However, Xie Ning was someone who forgot things very easily. No matter how wronged he felt just a second ago, as long as something new caught his interest, all his attention would immediately be drawn away.
So when the master announced the end of today's lesson, he instantly forgot all his pain and dashed out the door.
At that moment, Butler Liu, who had just arrived to check on Xie Ning, only managed to catch a glimpse of his retreating figure. He shook his head helplessly. "Looks like he's found something else in the manor to amuse himself with."
He then waved his hand and instructed, "Follow him. Just make sure the young master doesn't get hurt. Let him do whatever he wants otherwise."
Children were probably like this—always having an inexhaustible supply of energy.
If he wasn't worn out now, he'd be tossing and turning at night, keeping everyone awake. That would be even worse.
Xie Ning, of course, was dashing off to find Wei Zhao. It wasn't yet the time they had agreed upon, but he was already raring to go.
He slipped out through the dog hole with practiced ease, then ran to the entrance of Wei Zhao's courtyard and tossed three pebbles inside.
A few seconds later, the door opened from within. Wei Zhao looked somewhat surprised. "Don't you have lessons today? Why are you here so early?"
Xie Ning didn't stop to wonder how Wei Zhao knew about his schedule.
Instead, he had plenty of complaints to voice. "I don't want to study at all. It's not fun in the slightest. There's so much homework—the more I write, the more there is. I can never finish it…"
Wei Zhao listened quietly as he finished, then, instead of going along with his complaints, gently advised, "You should still listen carefully to the master. If there's anything you don't understand in your studies, you can come ask me."
"Do you have to go to lessons every day too?" Xie Ning had been feeling more and more wronged as he spoke, but now he tilted his head. "Though at least the current master doesn't teach mental arithmetic. Otherwise, I'd definitely get hit even more, wah wah…"
"You got hit?" Wei Zhao seized on that key point and anxiously pulled him closer.
Xie Ning nodded slightly.
After all, it was because he had been caught daydreaming by the master that he got punished. It was a bit embarrassing to admit.
"Where? Let me see."
Hearing his words, Xie Ning spread open his right hand for him to look at. Three red marks crisscrossed his palm. Actually, it was only some redness and swelling—the skin wasn't broken, so it wasn't too serious.
But Xie Ning's skin was fair and tender, soft and plump, and the swelling made it look rather alarming.
Seeing that Wei Zhao's expression didn't seem too good, Xie Ning spoke up on his own. "It doesn't actually hurt that much. Just a little bit. And I didn't cry, you know."
Xie Ning had been expecting praise, but after waiting for a long while, he felt the face before him darken even more.
Vaguely sensing that he had said something wrong, Xie Ning blinked rapidly and leaned in close to his face, his voice soft. "Are you angry?"
Wei Zhao didn't answer his question. The moment Xie Ning drew near, he stood up and walked toward the house. "Qingyi, go fetch the Jade Dew Ointment."
Qingyi was Wei Zhao's personal attendant, having followed him since childhood.
Last time, Qingyi had happened to be out on an errand. Although today was his first time meeting Xie Ning, he had already heard about him countless times from his young master's lips.
Even before ever laying eyes on the boy, he had already learned all of Xie Ning's favorite tastes.
Hearing Wei Zhao's instruction, he quickly got up and went inside to fetch the item, not daring to delay.
…
While he was carefully applying medicine to Xie Ning's wound, the latter couldn't stay still, asking hurriedly, "You asked me to come over at this hour—have you come up with a plan for revenge?!"
Wei Zhao finished applying the medicine and looked up at him, seeing his face full of excitement and his eyes practically shining.
"No, I wanted to ask—" Wei Zhao shook his head and pressed his lips together before saying, "In five days, there's a market fair at Daling Temple. It'll be very lively. Would you like to go together?"
Hearing this, Xie Ning let out a disappointed "Ah."
"It's fine, we can still plan things out over time." Wei Zhao didn't understand why he was so fixated on this matter. He felt both touched and conflicted—how could he make Xie Ning drop this idea?
If they truly confronted that person, it would be far too dangerous, Wei Zhao thought to himself.
Xie Ning withdrew his hand and sighed with a grimace. "I have to attend classes and do homework every day now. I don't know if I'll be able to go with you."
Even as he said this, his eyes clearly showed that he wanted to go.
Wei Zhao pondered for a moment, then said, "If you can't go, then I'll buy all the interesting things from the market and bring them back. That way, it'll be as if you went too."
But compared to those things, what Xie Ning really wanted was to go out and have fun.
His desire to go out had reached its peak.
"I'll go back tonight and ask my godfather if he can put in a word with the tutor." Xie Ning furrowed his brows and thought for a long while before coming up with this one solution.
Wei Zhao looked puzzled. "Isn't Lord Shen your father?"
At the mention of this, Xie Ning grew a bit more melancholy and recounted what had happened the day before.
"So right now, I don't even know where my father actually is…"
"Do you have any clues? I can help you search." Wei Zhao asked.
Hearing his words, Xie Ning sank into certain memories. From the few things his father had mentioned, and through his own rose-tinted lens, he felt that his father should be…
"Very tall and mighty in stature!"
That was a bit broad, but it could still serve as a criterion for elimination.
"Even-tempered in nature, especially when dealing with me—he should speak to me very gently."
Hmm… that was somewhat abstract, but understandable.
"Most importantly, he must love me the most, most, most of all!"
Hearing this, Wei Zhao caught on—this didn't sound like criteria for finding someone at all, but rather a description of what he hoped the person would be like.
He glanced at Xie Ning's current expression, his eyes filled with expectation and excitement, and couldn't bear to say anything that would shatter his current state.
The two didn't stay together for long before Xie Ning prepared to leave.
Before leaving, he didn't forget to turn back and remind him, "Wait for my news, okay? Don't you dare go off and have fun by yourself."
Wei Zhao nodded.
Then, one person and one dog made their way back the same route, but today, there was someone else standing by the dog hole.
The servant sent by Butler Liu to follow Xie Ning watched in shock as he crawled through from below. "Young Master… how… how can you come through here?!"
Xie Ning, seeing that his secret base had been discovered, feared that he would never be able to come out this way again.
He shushed the servant several times, his eyes pleading. "Please, please, can you not tell anyone?"
His father had taught him to be polite when asking others for favors, so Xie Ning pulled out a piece of candy from his clothes—one he had been reluctant to eat himself—and handed it to him.
Because his father didn't allow him to eat too much candy, saying that eating it would cause worms to grow in his teeth.
"Can I? Please, please!" With that, he activated his cute-attack mode again, widening his big eyes in an attempt to melt the other person's heart.
But this servant had worked in the manor for many years, and his resolve wavered for only a moment.
Then, when evening came, Xie Ning was brought before Shen Wang, and on the table lay the candies—the evidence of his failed bribery attempt.
Shen Wang glanced at the candies, then at Xie Ning.
He had heard what the servants reported, and he was nearly amused into anger.
Because he had never restricted Xie Ning's movements. If he wanted to go out, he could do so at any time. Why would he need to crawl through a dog hole? This was truly…
"So why didn't you go through the main gate?"
Shen Wang was utterly bewildered by this.
Sometimes he really wanted to crack open the child's head to see if it was filled with nothing but water.
Xie Ning stammered, fidgeting with his fingers. "If I go through the main gate, wouldn't I get caught?"
He was still firmly convinced that he was sneaking out to play without anyone knowing.
"…" Shen Wang clapped his hands.
Then, the very next second, a figure in black descended from above, kneeling on one knee in silence.
Shen Wang explained, "This is Chen Jiu. He's been watching over him from the shadows all along. No matter where you go out from, he knows."
Xie Ning was shocked. So all his painstaking sneaking around all this time…
Shen Wang then turned to Chen Jiu, pressing further, "Why didn't you report this?"
"Didn't you say, my lord, to only appear if there's a threat to life?" Chen Jiu clasped his hands and replied flatly.
Hearing this, Shen Wang waved his sleeve, not wanting to look at him.
Back on the beam where he was hiding, Chen Jiu was momentarily puzzled. So, should he report this kind of thing in the future or not? But from his observations, Young Master Xie Ning would probably stir up trouble about every three days.
Thinking about the workload, he decided it was better to pretend he didn't know.
"Go fill in that dog hole. This manor shall not have such things." Shen Wang pinched the bridge of his nose and gave the order.
Hearing this, Xie Ning rushed forward and hugged his leg, pleading, "No! It's so convenient there—Wei Zhao lives right across the street."
Going through the main gate meant taking a long detour.
He and Xiao Bai were both used to going through there.
Shen Wang heard the name in his words, recalled it, and found it vaguely familiar. He frowned. "When did you two meet?"
"He's my very first good friend! He's so nice, he even gave me tasty food, and today he helped me apply medicine." Xie Ning's original intention was to say more good things about Wei Zhao, hoping to make Shen Wang retract his earlier order.
As his words fell, Shen Wang's brow furrowed even deeper. "You're injured? How did that happen? Why didn't you mention it earlier?"
Xie Ning held out his palm and honestly admitted his mistake. "It's because I wasn't paying attention in class today. The tutor punished me. It doesn't hurt."
It really didn't hurt much—he basically forgot about it the moment he turned away.
But the wound in Shen Wang's eyes was unbearably glaring. Now he found fault with everyone, suppressing the anger in his chest as he called out, "Someone come."
Butler Liu stepped forward. "My lord."
"Go fetch the golden wound medicine." Shen Wang's brows were twisted into a knot, and he lifted Xie Ning to sit beside him.
Seeing his expression—more serious and angry than ever before—Xie Ning grew a bit nervous. "I'm sorry, don't be angry. I won't slack off in class ever again."
He felt that it was all because of him that Shen Wang was showing this expression now.
But Shen Wang merely patted his head, saying nothing.
Xie Ning's heart pounded even harder, and he began listing all the mistakes he'd made recently to apologize, "I shouldn't have crawled through the dog hole, and I shouldn't have played with Xiao Bai during class…"
"I secretly went to feed the fish, but I ended up overfeeding one and it died, wuwu."
"I accidentally stepped on and crushed the peonies in the garden."
"…"
"I shouldn't have dirtied your clothes, then had Xiao Bai take them out to destroy the evidence."
At first, Shen Wang found it amusing to listen, curious about what Xie Ning got up to on a daily basis. But as he listened further, the corners of his mouth began to twitch.
He then glanced at Butler Liu, but Butler Liu had already raised his head to look at the ceiling.
It wasn't until he heard the last sentence that Shen Wang suddenly grew alert and pressed, "Which clothes?"
"…It was that black one." Xie Ning replied hesitantly.
Shen Wang's sense of unease grew stronger. He looked at Butler Liu.
Butler Liu met his eyes, his expression extremely complicated. He nodded in silence, then pointed out, "That pair of undergarments that went missing a few days ago."
Shen Wang: "…"
Shen Wang gritted his teeth: "Xie! Ning!"
Hearing his full name called, Xie Ning immediately responded, "Here!"
Shen Wang felt that all the deep paternal affection he'd had moments ago had vanished completely. Even on ordinary days, when faced with the greatest of troubles, he could maintain an unchanging expression.
But whenever he encountered Xie Ning, he found himself utterly helpless.
He couldn't hit him, couldn't scold him. At that moment, he suddenly felt that he should put more effort into finding Xie Ning's biological father—send him over as soon as possible, and let that man experience some of this despair too.
Xie Ning leaned in close, almost nose-to-nose with him, "Godfather~ Father~ Are you not angry anymore?"
Shen Wang let out a breath, calming himself down. He deflected the topic and said flatly, "Let's apply the medicine first."
Xie Ning knew this meant he'd been successfully appeased.
He obediently extended his hand, letting himself be handled. Although the medicine had already been applied earlier, Shen Wang felt that the medicine from his own estate was naturally better, and applying it again couldn't hurt.
"The dog hole still needs to be sealed up. Have someone open a side gate there instead." Shen Wang compromised one step, but he still couldn't accept Xie Ning crawling in and out through a dog hole every day.
The image was simply unimaginable.
"Yay!" Hearing this, Xie Ning immediately cheered happily, then planted a kiss on Shen Wang's cheek with a smack.
Instantly, Shen Wang felt all his anger dissipate.
"No need to attend class tomorrow either," Shen Wang said after a while. "I'll find you a new tutor."
Previously, he'd left the selection entirely to Butler Liu, thinking only to give Xie Ning some basic enlightenment without making it too formal.
But looking at it now, Xie Ning needed a proper teacher to instruct him—not just simple literacy.
Shen Wang thought of many names in his mind, but one by one he rejected them all—none were quite suitable. And the most troublesome part was that Xie Ning didn't yet have an identity plaque. If he were to invite a teacher under his own name, others would think Xie Ning was his child, which wouldn't be good for Xie Ning's future development.
If Xie Ning were to truly pursue an official career in the future, it would be best not to have too deep a connection with him.
After much deliberation, he felt that Pei Huaiyi, that fellow, was actually the most suitable candidate. He had a connection with Xie Ning, and as the head of civil officials, if he were to teach Xie Ning, nothing could be more fitting.
But the moment he thought about personally handing Xie Ning over to that person, Shen Wang felt a twinge of displeasure.
Contrary to his expectations, Xie Ning was thrilled to learn that he wouldn't have to attend classes for the next several days.
As long as it wasn't about studying, anything was fun. Hehe.