Chongfei Manual [I]

Chapter 50

The stall selling fried sweet rice dumplings wasn't far away. While Yang Zhen was paying for the bag of snacks, Zhao Liuli was impatiently using a bamboo skewer to deliver the snack into her mouth. Yang Zhen immediately stopped her action. He took the bamboo skewer from her and blew on it to cool it off before handing it back to her. The habitually silent young man's features were grave and stern, but he was very gentle as he fed Zhao Liuli. He watched Liuli eat a mouthful of the snack and her subsequent satisfied expression. The corners of his mouth couldn't help curving up slightly.

In addition to the fried sweet rice dumplings, there were many other snacks being sold on the street. Zhao Lilui couldn't tear herself away to go back. She dragged Yang Zhen along to look at this and that place. In the end, she stopped in front of a snack vendor that was selling rose mirror pastry. There was a gluttonous expression on her face.

Mirror pastry was a round, sticky, and white pastry made by steaming glutinous rice flour and sprinkling toppings like sesame, peanuts, rose petals, and/or jam on top. It was also decorated with a ripe cherry at the center. It looked good and tasted good. Zhao Liuli saw that other girls were all buying this snack. She couldn't resist pulling on Yang Zhen's sleeve and said, "Older brother Yang Zhen, I want to eat this too."

(Below is a picture of rose mirror pastry. It's called mirror pastry because the pastry is shaped like a small round mirror.)

Yang Zhen took out five coins from his sleeve and purchased two pastries. One was hawthorn flavor and the other was cherry flavor. Zhao Liuli happily took both of them, but was reluctant to eat them. She looked left and right and said, "I want to give one to Ah Luo."

Yang Zhen saw that her small face had become glossy and rosy from excitement and said in low voice, "You should eat it yourself. His highness Prince Jing will buy more for fourth miss."

Soon after Yang Zhen's reminder, Zhao Liuli smiled and handed one of the skewers to Yang Zhen, "This is for you!" Her emptied hand very naturally held his big hand to lead him towards another snack vendor's stall.

Yang Zhen tall figure was slightly stiff, but he didn't take his hand away. He allowed her small soft hand that seemed boneless to keep holding his. They weaved left and right through the crowded marketplace.

On the other side, Wei Luo had disappeared in the time it would take to blink once. Zhao Jie's eyes had become cold. He looked around in every direction and didn't see any traces of Wei Luo. He called for Zhu Geng to come forward and asked, "Where's Ah Luo?"

Zhu Geng pointed in the direction that she had walked. There were many people in that direction. A moment of inattention and he had lost sight of her. "Fourth miss went in that direction. Yang Hao is following her. Don't worry prince."

When Gao Dan Yang heard him saying the two words "Ah Luo", the smile on her face immediately wavered. Ah Luo? Was it Duke Ying's family's Wei Luo?

So many years had passed since Wei Luo was a child. Did he still favor her like before? Back then, he had treated her excessively good. Calculating the time, that little girl was now thirteen years old. And Zhao Jie had taken her outside to stroll around together. What exactly did this mean?