spoiled brat

Chapter 70, Section 69: Xiu Ning (Nine)

Zhao Zhao heard the sharp tone in Jinlian's voice and knew that Jinlian considered her an adversary. Zhao Zhao remained silent, picked a nearby chair and sat down. The thin maid said, "Please wait a moment, sir. The master is in the study comforting Lord Li's children. He'll be here shortly." Then she left.

The dining hall fell silent, filled with the cloying smell of food and wine. Jinlian, bored, began to recount how Xu Feng had pampered her the previous night, which reminded Zhaozhao of unpleasant memories.

Looking at Jinlian's smug face, Zhaozhao asked, "Did Lord Xu recite poems to you? Did he compose couplets with you?"

Jinlian paused for a moment, then immediately replied, "Of course that's right!"

"A valiant man with a three-foot sword at his waist?" Zhao Zhao recalled that when Xu Feng recited this poem, he would spread his legs, trying to show off the sharp point, but only revealing his belly full of fat. She laughed and said, "A daughter has two piles of snow on her chest?"

Jinlian frowned: "How did you know?"

That old geezer only knows those two phrases.

As Zhao Zhao was inwardly grumbling, there was a knock on the dining hall door. A servant outside asked, "Which of you two young ladies was the one who played the pipa last night? And which one has the small feet?"

Zhao Zhao and Jinlian responded together, but their voices were mixed together and could not be heard clearly.

"The girl playing the pipa went back into the house, and came out with me with her small feet."

Zhao Zhao asked in confusion, "Didn't Master tell us to wait here?"

The servant said, "The young master has arrived. The master has set up another table in the pavilion, so he won't be coming here."

Has Xiu Yi arrived?
Jinlian got up and was about to turn and walk out when suddenly there was a thud on her head, and she fainted. Zhaozhao caught her and prevented her from falling to the ground.

The servant outside the door heard the sound of a pipa string vibrating wildly and asked in confusion, "What's wrong?"

Zhao Zhao calmly replied, "It's nothing, she just dropped her pipa."

With that, Zhao Zhao deftly helped Jinlian to a carved chair, had her hold her pipa and sit with her back to the door, then calmly opened the door and said to the servant, "Let's go."

The servant felt something was off about the thud he'd just heard. He peered inside and saw only the back of a girl holding a pipa, who seemed to be sulking because she'd been ignored. He looked away and glanced at Zhao Zhao's feet under her skirt. They were small; she was definitely a girl with small feet.

He waved his hand: "Let's go."

-

"Fallen petals float on the water, small plums clump on the branches. Who has captured their fading beauty these days? Spring brought sorrow with it, and now that spring has gone, why does sorrow linger?"

At the lakeside pavilion, Xu Feng set up a table of food and wine and invited several singing girls, putting on a very good show that Xiu Yi could not find fault with.

"Your Highness, I apologize for my poor hospitality last night, please don't take offense..." Xu Feng said with a forced smile as he poured wine for Xiu Yi: "What brings you to my humble abode today?"

Xiu Yi disliked the wine that had passed through his hands, finding it dirty, and refused to drink it: "Regarding Wang Tian."

Granting land to princes is an ancestral law. His family had only moved here a month or two ago and hadn't had time to claim their land yet. Xu Feng laughed, "Didn't the prince establish a military farm in the desolate northern suburbs?"

"Not enough." Xiu Yi tapped the sandalwood table lightly with his ringed hand, making a soft thud. "When does Lord Xu plan to allocate the ten thousand hectares of fertile land promised by His Majesty?"

Xu Feng stopped laughing. You Ming, that good-for-nothing, failed in his dirty work and alerted the Ning Prince's Mansion, which immediately started demanding land: "Young Master, you don't know this, Yunzhou is small and has little farmland. Ten thousand hectares is indeed a bit too much..."

"Then why don't you submit an imperial edict to His Majesty, ordering him to reduce the amount of royal land?"

Xu Feng was a seasoned official, so how could he not understand the emperor's intentions? Yunzhou is mountainous and watery, and the total farmland is only a little over 20,000 hectares. If the Prince of Ning wanted 10,000 hectares of royal land, he would have to snatch it from the officials and gentry. To put it bluntly, it meant that the emperor was not going to give it to them.

He smiled and decided to stall: "It won't come to that. Your Highness is the Emperor's own brother, born of the same mother. The Emperor is lenient towards his brother, so how could I not cooperate? Rest assured, I will definitely take care of this matter for you before the end of the year."

Xiu Yi knew exactly what trick he was playing and said calmly, "Lord Xu, did you sleep well last night?"

The question seemed absurd. Xu Feng's mind raced for a moment before he remembered that last night, in the dark, he had secretly slipped a fake to them, disgusting the two siblings. He chuckled, "With a beauty in my arms, it's natural to sleep well."

Xiu Yi glanced at the sky; it was noon. He took his first sip of wine since the meal was served, seemingly in a good mood: "A few days ago, I interrogated two of Lord You's trusted confidants. Aren't you curious about what they said before they died?"

With his wife and children in You Ming's hands, Xu Feng didn't believe these lackeys would dare to utter a single word. He laughed and said, "What's so curious about the words of a dead man?"

Just then, two people hurriedly ran along the covered bridge. Xu Feng took a closer look and realized that they were not the servants and Jinlian who had been sent to deliver the message, but two minor officials in charge of the government granary.

Xu Feng's heart skipped a beat. Oh no! Sure enough, the two minor officials ran out of the pavilion with crestfallen faces. Without even looking at who was sitting opposite Xu Feng, they burst into tears: "Sir! The official granary in the west of the city has been robbed by bandits!"

Xu Feng asked urgently, "What happened?"

"There was a traitor among the soldiers guarding the granary. He drugged the well water, rendering most of them unconscious! He also opened the gates and let the bandits into the granary, allowing them to plunder all our grain!"

Xu Feng, who had been standing, suddenly slumped back into his chair, his face ashen.

Xiu Yi put down his wine and said casually, "They said that You Ming ordered them to use the name of the Prince of Ning's Mansion to seize land from ordinary people."

Xu Feng was so angry that his whole body was trembling with fat, so this little beast is now doing bandit-like things, robbing the imperial court's grain!
"Your Highness," Xu Feng said through gritted teeth, "I saw you come empty-handed last night, I didn't expect you to have brought a gift."

The two singing girls inside the pavilion, oblivious to the situation, continued singing: "Too lazy to light the precious lamp, too lazy to burn the incense... I'll just get through tonight, afraid that tomorrow will come. I'll ponder this calamity, when will it come, when will it end... I'm afraid the mourners will have just left, and the messengers will arrive with the bad news..."

"what!"

One of them couldn't dodge in time and was hit squarely on the head, immediately collapsing unconscious in the arms of the other singer. The singer checked her sister's breathing and said in a panic, "She's not breathing..." Before she could even start to cry, two servants came up and covered her mouth, dragging the two, one dead and one alive, out.

Outside the pavilion, the two minor officials who came to report were trembling like leaves, shaking with fear. Xu Feng looked at the two men and then noticed that two more people were kneeling below, one a servant and the other a young lady.

"You all step back first," Xu Feng said. "You stay."

Who will leave, and who will stay?
The four people outside the pavilion looked at each other in bewilderment.