Chapter 30

“Humble consort without an adjectival possessive pronoun, huh? Whose consort do you think you are?” Nangong Du roared in a low voice with a grim look as soon as they arrived at a dimly lit path with fewer people.

“Whose consort? What does he mean?” Zixiu was confused, but he dared not ignore his question. “Your Highness, needless to say, I am the humble consort of yours!” he answered after weighing his words.

“Mine?” With a sneer, Nangong Du raised his voice. “Then why did you leave out the crucial part in front of Xue Shili! Do you wanna be his instead?”

“Er…” Bearing Nangong Du’s precepts in mind, Zixiu had been thinking that he should avoid addressing himself as ‘I’ when this pervert was around, but he seemed to have got it wrong. “How the hell should I address myself? Why the hell was that a mistake?” he wondered in confusion.

“Someone got you on semi-permanent mute? Remember how talkative you were 2 seconds ago?”

“… I, no, humble consort Liuxu, humble consort of yours…”

“You’re deliberately going against me, aren’t you?” Before Zixiu could explain himself, Nangong Du suddenly cut in on him coldly while applying a little bit more strength to his hand resting on Zixiu’s waist.

Caught off guard, Zixiu suddenly fell into Nangong Du’s arms. When he looked up and met his eyes, Zixiu was so frightened that he couldn’t help trembling all over and a moment later, his muscles began to stiffen. “Heavens! Help!” he cried out inwardly.

“Am I that horrible?” Nangong Du didn’t mean to say this, but at the sight that Zixiu was scared out of his wits when he put his arm around him, he just couldn’t hold back his rage.

“No, you’re not…” Zixiu was almost reduced to tears, which was a dead giveaway for lying.

Burning with anger, Nangong Du pulled him to the dark woods without a word.

“Du!”

After a few steps, a voice, which to Zixiu was the most melodious sound in the world for the moment, suddenly rang. It seemed God had heard his prayer and sent the empress dowager here in time to help him out!

Nangong Du immediately loosened his grip on Zixiu. Watching the empress dowager and other womenfolk of the royal family walking towards them gracefully from the white marble bridge, he didn’t forget to warn Zixiu in his ear, “One more mistake and you’ll live to regret it!”

Though Zixiu hadn’t recovered from the shock and had lost his tongue for the moment, he nodded numbly.

“The empress dowager is really sharp-eyed! The path is so dark, and even though our clothes are brightly colored, nobody except for her saw us from afar. Could this be because the special bond between a mother and her child?” Zixiu really wished the empress dowager could detect his son’s evil deeds by telepathy!

“Mother!” Watching a line of people approaching, Nangong Du bowed to the empress dowager obediently before he slightly elbowed Zixiu, who was still in a daze.

Meanwhile, those ladies whose status was lower than this couple curtsied to them. After that, everyone shifted their gaze to the silent princess until Zixiu spat out a word timidly, “Mother-in-law!”

Hearing that, the empress dowager frowned slightly in shock and all the other ladies lowered their heads with a surprised look as well, which instantly turned the atmosphere awkward.

Zixiu realized that he had said something wrong again when he saw other people changing their attitude and that pervert clenching his fists. In panic, he racked his brains, trying to come up with a remedy.

However, to everyone’s surprise, before the awkwardness reached its peak, that empress dowager suddenly beamed while reaching out to Zixiu gracefully. “Liuxu, my darling, come over. Let your mother-in-law take a good look at you!”

“Huh?” Zixiu didn’t notice that the empress dowager was speaking to him until Nangong Du poked him hard secretly, but in other people’s eyes, he was just pushing the princess to his mother gently. “Darling, don’t be shy. Mother is calling you,” Nangong Du said with a smile as if he was a considerate husband.

“Haha! My daughter-in-law is so shy!” The empress dowager laughed heartily. Despite her seniority, she walked over and stopped between her son and her daughter-in-law before taking them by the hand.

Seeing that the empress dowager was in high spirits, the womenfolk around them felt much relieved and began to laugh, following her suit.

Zixiu blushed in an instant, but not from shyness. “Who is shy? Who is your new daughter-in-law!” Thought he.

After the joke, the empress dowager turned to her ‘daughter-in-law’, only to see that ‘she’ didn’t look well. Associating with what she had seen in his son’s mansion the other day, she put away her smile and asked, her voice full of concern, “Liuxu, you look pale. Are you feeling sick?”

“Impossible!” Nangong Du immediately chimed in. He leaned forward, as if looking at his wife out of concern, but actually, he was warning Zixiu with a threatening look.

The empress dowager didn’t turn to him, but she couldn’t help feeling suspicious that his son was in such a hurry to interrupt. “Liuxu, did Du’er bully you? No worries! Nobody dares to lay a finger on you while I’m here!”

“Bully?” Zixiu’s heart skipped a beat as he turned pale. However, before he could speak, Nangong Du took a step ahead again, “Mother, where did all these misunderstandings come from? Everybody knows I dote on Liuxu to the utmost. Why would I bully her?”

“Really? Liuxu, I need to hear it from you.”

“Sure!” Zixiu nodded without hesitation. He was clear it was useless to bitch about Nangong Du in front of this old lady because he wasn’t the genuine Liuxu and the empress dowager was that pervert’s mother, not his!