CH 3.3

The maid was about to comfort him.

Meng Huan asked, “How much money can I receive monthly as the prince’s wife?”

The maid: “……”

“According to the usual rules, Madam is a concubine, so it’s fifty taels of silver a month.” The maid patiently said.

What’s going on? Will you not consider competing for favor at all?

Meng Huan put his hands to his head and scratched his hair, carefully calculating the exchange rate of silver taels into RMB. One tael was 600 yuan; he would have 30,000 yuan of monthly living expenses if it were fifty taels.

Awesome. What kind of concept is this? 30,000 yuan of pocket money a month.

The monthly salary was officially fixed and could probably rise. If he used a little trick, he could use the prince regent’s name to make more money!

But Meng Huan was happy with what he had and had no desire to be greedy. He was already pleased with 30,000 a month. Thinking about his upcoming silver, he could not help but reveal a smile.

“Then what do I eat for breakfast?”

Meng Huan’s expectant eyes made the maid shiver.

The prince regent’s residence only had one male master, Lin Bozhou. His parents were dead, he was without a wife, and the late king’s several side concubines were kept in the feudatory to recite Buddhism and guard their graves. Therefore, although Meng Huan was a concubine, he was the highest-ranking “female” master in the prince regent’s mansion.

He and Li Bozhou had the same treatment on food and drinks.

The maid felt that the young madam would go crazy with her words. “Stir-fried mutton, fried fermented goose, stir-fried pork with yellow cabbage, steamed pig trotters, two thoroughly cooked fishes, baked meat, fragrant rice, bean soup, beef noodles, barley porridge, pine nuts and dates porridge, tea soup. A total of twelve courses.”

“……………………”

Are you performing on how to introduce the name of the dish?

Meng Huan took a deep breath and pressed his hand to his chest.

He strongly suppressed the excited surging mood.

Heaven has eyes. It’s not strange that this young master transmigrated into this book after a lifetime of kindness.

He stood up. “Serve the food.”

His face regained its brightness and colors. “After breakfast, go to the government treasury and take my 30,000 monthly salary.”

“……”

–

The government treasury was on the east side of the prince’s residence, several buildings and ponds away from the courtyard where Meng Huan lived. When he walked out of the courtyard door after eating and drinking to his fill, a subordinate brought a shoulder carriage and waited at the door.

“Madam, please.”

The prince regent’s residence was so big that he had to travel in a palanquin.

When Meng Huan was lifted onto their shoulders, he lamented the decadent life of this feudal dynasty. Truly……

Too wonderful.

He took a silver to give to the subordinate carrying the shoulder carriage. “You have worked hard.”

“Madam is joking. This is what this subordinate should do.”

Hey, it’s not a good idea for you guys to be like that.

Look at them accepting the silver.

Tch.

The ideological education lesson Meng Huan was just about to give stopped again.

The shoulder carriage swayed all the way, making Meng Huan drowsy. When he rounded a pavilion, there was a sound coming from the pavilion behind the linden tree.

There seemed to be a group of people standing there. The overbearing figure crashed into Meng Huan’s eyes as the carriage moved forward.

Lin Bozhou had lived a more extravagant life than he did. The tall figure sat in the pavilion, eyes downcast, playing chess with someone. The maid behind him fanned him, and the Qingke played chess with him while the manservant held an umbrella to shade the sun. A bunch of servants and attendants stood outside the pavilion.

Meng Huan’s eyelids jumped. “…… Go around.”

The servants carrying the carriage were madly urged to “Go around, go around, go around! Quickly go around him!” Before they could turn into another road, a particular unlucky voice was behind them.

“Who is so bold? How dare you not leave the palanquin when you see His Highness?”

The servants put down Meng Huan and knelt on the ground with a clatter.

In ancient times, etiquette was very strict. Officials of specific grades had to kowtow when seeing each other while the others had to avoid walking with their superiors. Some officials were not allowed to walk the same official road as the prince. The Ministry of Discipline and Regulations were in charge of maintaining order. Even the scope of the capital inspection involved the rise and fall of official positions.

Running a step late, Meng Huan only had to look up and meet head-on with Lin Bozhou in the pavilion.

“……”

“Tch…the little concubine lives comfortably. It seems that he has enjoyed the life of the royal family.”

Shan Xing clicked his tongue while arranging the chess basket for Lin Bozhou.

He was still a pale and trembling young man at last night’s meeting. His voice shook from the scare of being looked at by Lin Bozhou, looking extremely pitiful.

Now, he was full of energy, his handsome little face full of color, and his hair was combed neatly. He looked almost different from the disheveled man who went on a hunger strike and verbally abused him several days ago.

Not only Shan Xing, but Lin Bozhou was also quite surprised.

His two bony fingers held a jade chess piece, gently tapping and repeatedly fondling it, and he tilted his head.

“……”

Meng Huan’s scalp began to tingle.

He could feel the somewhat icy gaze of Lin Bozhou slowly sweeping along his skull to his toes, moving up and down like a beast about to eat someone, and the tip of his tongue lightly rubbed his lips.

He was waiting for Meng Huan to reveal a flaw. Then, he would eat him, swallow him into the belly, and chew him without leaving any bones.

Meng Huan took a deep breath with heavy pressure on top of himself.

Then, he stepped forward and saluted with a charming voice.

“This concubine greets his Husband.”Don’t you like the fierce ones?

Meng Huan thought: I will let you experience today how soft a person can be.

He came down delicately. The men in this pavilion, married or not, felt numb on their backs.

Shen Qingyu, attracted by the sound, looked over. “Your Highness, when did you find such a wonderful person? Didn’t you just take in a fierce and untamed concubine a few days ago? Now you are in such good spirits that you take one daily. Can your body endure it?”

The prince regent’s friends actually knew that Lin Bozhou was busy with political affairs and  uninterested in beauties. A few days ago, they heard he grabbed a concubine on the street before the Jiaofang Institute*. They were surprised and later heard that the concubine was extremely bad-tempered and would scold anyone he met, which was outrageous.

*Jiaofang Institute: It was under the Ministry of Rites and was responsible for performing music for celebrations and welcoming distinguished guests; also an official brothel with many musicians and female musicians (official prostitutes).

But how come there was a soft and lovely concubine in front of them?

Lin Bozhou raised his eyelids. “You are talking about the same person.”

“……”

Shen Qingyu choked on his tea with a “Pfft—”

Meng Huan ran slowly, the standard cartoon run, to the pavilion, revealing a lovely smile. “Husband, this concubine did not see you just now. You won’t be angry, right?”

A delicate and soft whisper.

“Tch.”

The people with weak resolve had already started to abandon their hearing.

Lin Bozhou: “No.”

“Thank you, husband.” Meng Huan took the maid’s fan, leaned forward, and said, “Is husband hot? This concubine will fan you, is that all right?”

Lin Bozhou: “You can fan if you want.”

“……”

Unethical. Meng Huan’s smile gradually froze.

Prince regent, shouldn’t you “knit your cold, stern eyebrows and feet an unspeakable disgust well up inside looking at the fawning face in front of you, feeling dirty from the touch and just wanting him to get lost as far away as possible?”

The novel’s highly cold male protagonist would directly tell an enamoured male to get lost. Why is your persona wrong?

Meng Huan: TvT

But the person who took the initiative to fan was himself. Meng Huan felt it was not good to hit himself in the face and could only stand on the side, slowly fanning. The sun was intense in the daytime, so Lin Bozhou wore a veil on his eyes, knocking chess pieces one by one.

The game took a long time, and Shen Qingyu thought for a quarter of an hour to move one piece.

Meng Huan said at the right time, “Your Highness, he plays slow, far worse than you.”

Shen Qingyu: “……”

Lin Bozhou: “Hmm.”

“Your Highness, his movement of playing chess pieces is so strange. It’s far worse than yours, which is so beautiful and elegant.”

“……”

“Hm.”

“Did Your Highness win again? So awesome!”

“……”

“Hmm.”

Shen Qingyu also wanted to speak. “Your Highness!”

Thinking that his child was already three years old, Lin Bozhou frowned. “Shut up.”

“……”

Shen Qingyu smiled and mentally said: People can’t or at least shouldn’t do this. I came to play chess with you to relieve your boredom when I learned that you stayed home and declined to meet visitors, but you brought your wife to make fun of me.

Meanwhile, Meng Huan hoped that the words “shut up” were addressed to himself.

He expected Lin Bozhou to give himself a cold “get lost,” this order. Then, Meng Huan would unrelentingly go to the inner treasury to ask the accountant for his 30,000 yuan monthly salary, treating him like he was never here.

Shen Qingyu got serious and looked at Meng Huan. “This is Meng Xueming’s son?”

“Mm.”

Lin Bozhou eyed the chess game, his eyebrows contemplating and his fingertips repeatedly playing with the chess pieces.

Shen Qingyu sighed. “Your Highness, your love of bullying honest people has not changed at all.”

“Your father also has contributions in asking His Majesty to remove him from the post and banish him.”

“……”

Shen Qingyu shut up. Fine, I can’t say anything about you.

At the side, Meng Huan blinked, vaguely remembering something when listening to the three words “Meng Xueming.”

Meng Huan’s father was framed and imprisoned for impeaching the prince regent. He was reduced to a military post and issued to a remote place. Meng Huan, on the other hand, was put into the Jiaofang Institute for fun.

Jiaofang Institute, also known as the government-run brothel.

Meng Xueming’s impeachment of the treacherous prince regent was so famous in the capital that some institute members secretly took care of him to prevent him from receiving clients and defiling his body. Unexpectedly, someone came to make trouble that day and kicked open the institute’s door. “Let the guilty minister’s son come out to receive clients!”

Humiliating him, the other party pinched Meng Huan’s jaw and laughed. “You look so lustrous. This young master’s house is just short of a concubine. Why don’t you come?”

He was pulled to the main street, but unexpectedly, the prince regent’s carriage happened to pass by.

The curtain lifted, covering half of Lin Bozhou’s handsome and cold side face. “Who is making a clamor?”

Someone said, “Robbing a concubine, the son of Meng Xueming.”

Lin Bozhou glanced at Meng Huan.

He threw down a sentence. “This prince has taken a fancy to this person. Bring him back to the prince’s residence.”

A simple sentence determined the ownership of Meng Huan. The person wanting him became silent. Who dared to fight with Lin Bozhou? Maybe their heads would fall off first before the result came out.