pjbooks Chapter 465
Chapter 465
“That injury? My dad gave it to me.” Thinking about it, Zhao Donglai felt terribly upset.“Your dad hits you too?” Xu Qingshi swallowed nervously, thinking that if his own father hit him, his legs would probably be broken. He absolutely must not make the same mistake.
“He does. Ah, they say a stepmother brings a stepfather. My dad never used to hit me, but ever since my stepmother came into the house, he beats me every few days!” Zhao Donglai felt deeply sad as he recalled this.
Once, his father had doted on him.
Now—
“Does your dad hit you every day?” Xie Yanzhi asked curiously.
“Does your dad hit you no matter when or where?” Jiang Yu was also curious; his own father never hit him.
His father often lacked strong opinions and had to listen to his mother.
He really couldn’t imagine what it felt like to be beaten by a father.
“My dad doesn’t hit me every day.” Zhao Donglai scratched his head. His father would hit him, but not every day.
“So, what was it this last time?” Xu Qingshi quickly asked.
He definitely had to avoid ever getting beaten by his own father. After all, his father was strong, and he wasn’t built to take a beating.
“I accidentally added something to my dad’s food, and he got angry and gave me a beating.” Zhao Donglai held up his fingers to show just a tiny bit.
“What kind of something?” the three asked curiously.
They all thought to themselves that they must never do anything like that. After all, none of them wanted to get hit.
“Auntie Liu next door uses this medicine so her pigs give birth to lots of piglets. I thought, if I fed it to my dad, could he give me lots of little brothers and sisters?” Zhao Donglai remembered that the next day, his father didn’t produce any siblings for him.
Instead, his lazy stepmother didn’t leave her room all day.
When he asked his dad for a little brother, his dad grabbed a stick and hit him—though it didn’t seem like he used much force at the time.
“What’s that pig-giving-birth medicine called?” Jiang Yu swallowed nervously and asked.
He silently noted: no feeding his dad medicine that makes pigs have babies!
“I think it’s called breeding medicine? Yeah, that’s it. Too bad it doesn’t work on people—my dad didn’t produce anything for me. What a waste of good medicine. I even paid Liu Auntie’s son, Little Fatty, half a tael of silver for it.” Recalling this, Zhao Donglai was full of discontent.
He wondered if his dad was simply useless or if Little Fatty had sold him fake medicine.
“Maybe medicine for pigs doesn’t work on people? If you want your dad to give you lots of little brothers, you’d probably need the kind of breeding medicine for humans?” Xu Qingshi asked curiously.
He thought to himself that if his own father could give him a little sister, he might actually be willing to feed him some.
Even if he got a beating—hadn’t Zhao Donglai said it didn’t hurt much?
Maybe that meant his dad actually liked it?
“Maybe. But I don’t know where to find the kind for humans.” Zhao Donglai figured that once his dad had other children, he wouldn’t only beat him.
He wanted his dad to have ten little brothers; on the first, beat the oldest brother; on the second, beat the second-oldest; that way, in a month, he’d only get hit three times at most.
Not like now, when he got beaten every other day.
“I know! When people are sick, they go to the medical hall,” Jiang Yu quickly said.
“Wouldn’t the palace physician have some too?” Xu Qingshi thought that whenever anyone in the manor fell ill, they always went to Doctor Zhang, never to an outside doctor.
Doctor Zhang must have the medicine to make his father produce a little sister.
“Can you just buy this medicine at the medical hall? Is it easy to get?” Xie Yanzhi asked, thinking about how he also wanted a little brother.
“I don’t know.” The group chattered for a while before deciding to go ask at the Huichun Hall later.
“But these things you talked about don’t really prove that your stepmother was born to beat people. From what I see, it was only after you did something that she beat you,” Xu Qingshi finally concluded, believing that Zhao Donglai was just too mischievous.
That was why his stepmother beat him.
“If you don’t believe me, just wait until your stepmother beats you—then you’ll know.” Zhao Donglai glared at Xu Qingshi angrily. He didn’t understand why, even though they both had stepmothers, they saw things so differently.
Why wouldn’t Xu Qingshi listen to his advice?
Did he have to wait until his own stepmother beat him before he would take the advice of his elder?
When Xu Heming returned to the capital, there were only three days left until the wedding.
Seeing the gates of the capital, Rusong let out a sigh of relief.
Fortunately, the prince had returned on schedule.
“Your Highness, shall we head back to the manor now?” Rusong asked, looking at Xu Heming.
“First, go to the Li residence.” Xu Heming was desperate to see Li Zhiwei at that moment. These days, he had thought of her constantly.
He wondered how she was doing while he was away from the capital.
At the Li residence,
Li Zhiwei sat in a daze, watching her mother have Zhou Tong inventory her dowry.
She didn’t understand—with the wedding day drawing near, why hadn’t the emperor sent someone to announce the decree?
Or had the empress’s words that day been a lie?
“Zhiwei?” Lady Yao, seeing her daughter lost in thought, felt uneasy.
Ever since her daughter returned from the palace, she had been spacing out. No matter what was asked, she wouldn’t say a word.
She had even asked Li Tianyou if anything had changed with the marriage to Prince An.
Li Tianyou said the emperor had never mentioned any change, and the Ministry of Rites was still handling the wedding. There was no way it would change.
As for not seeing Prince An for so long—she thought it was normal since the couple wasn’t supposed to meet before the wedding. Lady Yao didn’t see any problem.
“Mother, what’s wrong?” Li Zhiwei quickly put on a fake smile and looked at her mother.
With the wedding day almost here, her anxiety only grew heavier.
Were the emperor and empress planning to have her secretly married off to the Kingdom of Qinling?
“What’s been going on with you lately?” Lady Yao asked worriedly.
“Mother, I’m fine. I’m just about to get married, and I can’t bear to part with you.” Li Zhiwei rested her head on her mother’s shoulder, thinking that if she were married off to Qinling, she would probably never see her parents again.
Thinking this, she clenched her fists and silently mourned the unfairness of heaven.
But beyond that, there was nothing she could do.
“Silly child. The Prince An’s manor is only two streets away from our house. If you want to see us, you can come back anytime.” Lady Yao looked at her daughter with sadness, though she knew she couldn’t keep her at home forever.
“Miss! Prince An is here!” Qinghua walked over excitedly, speaking to Li Zhiwei.
Li Zhiwei felt a sudden shock, wondering if she had misheard.
Xu Heming was back?
Hadn’t he deliberately stayed away?
How could he be back now?
If he was back, wouldn’t that mean their wedding was still on?
Li Zhiwei had so many questions.
She wondered if this was all just a hallucination.