Chapter 2

Chapter 2

After eating the pork knuckle, I was perfectly content.

But then the Ninth Prince suddenly asked me a very difficult question.

He asked what we planned to do next.

How would I know? I had only left the prison because I wanted to eat pork knuckle.

“So you made no arrangements whatsoever before breaking me out of prison?”

I nodded honestly.

“I was just too hungry. How about we buy a few pork knuckles to tuck away, then go back to the prison?”

The Ninth Prince gave a cold laugh.

“Then you had better think it through. Once we go back and finish the pork knuckles, you will be hungry again.”

Then we could not go back to prison. Even if I had to die, I was going to die with a full stomach.

But I truly had nowhere to go. So I squatted by the roadside and racked my brains for a full fifteen minutes before carrying the Ninth Prince on my back to knock on the door of my foster father’s house.

My foster father was a sixth-rank official with a very meager salary. He had once been married, but after his wife passed away from illness, he had lived alone ever since. There were no servants in the house either.

When my foster father opened the door and I saw him, my eyes grew hot. I cried, “Dad, I missed you so much!”

To my surprise, my foster father was even more moved than I was. He burst into tears on the spot.

“A-A-A married daughter has no business returning to her maiden home in the middle of the night! It is against the rules. How about this? The two of you go stroll around the streets for a while and come back at dawn!”

The Ninth Prince laughed.

My foster father tried to close the door, but I held it open with one hand.

“Dad, we don’t care about those rules. Weren’t you the one who said too many rules were just pedantic?”

With the prince on my back, I entered the house.

My foster father stood at the doorway, trembling all over.

“N-Ninth Prince, do you not care about propriety either?”

My foster father must not have been wearing enough, so I went into his room, took out the only cotton-padded coat he owned, and draped it over his shoulders.

The Ninth Prince yawned faintly.

“When one is away from home, even I can forgo such formalities.”

He walked around the house once, entered my room, then called for me to change the sheets for him.

I swiftly changed the bedding, soothed him until he lay down, and when I came back out, my foster father was still crying. I hugged him.

“Dad, don’t be sad. Although they say a married daughter is water poured away, I am filial. I said I would care for you in your old age and see you to your grave, and I will definitely keep my word.”

My foster father also patted my shoulder.

“You are indeed filial. In quite a hurry to see this old man to his grave.”

My foster father went to sleep, and I made do in the main room for the night. The next morning, he went to the yamen. Usually, my foster father left early and came home late, but that day, he did not return even by evening.

The Ninth Prince said my foster father had run away. I did not believe him and wanted to go to the yamen to look for him, but the Ninth Prince said I could not go out, because I was now a fugitive.

The Ninth Prince also told me to think of another place where we could stay, and that we should leave immediately.

I thought and thought, but still had nowhere to go, so I asked the Ninth Prince in return, “Don’t you have any relatives? Why don’t we stay with them for a while?”

The Ninth Prince laughed again.

“All my relatives are members of the imperial clan. If we go to them, we might as well go straight back to prison.”

The Ninth Prince said a fugitive had to have the self-awareness of a fugitive.

I felt his words made a lot of sense. As expected of a prince. He was different from other people.

So that night, I packed the four steamed buns left in the house, took the Ninth Prince with me, and walked all night to the countryside.

I had nowhere else to go, so I could only come to my foster father’s old home.

To my surprise, my foster father was there too. He stood in the courtyard holding a water bucket, staring at us for a long while. The Ninth Prince greeted him.

“Lord Xu, you certainly travel fast.”

My foster father said he had come ahead of us to make arrangements and tidy up, so that when we arrived, we could move in right away. I proudly told the Ninth Prince that my foster father was a good person.

The Ninth Prince pinched my cheek and agreed with my assessment of my foster father’s character.

And so, the three of us happily settled down in Xu Family Village.

Xu Family Village was not small. Supposedly, there were three hundred permanent households. Our neighbors were surnamed Zhang, and their family had a son named Erniu.

Erniu and I had known each other since childhood. He was very good to me. When we were little, whenever his mother made something tasty, he would secretly bring some to share with me. He also said that when he grew up, he would marry me and make me his wife.

I agreed, because his mother’s cooking was truly delicious.

I went to Erniu’s house, greeted them, and told them to call me if they had any heavy work that needed doing.

Erniu gave me lots of food. I happily returned home and found that my foster father and the Ninth Prince both had rather strange expressions.

“Why are you two unhappy? Are you hungry?”

My foster father looked at me with a bitter, worried face. The Ninth Prince smiled brightly and said, “I am. What are we having for lunch?”

“Boiled sweet potatoes, boiled pumpkins, boiled-” Before I could finish, the Ninth Prince coughed a few times and said resentfully, “I want meat.”

I could not stand seeing him with that expression. A fine, pampered prince who used to live in luxury was now eating sweet potatoes at every meal. He was truly pitiful.

I decided to go hunting in the mountains.

My foster father clutched the money pouch at his waist and silently went out. A while later, he came back with a fish.

The Ninth Prince was delicate and needed to eat well. I was not picky about what I ate, as long as I could eat my fill at every meal. But whether one ate well or ate a lot, it all required silver. And the Ninth Prince said neither he nor I could show our faces.

Thus, the heavy burden of earning money to support the household fell entirely on my foster father.

He had lost his official post, but fortunately, he had excellent handwriting. So he set up a stall at the street corner to write for people. But that made too little money, so he also took on a job washing dishes at a restaurant.

My foster father really was a good person.

I could not let him toil alone, so I turned over the few old plots of land at home again, preparing to plant wheat.

From now on, this would be our home.