CHAPTER 126 - A TRULY UN-CORN-VINCING DISPLAY OF RELUCTANCE
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I burst out laughing. Oh my gosh, I knew he would react that way, but his blushing, embarrassed expression was too cute! I couldn’t resist the urge to tease him mercilessly. “Why is your face red? I meant as a guest. I’ll build a separate courtyard for you so you can have your own residence.”
Yinuo giggled. I handed her a piece of cloth from my inventory to clean up the spill.
The bodyguard got up, bowed, and retreated to the door, which he left open.
“But I, I, I, how can I…” Prince Baiyu was still stammering over his response. We all waited until he calmed down, which took quite a while. Eventually, he managed to blurt out a complete sentence. “You want me to move into your farm?”
“I want us to spend more time together. You visiting me every few weeks isn’t working out for me. We’ll never get to know each other properly that way,” I said.
“Well…I…” Prince Baiyu was still dithering over his answer.
I smirked. “You can bring a chaperone to stay with you if needed.”
He turned his face away and mumbled something I couldn’t make out.
Luckily for Prince Baiyu, he was saved by the appearance of Fengying who came over to check if there was a problem.
“My lady, what happened?” asked Fengying.
“I accidentally touched a cursed item that drained my… energy. I’m fine.” It was actually my magic level that was drained, but I didn’t feel like talking about the difference between qi and magic level.
“Ah, I have just the thing for that,” said Fengying. She gave Yinuo instructions about fetching a box from the storeroom.
Prince Baiyu’s face was still red and he fidgeted uneasily whenever someone glanced his way.
I took pity on him and said, “Dear Prince, why don’t you leave now? Don’t you have an appointment?”
“I can’t possibly leave you when you’re unwell.” His brows knitted together in a tight, furrowed line and the corners of his mouth turned down. The tone of his voice told me that he felt insulted at the suggestion.
“Suit yourself.” I allowed Yinuo to fuss over me while Fengying left to get medicine. “I’m fine, really!”
When Fengying returned, she held a wooden box. Inside it, nestled in the red silk, was a small brown pill about half an inch in diameter. “This qi pill should help.”
“Hey, that kinda looks valuable. I don’t think I need it,” I said.
Though the System didn’t recognize this item, the fact that it was kept in an expensive-looking wooden box meant that it was most likely not a run-of-the-mill pill.
“My lady, this is barely worth half of one of your beauty potions. Please take it,” she said.
Beauty potion? Oh, she must mean the [Dewy Glow Potion].
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
“Okay.” I got a glass of water from my inventory and took the pill. I was expecting to swallow it with the water, but the moment I put it in my mouth, it immediately dissolved into a thin liquid and smoothly went down my throat, leaving behind a cool, minty feeling and a weird aftertaste of dirt and pepper. A warm feeling spread from my stomach to the rest of my body. My fingers and toes tingled.
“Good. The color has returned to your face,” said Prince Baiyu in a relieved tone. “Please don’t play with that cursed item again.”
“Mmmm.” I threw back the blankets and sat up in bed. “I suddenly feel great, like I could run all day long.”
Prince Baiyu gave me a long-suffering look. “Will you please promise me you won’t handle that cursed item again?”
“I promise,” I said and then got up from the bed. Walking over to where Yinuo was, I hooked my arm with hers and said in a softer voice that I knew the prince could still hear, “I think he’s playing coy, but I’m not worried. I know he’s going to say yes. Did you see his expression?”
Fengying cleared her throat loudly and ushered us all out of my room. I had the distinct impression that it was considered unseemly for me to have a gentleman in my bedroom. Yinuo and I giggled.
“I, I, can’t, I mean, uh…” Prince Baiyu was back to stuttering.
I patted his shoulder and said, “You can send me your reply later.”
“I will…” He took my hand in his and kissed it.
“No worries. If you really can’t move in then I’ll just get a cat,” I said.
“What? No! Not a cat!” Prince Baiyu looked horrified. “Please don’t get a cat.”
“Why not? Cats are nice and they hunt mice.” I hadn’t actually seen any rats or mice around, but that was beside the point. A cat or dog pet was a must on a farm.
“Anything but a cat.”
“Why?”
“Because people will make fun of me.”
“Eh? Make fun how?”
Prince Baiyu bit his lip. He looked adorable. “You know… people will ask if it's our baby.”
Yinuo’s eyes and mine met and we both burst out laughing.
“That’s so random and silly! Why would that even happen?” I couldn’t believe he was worried about it.
Prince Baiyu looked down on the ground and sighed. “I have this uncle whose friend is married to a human, and when we visited their house, they had a cat in a basket.”
“Oh, lemme guess, and you made fun of him by asking if that was his baby, huh?” I pinched his waist. “Now you’re afraid people will tease you like that, too. Isn’t that your fault?”
“Not a cat, please?” Prince Baiyu’s eyes locked onto mine, wide and beseeching, like a hopeful kitten seeking a treat.
I couldn’t resist that look. “Alright.”
With that settled, we said our goodbyes and he left.
***
As expected, two days later Prince Baiyu sent a letter accepting my invitation for him to spend the rest of the spring season at my farm. The kids and I got busy tending to the crops and cutting down trees to clear space for the third courtyard.
“Do these fish look demonic to you?” I asked my apprentices. We were at the eastern rice paddy.
“No,” said Kharli.
“No,” said Mo.
“No!” said Lari. “These look like very good spirit fish. Look at how shiny they are.”
The others nodded.
"Okay, examine all the plants properly and make sure everything is as it should be," I said.
The rice paddy smelled of damp earth, and the plants were growing well. The insects were out in force today, especially the damselflies and dragonflies that flitted gracefully here and there with their gem-colored iridescent wings. I carefully examined the paddy to see if there were any pests, but there were only the usual harmless bugs. Below the surface, the fish swam merrily, and no matter how much I looked at them, I couldn't see anything out of place about the fish.
Later that day, I asked Fengying about it. “Has Deming looked at the [Rice Carp] recently?”
“Yes, he has high hopes that they will go very well with the rice and vegetables growing on the farm,” said Fengying. She was serving my morning snack, corn baba, also called baogu baba, a steamed cake made of ground corn. It was soft and chewy, with a fresh, sweet taste, and a nice golden color.
“This is delicious,” I said as I bit into the corn cake. “So the carp look okay? Do they look… demonic?”
Fengying nodded and poured some corn juice for me. “Yes. Deming says that, based on the demonic qi they are giving off, they will grow fast.”
“The carp are not bad then?”
“They’ll be excellent food ingredients.”
“Great.” Whew! If Deming wasn’t worried about the demonic fish, then neither was I. He was the expert, after all. “Please let me know when the carriage arrives.”
I was making two quick trips today, one to Wukan to buy as many astrology books as I could, and one to Hongzhen to spend money in town and increase my favorability with the townspeople.