Kiss Kiss Soo=Soo.
Lu Ronghuai took three cities of Kang Kingdom in twelve days, leaving only two cities between him and Kang Kingdom’s capital.
Just when everyone thought he would continue pressing forward, Lu Ronghuai suddenly halted. The great army camped at Zimo Jun, leaving everyone thoroughly baffled.
Only on the fifteenth day of the sixth month did they learn the reason.
It turned out that the Prince Consort’s birthday had arrived. For this, Prince Li ordered everyone to rest for three days and, moreover, held a grand birthday banquet for the Prince Consort.
Some quick-witted people of Kang Kingdom wanted to use the occasion to attach themselves to Prince Li. They spent heavily to purchase gifts, yet Lu Ronghuai did not even allow them through the gate and directly had them driven off.
Lu Ronghuai deliberately chose a garden thick with parasol trees as the place for the banquet.
Those invited were all people familiar to them. Every cumbersome formality was set aside. Everyone sat down to eat and drink, speak and laugh, thoroughly at ease.
Kang Kingdom lay in the southwest, and the climate was mild. Cool breezes moved through the garden, and faint fragrance lingered in the air. The banquet was laid out on a grand scale, winding all the way from east to west.
Elegant music drifted softly and slow.
Lu Duoyu pattered about everywhere, his little legs moving merrily. Before long, he came back, both lotus-root-like little arms full of treasures.
“Little Fish, where did these come from?” Chu Yuan stopped the little fellow from running about and asked softly.
Lu Duoyu pushed the treasures in his arms forward. The meaning was obvious. He was giving all of them to Chu Yuan.
“Uncle gave, Uncle gave, Auntie gave.” His little face was flushed red from running, and long lashes fluttered beneath his bright, beautiful eyes. He wore an expression clearly asking to be praised.
Hearing this, Lu Ronghuai set down the wine cup in his hand and casually glanced at what lay in his arms. “Xiao Ba’s jade ring, Nie Siran’s folding fan, Yu Qing’s dagger... these are all treasured belongings of theirs. They gave them all to you?”
Lu Duoyu nodded, then shook his head again.
He placed all the treasures upon the table before Chu Yuan, then obediently ran over and sat in Chu Yuan’s lap. Tilting up his head, he said in a soft, milky voice, “Little Fish does not want. All for Ah-die.”
Lu Ronghuai looked toward Chu Yuan, whose smiling eyes had curved into crescents, and immediately began to spoil the moment. “You are borrowing flowers to offer before the Buddha. Ah-Yuan does not care for these at all.”
Chu Yuan slapped his arm. “What are you saying!”
Lu Ronghuai looked aggrieved. “You struck me.”
His Ah-Yuan had actually struck him for the sake of this brat.
Chu Yuan said, “You deserved it.”
The little fellow did not understand what it meant to borrow flowers to offer before the Buddha, yet he understood the word “flowers.”
He climbed down and ran to a flowerbed nearby. After especially choosing several blossoms he thought the prettiest, he tugged hard until he snapped the stems, then came back joyfully holding them out.
“Ah-Die, here, flowers.”
Chu Yuan had already received surprise after surprise from the little one. Sweetness rose in his heart, and he picked him up and kissed him several times.
“Thank you, little one. Ah-Die likes them very much.”
“Mm!” Lu Duoyu nodded with great force.
“The little one is wonderful.”
“Ah-Die, wonderful.”
“Little Fish is the most wonderful child in all the world.”
“Hehe.” Praised in this way, the little fellow became shy. Covering his face with his hands, he buried his head in Chu Yuan’s arms.
At the side, Lu Ronghuai watched until he was at a loss for words.
He stared at the pile of gifts and flowers before Chu Yuan, and all at once, an inexplicable sense of crisis rose in him.
He immediately shot Xian Yu a look.
Xian Yu understood. Very quickly, he came over carrying an exquisite brocade box.
Lu Ronghuai took the box and gave a light cough, attempting to draw Chu Yuan’s attention back to himself.
Yet at that moment, Chu Yuan’s heart and eyes held only his little treasure. He did not notice the person at his side in the least.
Seeing that Chu Yuan ignored him, Lu Ronghuai coughed again, hard.
Then came a third cough, a fourth...
“Pff~” Not far away, the sound of suppressed laughter rang out.
Lu Ronghuai paused, then lifted his head to look over there.
Su Ruhe had lowered his head, pretending that he was listening intently to the music.
Lu Ronghuai ground his teeth.
Nie Siran sat at his side, a smile held at his lips. “Is Your Highness jealous over a milk-scented baby?”
Lu Ronghuai said, “Which eye of yours saw that?”
“Unfortunately, both of them did.”
Lu Rongshen delighted in the spectacle. “Third Brother, I saw it as well.”
Jiang Ni found it amusing and joined in too. “Yes, we all saw it.”
The group looked at one another, then burst into bright laughter.
Lu Ronghuai: “................”
Drawn by their laughter, Chu Yuan asked curiously, “What are you all laughing at?”
“Nothing. Ah-Yuan, pay them no mind. Look at this.” Lu Ronghuai pushed the brocade box before Chu Yuan.
Chu Yuan lowered his head. “For me?”
“Mm.”
Chu Yuan set Lu Duoyu down. His long, well-proportioned hand fell upon the brocade box. He opened it gently. Inside lay three old books, each showing some slight wear and damage.
When Chu Yuan saw the titles on the books, his eyes immediately lit up.
“The Sanyuan Collection, Elegant Admonitions, and Records of Langhu. Where did Your Highness find these?” Chu Yuan’s voice was full of excitement.
Lu Ronghuai’s brows lifted proudly. “I plundered them all the way here. Knowing that you like such old books, I deliberately kept them for you.”
A smile dimpled Chu Yuan’s cheeks. “Thank you, Your Highness. I like them very much.”
Lu Duoyu walked over to the table. Clinging to the edge of the brocade box, he poked his little head inside. Very quickly, he wrinkled up his face, stepped back, and even raised a hand to cover his nose.
“Books, stinky.”
The old books had been stored a long time and sealed away year after year. Their pages carried a stale, decayed scent.
Lu Ronghuai lowered his eyelids and let out a breathy hum that was more skin than smile. “What do you know? These are worth far more than what you gave. These are the real treasures.”
Lu Duoyu disliked them to the utmost. Leaning against Chu Yuan, he picked up the flowers again. “Ah-Die, flowers smell nice. Do not want stinky.”
Chu Yuan answered with a smile, stroked the little one’s head, and then, with brisk decisiveness, closed the brocade box.
The person who had just been excited beyond measure at the sight of the old books now pushed the box straight back toward Lu Ronghuai without the slightest hesitation.
“Your Highness, put the box away for now.”
Lu Ronghuai: “...”
His gaze darkened toward the little thing in Chu Yuan’s arms, and he bared his teeth in a chilling grin. “Very well. Very well indeed.”
Lu Duoyu pointed at him and said to Chu Yuan, “Bad man.”
Chu Yuan: “Hahaha~”
Nie Siran called out loudly, “Little Fish, come to your uncle.”
Lu Duoyu’s ears twitched. He lifted his head to look at Chu Yuan. Chu Yuan smiled and nodded. At once, he ran flying toward Nie Siran.
Nie Siran laughed as he caught the little fellow and scraped lightly at his little nose. “In a while, Uncle will take you to the garden to feed the koi, all right?”
“All right, feed fishies.” Lu Duoyu happily wrapped his arms around Nie Siran’s neck and kissed him on the cheek.
“Good. Give your Uncle Su a kiss as well.” Holding the little one, he leaned a little toward Su Ruhe.
Su Ruhe was eating fruit and had not yet reacted when a fragrant, soft kiss landed upon his cheek.
“Kiss kiss Soo-Soo.” By his ear rang a soft, sticky child’s voice.
Nie Siran laughed and corrected him gently, “It is Shu-Shu, not Soo-Soo.”
The little fellow blinked and stubbornly insisted, “Soo-Soo.”
“Soo-Soo, come together, feed fishies.” Lu Duoyu warmly invited Su Ruhe.
Su Ruhe finished the other half of his fruit, and the corners of his lips lifted of their own accord. “All right.”
Across from them, Lu Ronghuai let out a “tsk.” “Look at them. They look more like a family of three than we do.”
Chu Yuan said, “Mm. Little Fish likes playing with them very much.”
Lu Ronghuai looked over several more times, then realized that with the brat sitting in Nie Siran’s lap, his smile was almost exactly like Nie Siran’s.
“...Why do I feel that Lu Duoyu looks a bit like Nie Siran?”
Chu Yuan’s hand, which had been reaching for a dish, paused. He slowly turned his head. “What does Your Highness mean by that?”
The moment Lu Ronghuai saw Chu Yuan’s expression, he instantly realized he had said the wrong thing.
He hurriedly sat up straighter and gave an awkward smile. “No, Ah-Yuan, you have misunderstood me. What I meant was, do you not think that when Lu Duoyu smiles, he is like Nie Siran, like a little fox?”
Chu Yuan took a bite of lotus root and said leisurely, “That may be. Other than me, the person Little Fish likes most is his uncle. After spending so much time together, it is only natural that there should be a little of Elder Brother’s shadow upon him.”
“...”
Still unwilling to give up, he pressed on. “Then in the brat’s heart, what place do I hold?”
Chu Yuan curved his lips. He set down his chopsticks and began counting on his fingers. “Elder Brother is second, Grandfather third, then Father, Ah-Die, Eighth Brother, Su gongzi, Xian Yu and Xian Shuang, then Qingyu and Yu Qing. As for Your Highness, you should be at the very end.”
“................”
He had brought humiliation upon himself.
Lu Ronghuai drank down a mouthful of wine. “It is all right. He is still young now. If This Prince spends more time with him later, then the person he likes most in the future will be Ah-Yuan, and the second will certainly be me.”
Holding back her laughter, Chu Yuan did not strike him down. Instead, he encouraged him. “Your Highness is right. Your Highness must conduct yourself well and strive to surpass them soon in Little Fish’s heart.”
Bewitched by the beauty’s smile, Prince Li at once felt light and airy, as if he had downed several jugs of strong wine. In the end, he insisted on joining them to feed the fish.
His stated reason was that from this moment onward, he would begin cultivating father-and-son affection.
Yet his palm was too large. In one sweep, he grabbed up all of the fish food and flung it into the pond. The fish surged over each other in their rush to eat, their tails striking the surface and splashing water everywhere.
Lu Duoyu looked at his own now-empty little hand, then lifted his head to look at the entirely relaxed Lu Ronghuai, and grew furious.
“Bad man!”
“Wuwah...”
The little fellow cried pitifully and even began hiccupping.
Prince Li was thoroughly scolded by the whole group and, together with that, was made to sleep in the study for several days.
His relationship with Lu Duoyu not only failed to improve, it worsened instead.
Lu Ronghuai felt that he had suffered a great loss. He had provoked a little demon king, and now every last one of them had come to make trouble for him.
Prince Li, full of grievance with nowhere to vent it, directly went to the main camp, gathered his subordinates, and began drilling the troops, planning to launch another attack the day after tomorrow.
Unexpectedly, that very night, Lu Ronghuai received an urgent military dispatch.
Seeing that the kingdom was near collapse, Kang Kingdom had somehow persuaded Liu Kingdom to send troops. At present, Liu Kingdom’s two hundred thousand men had come sweeping in from behind them, while from the front came news that Kang Kingdom had also sent troops out to meet them in battle.
Altogether, the two sides numbered five hundred thousand. The situation shifted in an instant. Their three hundred thousand troops were caught in the middle, under attack from the great armies of two kingdoms before and behind. Whether they could prevail, no one dared say with certainty.
At the very same time, while the people of Ye Jing were still denouncing Prince Li, an urgent report arrived from the south.
Duan Kingdom and Chu Kingdom had joined forces. Their four hundred thousand troops had silently reached the southern borderlands. Realizing something was amiss, Lu Kingdom’s defending general abandoned the city and fled.
In no more than seven days, the armies of the two kingdoms had already occupied four cities in the south.
The two reports were sent back to Ye Jing almost at the same time. The common people were terrified, and the ministers were even more thrown into confusion. One after another, they entered the palace to request an audience, begging the Emperor to decide upon a course.
Yet the Emperor shut himself away and would not come out, while the Empress Dowager also claimed illness and frailty. In that vast court, not a single person dared step forward and offer a plan.
✧ A Word from the Author ✧
Lu Ronghuai: So love really can disappear?
IsitRo: Idk why I am so upset for Lu Ronghuai. Am I rotten? Am I a b***? lmao. I get it, you cannot help but spoil the child, but I am still miffed that the author decided to give them a boy!!!!! Lu Ronghuai is sooooooooooo daddy’s girl coded. :(((( lolol
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