.
He reluctantly stood up straight, and walked back towards Wei Zi while instructing, “Auntie Liu, the story is not finished yet. Take note and continue tomorrow!”
Aunt Liu’s quiet face was drawn. “I’m not free tomorrow. I have to attend a convention. I’ll tell you about it when I’m free.”
She recognized the man who came to summon him. He was the attendant who followed Feng Qingbai’s side.
It was only when the two men left together at the entrance of the courtyard that Liu Yusheng slowly figured it out.
A ten-year-old boy with Feng Qingbai; Mo Feng, who was an orphan, lived alone, with only one uncle.
…Feng Mohan.
She spent the afternoon telling stories to the current young emperor.
Liu Yusheng bumped the window with her forehead. “Holy crap!”
In the inner courtyard, the boy returned to his study and drank his medicine, then sat opposite Feng Qingbai, waiting conscientiously for his instructions.
He sneaked out on his own, and with his imperial uncle’s particularly harsh temperament towards him, punishment was no escape.
The man sitting across from him, however, quietly flipped through the scrolls in his hands, and didn’t say anything at all.
What did this…mean?
Was he letting him off the hook?
Biting the corner of his lip, the boy cautiously probed, “Uncle, I went for a stroll in the courtyard in the morning and met an…aunt named Liu Yusheng.”
After saying the word “aunt”, the young master purposely focused on the man’s expression, trying to detect his emotions.
He turned a page, silent, quiet, expressionless.
He couldn’t tell if he heard him.
But at least he wasn’t told to shut up, nor was he punished.
The boy grew a little bolder, “Aunt Liu talked to me and told me a lot of things about her family. She said her family is in Xinghua Village, a beautiful village …”
In order to survive, the boy copied almost word for word what the woman had said, not missing a single pause.
After speaking, his mouth was dry. He poured a cup of water to moisten his throat, when the man spoke up.
The voice was shallow and faint, without any fluctuations, “Go back to your room and copy the Analects of Confucius, Yan Hui’s Volume 6, a hundred times, and turn it first thing tomorrow.”
“…” The man raised his eyes, “Now.” The young man shooed down the glass of water that had been brought to his mouth.
The man raised his eyes, “Now.”
The boy shooed down the cup of water that was a hairbreadth away from his mouth and fled back into the house. He didn’t dare take a sip.
Wei Zi stood outside the door, looking steadily forward.
Before he went to the guest house to call the boy, Wei Bai once came to report, “When His Majesty passed by, Miss Liu, was resting. His Majesty watched through the window for a long time and said that she isn’t very beautiful, then Miss Liu woke up and gave him a cup of water…”
The emperor was punished, and he didn’t feel surprised at all. He could never escape.
In his bedroom, the young man who opened the copy of the Analects of Confucius, finally knew why he was still punished when read Yan Hui’s chapter on benevolence!
— Confucius said: See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil, do no evil.
…
There was definitely something going on between his uncle and Aunt Liu! If he got it wrong, he would give up the
throne immediately!
He copied until dark with resentment, feeling that his wrist was about to be broken. The boy counted and wrote only forty times. He had to write a hundred times before he could go to bed in the middle of the night, and that was without eating, bathing or using the toilet.
The boy gritted his teeth and put down his brush, his desire to survive making him make a decision.
Knock, knock, knock – a soft knock sounded on the study door.
“Enter.”
The boy walked gently to the desk, looked at the man who was annotating some documents, and then said, “Uncle, Auntie Liu said that she will attend the convention tomorrow. I have never seen it before. I’d like Aunt Liu to take me there with her, can I?”