Chapter 697: The Mischievous Little One

“Sisi, look! Little one seems to know that I am the one who hit him, so he keeps staring at me without blinking. Come and take a look! Huh? Is the little guy uncomfortable? His little face is red and taut, and he’s making grunting noises. Is he going to cry?”

His little face is red and taut? Liu Sisi suddenly thought of a possibility…

“Brother Nan, put him down quickly. Little one is about to…” pee.

Before Liu Sisi could finish her sentence, the little guy peed directly on Nan Tianzong’s front, as he turned to look at her, curious about what she was going to say…

There was a brief silence in the room, and Nan Tianzong didn’t realize his chest had suddenly become warm until he turned back to look at the little one in his arms, wanting to cry but tears wouldn’t come.

And the little one who was causing mischief waved his little hand proudly, giggling at Nan Tianzong, completely unaware that he had done something wrong.

“Pfft! Brother Nan, you got peed on by Little one!”

Liu Sisi laughed heartily without any sympathy, amusing Thirteenth Luo beside her.

How long had it been since she had been so happy?

It seemed like it was since her return to the capital, that she no longer knew what a genuine smile was. That’s right! The days in Macheng County were her happiest.

Fortunately, she was finally back!

At dusk, Di Yelei finally returned from the governmental office.

At the moment, everyone had been waiting for a while in the front hall, and naturally, there was a courteous greeting upon meeting.

Di Ying’s injury had now mostly healed.

Falling from a high place in the waterhole without any protection, she broke three ribs and injured her spleen. The ribs recovered quickly, but the ruptured spleen caused her body to become terribly thin, the portion of her meals significantly reduced, and only recently has it slowly started to recover.

Add in periodic bouts of low-grade fever, which left Liu Sisi extremely worried and anxious.

At this moment, Di Ying was sitting in Liu Sisi’s embrace, and everyone was accustomed to it. On the other hand, Nan Tianzong kept casting surprised glances at them, looking shocked.

“Here, this is pig stomach stewed with yam. Eating this is good for your injury. Have another bite.”

Liu Sisi put a piece of pig stomach in Di Ying’s bowl, trying to get her to eat it.

Di Ying immediately made a bitter face: “Mom, YingEr can’t eat anymore.”

“You can’t eat anymore? You’ve only eaten half a bowl of rice. This is the last bite. The pig stomach stewed with yam was specially made for you by Ms. Gao. It’s been stewed for a whole day and is very tender. Just eat this bite and you won’t have to eat anymore, good girl.”

She picked up the piece of pig stomach and held it to Di Ying’s mouth.

Di Ying reluctantly opened her mouth to bite it, chewed it for quite a while, and finally swallowed it down.

“Good job! Our YingEr is the best!”

Liu Sisi praised her happily.

Today was not bad; she ate two more bites of rice.

Sitting in the corner, Di Xuan lowered his head and ate his rice, with a touch of loneliness and silence in his eyes.

After dinner, Liu Sisi took Thirteenth Luo to the guest room, while Nan Tianzong went to the study room with Di Yelei. The conversation between the two soon turned to current affairs.

“You probably haven’t heard, but recently there have been constant natural disasters and man-made calamities. Ethnic group soldiers have been frequently invading the border of my Great Zhao Country, and two border areas were once lost temporarily. Fortunately, the general defending the border, Xue, is very capable and managed to take back the lost areas in just one night.”

Di Yelei gasped!

“The border was once lost? How many horsemen were, in those ethnic groups?”

“They claimed to have 200,000 elite soldiers, but the specific number is unknown.”

Nan Tianzong’s face also became serious: “The ethnic group soldiers have been frequently moving south in the past few months, and the Xixia Country’s army has also been harassing Chengdu Prefecture from time to time. The warhorses you sent to Chengdu on the horse ship last time played a significant role in the battle against Xixia. His Majesty specially mentioned this during the early morning session, which shows the importance of this matter.”

“That’s good, as long as those warhorses can play a key role.”

This made Di Yelei very happy: “But will it cause any changes to our plan?”

“Things at the court have always been changing rapidly, and many things can’t be avoided. Instead of avoiding, we should actively face it. Changes mean opportunities, which don’t matter.”

Nan Tianzong waved his hand and talked about another matter: “As you know, although there are many horses in our Great Zhao Country, they are not good at running. Once they reach the battlefield, our horses often get scared by the neighing of the ethnic groups’ warhorses and their legs become weak. How can they fight? That’s why His Majesty sending me to Gongzhou Mansion is actually to find good warhorses.”

Di Yelei suddenly thought of something.

“Good warhorses? Weren’t the last batch of warhorses captured when fighting with the ethnic groups? Why don’t we…”

“You’re oversimplifying! Last time, several hundred warhorses were only obtained after our soldiers fought with three times the number of enemies. Where can we use them often?”

“What should we do then?”

Di Yelei thought for a moment and came up with another place: “Right, isn’t there a group of good horses at Heilong Mountain? Last time, when Ye Lei met with Sect Master for the last time, they saw quite a few good horses on the Black Dragon Mountain. Most of those horses are well-fed and healthy, not ordinary horses at all.”

Speaking of it, he hasn’t been to Heilong Mountain for quite a while, and he doesn’t know anything about the recent situation of the Sect Master.

As soon as this matter was mentioned, Nan Tianzong’s face changed: “Humph! Those horses are his lifeline; do you think he would give them to me? He would rather I fail, and it would be better for him if I just killed myself…” Stopping here, Nan Tianzong seemed to realize that he had said too much and hurriedly stopped talking.

Di Yelei naturally understood who he was referring to.

This was the conflict between the father and son, and he didn’t know what to say in the middle.

After a while, Nan Tianzong finally calmed down.

“Before coming to Gongzhou, I actually heard about a family in Shangrao County who specializes in horse trading. They have a batch of good horses on hand that they were planning to sell to Xixia Country. My trip this time is to target those horses.”

Nan Tianzong became silent as he spoke.

Di Yelei was overjoyed: “That’s great! So long as we offer more silver money, we’ll definitely be able to win this batch of good horses!”

“You make it sound so simple.”

Nan Tianzong shook his head with a sigh: “These good horses often cost several hundred to a thousand taels each. This batch of good horses will have a total of 500. His Majesty didn’t allocate any silver for me on this trip, instead only allowing me not to pay tribute to Gongzhou City for five years. How can I go to buy from them with such empty conditions?”

“Wow, that’s expensive! Do you know which family is involved in the horse trading?”

Di Yelei was also frightened.