The Prime Minister's Darling
Chapter 950 - 950 434 Finally Meeting (Second update)

Chapter 950: 434 Finally Meeting (Second update) Chapter 950: 434 Finally Meeting (Second update) “Lady benefactor? Are you a monk?” Princess Xinyang looked at him oddly.

Little Jingkong shook his small head, “Mmm… I used to be, but I’ve come down the mountain now! So, I’m not a little monk anymore!”

Princess Xinyang said, “Then you can’t call people benefactors anymore.”

Little monk: “Oh.”

Princess Xinyang, slightly pensive upon seeing the familiar expression, said to the little one, “You are Gu Jiao’s… younger brother?”

Having investigated her, she naturally knew who was in her family.

“Yep! My name is Jingkong!” Little Jingkong nodded, “You must be the bad brother-in-law’s mother, right? I’ve seen your portrait.”

He had asked Jiaojiao, who was that fairy in the portrait? Jiaojiao said, it’s the little brother on the portrait’s mother.

The little brother and the bad brother-in-law resemble each other so much, they’re clearly real siblings!

Since she’s the little brother’s mother, then naturally, she’s also the bad brother-in-law’s mother.

He was just that smart!

Princess Xinyang’s attention was captured by the term “bad brother-in-law,” and she neglected to ask him where he saw the portrait.

“Bad brother-in-law?” she said.

“Yep!” Little Jingkong neatly put away his marbles, sat down on the small stool in front of the bed, and said with great weight, “You really have it tough, raising such a troublesome son must be very tiring, right?”

“Not… Troublesome?” Princess Xinyang was bewildered and took a while to realize that the “bad brother-in-law” he referred to must be Xiao Hen.

Xiao Hen was mischievous in his childhood, but he grew up to be quite trouble-free.

There was no child more obedient than him under heaven.

Little Jingkong nodded fiercely: “Exactly, the bad brother-in-law just causes too much worry, you have to worry about his health, and also about his performance in school.”

The logic of children has its limitations, and some phenomena that seem baffling to adults are often overlooked or accepted by kids, like why Xiao Liulang, who apparently had a very wealthy mother, still spent such hard times in the countryside.

Seeing Princess Xinyang silent, Little Jingkong thought she didn’t understand and explained to her: “You see, the bad brother-in-law’s leg was injured. He was hurt in a big fire while saving Brother Fen Lin, sigh, and it just hasn’t healed. Now he’s a little cripple. He limps to school, and a lot of people look down on him. He’s always bullied, but luckily, there’s Jiaojiao.”

Princess Xinyang became even more silent.

Though Little Jingkong verbally disapproved of the bad brother-in-law, when he actually spoke about him, it was as if he set off his own loudspeaker trait, blabbering non-stop: “Back when we were in the countryside, to get to the town for school, there were no carriages, only ox carts in the village. In the freezing winter, the roads were slippery, the ox carts couldn’t travel, and the bad brother-in-law could only limp all the way to town on his own.”

“Couldn’t he ride in a carriage?” Princess Xinyang asked.

Little Jingkong sighed like an adult: “Alas, we were poor back then. Being poor isn’t the scary part, you know what’s the scariest? It’s that bad brother-in-law’s grades were too poor, always coming last, he nearly missed being crowned the top scholar!”

Princess Xinyang’s feelings were originally quite complex, but the last sentence completely disrupted her emotions.

Coming last and still making it as the top scholar, is everybody in his class a grand scholar like Zhuang Xianzhi?

Little Jingkong went on and on about the time in the countryside, mainly complaining about the bad brother-in-law.

For the first time, Princess Xinyang heard news about Xiao Liulang from someone else.

She couldn’t imagine that such a distinguished son of heaven had fallen to the point of having to ride in an ox cart, weathered by sun and rain, faced with the cold and heat, from being universally admired to enduring ridicule.

It seemed he had plummeted from the clouds straight into a swamp.

“Jingkong, come here for a moment!”

Little Jingkong was called away by Little Jiang Li.

With no one else in the room and Yujin not present, Long Yi might be lurking somewhere in the shadows.

“`

He didn’t show up often, otherwise even Wo Linlang wouldn’t have been unaware of Long Yi’s existence.

Long Yi would appear more frequently in certain fixed locations, but outside of those places, he largely managed to avoid detection.

Princess Xinyang lifted the quilt and slipped on her embroidered shoes before descending from the bed.

The evening breeze was gentle, bringing with it a hint of the coolness of early autumn, causing the wind chimes under the window to tinkle melodiously.

Amidst the hustle of the secular world, this small courtyard within the Medical Hall had its own kind of solitude, like a retreat from the world.

She tightened the clothing at her chest and, pulling open the half-closed room door, stepped out slowly.

Gu Jiao’s courtyard wasn’t large—it was a modest one-entry courtyard, specially made for her convenience by the establishment’s second boss, who didn’t even have such an amenity for himself; he had just a small private room upstairs.

As Princess Xinyang stepped onto the veranda, inevitably, she caught the scent of sweet potatoes and corn.

It was then she realized that she hadn’t eaten all day and her stomach was rumbling with hunger.

She subconsciously walked towards the small kitchen from where the aroma was emanating.

She really had no need to go there herself, but for some reason, she felt as though something was drawing her to that place.

As she reached the doorway, she heard the crisp sound of snapping twigs before she saw anyone.

Being a royal princess, she had never soiled her hands and had never been inside a kitchen; naturally, she had no idea what that sound entailed.

Only when she drew closer did she see the actions of the person inside.

It was a youth dressed in plain white casual clothes, his back to the doorway, sitting on a small stool behind the stove. His right leg was stretched out on the ground while his left leg was bent with a wide piece of burlap covering it.

He had a stack of dead branches piled high behind him and was holding two branches in his left hand, forcefully snapping them over his bent left leg.

The snapped branches were being placed to his left side.

Judging from the height of the pile on his left, he had snapped quite a few already.

In front of him, a vigorous fire blazed in the stove. While snapping branches, he didn’t forget to occasionally toss a couple into the flames.

Because his right wrist was injured, when snapping the branches, his left hand would grip while his right forearm pressed down—an arduous and accident-prone task. If the branches slipped, he would simply press down once more.

Over and over again.

His clothing was thin, and yet the entire neckline at the back of his neck was drenched in sweat.

One branch was particularly tough to snap, and after several failed attempts that also accidentally injured his wrist, he drew a sharp breath from the pain.

Princess Xinyang’s feet moved forward involuntarily.

Yet she stopped herself with reason.

Xiao Liulang finally snapped the stubborn branch. Ignoring the sweat on his forehead, he bent over to pick up the fire tongs from the ground and turned the sweet potatoes roasting inside the stove.

After doing this, the corn and the steamed vegetables in the pot should also be ready.

He stood up, limping as he circled the stove. With practiced movements, he lifted the lid off the pot, and a cloud of steam billowed out. He then found a cloth to lift out the steaming basket.

Following that, he washed his hands with some clear water and turned back to open the cupboard, taking out two sets of bowls and chopsticks—one set for Monk’s exclusive use, and the other set…

As he was retrieving them, suddenly something caught his attention, and his gaze shifted subtly.

His eyelashes quivered, and although he wanted to turn around, he didn’t dare.

With a clang, the bowls and chopsticks in his hand fell to the ground.

They rolled some distance away, and hampered by his weak right leg, he managed to move forward two steps and bend to pick them up. But before he could reach them, a pair of slender, fair hands reached out and picked up the bowls and chopsticks from the floor ahead of him.

“`

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