My Fantastic Chef Wife

355. The Thief Was Accusing the Good Men

Translator: ChowvanLee

After a while, State Preceptor came over.

When State Preceptor arrived, Empress Dowager did not even open her eyes.

State Preceptor clearly felt that Empress Dowager had changed a little bit recently.

He sat down beside Empress Dowager and asked, “You punished an old maid this morning, right? And you did it outside your palace. Obviously, you want me to know it. Well, I did ask the old maid some questions last night, but it’s because I’m worried that you’re deceived by Madam Xiao. You gave her the title of Princess Ning Yuan, and you even invited the couple for dinner. Do you really want to treat her as your adopted daughter?”

Empress Dowager cast a sideways glance at State Preceptor, “That old maid made a mistake, then she deserves a lesson. And you taught me how to carry out the punishment, didn’t you? I remember that not long after I was in the palace, you told me that if I caught some disloyal servants, I had to punish them in front of their masters. That old maid is your henchman, so I had to let you know when I was punishing her.”

State Preceptor knew that Empress Dowager was angry at the moment, so he smiled apologetically, “That old maid is not my person. Last night I …”

Empress Dowager interrupted him, “If a person is unfaithful once, you will never use him again. This is also what you taught me. She told others about what I’ve done, so she can’t work for me anymore.”

Empress Dowager shut State Preceptor up with what he had said before. State Preceptor could only accept it and dare not refute her.

At the same time, he felt that a woman could be so heartless when she was mad.

State Preceptor asked again, “What about Madam Xiao and her husband? I heard that you let them get into the mountain for hunting? Aren’t you afraid that they will escape?”

Empress Dowager asked in reply, “If you were them, could you escape successfully? I remember that in the second year after I enter the imperial palace, I couldn’t stand the dog-eat-dog days in there. At that time, we were in this very hunting ground and I begged you to take me away. What did you say at that time? You told me that the court had thrown a net over the entire field, so no one could escape from here. According to your words, do you think they can make it?”

State Preceptor, “…”

In the end, she was giving vent to personal spite.

State Preceptor thought, ‘I’d better keep my mouth shut now.’

State Preceptor fell silent and then Empress Dowager explained, “I did ask them to come over for dinner yesterday, and I allow them to go hunting together today. Why? I’m doing these to let the officials know they’re fine. Now, everyone is disappointed with the royal family because they think we’re taking advantage of this couple. If I don’t do anything to change this situation now, won’t they be even more disappointed? There’re too many people focusing on them.”

State Preceptor thought, ‘Okay, you’re always right no matter what you’ve done.’

‘As long as you didn’t find out that Little Ye is your biological daughter.’

After Empress Dowager finished, she saw the son of the Emperor’s tutor, Tao Baoqun, and the eldest son of Duke Qing Ping, Bao Yuda, who had just returned from the mountains hastily. They looked extremely embarrassed, their hair scattered. Bao Yuda was all wet, covered with mud.

Li Chengkun was also basking in the sun in the short distance. As soon as Tao Baoqun and Bao Yuda saw Li Chengkun, they immediately knelt in front of him and cried, “Your Majesty, please give justice to us.”

Bao Yuda cried, “Your Majesty, Xiao Baoshan has really crossed the line. He actually casts arrows at us in hunting. My hair turned this because of him.”

There was a rule in the hunting ground that one must see the prey clearly before he or she shot at them. If he or she shot arrows at people, whoever broke the rule would get punishment.

Li Chengkun was confused, “Xiao Baoshan threw arrows at you? Why does he do that?”

“He… he shot us to rob our preys away.”  Tao Baoqun said.

“Yes, we saw that rabbit first, but he said that it was him who saw it first. Then we started arguing, and then… he deliberately scared us.”

Bao Yuda took out two pieces of broken arrows and said to Li Chengkun, “Your Majesty, this is the arrow!”

The two pieces of broken arrows were obviously pulled out from the wood. The part that had stabbed into the wood appeared splitting grooves, which showed the powerful strength of the archer.

Even Li Chengkun was shocked when he saw it.

‘Xiao Baoshan’s arm strength is so powerful.’

They were outside the palace and many officials and their families were living here for now. They heard the noise and came closer to see what happened.

Although Bao Yuda and Tao Baoqun looked extremely pitiful, Li Chengkun couldn’t convict Xiao Baoshan of a crime by the one-sided statement.

Even if he really wanted to convict Xiao Baoshan.

The emperor was about to let them go back to change their clothes when a sharp-eyed eunuch said, “Your Majesty, Assistant Minister Xiao and Princess Ning Yuan are back!”

Everyone looked in the direction of the mountains and saw Xiao Baoshan and Ye Xiaoxian on the same horse. On the back of the horse hung a rabbit and a wild boar. Ye Xiaoxian was petite and sweet, and Xiao Baoshan was tall and fierce. They were chatting and laughing. Everyone was jealous of their intimacy.

Normally, the imperial clan and officials formed alliances through matrimony. There had no love between husband and wife, so it was fairly good to maintain peaceful relations.

Therefore, when officials’ wives saw the intimacy between Xiao Baoshan and Ye Xiaoxian, they sighed inside, ‘ “On high, we’d be two love birds flying wing to wing; on earth, two trees with branches twined from spring to spring.” I see this kind of love written only in poems, but it’s in reality now.’

Ye Xiaoxian was flirting with Xiao Baoshan all the way. When they approached the palace, she found a group of people surrounding two young men who were kneeling in front of the Emperor.

She couldn’t help but feel her head numb. She realised immediately that the thief was crying “Stop thief”.

If Ye Xiaoxian were in modern times, she wouldn’t be worried at all. It was these two men who provoked them first, so she just needed to put the case clearly to the police. However, now she needed to explain this to ancient royal members. These two men were definitely somebody. Ye Xiaoxian wondered if the Emperor would help cover them up.

‘Xiao Baoshan and I are sidelined in the capital city. Maybe the emperor would take this opportunity to eliminate us?’

Ye Xiaoxian and Xiao Baoshan approached the crowd, then they got off the horse. A eunuch came over to take the horse and said, “The emperor asks you over. Please make haste.”

Ye Xiaoxian and Xiao Baoshan walked to Li Chengkun and bowed to him. Li Chengkun pointed at Tao Baoqun and Bao Yuda in front of him. “Assistant Minister Xiao, have you been in conflict with Tao Baoqun and Bao Yuda in the mountains? Please tell me the process in detail.”

Xiao Baoshan glanced at them disdainfully.

“The thieves are crying ‘Stop thieves’ first!” Xiao Baoshan said.

Then, he let out everything that had happened in the mountains.

The people around heard this and they couldn’t help but feel that Tao Baoqun and Bao Yuda had done the whole thing too far. It was certain that they were unruly. Now that someone taught them a lesson, they even came here to ask the emperor for justice.

In addition, people knew Tao Baoqun and Bao Yuda were fops and thought ill of them, so they thought it must be them who provoked Xiao Baoshan first.

Tao Baoqun and Bao Yuda saw the situation was not encouraging, so they retorted, “We really didn’t know that they were there. We heard the rustling sound and saw the rabbit. Who knew that they appeared suddenly! That’s why there is a misunderstanding between us. We knew that Assistant Minister Xiao is a kungfu master, so we didn’t dare to provoke him. We were going to apologize to him at that time. Who knew that Xiao Baoshan would break the arrow and shoot it at us again!”

Ye Xiaoxian finally couldn’t stand it anymore. She retorted, “You shot the arrow at us twice. The first time could be regarded as the carelessness of you two, so we didn’t argue with you. What about the second one? You shot the arrow at us again on purpose. That’s why my husband broke the arrow and gave you a small punishment. How dare you lie to His Majesty?”

Bao Yuda said, “Nonsense! There was only one arrow.”

Tao Baoqun and Bao Yuda had already decided to say they only shot the arrow once. After all, Xiao Baoshan didn’t break the arrow the first time.

Ye Xiaoxian sneered and added, “Well, tell me then, how did the arrow come from you and how did my Baoshan break it before throwing it at you?”

“Ehh…” Tao Baoqun and Bao Yuda began to mumble, and then they tipped a wink on each other.

Ye Xiaoxian asked, “You didn’t see us clearly at the time, right?”

“Of course, we couldn’t see you.” Bao Yuda answered right away.

“Then why did my Baoshan see you clearly and throw the broken arrow right at you? Could it be that he got Hawkeyes, so you guys couldn’t see us but he could see you?”

“Well…” They mumbled again.

Bao Yuda said angrily, “After we shot the arrow out, you found us and of course you could take revenge easily. You don’t need Hawkeyes. Otherwise, how could we be so… so scared that we wet our pants?”

Ye Xiaoxian was speechless.

‘So you think you haven’t done anything wrong because you’re weak?’ she thought.

Next to her, Empress Dowager’s voice was suddenly heard. “No one knew what the truth was then apart from the four of you. Why don’t you re-demonstrate the situation at that time so I could make a judgement?

When Tao Baoqun and Bao Yuda heard that they were asked to re-demonstrate the situation, they panicked.

‘We have never rehearsed it before. How?’

When the arrow shot out the first time, they were on horses; the second time, they were standing on the ground.

Xiao Baoshan and Ye Xiaoxian agreed. Xiao Baoshan said, “We can demonstrate it. My wife had been on the horse all the time and I was standing with my back to them. We can use the arrows and take my horse here to re-demostrate.”

Xiao Baoshan and Ye Xiaoxian were very calm and only concerned about reenacting the process.

However, Tao Baoqun and Bao Yuda couldn’t act out the real situation. They changed and changed again. The crowd could tell that they were lying instantly.

When they finally shot an arrow out, Xiao Baoshan took the arrow, broke it into two, and threw them back at the two people.

This time, the broken pieces happened to insert into their newly-done hair buns again.

Bao Yuda peed again. The people around them were stunned first, then they tried hard not to laugh aloud.

Obviously, Empress Dowager was disgusted when she saw Bao Yuda wet his pants. She covered her nose and said, “Bastard! How dare you slander Princess Ning Yuan with such dirty tricks? You even made a move first. Guards, drag these two men out and give each of them five strokes!”