“Since Luo Luo is hungry, shall Mother have someone prepare delicious snacks and side dishes for you?”
“Thank you, Mother!”
Luo Luo immediately nodded her head like a small medicine pestle.
Pei Qingci turned and instructed her personal maid: “Ming Xue, go to the small kitchen and have them quickly prepare some delicate food. Make sure to prepare a generous portion.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
Ming Xue smiled faintly and hurried off to the kitchen.
Meanwhile, at the Regent’s Manor.
Lunch had been neatly arranged on the red sandalwood Eight Immortals table inlaid with cloud-patterned marble.
Xiao Lin, seated in the main position, stared intently at the empty seat to his right, his expression rather gloomy.
“Where is that noisy little devil? Didn’t she go to the Duke’s residence to deliver gifts to her ‘dear mother’? It’s almost past noon, why hasn’t she returned?”
His voice was deep, revealing neither joy nor anger.
The steward Liu Bo, standing nearby with a bowed posture, cautiously replied:
“Your Highness, please calm your anger. Perhaps… the young mistress is having too much fun and has been invited to stay for lunch by Her Highness?”
Xiao Lin snorted coldly, lightly tapping his fingertips on the edge of the table.
“Hah! That little ingrate! Now that she has her ‘mother,’ she’s forgotten her father!”
He picked up a bamboo shoot tip with his chopsticks, but found it tasteless in his mouth.
“No need to wait, I’ll eat alone.”
In the vast hall, only the light clinking of his chopsticks, spoon, and dishes could be heard, the loneliness making him feel even more irritable.
Without the little devil chattering in his ears, without that little figure jumping around before his eyes, he actually felt so unaccustomed to it…
He abruptly set down his silver chopsticks.
Why should he miss her?
Could it be that I… have actually become addicted to being tormented by that little thing?
Xiao Lin was startled by his own thought, his expression growing even darker. He flicked his sleeve and stood up, heading to his study to deal with the accumulated official documents.
However, the writing brushes, ink, paper, and inkstone on the desk seemed to have lost their vitality as well.
When he reached for his teacup for the third time and touched only cold porcelain, the impatience between his brows had accumulated to its peak.
That Xiao Luoning!
I’ll give you one more incense stick’s worth of time.
If you still don’t return…
I’ll personally go to the Duke’s residence to retrieve you!
Qinfang Courtyard.
At this moment, little Luo Luo was being properly settled by her mother Pei Qingci on a small red sandalwood stool padded with cloud-patterned brocade, enjoying an exquisite lunch.
One could see those chubby little hands each holding something rare.
Her left hand held a slice of nourishing delicacy cut as thin as a cicada’s wing, translucent and white like jade, while her right hand grasped an emerald sea prawn with complete red-shelled claws and antennae.
She was happily munching away, her cheeks bulging, exactly like a contented little greedy cat.
“It’s delicious, Mother should eat too.”
()☆
She called out with unclear speech.
Pei Qingci’s eyes shimmered with soft light: “Alright, Mother will eat too.”
After speaking, her slender fingers picked up silver chopsticks, removing bones from fish slices and shelling crab meat, continuously filling the exquisite small celadon plate before Luo Luo.
“Be good, Luo Luo, eat some more.”
Pei Qingci tentatively asked softly, “Would you like to stay and sleep in Mother’s Qinfang Courtyard tonight?”
Sleeping with Mother!
This temptation was so great that Luo Luo’s round head almost nodded reflexively.
No! No!
Her mind immediately conjured up the image of that “Auntie Su” in the Regent’s Manor—the one with seductive eyes who was covetously watching her scumbag father.
Hmph! How could she, the great Luo Luo, indulge in tender comforts and neglect her great mission of vanquishing evil.
“Mother,” Luo Luo solemnly set down her food and sat up straight with a serious expression.
“Luo Luo… still has to ‘go into battle.’ After I drive away that Auntie Su and completely expel her from the manor gates.”
She clenched her greasy little fists, her expression extremely solemn.
“Then Mother can smoothly marry Father, and Luo Luo can sleep holding Mother every night.”( ′﹀ )*゜ Hearing this, Pei Qingci felt a sharp pain in her heart, unable to bear shattering her daughter’s beautiful fantasy.”
How could there still be any possibility between her and Xiao Lin?
This afternoon, her father would enter the palace to formally request that the Empress Dowager annul this imperial marriage arrangement.
Yesterday, Xiao Lin’s public act of throwing back the marriage document had trampled upon the entire Duke’s residence’s dignity.
“Silly child.”
She could only suppress the myriad sour emotions in her heart, gently wiping the grease from the corner of Luo Luo’s mouth with her fingertips.
After lunch, Luo Luo was reluctant to leave, looking back every few steps.
“Mother~ Luo Luo will come again next time to mooch meals.”
She clung to the carved moon gate frame of Qinfang Courtyard, blinking her large, dewy eyes.
“You mustn’t forget Luo Luo.”
Pei Qingci laughed involuntarily: “I won’t forget. Even if Mother forgot everyone else, I wouldn’t forget Luo Luo, you little flower cat. Hurry back now.”
“Mm, bye-bye, Mother.”
Just as Luo Luo, accompanied by Xuan Ying and Yun Ying, reached the main gate, she ran into the old Duke who was about to board his carriage outside the residence.
“Your Grace, the carriage is ready. We can enter the palace to see the Empress Dowager immediately,” the steward reported with a bow.
The old Duke nodded, his boot tip about to step onto the vermilion stepping stool when a soft, clear call suddenly came from behind:
“Grandfather!”
The Duke paused, slowly turning around.
At the bottom of the steps, a petite, exquisitely beautiful child was looking up at him with her small face, her large black eyes shining like grapes.
“You…”
The Duke stared at that exquisitely painted little face, his mind greatly shaken.
Those eyebrows and facial contours actually bore a fifty percent resemblance to Qingci’s childhood appearance.
He was momentarily lost in thought, forgetting to speak.
Luo Luo grinned, revealing her gap-toothed smile, and introduced herself in a milky voice:
“I’m Luo Luo, Grandfather~ I’m your granddaughter Luo Luo from five years in the future.”
“Granddaughter?The old Duke’s eyebrows furrowed into a “川” shape.
“Nonsense! My legitimate daughter hasn’t even married yet, how could I have a granddaughter?”
His face darkened, his tone authoritative without anger: “Little child, have you mistaken me for someone else?”
Luo Luo shook her little head like a rattle drum, the pearl flowers on her braids trembling along.
“No, no! Grandfather, you’re so tall and handsome, majestic and divine. Luo Luo has the best judgment, how could I mistake you?”
“Oh?”
The old Duke couldn’t maintain his stern expression, the corners of his mouth slightly lifting.
“You little imp, whose child are you really? Why have you come to the gate of my Duke’s residence?”
“Luo Luo is from your family.”
The little child answered as if it were natural, adding a brilliant smile that could melt ice and snow.
The Duke’s expression changed abruptly: “How dare you! Where did you learn such fawning words? So young and already speaking nonsense!”
Pei Qingci hurried over and pulled Luo Luo to her side.
“Father, please calm your anger! This is… my child, Luo Luo.”
“What?”
The old Duke looked as if struck by lightning, staring at his daughter in disbelief.
“Your child? Qingci, you haven’t married yet, how could you have such a grown daughter?”
“Absurd!”
Pei Qingci pressed her lips together: “Father, this matter… is complicated. But Luo Luo is truly my flesh and blood, absolutely true.”
“Enough!”
The old Duke waved his sleeve, anger surging.
“We’ll discuss this matter later! I have no time to argue with you now!”
His gaze swept toward the carriage outside the residence gate: “I am now entering the palace to request Her Majesty the Empress Dowager issue an edict to completely sever your marriage arrangement with that ungrateful Xiao Lin.”
The news of Xiao Lin publicly breaking off the engagement yesterday had already spread throughout the capital.
The Regent’s actions were equivalent to tearing off all pretense.
“Break off the engagement?”
These words exploded like thunder above Luo Luo’s head.
If Grandfather really called off this marriage, then wouldn’t she, the great Luo Luo, instantly disappear, dying before she was even born?