"It's all your fault!" Rong Ye said through gritted teeth after slapping her. "You promised not to hit my face. What if it leaves a scar?"
"A man without scars isn't a man!" Xun Dao rolled up his sleeve, revealing his left arm covered in scars.
Rong Ye closed his eyes as if he could hardly bear it. "It's hard to believe that I've been fellow disciples with this ugly monster for so long."
"What did you say!"
“No taste, plus a body covered in scars, uh—” With a pale face, Rong Ye immediately got up from his seat.
"Why are you spitting? You're wasting food!"
"Well--"
"Damn, that's disgusting!"
The two were making a ruckus, but they didn't notice that Lao Jiu, who hadn't said a word since sitting down at the table, was continuously piling fish into their bowls.
"Is the fish I fried really that bad?" she asked, her crescent-shaped eyes crinkling.
Looking at the plate of crucian carp, charred black as if they belonged to a Kunlun slave, Wei Changfeng took a deep breath. "Delicious." Those two words felt like they were taking his life.
Yu Zigui flipped the fish over and picked up a piece that had been in contact with the bottom of the pot the longest. "Then Ninth Senior Brother, eat more."
The dead fish eyes looked even more vacant.
"Young Master Shangguan, please don't be shy. This is a signature dish that my youngest son makes for every meal. Please try it." Fu Xian "enthusiastically" put all the remaining fish into Shangguan Yi's bowl, encouraging him gently.
The table fell silent as several pairs of eyes turned to look at each other.
Shangguan Yi took a bite of the fish with an elegant posture, her expression remaining unchanged, without the expected change in demeanor. "It would be even better if you could add more oil."
"Really?" Yu Zigui was overjoyed.
It's fake, it's fake! Twelve, look at your senior brother's lip movements, it's fake!
The seventh brother stopped vomiting and kept moving his mouth under the fan.
"You're ruthless, you're ruthless!" Xun Dao looked at the person who could be so heroic even while eating fish with admiration.
God willing.
He looked at Fu Xian with dead fish eyes, everything was understood without saying a word.
Ignoring the ninth brother's hint, Fu Xian glared at Shangguan, who was serving food to the youngest brother. "It's still too early to tell, don't be too arrogant."
His handsome brows lifted slightly, a hint of ambiguity in his expression. "Whether it's a flirtation or not, Brother Fu knows perfectly well." Shangguan Yi turned his face and then smiled, "Zigui, there's a boat to Jiangdu tomorrow, don't forget your promise."
With his eyes slightly narrowed, Fu Xian said softly, "Twelve, didn't you just ask why your eighth and ninth senior brothers had to take off their shirts to 'exchange feelings'?"
Seeing that her attention had indeed shifted, Fu Xian sighed softly.
“You know that the eighth and ninth brothers are not like your seventh senior brother. His family is in this county, so there are people to take care of him when he goes back. The eighth brother works for the county magistrate, and your ninth senior brother is working alone in the outer city. He is always on the go and has no time to wash his clothes when they get dirty. When he is hungry, no one cares about him. Just now, your two senior brothers were afraid of getting their clothes dirty, so they went shirtless.”
So that's how miserable they were. The eighth and ninth brothers exchanged glances.
"It seems that Brother Fu has failed in his duty as an elder brother," Shangguan Yi sneered.
“It’s no wonder you misunderstood, young master. After all, how would outsiders know about our sect?” He deliberately emphasized the word “outsider.” “I have asthma, and I get…” He turned away and coughed a few times, as if he had choked on a grain of rice.
"I'm finished eating." Yu Zigui put down her chopsticks. "Where are the dirty clothes?"
Covering his mouth, Fu Xian coughed and pointed to the backyard.
"Senior brother, Ziyu, please enjoy your meal." She nodded slightly and left her seat.
After she had walked away, Shangguan Yi put down his chopsticks with a displeased expression. "I didn't expect that the Crown Prince of Beiyue would resort to such low-class tactics."
“What prince? He’s long gone.” Turning around, Fu Xian wasn’t even out of breath. “On the Ministry of Revenue’s register, the Prince of Beiyue, the Young General of the Zhenguo Mansion, and the Second Young Master of the Shiyingwei family are all dead.” He tacitly took the empty bowl and added a bowl of rice for his eighth and ninth sons. “Also, my seventh brother is using the name of his deceased twin brother, Rong Ye, not Rong Lie. If we meet in the business world someday, Young Master Shangguan, don’t call him by the wrong name.”
When the late emperor was alive, the eighth and ninth princes could still sneak home. Who would have thought that after the current emperor ascended the throne, even their own flesh and blood relatives dared not accept them. Only then did the dead on the official documents truly lose their hearts.
“Rong Ye, Rong Ye, so that’s how it is.” Shangguan Yi glanced at the person opposite him. “I was wondering why Jiangnan powder wasn’t on the imperial procurement list in recent years. It turns out that the Rong family stole the limelight.”
His handsome eyes glanced at Rong Ye, then swept over the others.
"Last night, when I was talking with Zigui about the fact that disaster victims were not allowed to enter Zhili, I always felt strange that there were far fewer disaster victims here compared to the surrounding areas. Now it seems that it is not because the county was lucky, but because someone knew how to deceive the public. Are they making a living in the outer city? Are they traveling constables? Are they imperial merchants from the capital? Or are they just lowly clerks in charge of the county granary?"
His dark eyes shifted slightly, revealing a clear understanding.
"What, this time you're not just talking theory, but putting it into practice?"
Fu Xian took a bite of the fish. "Whether it's on paper or in real combat, it's none of your business."
"If it weren't for Zigui, I wouldn't bother asking."
Hearing his pointed remark, Rong Qi couldn't help but laugh and said, "The youngest doesn't even know who his master is."
That was before.
"What?" The brothers were all stunned.
“I told her this morning.”
"The one surnamed Shangguan!"
“Is Zigui an ordinary woman? Should we keep this from her? Besides—” A strange light flashed in his handsome eyes as Shangguan Yi looked at Fu Xian, “Now, the only way out is to send her to Jinling, isn’t it?”
The night was a bit chilly, and Fu Xian's tall figure appeared somewhat frail in the wind.