"Yes, I'm sorry!" Jing Li quickly used his sleeve to wipe the table for him.
Qin Zhao looked at the other person's flustered appearance. He didn't feel angry. Instead, he found the other person's appearance particularly interesting.
If this was acted out, it was very well acted.
The Regent leaned back in his chair, tilted his head and supported it with his hands, and said slowly: "I was just asking you a question."
Jing Li paused.
He stood up, not daring to look at the person in front of him, and whispered, "I... I'm new here."
Qin Zhao said "Oh", and then said: "They are the servants who just came to the mansion yesterday, right? No wonder they look unfamiliar."
"… Yes."
Jing Li helped him clean the table, poured a new cup of tea, and handed it to Qin Zhao: "Your Highness, please have some tea."
Qin Zhao glanced at him but didn't answer: "Didn't the manager teach you the rules?"
"ah?"
Qin Zhao patiently explained to him: "In this palace, everything that comes into our possession must first be tested for poison."
Jingli blinked.
He lowered his head towards the empty teacup and asked tentatively, "How...how do I test it?"
"Do you need my instruction on how to test for poison?" Qin Zhao raised his eyebrows slightly. "Are you really a servant of the mansion?"
“Yes, I am…” Jing Li wanted to cry but had no tears.
He shouldn't have come here.
This regent is so good-looking, why is he so troublesome
Jing Li once heard that in ancient times, before the emperor had a meal, a eunuch would eat a little of each dish first to prevent someone from poisoning the food.
Could it be that the Regent would also do this
Jing Li pursed his lips, raised the teacup and took a sip under the gaze of the Regent.
Qin Zhao: “…”
Qin Zhao was so angry at this person that he almost laughed.
This was the first time in his 28 years of life that he saw someone dare to drink from his teacup.
Was this little guy really sent by someone else
Or... are you just pretending
Qin Zhao rarely felt that he couldn't figure it out.
Jing Li drank a small amount of tea and handed the cup back: "The test is finished."
Qin Zhao asked: "How does it feel?"
Jing Li thought about it and said truthfully: "It's a bit bitter."
Qin Zhao: “…”
Qin Zhao suddenly had a feeling that this boy might not be pretending, he was really stupid.
He took the teacup, but didn't drink it and just put it aside.
People always portray the Regent as cold-blooded and murderous, but in fact, after killing the remnants of the Empress Dowager three years ago, Emperor Qin Zhaosheng has rarely been stained with blood.
At the beginning, we killed so many people because we were forced by the situation and in order to stabilize the government.
Now that the world is at peace, we no longer need that.
As for the young man today, although his origins were unknown, Qin Zhao did not intend to take his life so easily.
Let’s check it first.
Qin Zhao was thinking about this when he looked up and saw the young man with his head down, staring at the plate of cakes on the table in a daze.
He even secretly swallowed some water.
"..." Qin Zhao couldn't help laughing, "Why, you want to eat?"
Jing Li was startled and quickly shook his head: "I don't want to... I don't dare."
"I don't think there's anything you're afraid of."
He didn't even dare to touch his cup.
"I just want to ask..." Jing Li pursed his lips and asked in a low voice, "Do I need to test this too?"
Sure enough, I want to eat.
Qin Zhao thought in his heart.
He had no intention of getting into trouble with this person, but when he saw the pitiful and innocent look in his eyes, he felt a little soft-hearted. And for some reason, he always felt that this look was familiar. Before Qin Zhao could figure out where this familiar feeling came from, he blurted out, "Eat if you want."
Jing Li looked at him puzzledly.
Qin Zhao cleared his throat and explained, "I don't like to eat such sweet things."
Jing Li still looked at him and didn't dare to speak.
Qin Zhao ordered expressionlessly, "Sit down and eat these."
Jing Li didn't quite understand why the other party suddenly changed his attitude, but he was so hungry that he didn't have time to think too much.
He moved a small stool and sat down at the table, then picked up the cake and started eating it happily.
The regent looked at him, who looked as if he had been hungry for days, and began to doubt the living conditions of his servants: "Don't they give you enough food?"
"I gave it to you." Jing Li swallowed a piece of dessert, feeling a little aggrieved when he mentioned it, "But it's not delicious."
Qin Zhao was silent for a moment, and his first reaction was that it was time to get a new chef in the mansion.
Jing Li felt something was wrong after he said this, and asked in a low voice: "Did I say something wrong?"
“… No.” Qin Zhao retracted his gaze and turned back to the original book.
For some reason, he couldn't stand the look in the boy's eyes.
Soft, like some kind of small animal.
It also looks like a little goblin that disturbs people's minds.
No one in the room spoke anymore. It was quiet for a while. Jing Li bit the cake carefully, not daring to make any sound. While eating, he looked up at the man beside him.
The Regent was really good-looking. He was very handsome, very good-looking, but not at all feminine. His face stood out under the light, his long eyelashes cast a light shadow on his face, and the contours from his eyebrows to his jaw were so good that there was nothing wrong with them.
Jing Li was lost in thought, and his eyes were so direct that Qin Zhao could no longer ignore them.
"Am I okay?" Qin Zhao asked him.
"No, no..." Jing Li's ears felt a little hot for some reason. He lowered his head and said awkwardly, "I just want to ask... Don't you want to eat?"
Qin Zhao was stunned.
Jing Li said: "You didn't have dinner last night, right? Now you're giving me some cakes. Aren't you hungry?"
This was what he had just heard from the servants while hiding near the kitchen.
The Regent was busy with government affairs and often skipped meals, and today was no exception. He hadn't eaten anything since noon, otherwise the chef wouldn't have brought him tea at night.
This is also the reason why Jing Li did not steal the pastries just now.
If the cakes were really stolen by him, the man would go hungry at night.
Jing Li picked up a piece of cake, broke it in half, and handed one half to Qin Zhao: "I'll test it for poison for you, you can eat a little. Don't eat anything, just drink tea, it will make your stomach uncomfortable."
After he finished speaking, he took a bite of his own half of the cake.
The drug test is very professional.
Qin Zhao took the cake handed to him by the boy and took a bite out of some unknown reason.
The fragrance of osmanthus instantly fills the tip of your tongue.
The boy laughed.
Qin Zhao looked at his smile, and something in his heart moved slightly.
It's like a warm spring breeze blowing across the water, creating ripples.
Qin Zhao's eyes moved slightly downwards, accidentally landing on the boy's neck, but he paused for a moment. The boy was sitting at the table, with his neck facing away from the light. From Qin Zhao's angle, he could only see that there seemed to be something on his neck.
It is dim and oval in shape, as if it is directly attached to the skin, and is extremely conspicuous on the porcelain-like skin.
Jing Li himself did not notice anything unusual about his neck. He just felt a little uncomfortable being stared at by the Regent. He was about to shrink back when he heard the man order him, "Don't move."
Jing Li didn't dare to move for a moment.
Qin Zhao stretched out his hand toward him.
He placed his fingers on the side of the other person's neck, and his fingertips felt a slight chill.
Jing Li's body trembled slightly.
But at this moment, someone suddenly knocked on the door: "Your Majesty, there is a letter from the capital."
Qin Zhao retracted his hand like lightning.
Jing Li also seemed to come to his senses. He quickly stood up, looking a little embarrassed.
The Regent had regained his usual composure and responded calmly, "Come in."
The visitor was the housekeeper of the mansion.
The housekeeper didn't expect that there was someone else in the room. He frowned and looked at Jing Li and asked, "What's your name? Why don't I seem to have seen you before?"
"I... I..."
Jing Li avoided his gaze and looked towards Qin Zhao helplessly.
The butler has worked in the Regent's Palace for many years and is directly responsible for all the servants in the palace.
This is the end...
"It's okay. He came to bring me some cakes." Qin Zhao said, "You go down first. I have something to talk to the housekeeper."
Jing Li was overjoyed and quickly responded and slipped away.
The butler looked at the young man's back as he left and asked in confusion: "My Lord, this man..."
"You haven't seen it?" Qin Zhao asked.
The housekeeper thought for a moment and said, "I saw the newcomers once yesterday, but I don't remember their faces. Maybe I was careless, but..."
"But what?"
"If you have really seen a face like this, it should be hard to forget it." The butler told the truth.
Qin Zhao nodded: "You make sense."
If you have really seen this handsome young boy, how can you forget him
However, even if the butler had not said this, Qin Zhao could be sure that the young man was indeed not a servant.
If they were really servants, how could he not know that the new batch of servants arrived at the mansion the day before yesterday and that food poison testing should use the homemade silver needles that Qin Zhao placed on the table.
Qin Zhao just tried it out a little, and the little fool let the cat out of the bag.
The butler thought about it and was horrified: "Could it be an assassin?"
Qin Zhao didn't think there was such a stupid assassin.
"Send someone to investigate." Qin Zhao said, "Almost all the people around this manor are ours, he can't escape."
The butler nodded in agreement. Qin Zhao lowered his head and his gaze fell on the plate of pastries beside him.
The boy's half-eaten cake was still on the plate. Qin Zhao put the unfinished cake on his plate back as well, slightly absent-minded.
He couldn't remember the last person who shared a piece of cake with him.
"Who are you..." Qin Zhao said leisurely with a sigh.
The regent, who had always planned everything, miscalculated this time.
The butler and the strange young man had just left the room, and when he ordered the servants to look for him, the young man was no longer there.
After a careful investigation, they only found out that a set of servant's clothes was missing from the servant's yard, and that Old Yang, who was making snacks in the kitchen that day, had met the young man once. Apart from that, no one in the entire Regent's Palace, from maids to servants, from the palace guards to the prince's shadow guards, knew where the young man had gone.
The young man seemed to have evaporated from the face of the earth, disappearing without a trace in this huge palace.
A stranger sneaked into the Prince Regent's Palace and then disappeared without a trace. The news spread quickly, and no one knew who started it. The news of a demon haunting the Prince Regent's Palace began to spread.
The rumor became more and more intense, and even the young emperor in the capital heard about it and rushed over from the capital with some supplements.
The regent met the little emperor at the pavilion in the middle of the lake in the villa.
Qi Xuan looked at Qin Zhao, his face full of worry: "I heard that the Regent ran into a monster and had his energy sucked away?"
"..." Qin Zhao had been feeling annoyed these days, and glanced at him unhappily, "Your Majesty, how many memorials have you reviewed today, and how many classics and history books have you read? If you have the leisure time now, why not write a few more poems and essays?"
Qi Xuan silently shut up and drank his tea without saying anything else.
After a while, he asked again worriedly: "Are you really okay?"
Qin Zhao had a blank expression on his face: "Does the king look like he has something wrong?"
"Yes." The little emperor paused and told the truth, "It's rare to see you so distracted."
Now it was Qin Zhao's turn to remain silent.
He was silent for a moment, then asked, "Do you really believe that there are demons in this world?"
Qin Zhao knew about the rumors of the monsters in the mansion, but he didn't stop them. Instead, he secretly fanned the flames and spread the news. He felt that if the young man really had intentions towards him, he might come back after knowing the news.
But no.
The boy never appeared again.
The night they met in the bedroom seemed to be just a dream to Qin Zhao. Even today when the rumors were getting more and more intense, he himself was still wondering, could it be that the boy was a monster
"It's better to believe it than not to believe it." The little emperor took a piece of cake, lowered his head and took a bite, "How about I go find a few magicians who can exorcise demons and come to this manor to take a look?"
"No need." Qin Zhao shook his head.
He didn't believe it and was too lazy to make a fuss about it.
The young emperor knew this man's temper, so he stopped trying to persuade him: "Hey, where is the little koi I sent you? Why haven't you seen it?"
"The servants said it has been hiding under the water lately and doesn't like to come out." Qin Zhao said, "Throw a piece of cake to it and try."
The little emperor was skeptical. He broke off a piece of cake and threw it into the water.
The moment it touched the water, a bright red koi jumped out from the bottom of the water and bit the pastry.
"Here it comes!" The little emperor's eyes lit up and he fed the little koi another piece of cake.
The little koi raised its head high, staring at the cakes eaten by the little emperor with its eyes, and its tail wagging happily.
Qin Zhao sat aside, watching all this silently, his brows slightly furrowed.
He likes to eat cakes, doesn't hide his emotions, and is a little silly.
... Isn't it
Qin Zhao's gaze fell on the little koi. The little carp noticed his gaze, looked at him, and its body visibly stiffened. It quickly swung its tail and dived back into the water.
The figure from behind looked a little flustered.
It was exactly the same as the way he had fled from his room.
"Eh, aren't you going to eat anymore?" The little emperor was still pouring water in confusion.
Qin Zhao looked at the water surface that was gradually returning to calm and felt like he had discovered something.
Qin Zhao: “…”