"Your Ladyship, you've already eaten two huge bowls of rice. Any more and you'll give yourself indigestion."
After falling into the water, Wenren Luoshui had returned to her room and collapsed headfirst onto her bed.
Then she had run a high fever for three straight days. The fever had only just broken today, and the first thing she did upon opening her eyes was ask her personal maid, Yin Xing, to prepare food for her.
"Relax. Your ladyship's stomach can contract."
"Your Ladyship!"
Yin Xing had been by her ladyship's side since childhood, so she knew exactly how much she could eat.
She had always known her ladyship had a hearty appetite, but she had never imagined she could eat this much!
The bowl her ladyship was eating from today was one the kitchen used to serve soup!
"Relax, relax. I know my own stomach."
Wenren Luoshui swallowed her last mouthful of rice, then lifted the soup in front of her and gulped it down.
"My daughter! I heard you were awake?"
A cheerful male voice came from outside the door, and a figure soon appeared before Wenren Luoshui.
Wenren Qiao was the illustrious Prince of Pingbei, yet he was always doing something utterly frivolous.
"Sweetheart, did you eat all of this?"
Before coming to his daughter's room, Wenren Qiao had genuinely been a little worried about her, but then he saw the plates on the table that she had scraped completely clean.
How had falling into the water made his daughter's appetite grow?
"Sweetheart, is this how much you'll be eating from now on? Could you eat a little less?"
"Ow! Darling, why did you hit me?"
No sooner had Wenren Qiao finished speaking than his wife rewarded him with a heavy punch to the head.
"A good appetite is a blessing, don't you know? However poor we get, we can't let our child go without, can we?"
Even after his wife scolded him in front of their child, Wenren Qiao was not angry. He even urged her not to get upset.
Watching her delightfully ridiculous parents, Wenren Luoshui remembered how their lives would end and could not help complaining to the system in her mind.
[My parents are such good people. Why should my second uncle's family get to murder them? I won't stand for it!]
In the middle of their playful squabble, Wenren Qiao and his wife suddenly heard their daughter's voice-and heard her say that the second branch of the family would murder them!
The couple exchanged a look and turned toward their daughter together. Discovering that she had not spoken just now, the two easygoing souls assumed they had misheard.
But the next moment, they heard another voice, cold and emotionless.
[Salty Fish System: Host, that's what you get for being cannon fodder!]
[Can't I change the plot? For example, I could warn my parents to throw out that woman in the kitchen, Cook Liu. She's someone my second uncle planted here. Unfortunately, my parents haven't discovered her true identity in all these years.]
Wenren Qiao thought, So that Cook Liu works for my second brother! I'll remember that. I'll find the steward in a moment and have him deal with her.
Tie Lihua thought, Wow! How thrilling. So the old princess consort has even planted someone in our residence's kitchen.
While Wenren Luoshui was indignantly discussing the matter with the system, her comical parents simply sat down at the table. Who knew where they had produced those sunflower seeds from?
While her attention was entirely focused on talking to the system, the two of them cracked sunflower seeds and eavesdropped on her thoughts.
[Salty Fish System: The host can change the plot, but whether you succeed will depend on your abilities.]
[Don't worry. My abilities are certainly nothing to worry about.]
After ending her conversation with the system, Wenren Luoshui returned to her senses and saw that the sunflower seed shells in front of her parents had already piled into a little mountain.
"Well, I arranged to go watch cockfighting with the Marquis of Dongchang this afternoon. It's nearly time, so I'll be off. And sweetheart, eat a little less."
Although Wenren Qiao was a prince, he was really just an idle one. All day long, he either ate and drank or went out to walk his birds and watch cockfights.
He never attended court, but before the reigning emperor had become crown prince, he had been deeply out of favor. Back then, nobody had wanted to play with him. Only Wenren Qiao, who had still been the heir to his father's title, had ignored everyone else's ostracism and warnings and gone to play with him of his own accord.
Because they had grown up playing together, whenever the residence ran short of money, Wenren Qiao would take his daughter and son to plead poverty before the emperor.
As a result, the emperor now got a headache at the mere sight of him.
Princess Consort Tie Lihua also found some random excuse to slip away, leaving Wenren Luoshui alone in her room to ponder how she could get the cook surnamed Liu out of the residence.
By the time she had thought of a solution and gone to ask the steward, he was looking at her in utter puzzlement.
"Your Ladyship, this Cook Liu was caught red-handed putting laxatives in the food. She has already been driven out of the residence."
Wenren Luoshui: ...
Could it really be such a coincidence?
"Sis! Sis!"
A little dumpling of a boy came running toward her like a gust of wind, his short little legs moving surprisingly fast.
"Sis, Grandmother wants you to come over."
The little dumpling panted as he delivered the message, but she merely tossed out a breezy reply.
"I'm not going."
The old princess consort of the Prince of Beiping's Residence was not the former Prince of Beiping's first wife. His first princess consort had died shortly after giving birth to Wenren Qiao.
To keep his child from suffering, the former Prince of Beiping had married his late wife's younger, concubine-born sister.
He had thought that his son's own maternal aunt would care for him more attentively as a stepmother than an outsider would.
Reality proved he had been thinking too wishfully. Even before marrying, this concubine-born daughter had never gotten along with her legitimate elder sister.
After the Prince of Beiping married her as his second wife, she cared even less about Wenren Qiao, who had lost his mother's protection.
Whenever the old Prince of Beiping came to visit his son, she would put on the air of a loving mother.
But out of the old Prince of Beiping's sight, she left Wenren Qiao to fend for himself.
Many times, while he was still in swaddling clothes, Wenren Qiao had nearly cried himself breathless.
Later, as Wenren Qiao gradually grew up, his stepmother discovered that he had little natural talent and no love of studying. Only then did she lower her guard against him somewhat.
Over the years, there was nobody in the capital who did not know that Wenren Qiao had a poor relationship with his stepmother.
Of course, it was this princess consort who had ordered people to spread those stories.
After all, before the old Prince of Beiping died, he had actually passed his princely title to this useless eldest son.
As for the second son, who was far more accomplished than the eldest, he had merely said that the boy had the ability to go out and make something of himself.
Because of this, after the old prince died, the old princess consort's attitude toward Wenren Qiao grew even worse.
It had even reached the point where everyone knew about it.
"Sis, then come to the palace with me. Uncle Emperor said two days ago that he'd give me a little jade horse. It's already been two days, and he still hasn't sent anyone to bring it over. I'm going to the palace to get it myself."
Wenren Qingluo's little, bun-like face was full of anticipation.
He had loved that jade horse from the very first moment he saw it. If Uncle Emperor had not said he had yet to admire it enough, Wenren Qingluo would have taken the little horse back to the residence that very day.
With no sooner said than done, the siblings boarded a carriage and presented their entry token to enter the palace.
The emperor, who was reviewing memorials in the imperial study, suddenly let out an enormous sneeze.
His sixth sense told him that his little private treasury was about to suffer again.