In the blink of an eye, night had fallen, and it was time for the evening meal.
His Highness had dismissed all of the other servants from the study, including Qianshan-gonggong. But that wasn’t unusual, given His Highness’s extreme aversion to being interrupted while concentrating on something.
Since there was now another master in the hall, the kitchen began to prepare dinner, one dish at a time, even though His Highness had yet to emerge from the study. It wasn’t long, though, before someone delivered a message to the main hall on rather short notice.
“Two officials have invited His Highness to dine with them, so His Highness will not be eating here tonight,” the servant reported.
Meng Qianshan was currently waiting attentively outside the study, which left Taozhi in charge of the main hall. As the other maids looked to her, she slowly surveyed her surroundings before eventually focusing on Huo Wujiu, her eyes filled with scorn.
He was sitting next to the window, reading a book.
“What are you all standing around for? Prepare the table for dinner,” she said shortly. “Do you mean to starve the mistress in our hall just because His Highness is not dining here tonight?”
None of the other servants dared to aggravate her, and they instantly busied themselves with their various tasks.
Sun Yuan, who was standing near Huo Wujiu, also stepped forward to attend to him. Without saying a word, Huo Wujiu set his book aside.
Only he knew how much he disliked reading.
He had always felt annoyed at the mere sight of those dizzying lines of characters, even as a child. If he wasn’t skipping lessons to ride horses in the military encampment, he was devising new pranks to pull on his tutor. By the time he was about seven or eight, he had already infuriated two tutors to the point of resignation. It was hard enough to find teachers for him due to Yangguan’s remoteness, and his father was so angry that he chased after him with a horsewhip, threatening to beat him.
Even now, reading gave him a bit of a headache. But ironically enough, he couldn’t do much of anything else these days.
Huo Wujiu glanced back down at the book idly, but once Sun Yuan saw that Huo Wujiu had set it down, he started pushing the wheelchair toward the table.
There were already a few dishes laid out, and after Taozhi had snapped at the other servants, they quickly brought out the rest of it, one piping hot plate after another. Since the meal had initially been prepared with Jiang Suizhou in mind, the dishes were plentiful and exquisitely assembled. Wisps of steam curled slowly and enticingly into the air under the bright lamplight.
Taozhi stood and watched nearby, her expression cold as frost.
She was naturally beautiful. When she first came to the prince’s residence, even the selling agent said that if she was blessed with good fortune, perhaps she could go from being a lowly attendant to a concubine.
With that in mind, she clawed her way up to her current position, determined to shed her status as a slave girl and become a mistress…but as it turned out, her master only liked men.
What was so good about men, anyway? It was one thing to be drawn to Madam Gu’s type, she supposed, but why was this wheelchair-bound wretch trying to squeeze into her master’s household? Though he sat tall and was well-built, he was also dull and useless.
Because of the embarrassment she had suffered earlier that afternoon, Taozhi stewed silently in her resentment. Her irritation toward Huo Wujiu grew greater and greater.
So what if he’s handsome? So what if he’s a general? Look at him now—he’s been crippled and given to serve another man, Taozhi thought viciously.
At that moment, a servant girl walked in with a bowl of soup. As she stepped over the door threshold, she tripped and narrowly avoided spilling the liquid.
Well, His Highness wasn’t here tonight, anyway.
Taozhi stalked over to the girl and snatched the soup from her.
“Why are you being so careless?” she snarled.
She leveled an intimidating glare at the girl, who apologized profusely. Taozhi just turned around with the dish and carried it to the table herself.
A second later, she very intentionally bumped into the table. The bowl flipped dramatically out of her hands, and the scalding hot soup splashed all over Huo Wujiu’s legs.