Your Highness, Please Love Me Tender

3. The Footboy Yu Jiang

Translator: Flying Lines

The next day was sunny with soft breeze and snowy clouds drifting around. The first thing came to his ear when Su Jie woke up was a timid voice, “Childe, you’re awaken?”

Su Jie stared blankly at the ceiling, a normal state he would usually have after waking up in the morning because his brain needed several seconds to reboot.

“Childe?” The voice became even more timid.

As his eyes slowly gained focus, Su Jie sat up and gasped at the pain all over his body before he turned to the servant about 12 years old.

“Child, I’m Yu Jiang, sent by His Highness to serve you,” the footboy said in a meek voice, his head bowed.

Su Jie still looked blank, but what happened the night before gradually came to his mind, which made his mood getting sour.

Yu Jiang was a diligent boy, who soon fetched hot water to help Su Jie wash up. Su Jie couldn’t help but sigh when seeing Yu Jiang’s innocent face. “I’m now not worthy of master, I can only bury my feelings deep down.” Su Jie, with a wry smile, shook his head. Having lost his virginity, he was no longer qualified to even love Prince Qin.

“Where is Xiao Shengnian?” he asked.

Yu Jiang paled and dropped to his knees upon his words, “Childe, we’re not allowed to call His Highness’s name.”

Su Jie couldn’t help but feel a sense of hopelessness after seeing Yu Jiang being flustered. He said with a bland tone, “Okay, I get it, now tell me where is His Highness?”

“Childe, that I don’t know.”

…

“Childe, His Highness had breakfast prepared for you,” Yu Jiang raised his head and ventured to say after not getting any response from Su Jie.

“Bring it in.” Su Jie was kind of hungry. That awful famine in his hometown in his earlier years had left a severe mark on him. He was not afraid of pain or any form of hardships, but the fear of hunger was something he never managed to conquer. He was often despised by the Guqin Master for that.

But Su Jie never tried to retort before such satire. He just took it all. It was a nightmare in his memories, an awful one. The horrible scene of those healthy villagers being starved to death, their face sallow, their eyes filled with despair, had been haunting him all along. For him, hunger was the most unbearable, more horrible than pain and humiliation.

He would have died long ago in that famine had Prince Qin not saved him. From that moment on, he had cherished Prince Qin in his heart as his master, someone he should plead loyalty to his whole life.

“Childe, please.” Su Jie came back to earth upon hearing Yu Jiang, who was holding a bowl of plain rice porridge.

Su Jie had thought that food at a prince’s mansion would be far from mediocre. However, …

“Only porridge?” Su Jie was stunned.

Yu Jiang nodded with the greatest caution, “Yes, my Childe. His Highness specially ordered this for you.”

Su Jie covered his forehead, trying hard to hold back his anger, “Specially ordered? He ordered only a bowel of porridge?” I’ll starve to death! For god’s sake.

Yu Jiang shrank his neck beneath Su Jie’s murderous gaze and repeated the prince’s words in all seriousness, “His Highness mentioned, you passed out during…So you must be in poor health. So His Highness sent for a doctor to check your condition, who suggested that you should stick to a light diet.”

“Which doctor gave that suggestion?” Su Jie asked through gritted teeth. Shouldn’t a weak one have more nutrient food? Why suggesting light food instead?

Yu Jiang knew from Su Jia’s face that he would immediately rush to that doctor with a sword in hand should he give the name. So instead of telling who that doctor was, he asked, “You don’t want it, my Childe?”

Su Jie, indignant, took the bowl and gnashed under breath, “No, I love it!”

He could take this, for Prince Qin.

While drinking the porridge, Su Jie felt a bit confused. He remembered Prince Rui saying he would take him to a bath…then he blacked out. Had he been drugged? That couldn’t be, he didn’t notice anything. But before he passed out, he heard Xiao Shengnian whispering something like “Xiaonu my dear, you seem to have poor stamina.”

Though he wasn’t the strong type, he wasn’t weak either as he had been learning kung fu since young, which meant passing out because of the vigorous sex was out of the question. But then why? Had Prince Rui resorted to any dirty means?