Chongfei Manual

Chapter: 037.1 out of 171

Zhao Jie stood by the red sandalwood box. He blankly looked at her without moving.

Wei Luo slowly opened her pitch-black eyes. The way she looked around the room was charming. The clear reflection of her eyes was like spring water. She seemed half awake and half asleep. At the moment, she couldn’t even tell what night it was. She came back to her senses after a while and slowly sat up in the box.

She saw Zhao Jie and childishly called out, “Big brother.”

The other people in the study were also stunned. How could there be a young girl hidden inside the box? And it was such a beautiful little girl. Who gave her to Prince Jing?

Zhao Jie recovered his senses and smiled with a hint of amusement, “Ah Luo, are you giving yourself to this prince?”

She blinked her eyes as if he had said something odd.

Who wanted to give herself to him? In his dreams!

Wei Luo held up the hua tiao puppy that she had been holding in her arms to Zhao Jie, “This is your gift. He’s too little to stay inside a box by himself without fussing, so I came with him to keep him company.”

(T/N: Hua tiao is a Chinese dog breed.)

Hearing these words, everyone noticed the hua tiao that had been hidden in her arms. Because he was too small, at most he was only one month old, he didn’t catch anyone’s attention until now. After she had taken the puppy out, he quietly whimpered. At this, everyone finally showed expressions of understanding. So it was like that… As expected, which family would have been willing to part with such a beautiful child to give to their prince who had a reputation of being the most ruthless and vicious?

Zhao Jie stared at the dog for a moment. The smile on his face had slowly faded to an intrigued expression, “Why are you giving this prince this?”

Of course, Wei Luo wouldn’t tell him it was because her third older cousin’s dog recently had puppies.

Her expression didn’t change and her heart rate didn’t increase when she said, “Because hua tiaos have awe-inspiring authority like big brother Prince Jing.”

In truth, it was because she was being lazy. She couldn’t think of what to give him. Just at the right time, Wei Chang Yin’s hua tiao gave birth to a litter of puppies, so she took advantage of the situation by begging a puppy from him to give to Zhao Jie. How nice. This didn’t cost her money or energy. She was very satisfied with this gift.

Zhao Jie didn’t say anything.

She looked up to ask, “Do you like it?”

Zhao Jie looked at the so small, it was pitiful looking hua tiao puppy. The young girl had been holding him up this entire time. He thought that her arms probably felt sore, so he cooperatively took the puppy from her. He placed the puppy on the side of a black wooden table that was decorated with golden dragons.

(T/N: Here’s a picture of what the table would look like.)

Then, he returned to looking at Wei Luo, “What about you?”

Wei Luo had stood up inside the box and was about to leave it, “What about me?

Zhao Jie smiled, “You said that the things inside this box is this prince’s gift, you’re also inside. Isn’t this giving yourself to this prince?”

To be honest, when he saw her inside the box, he felt delighted. He didn’t like children, but she wasn’t the same. She was an interesting child and it was very fun spending time with her. And, she wasn’t as troublesome as other children that would easily cry and fuss. Because she rarely cried, when she did cry, people would feel sorry for her and want to pamper her. They wouldn’t be able to resist giving her anything she wanted.

Wei Luo was startled from his words, and then she shook her head like a rattle-drum toy, “I’m not a gift. I’m here to bring you a gift.”

Her little face looked as if she was really afraid he would force her to stay here.

Although she was lazy about selecting a gift, she had spent a lot of effort and thought into delivering this gift. She wouldn’t able to hide this from Wei Kun and she had spent several days begging Wei Kun before he agreed. Otherwise, she would have been exposed the moment she went through Duke Ying’s residence’s outer gate. Also, this box couldn’t be closed too tightly, or she and the puppy would have suffocated. And there had to be two holes added to the box for fresh air. During the journey here, the box rocked back and forth. She couldn’t resist being lulled into sleeping, so she fell asleep on the way here.

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 Zhao Jie had only wanted to tease her a little bit. Seeing her expression, he couldn’t resist smiling. He looked at the curled up puppy that was on the black table decorated with golden dragons.

“What’s his name?”

Wei Luo hadn’t thought of this question. Without carefully thinking, she randomly said,   “Si Xi.”

It was actually a very festive name. Zhao Jie nodded to show his acceptance of the gift. He wasn’t a person that liked to play with dogs. During these days, the people in the capital were all interested in dog fighting. There had been numerous government officials who had tried giving him rare dog breeds to curry favor, but he had rejected all of them.

(T/N: The puppy’s name is referring to the four happy events that Chinese people hope their children will experience.)

It wasn’t that he was worried that the excessive attention to trivial entertainment would make him lose focus on the important things, but merely that he had no interest.

The steward and Zhu Geng thought that he wouldn’t accept the hua tiaogiven by Wei Luo. It was unexpected that not only did he accept, he also cared enough to ask for his name.

They knew that none of the three kittens given by Gao Danyang had names yet. And Zhao Jie didn’t even bother bringing those kittens back to his residence. They were being casually raised in the palace. It was the same as not having them.

If they compared Zhao Jie’s treatment of those kittens with this puppy’s, it was the difference between heaven and earth. It really confused them.

Zhao Jie took out an indigo bag embroidered with clouds from a drawer. It seemed as if he prepared this in advance.

He placed it in her hand, “This is for you.”

Wei Luo took it from him without understanding, “What is this?”

He kept giving her things recently. The previous time was the jade pendant, but this didn’t seem like it was more jewelry. She couldn’t guess what it was from feeling the outside of the bulging bag.

Just as she was prepared to open it, she heard Zhao Jie say, “It’s New Year’s money.”

The sixth day of the new year could still be counted as within the New Year celebration period and Zhao Jie was older than Wei Luo, so if they were only considering those two factors, it wasn’t unexpected for him to give her New Year’s money. What made this unexpected to the steward and Zhu Geng was that Zhao Jie had never prepared this type of thing before. He never even gave New Year’s money to Princess Zhao Liuli, much less other children.

Wasn’t his treatment of her too unusual?

Zhu Geng wanted to say something, but stopped and only looked at Zhao Jie. He stiffly returned the words that he wanted to say.