Turning her head to face him with one hand, Pei Qianhao watched her expression as he spoke. “Don’t you know what this Prince wants? You always pretend to act obediently when this Prince speaks to you, yet you just have to oppose me and find trouble for yourself.”
He still has the nerve to say that… Would I be opposing him if he didn’t touch my bottom line every time? His behaviour in the room is only one of many times that he has prevented me from escaping.
Do I have to behave obediently even in bed if he asks me? What a joke!
Pei Qianhao suddenly released her and sat back down. “Forget it, how is it possible for you to be obedient? This Prince is just playing the zither to a cow[1].” Having said that, he closed his eyes to rest.
Su Xi-er looked at him. What a metaphor. I am not a cow, and it’s not clear if he can even play the zither.
Back when she was still in Nanzhao, she had heard that men from Beimin were unruly. Although the belief that men were superior to women was not as prevalent as it was in Nanzhao, Beimin still had a set of rules to control women.
Beimin men typically wouldn’t know how to do something as elegant as playing the zither.
The two then stopped talking, although Pei Qianhao continued to secretly observe Su Xi-er from time to time without her noticing.
The wind blew open the curtain of the carriage and allowed Su Xi-er to look outside at the streets. The street the horse carriage was travelling on was a secluded one, not the bustling main road. At this moment, Pei Qianhao suddenly instructed, “Change to another route. Go to the main road.”
The imperial guard driving the carriage obliged, turning the carriage around and heading the other way.
Su Xi-er was puzzled and asked, “Why change the route when this street has fewer people? Besides, the horse carriage is so ostentatious.”
People from the capital city should all know Prince Yun’s horse carriage. All the pedestrians will stop and watch if they see it travelling on the bustling main road.
“This Prince likes it,” Pei Qianhao said coldly, then instructed, “Lift the curtains up when we reach the main road; this Prince wants to take a look.”
I had a taste of Yun Ruofeng’s excellent training techniques last time I passed by the army barracks on the way to the archery range. This time, I want to take a good look at Nanzhao’s busiest main road, not just take a few quick glances like before.
The horse carriage slowed down when it reached the main road, making it easy to hear the loud voices of the peddlers hawking their wares.
“Lift the curtains.” Pei Qianhao opened his eyes; his voice was cold, and his expression serious.
Su Xi-er followed his instructions and lifted the curtains, just enough to allow him to see the scenes from the road, but preventing any pedestrians from looking in.
“There are no beggars this time.” A sneer escaped from Pei Qianhao’s thin lips. His eyes were dark, as if he was thinking about something.
With the state banquet so near, there can’t be any beggars on any of the streets in the capital city, much less the main road. Either improve the strength of the nation, and let the commoners lead comfortable lives; or make arrangements for the beggars before the start of the state banquet. Seeing how things are, it’s likely that the second option was taken.
Su Xi-er softly asked, “Prince Hao, do you still need to look?”
“I’ll continue to look.” Pei Qianhao turned his gaze to the stall of a peddler.
Su Xi-er’s gaze followed, discovering something suspicious.
The peddler had a reluctant expression, and had a number of patches on their clothes. The stall even had a broken empty bowl in the middle, while a bamboo pole used for begging hung on the side.
1. A Chinese idiom. It means something like talking to someone ignorant about the topic at hand, similar to how the cow has no sense of music. An English idiom that has roughly the same meaning is ‘caviar to the general’.
