Refusing to Serve Me? Then Off With Your Head!

The Honeytrap Plot of a Man

Yan Ping asked me, "Xiao Yi, does the Regent have anything he is particularly fond of?"

My eyes twinkled. I was overjoyed as I secretly clenched my fist: Don't tell me that he has learned to love the house to the point of loving it's crows?

(TN: 爱屋及乌 (ai wu ji wu) loving something/someone to the point of loving the things that has to do with it.)

No, Father was not a perching crow.

"...... You also knows that my Father has not been getting along with him ever since your Father became the regent. But the Great Qi is aggressively swallowing the land and our Great Chen is in great disarray; my Father thought he should go hand in hand with the regent like the old times. He pondered for a long time and still couldn't think of anything as peace-offering gift."

My face collapsed, I got excited for nothing just now.

"Everybody knows that Father likes wine and spicy things." Honestly, wasn't making peace while drinking wine the best possible outcome for us?

Yan Ping frowned for a moment before bitterly smiling, "I couldn't possibly ask my Father to send red pepper flakes and two jars of wine to the regent's manor. That will be too shabby. My Father wants a serious gift, like gold and gems and jades."

I really wanted to smoothen that frown on his face with my hands. But even though we had a kiss just now, I didn't dare to overstep my boundary again. I could only sit there obediently.

He enthusiastically tried to help me think, "Did the regent have any golden or jade object that he particularly likes? Does he have any objects that he likes to toy with in his study? What shape is it in? Is there anything that looks expensive and is stored together with the general's seal?"

The situation suddenly turned hard for me; I couldn't wait to rush back to the manor and grabbed Father by the collar before threatening him to like gold and jades.

Father was really honest and uncorrupted; he only had like four or five servants serving him everyday. As for me, I had to do my own clothes and hair. There was an old mama that was in charge of cleaning, though. I heard she was the widow of Father's deceased subordinate. I was not allowed to simply order her around, Father would hit me.

Actually, my Father had this one little problem: whenever he received his salary every year, he would bulk buy food and store them in the cellar. On the next year, he would use them to brew wine. Uncle Tong said that my Father was often hungry in his childhood years. Because of that, he developed this fear for hunger. I was a little embarrassed to tell Yan Ping about that 'problem'. How embarrassing would it be if Prime Minister Yan had to send rice to our manor as gift?

Coming up with a proper gift was really hard. Even though it was easy to say that buying what one like was enough, actually doing it was pretty hard.

As for the general's seal, because Father could not exchange it with rice, he simple casted it away on the second drawer from the left on his study table; completely uninterested.

I could see disappointment in Yan Ping's eyes. "I—- I will return to the manor and check Father's study properly!"

Under the night sky, the frown on his face was gradually smoothen out. I sighed in relief, deciding to turn Father's study upside down once I got home.

Just, on the next day after that night, before I even got to check Father's study, an imperial guard carried my Father home from the palace.

Imperial physicians visited out manor in many trips; the empress dowager's grace towards us was never ending. Father reclined on his bed with a pale face while Uncle Tong stood at the door in worry, accepting all the guests who were there to visit the sick.