Chapter 14#
“Leaving the Residence” Chapter Number: 7217940#
The next day, the fifteenth of the first month, was the Lantern Festival. It had been snowing since early morning, and the sky was hazy and gray.
Rong Yu’s mood felt weighed down by something as well, utterly gloomy.
Mo Shu brought over a bowl of sweet red bean paste yuanxiao, but Rong Yu only ate one. Chu Tan gobbled down the rest. Mo Shu glared at him the whole time while silently cursing him for having no tact—since when did a servant dare to snatch his master’s food?
It wasn’t until the afternoon that the sun finally peeked out from the thick clouds, and the weather cleared.
Mo Shu couldn’t stand seeing Rong Yu so listless, so he pushed him outside to soak up some sun.
Outside was a vast expanse of white. The rockeries, streams, and small lake in the courtyard were all covered in ice and snow. Sunlight fell upon them, glittering and gleaming like scattered, fragmented stars.
The servants were busy shoveling snow, but upon seeing Rong Yu emerge, they bowed and retreated one after another.
In an instant, only the master and his two servants remained in the courtyard. Rong Yu leaned back in his wheelchair, his head tilted slightly, his gaze landing on the snowy ground. Like the boundless white snow, his eyes were empty and unfocused.
Mo Shu grew secretly anxious. He felt that the young master had changed a great deal recently, though he couldn’t quite articulate how. He only felt that this master of his was drifting very, very far away—as if he might fly off at any moment if one wasn’t careful.
Chu Tan disliked Rong Yu’s state as well. He took endless delight in provoking Rong Yu, loving to see those bewitching peach-blossom eyes glare with fury, to see that beautiful, diamond-shaped lips open and close, spitting venomous words to humiliate him, to see him cold-faced beneath a beauty’s countenance, whipping him with frost in his expression.
Every expression, every movement—all of it was vivid and alive. It was something he savored willingly.
He did not like a lifeless, stagnant Rong Yu.
Chu Tan furrowed his brows, his gaze resting on Rong Yu, attempting to pierce through him and spy into his heart. Chu Tan was genuinely curious—what exactly had Rong Yu experienced to come to such a state of mind?
Suddenly, a cat wandered into view.
It was a cat completely black, save for its four paws and the very tip of its tail, which were white.
The cat padded along, leaving a trail of tiny plum-blossom prints, and came straight to Rong Yu’s feet. It tilted its head up to meet his gaze. Rong Yu only glanced at it once before looking away, as if deigning not to acknowledge it.
But the cat tilted its head, then leapt up onto Rong Yu’s lap. It found a comfortable spot on the thick blanket and curled up beside the hand warmer.
Mo Shu leaned in and asked, “Young master?”
As far as he remembered, the young master absolutely detested small animals. Once, someone had gifted a talking myna bird, and the young master had found it too noisy and wanted to kill it. It was the second young master who happened to see and rescued the bird.
Rong Yu shook his head, closing his eyes to doze, yet his fingers gently stroked the cat’s ears.
Chu Tan raised an eyebrow. It seemed the young master liked fluffy things.
Before half a quarter-hour had passed, voices came from outside the courtyard.
“Fourth Young Lady, please come back! That’s the young masters’ front courtyard—you can’t go in there!”
“Fourth Young Lady, let’s go look over there! You can’t go up ahead! Mother will punish us!”
……
Mo Shu went out to inquire, then returned with two people.
“Young master, it’s the Fourth Young Lady—she’s looking for her cat.”
Rong Yu lifted his eyelids and stared expressionlessly at the little girl behind Mo Shu. “Your cat?”
The girl was around eleven or twelve, with rosy lips and fair teeth, dressed in a goose-yellow padded jacket and skirt. An elderly nursemaid followed behind her.
Before the girl could answer, Nurse Zhang spoke in a flustered, terrified tone, “Reporting to Third Young Master, it’s my young lady’s cat. This cat loves to run about recklessly. It has offended you—this old servant will take it back right away.”
With that, she made as if to come scoop up the cat.
Mo Shu immediately blocked her, furrowing his brows and barking, “You disrespectful thing! Did the young master ask you to speak? You dare push yourself in front of the young master? Don’t you want those hands of yours anymore?”
“No, no! This old servant wouldn’t dare!”
Nurse Zhang was so frightened she fell to her knees with a “plop.” She had long heard of Rong Yu’s fearsome reputation, so the moment she saw him, two of her three souls had already fled in terror. She only wanted to grab the cat and run, forgetting all propriety.
Rong Yu did not deign to cast his gaze upon Nurse Zhang. Instead, he kept looking at the young girl, repeating flatly, “Your cat?”
Rong Qinghan was equally expressionless, her gaze very direct. “Mine.”
She seemed not to fear Rong Yu in the slightest. She stepped forward twice, tilted her head, and—under Nurse Zhang’s horrified stare—took several extra looks at Rong Yu’s legs.
Thankfully, she didn’t say anything outrageously disrespectful.
Rong Qinghan called softly to the cat, “Treading Snow, come here.”
The cat looked at Rong Yu, then leapt up and bounded over to Rong Qinghan.
Rong Yu waved his hand in annoyance.
Mo Shu understood at once: “You may withdraw.”
Nurse Zhang kowtowed twice toward Rong Yu, then, as if granted a reprieve, pulled Rong Qinghan away and retreated.
Mo Shu said, “Young master, if you like that cat, I can go borrow it from the Fourth Young Lady for a couple of days.”
Rong Yu closed his eyes in weary drowsiness. “I don’t like it.”
But Chu Tan clearly saw the gloom that flickered through Rong Yu’s eyes the moment the cat jumped down.
In the evening, Rong Xiuyong brought Lady Bai and Rong Yue along to attend the palace banquet.
As usual, Lady Bai sent someone to ask whether Rong Yu wished to go.
It was nothing but a hollow performance. She knew very well Rong Yu wouldn’t go. Because of his crippled legs, the original owner had always been deeply self-conscious, unwilling to go out and be laughed at and gossiped about like a monkey in a show.
But the current Rong Yu was certainly not self-conscious—he simply didn’t want to go to the palace out of pure laziness.
Tonight, many of Rong Yue’s suitors would appear in the palace. To defend their beloved’s honor, they would inevitably come looking to cause trouble for Rong Yu.
Rong Yu truly had no mood to deal with that.
However, there was one important plot point tonight: Rong Yue would accidentally drink a cup of wine laced with drugs and end up in a tryst with the Third Prince in a secluded palace hall.
At the thought that Chu Tan’s future wife was about to be snatched away by someone else, while Chu Tan himself was still being a shameless fool by his side…
Rong Yu sighed helplessly, casting a look at Chu Tan tinged with pity and mockery.
Chu Tan: “?”
Mo Shu couldn’t quite stomach Lady Bai’s posturing. “They have to put on this show every single time—so fake.”
He suggested, “Young master, why don’t we go out and play in the city? Tonight there’s a lantern fair in town, and there are flower boats too.”
Rong Yu shook his head, indicating he had no interest.
Perhaps because Rong Yu had been overly lenient with his servants lately—well, all except Chu Tan—Mo Shu had grown a bit bolder too.
“Let’s go, young master! We haven’t been out in ages.”
Chu Tan said, “Young master, have you ever heard of the iron-eating beast?”
Rong Yu raised his eyes to look at Chu Tan.
Chu Tan curved his lips. “A new traveling troupe has come to the capital. They say they have an iron-eating beast—round and plump, chubby and stout, with fluffy black-and-white fur, and extremely ferocious.”
Rong Yu’s eyes grew brighter and brighter.
“Out of the residence.”
【Author’s Note:】
I really can’t go on. I’ve been too exhausted shucking corn these past few days—my back hurts, my legs hurt, my hands hurt. I can’t write, and I can’t guarantee quality. Let me rest a bit first. Once I finish shucking the corn, I’ll make it up to everyone. Wuwuwuwuwuwuwu. There’ll be meat to eat soon. Don’t rush.