Chapter 114
After the hunt was over, King Jing and the Sixth Prince returned together.
No matter how good the Sixth Prince was at disguising himself, he almost couldn’t keep his composure after being overtaken by a mute. In the past, when the Third Prince was around, he was at most an assistant. In fact, he was good at hunting, but he didn’t dare to show off too much in case the Third Prince became suspicious of him. This time, he could finally fight for himself, but he didn’t expect that King Jing would also come.
The world didn’t know that the Sixth Prince was good at riding and shooting, and the Sixth Prince also didn’t know that King Jing was good at it. After all, King Jing had never participated in the Hunting Festival before. In order to ensure a good ranking, the Sixth Prince arrived very early. As soon as the gong sounded, he was the first to rush out. Unlike King Jing, who took his time to arrive at the hunting ground with his family, the others had already started for a long time.
The Hunting Festival didn’t stipulate that everyone had to start at the same time. It only depended on the total number of prey at the end. This meant that even if one arrived late, as long as one had the ability, one could still get a good ranking. Of course, this was a very ideal situation. It had never happened before, because usually, one would lose the initiative if they were late, and it would also affect morale.
However, King Jing came down halfway and was still chasing closely. If the Sixth Prince let his guard down, King Jing would catch up with him.
The Sixth Prince was already beginning to feel tired. King Jing’s situation was not much better than his. This was because most of the prey had already been hunted down, and King Jing still had to expend a lot of effort to find new prey. Thus, the speed of his pursuit had obviously slowed down. The Sixth Prince felt that he couldn’t catch up with him, but King Jing used some unknown method and became radiant as soon as he turned around, while the Sixth Prince’s hand holding the bow was so tired that he couldn’t lift it.
King Jing hit the prey one after another.
The Sixth Prince had to give it his all, but at the last moment, King Jing seemed to have the help of God, and the total number of prey was more than his. Moreover, he had started hunting more than an hour earlier than King Jing!
The Sixth Prince only felt that it was ironic. He thought that King Jing was good at riding and shooting, but it seemed that he wasn’t so good at it.
“Fifth Royal Brother, you’re really the latecomer. You’re really in the limelight.”
The Sixth Prince said sarcastically before entering the tent.
King Jing didn’t even look at him. He strode up to the Emperor, bowed respectfully, and handed over his task.
The Emperor was very satisfied with this result. As expected, King Jing did not disappoint him. After being forced to do something beyond his ability, he actually surpassed the Sixth Prince and was only below an experienced general.
At the same time, the Emperor also realized that King Jing was not bad at hunting. In the past, he did not participate in the Hunting Festival.
The Emperor originally wanted to praise him more, but his mood became complicated. He said faintly, “Go and sit.”
King Jing cupped his hands and returned to Li Yu’s side in a humble manner.
Li Yu’s lips were red and moist. She looked at him with her charming eyes. Both of them still remembered the passionate kiss they had just shared. It was inconvenient for them to say anything in front of the Emperor. Both of them looked at each other for a moment. King Jing smiled and touched Li Yu’s hand under his sleeve. Their fingers intertwined.
The Emperor sat on the Dragon Throne and looked down. He could see a little of the interaction between King Jing and Princess Consort. It was both funny and tiresome.
The Emperor turned to the other side and said to the Sixth Prince, “Tianxiao is also not bad. He exceeded my expectations.”
The Emperor didn’t lie. The Sixth Prince’s performance was remarkable and was completely different from before. It was just a pity that he couldn’t surpass King Jing.
The Sixth Prince changed his sarcastic attitude and humbly replied, “I’m still far behind Fifth Royal Brother. I’ll work hard in the future.”
The Emperor nodded and asked the Sixth Prince to sit. Next to the Sixth Prince was the pregnant Sixth Princess Consort. Liang Shi’s lower abdomen was a little obvious. Recently, she had been suffering from morning sickness and was in low spirits. After the Sixth Prince came to the hunting ground, he hurriedly handed her over to Consort Zhang. He didn’t even look back. Liang Shi wasn’t feeling well and was worried about her husband, so her complexion didn’t look good. Consort Zhang wasn’t someone who could be considerate. After “taking care” of her daughter-in-law for a while, Liang Shi was still weak. Consort Zhang felt that Liang Shi was being unreasonable because she was pregnant, so she didn’t bother to pay attention to her.
The Sixth Prince was exhausted and had a stomach full of anger. When he came back and saw his wife’s bitter face, although the Sixth Prince didn’t vent his anger, he didn’t give her a word of comfort. Liang Shi’s expression became even more gloomy. Although the two were close, they didn’t have the slightest hint of intimacy.
The Emperor was tired of King Jing and Consort Zhang, but he was disgusted when he looked at the Sixth Prince.
The Emperor didn’t want to get involved in his sons’ family matters, so he ordered people to bring up the game.
The game had been roasted and cut by the imperial chefs and placed on silver plates for the Emperor to reward.
There was a trick to this. Generally, people who participated in the hunt would offer the first game to the Emperor. If the offering was good, it could also please the Emperor, so the Emperor would reward the other party with roasted meat.
The general that was mentioned earlier offered a deer, while the Sixth Prince offered an eagle. Although his ranking wasn’t as high as King Jing’s, when the eagle was brought up, it still gave the Sixth Prince some face.
The Emperor rewarded the general with roasted deer meat and the Sixth Prince with roasted eagle meat. He didn’t specifically reward the King Jing.
Li Yu listened around and didn’t hear his old man’s name. He wondered what King Jing offered.
Li Yu wanted to quietly ask King Jing, but he suddenly remembered that King Jing seemed to be hunting rabbits. King Jing’s residence’s new rabbit pet.
This rabbit was originally to be reported to the Emperor, so the Emperor let him handle it.
Li Yu: “… …”
Other people had deer and eagles, but his old man had offered a live rabbit?!
Rabbits were so cute. Li Yu didn’t think that there was anything wrong with offering a rabbit, but the Emperor definitely wouldn’t like it.
Only then would he be able to grandly give a commemorative prey to him and the children as a rabbit pet, wouldn’t he?
Li Yu was overjoyed. Steward Luo brought them a whole roasted chicken. Li Yu was grateful for Prince Jing’s thoughtfulness. She picked up a piece of meat with her chopsticks and put it in Prince Jing’s bowl.
Er Bao, San Bao, and Si Bao picked up the roasted chicken drumstick. Li Yu deliberately didn’t help them and wanted to see how they were going to eat it.
Only a small white tooth the size of a grain of rice grew in their mouths. After grinding back and forth on the chicken drumstick for a long time, they couldn’t even chew off a piece of meat.
“Meat meat!”
There was delicious food but they couldn’t eat it. The babies were so anxious that they were about to cry out. Li Yu flashed a small silver knife that he had prepared earlier. He helped the children cut off the meat from the roasted chicken drumstick and put it on a plate.
Li Yu had only cut half of the chicken drumstick when King Jing took the knife from him and cut it himself. As expected of the tyrant male lead who could even turn the tables when hunting, he cut the meat much faster than Li Yu. In a short while, he had a plate full of meat. The three babies all opened their mouths wide, wanting their father to feed them.
King Jing picked up a piece with his chopsticks and was about to feed it to one of them when Li Yu hurriedly said, “Wait!”
King Jing was slightly startled. Li Yu blushed and imitated the three babies, opening their mouths wide.
King Jing: “…”
King Jing immediately understood. Seeing the one adult and three children blinking their eyes like birds waiting to be fed, he couldn’t help but laugh. Without thinking, he fed Li Yu the piece of meat that he was going to feed the children.
Li Yu ate with his silver chopsticks and glanced at the three babies proudly. See, he likes me the most.
Er Bao, San Bao, and Si Bao: “…”
The three babies pouted and wanted to cry when their father snatched away the fragrant meat.
Li Yu was embarrassed and hurriedly stuffed the meat into Er Bao’s mouth.
Er Bao’s eyes were still filled with tears, but his chubby cheeks were already puffing up rapidly.
San Bao and Si Bao were even more upset when they saw that Er Bao had food but they didn’t.
Li Yu and King Jing wanted to feed each of them, but Er Bao came to a conclusion after eating the meat. He thought that King Jing’s father was feeding his father and that his father was feeding him. Then, shouldn’t he be the one to feed San Bao next?
Er Bao liked San Bao and nodded seriously. He dug out half a piece of meat that was covered in saliva from his mouth and stuffed it into San Bao’s mouth.
Li Yu: “…”
When San Bao also fed half a piece of meat that was covered in saliva to Si Bao, Li Yu realized that the children might have misunderstood and didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
However, their father was very gratified that his children were willing to share.
The children’s love didn’t end there.
As Si Bao ate the meat, he thought of Da Bao and screamed, “Ah ah!” He kept pointing at Da Bao from afar.
Da Bao was still sitting on the Emperor’s lap. When Si Bao screamed, the Emperor saw him and waved at Si Bao amiably.
Wang Xi, who was at the side, took the initiative to carry Si Bao over.
Si Bao and Da Bao met on the Emperor’s lap. Si Bao screamed and stuffed the remaining meat into Da Bao’s mouth.
Da Bao: “?”
Da Bao slowly understood. However, the other children could find their brothers to feed them. Who could Da Bao feed?
Da Bao’s eyes lit up. The Emperor was holding back his laughter as he watched this scene. However, Da Bao turned around and placed the last bit of meat in the Emperor’s hand.
“Grandfather, eat!” Da Bao patted the Emperor’s hand generously.
Ever since the Emperor became the ruler of the country, he had given a lot of meat to others. This was the first time someone gave him meat. Although the meat was passed around and was covered in the children’s saliva and definitely couldn’t be eaten, the Emperor was very touched by the thought behind it.
King Jing’s children were all good children. When the Emperor was happy, he gave each of the children a large pot of roasted meat.
Many of the people present were shrewd people. The Emperor saw that King Jing’s son was very fond of him, so these people also praised the clever young masters.
They seemed to have forgotten that the Sixth Prince was also present. The Sixth Prince, Mu Tianxiao, was immersed in eating his own dishes with a calm expression.
At night, Li Yu and King Jing stayed in the tent that the Emperor assigned to King Jing.
Wang Xi and the four children slept next door, separated from King Jing and Li Yu by a curtain.
Because they were outside, it was inconvenient to talk. Li Yu tried not to talk about confidential matters with King Jing. He and King Jing understood each other very well. Sometimes, even if they didn’t speak, they could understand each other just by looking at each other’s eyes.
The two quickly finished washing up and looked at each other.
No one knew who started it first, but they kissed each other’s lips. After their lips and teeth battled for a while, King Jing picked up Li Yu and laid him down. He let him lean on his chest and gently stroked his back.
They all felt that the Sixth Prince was very likely to make a move during the Hunting Festival. King Jing was already prepared, but because of this, the two of them couldn’t do anything too intimate.
Li Yu lay on King Jing’s body, drowsy. In fact, he did sleep for a while.
There was a soft sound outside the tent. Someone shouted, “Assassin!” Li Yu immediately opened his eyes and sat up.
