Chapter 204: The First Encounter
The group entered the courtyard.
The servants had prepared the meal - a table full of delicacies, mostly dishes children would enjoy, with a few prepared specifically for Chu Yi.
After the children were seated, Yun Chu noticed the man in front of her carefully lowering himself to sit.
"Wait a moment."
She spoke up, stopping Chu Yi from sitting down.
She stood up, took a soft cushion from the nearby daybed, and placed it on Chu Yi's chair. "Your Highness, you may sit now."
Chu Yi maintained his usual expression: "Thank you."
While nothing showed on his face, inwardly he felt somewhat embarrassed.
At the same time, there was a secret delight.
She was paying attention to him.
That's why she could notice his discomfort.
This realization made the corners of his lips curve upward slightly, as if he were bathed in a soft glow.
The meal ended quickly.
The two little ones, concerned about the cats and dogs, held hands and went to feed the animals.
Only Yun Chu and Chu Yi remained in the dining hall.
The servants orderly cleared the dishes and served tea and pastries for the two.
Cheng Xu looked at Ting Xue standing behind Yun Chu, cleared his throat and said: "Sister Ting Xue, Matron Zheng has some matters regarding the young masters that she asked me to relay to you."
Ting Xue frowned, walked out of the flower hall, and said with bowed head: "Lord Cheng should be older than this servant, I don't deserve to be called Sister Ting Xue."
"It's just a form of address, no need to mind." Cheng Xu scratched his head. "I am His Highness's subordinate, you are Miss Yun's close attendant. We're of similar status, Sister Ting Xue need not refer to yourself as 'this servant' in front of me."
Ting Xue thought to herself, how could they be the same?
His Highness's subordinate held an official rank, while she was a bonded servant - their statuses were vastly different.
She said: "Lord Cheng, what did Matron Zheng wish to convey?"
"Well, it's nothing really..."
Cheng Xu glanced back toward the flower hall.
He had suddenly felt that he and Ting Xue were superfluous there.
When only His Highness and Miss Yun remained, even the scenery seemed to become more beautiful.
Their prince was really too slow in handling matters. Without him, who knew when the prince's residence would finally have a mistress.
He truly lived up to being the prince's chief guard.
The flower hall grew quiet.
Yun Chu took a sip of tea and said with lowered eyes: "The matter of the Yun Family Army has caused you trouble, Your Highness."
"Not at all." Chu Yi replied. "Those in court who attack the Yun family are former subordinates of the previous Crown Prince - the biological son of the current Empress Dowager. The Empress Dowager is stirring trouble in the shadows. To curb her power, His Majesty won't allow anything to happen to the Yun family. You... need not worry too much."
"Thank you for your comfort, Your Highness." Yun Chu looked up. "I'd like to ask Your Highness, given the Yun family's current situation - my father missing, condemned by the court, military power recalled... why do you still allow the two children to remain so close to me?"
"It has nothing to do with the Yun family." Chu Yi's dark eyes reflected her face. "It's because it's you."
Yun Chu's heart suddenly leaped.
The cold, hardened walls she had built around her heart seemed to have their tough exterior touched by something."Perhaps you've forgotten the day we first met." Chu Yi's gaze grew distant. "The Yun family held a spring banquet every year. When I was eleven, I attended the Yun family's banquet—not because the Yuns had invited me, but because that morning, I had witnessed the darkest thing within the deep palace. I was desperate to escape that cage..."
He had seen with his own eyes how the Empress Dowager killed ten palace maids, extracted their heart's blood, and fed it to the only remaining descendant of the former Crown Prince—also the Empress Dowager's only legitimate grandson—Prince Zhuang Chu Rui.
The heart's blood of ten palace maids still failed to cure Chu Rui's illness. The Empress Dowager ordered people to continue searching for women with suitable birth dates to serve as medicinal ingredients.
Unable to accept such a scene, he immediately reported it to his father, the Emperor.
The Emperor remained unperturbed, even ordering Gao Gonggong to help find suitable women to send to the Empress Dowager's palace.
Those flower-like women, so young they could even be called girls, had their lives abruptly ended with a single knife stroke, becoming wronged spirits.
No one knew exactly how many women had died just to allow the Empress Dowager's only grandson, Prince Zhuang, to survive to his current age of over twenty...
At eleven years old, he couldn't accept such things.
Now at twenty-five, when he recalled it again, his heart remained calm.
"That day, I escaped from the palace and encountered your father. Your father then took me to attend the Yun family's spring banquet." Chu Yi spoke slowly. "I was resting with my eyes closed in a quiet courtyard of the Yun residence when suddenly, a girl in a goose-yellow dress appeared before me, holding a dirty dog in her arms."
Yun Chu's memory was suddenly awakened.
She smiled: "That dog was one I rescued from a mud pit. I wanted to keep it, but my mother firmly refused. She was searching for me everywhere with a cane. If not for fear of disturbing the guests in the front courtyard, I would certainly have received a beating that day."
She must have been only six or seven at the time, constantly climbing and jumping around, even removing roof tiles. Her mother was always fuming with anger.
It wasn't that her mother forbade her from keeping dogs—it was just that this particular dog was clearly sick. Besides being dirty, it was blind in one eye, had lost much of its fur, and was covered in sores. Her mother worried she might contract some illness, thus strongly opposing her keeping this dog.
Being so young at the time, she paid no attention to such concerns, clutching the dog tightly and hiding throughout the courtyard. It seemed she did indeed encounter someone.
But her memory wasn't very clear.
That scene remained deeply engraved in Chu Yi's mind.
The moment Yun Chu appeared before him, he thought: How could there be such an elf-like girl in this world?
When Madame Yun raised the cane to strike, she desperately protected the dog in her arms.
He thought: She's so pure and kind.
Some could cruelly kill dozens or even hundreds of innocent, flower-like palace maids.
Yet others would rather endure a beating to protect a clearly dying dog.
But he lacked the ability to step forward and stop the Empress Dowager's evil deeds, nor could he debate right and wrong with his father.
It was from that moment he made a decision.
He wanted to become someone who could protect all citizens, every common person struggling at the bottom, fighting to survive.
He chose to follow General Yun.
However, after only five years on the battlefield, the Empress grew suspicious, and his father, for the sake of balance, forbade him from returning to the frontier.
He could only lead eight thousand elite troops to eradicate the fierce bandits of Great Jin.Chu Yi collected his thoughts and asked, "I wonder if Madam Yun later allowed you to keep that dog?"
The smile faded from Yun Chu's face as she sighed. "My mother is tough on the outside but soft-hearted. Seeing my determination, she naturally permitted me to keep it. However, the dog was already beyond cure—no treatment could save it. It lived with the Yun family for less than a month before passing away..."
Chu Yi pressed his lips together.
That dog was fortunate to have met Yun Chu, yet unfortunate to have met her a little too late. Had it been earlier, its illness might have been cured.
Yun Chu looked up at the man before her.
At this moment, she felt a wave of emotion. Could it be that Prince Pingxi, whom everyone feared at the mere mention of his name, would also lament the fate of a dog?
It seemed he had developed a sense of compassion for the animal.
A person who cared even for a dog could not be utterly wicked, nor could he be as despicable and shameless as Qin Mingheng had claimed.
She pressed her lips together and said softly, "Your Highness, could you tell me about the biological mother of the Young Son and the princess?"
OpenNovel