Translator: Dj2203
Editor: Dj2203
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“Godmother, won’t you sleep with me?” Xiao Candou had been accompanying Xu Jiao for the whole day, but it seemed that it was not enough.
Xu Jiao held up her chin and smiled, “No, this way I can watch you sleep.”
Xiao Candou smiled, but then frowned quickly, “But godmother, are you leaving tomorrow? Mother said you have something to do, and you have to leave Liangcheng tomorrow.”
Xu Jiao sighed, “Yes, I originally wanted to spend a few more days with Xiao Candou, but there are vicious people in the capital who are urging me…”
Xiao Candou opened her eyes wide, “Is it the godfather?”
Xu Jiao was shocked, wondering how Xiao Candou could be so aware. But soon, Xu Jiao realized that Xiao Candou didn’t know the meaning of “extremely vicious”. Perhaps, the little guy thought it meant “gentle and elegant”.
Xu Jiao held her chin up again and asked with a smile, “Do you know what it means to be extremely vicious?”
Xiao Candou chuckled and said, “Doesn’t it mean it’s very beautiful?”
Xu Jiao nodded as if she suddenly understood something. No wonder…
Children speak without restraint. Xu Jiao wanted to explain, but for some reason she suddenly thought of Song Qingyuan’s face. Xu Jiao couldn’t help but sigh, “It’s pretty good-looking.”
“Is it even prettier than godmother?” Xiao Candou asked.
“Hiss~” Xu Jiao couldn’t help but admire, “Xiao Candou, you are such a master at flattering people. Your godmother has to give you full marks.”
Xiao Candou blinked her eyes and said, “Godmother, what is flattery?”
Xu Jiao seemed to have encountered a problem, “Horse’s butt~”
Xiao Candou chuckled again, “Godmother, why do you pat the horse’s butt?”
Xu Jiao sighed: “Xiao Candou, you are the one who flatters the horse’s butt…”
Xiao Candou frowned and said aggrievedly, “But I didn’t pat the horse’s butt.”
Xu Jiao: “…”
Soon, Xu Jiao couldn’t help laughing out loud again.
Xiao Candou also laughed with her.
Later, Xu Jiao didn’t know what the two of them said, but she also fully witnessed the power of the “100,000 whys”. Xiao Candou was obviously very sleepy, lying on the bed with her eyes closed, still asking why. When she finally couldn’t bear it anymore and heard the sound of even breathing, Xu Jiao reached out and lifted her hair to make her sleep more comfortably, and then whispered, “Good night, little baby.”
….
Xu Jiao left the house only after she coaxed Xiao Candou to sleep.
In the guest garden, Fu Qiao and the maid were busy. When Xu Jiao came forward, Fu Qiao came out with a lamp and said, “I have packed all the things for the journey. Also, Mrs. Cen likes to eat Liangcheng’s preserved fruits. So, I’ve brought all the crispy jujube slices that she likes. If you need anything else, you can go to the city to prepare it tomorrow morning. It will take more than a month to get back to Beijing, so take good care of yourself on the way.”
Xu Jiao sighed, “I originally wanted to stay a few more days. My goddaughter likes me so much that she doesn’t want me to leave.”
Fu Qiao smiled and said, “Who said today that they care about the world, hope that the seas and rivers are peaceful, the country is prosperous and the people are safe, the people have a stable place to live, do not have to rush for a living, do not have to worry about life and death, and everyone is rich and the children have smiling faces?”
Xu Jiao coughed lightly, “That’s true…”
Fu Qiao did not expose her, and just listened to her again, “I am in such a hurry this time, maybe there is something urgent in the court, so I can only find time to come to Liangcheng to see you and Xiao Candou again.”
Fu Qiao smiled and said, “Ah Jiao, the border is always unstable, and you are a girl, so don’t come here too often in the future. Madam Cen will be worried. Xiao Candou and I are fine, you don’t have to worry about us.”
Xu Jiao looked at her, “Xiao Candou’s father is gone, and her grandparents miss her. Fu Qiao, bring Xiao Candou back to Beijing.”
Fu Qiao’s eyes stagnated for a moment, and she lowered her head slightly, “Yes, in a few days.”
Only then did Xu Jiao nod.
….
The next day, before daybreak, Eunuch Hui began to urge Xu Jiao.
Xu Jiao occasionally got irritated when waking up, so she grabbed the night light beside her and threw it to the ground with a “bang”. She didn’t feel much about it and continued to sleep soundly under the quilt.
In the garden, Eunuch Hui shivered with fear and couldn’t help but curl up his orchid fingers. He looked at the people behind him and said, “Don’t rush us. Can’t you see that the Prime Minister hasn’t woken up yet?”
It was almost noon when Xu Jiao got up, as if she wanted to make up for the sleep she had missed.
After sending you a thousand miles, we must finally say goodbye. At the city gate, Xu Jiao picked up Xiao Candou and said, “Let’s go, my Xiao Candou. See you in the capital.”
“Godfather, see you in Beijing~” Xiao Candou was very smart.
Xu Jiao returned Xiao Candou to Fu Qiao, who took her and said, “Have a safe journey.”
“Yeah.” Xu Jiao stepped on the pedal and got on the carriage. The carriage slowly drove away. Xu Jiao lifted the curtain on the window and waved to Fu Qiao and Xiao Candou. From a distance, she saw Xiao Candou wiping her tears, but she was very brave and tried her best to hold back her tears.
When the carriage was far away, so far that the silhouette at the city gate gradually became two lines, two dots, and far away in the back, nothing could be seen clearly. Only then did Xu Jiao lower the curtain.
It was so good when Zhu Yun was still here, they were in perfect harmony, a perfect couple…
Fu Qiao was reluctant to leave Zhu Yun, so she stayed in Liangcheng.
The beautiful scenery of Liangcheng and the old friends there.
However the old friend was gone, but Fu Qiao still stayed here.
Xu Jiao gathered her thoughts and looked towards the carriage.
She sat there with a smile on her face, looking at Eunuch Hui.
“How is Your Majesty these days?” Xu Jiao finally found time to ask.
Eunuch Hui could no longer hold back. “Your Majesty is fine, but there are too many memorials recently. He goes to bed very late every day and has to attend court early before dawn. There are times when he is not in a good mood. Once, when a memorial from the west was handed in, His Majesty did not say a word, but smashed the teacup with a bang, scaring no one in the palace to say a word. I guess he misses the Prime Minister a little…”
Xu Jiao looked at him.
Eunuch Hui continued, “A while ago, he kept staring at the Prime Minister’s cactus. I thought the cactus was going to die. But the next day, I saw His Majesty talking to the cactus. I guessed that His Majesty missed the Prime Minister, but since the Prime Minister was not here, His Majesty talked to the cactus.”
Talking to her cactus?
Perhaps because she was too familiar with him, Xu Jiao could imagine Song Qingyuan in an indigo dragon robe, most of the time looking at the memorial seriously, but when his eyes occasionally glanced at the cactus on the dragon table, his brows not being able to help but slightly frown, and then he would look away and continue to look at the memorial, but after a while, his eyes would glance back again, and that delicate and handsome face, would then begin talking to the cactus in a proud and arrogant manner…
Thinking of this, Xu Jiao wanted to laugh for some reason.
At the beginning, she was angry with Song Qingyuan, so she had someone send a pot of cactus into the palace – “This thorny head is gone, then let another thorny head accompany you!”
She had originally done this on purpose to make him angry, but she heard from the eunuch that he had really accepted it and placed it on the dragon table, where he looked at it every day and it caused him unhappiness every day.
She even heard that he was once pricked by a thorn, but he didn’t throw it away.
He was far more tolerant of troublemakers than her.
She was not even as good as that pot of thorns.
Both of them were thus angry and ignored each other, and then she set off for Beiguan City…
On the side, Eunuch Hui’s words pulled her back to her senses, “Prime Minister, His Majesty’s birthday is at the end of next month. If we travel faster, we can still return to the capital by the end of June.”
Xu Jiao blinked her eyes and said, “But I still have to go to Fancheng. I still have some unfinished business in Fancheng.”
Eunuch Hui’s face turned pale. Going to Fancheng was not the shortest way back to Beijing. Going to Fancheng required a detour. The time for trip back to Beijing was already very short. If going to Fancheng delayed it for two days…
Xu Jiao said, “It doesn’t matter if there are two days detour, right, Xiao Cang?”
Xu Jiao started teasing the hamster.
Eunuch Hui reluctantly mentioned it twice, but the other party just wouldn’t listen. Eunuch Hui suddenly felt that he would be beaten when he returned…
….
On the way to Fancheng, Hulu lifted the curtain, “Prime Minister, it’s Peng Qinyun.”
Xu Jiao looked over and saw that person sitting in the herbal tea shop along the way. Who else could it be but Peng Qinyun?
“Why is he here?” She clearly asked him to go back to prison.
When Peng Qinyun saw her, he had a look that said, “I finally meet you,” and a look that said, “You screwed me over.”
“I applied for a pardon as soon as I arrived in Fancheng, but then I heard that Fancheng prefect Lou Mingliang was dismissed and had to report back to the Ministry of Personnel. When the new prefect heard your name, Master Xu, he told me to get out of there as soon as possible and not to implicate him. He also said that the Fancheng prison had closed the case a long time ago and there was no file on me. I think Liangcheng is going this way to Fancheng, so I was waiting for you on the road.”
Lou Mingliang was dismissed from office? Xu Jiao took this to heart.
Lou Mingliang’s dismissal from office by Song Qingyuan was just a cover. Song Qingyuan had always wanted to reuse Lou Mingliang but felt that his temperament still needed to be tempered, so he placed him in Fancheng as the prefect of Fancheng.
Song Qingyuan was always well-informed about what he did. Now that he had asked Lou Mingliang to report back to the Ministry of Personnel, it was probably not a dismissal…
Lou Mingliang was previously a deputy minister of the Ministry of Revenue.
The Ministry of Revenue had always been controlled by the Guo family, the family of Song Qingyuan’s mother, and they had a lot of power in the court. Song Qingyuan had been holding back, but this time he asked Lou Mingliang to report back to Beijing, which meant he was going to move against the Ministry of Revenue…
Xu Jiao thought of it almost immediately.
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