Chapter 186: Chapter 186: An Absurd Night
Li Yan said, "Your eyes and brows look so much like my mother’s. My pet name... besides the Emperor and my mother, only... only my mother’s family knows it. And..." He pursed his little lips, not realizing that no matter how much he tried to sound like a grown-up, his words were still thoroughly childish. "You just look like my uncle!"
When Ming Chengyu heard this, he finally couldn’t hold back and threw his head back with a laugh.
He walked over to Li Yan and crouched down to be at eye level with the little bun. "Our Little Huachao is so smart."
Li Yan was pleased by the compliment, though he told himself not to get too proud. Even so, his little chest puffed out a bit too far.
Ming Chengyu found the sight absolutely endearing.
"Why are you sitting out here all by yourself? Where’s your mother?" Ming Chengyu asked.
"Mother is resting. Sister Xiao Chun said she was really tired today. I don’t want to wake her, so I’m waiting for her out here," Li Yan said.
Ming Chengyu recalled how, ever since their reunion, Ming Lingyi seemed to be constantly busy with the restaurant’s affairs and rarely rested. She had never been this busy before, neither before nor after she was married. ’She must be exhausted,’ he thought.
Ming Chengyu asked, "In that case, would Little Huachao like to spend the night with Uncle?"
Li Yan had wanted to stay the night at Ming’s Restaurant anyway. After all, he now had his own room in the back courtyard—one his mother had specially prepared for him, a room even Little Stone couldn’t rival.
Seeing his uncle now, Li Yan felt a pang of regret that he hadn’t seen his mother. But he was also seeing an uncle he hadn’t met in so long—in fact, this was the first time in his memory. He nodded, then reached his hand out to Ming Chengyu.
He wanted to hold hands.
Before he was reunited with Ming Lingyi, Li Yan had never had such a habit.
Li Yun was clearly the "strict father" type. What little warmth he had was all directed at Ming Lingyi, making it very difficult to squeeze out even a few drops for his son, Li Yan.
The father and son had never held hands before.
But with Ming Lingyi, Li Yan became different.
This habit gradually extended to everyone in the Ming Family. In Li Yan’s eyes, he could hold hands with anyone from his mother’s family.
Feeling the small, still chubby, and impossibly soft hand in his palm, an indescribable warmth spread through Ming Chengyu’s heart.
He suddenly wished his mother could see Li Yan, too. ’She would be overjoyed,’ he thought.
When they had left Shangjing City back then, the person his mother worried about most was the Little Crown Prince, who had already been taken back to the Imperial Palace.
However, no matter how lenient Li Yun was with their family, he would never have allowed them to take the Crown Prince out of the Capital City.
It wasn’t until Ming Lingyi woke up the next day that she learned the Little Bun had come to the restaurant last night.
"If you ask me, you should hire a few more cooks. I can also introduce you to some stewards. Our family has never been in the restaurant business, but managing shops requires similar skills. Among those shopkeepers and stewards, surely a few will know how to run a restaurant. That way, you won’t have to work so hard."
Ming Chengyu brought this up with Ming Lingyi while they were having breakfast.
Ming Lingyi let out an "Ah?" seeming a little confused as to why her brother had suddenly brought up hiring more people.
Ming Chengyu said, "I saw Little Huachao come to the restaurant early yesterday. If you weren’t so tired, you wouldn’t have slept for so long and missed him. That’s why I think you should hire people to manage the restaurant. You could just drop by to check on things, and you’d have more time for yourself and for Huachao."
Yesterday, when Ming Chengyu went to see Zhang Sifan, the latter had teased him about not being short on silver, which was true.
Back then, Father Ming was the Grand Tutor. And while he was an honest official, the rewards from the palace were plentiful. The Ming Family had owned shops in Shangjing City before, and after their return, they only acquired more.
But the Ming Family was different from established clans like the Zhang and Xie families. The Ming Family were scholar-officials, and they didn’t have as many members as the Zhangs or Xies. Naturally, there was no need to decide who in the family would manage worldly affairs and who would pursue a scholarly or official life.
After all, the Ming Family now consisted of only Ming Chengyu and Ming Lingyi. The family fortune would naturally be passed down to the two of them.
However, back when Ming Lingyi had entered the palace, her dowry was already substantial. As for the rest of the family assets, she had no intention of fighting her brother for them. After all, in the eyes of the world, a person of her station would never have to worry about a lack of silver coins.
On this trip to Shangjing, Ming Chengyu had also met with the shopkeepers and stewards of the Ming Family’s various stores.
He knew his sister wanted to run the restaurant herself, so he hadn’t rashly proposed his idea before. But now things were different. Ming Chengyu thought of how, when he was sending Li Yan off that morning, the boy had kept looking back toward the courtyard with such a reluctant expression. The sight had tugged at his heartstrings. He felt that Ming Lingyi, as a mother, was being a bit thoughtless.
After hearing her brother’s explanation, Ming Lingyi sat in her seat, feeling a wave of guilt.
’The reason I couldn’t come out to see Li Yan yesterday wasn’t that I was exhausted from the restaurant work. It was clearly because of Li Yun and his complete lack of self-control!’
Thinking about last night, after they were done, she had rubbed her now-empty stomach and nudged Li Yun, signaling for him to go to the kitchen and find something to eat.
Li Yun asked, "Me? Go out?"
He didn’t mind. Even if the restaurant staff saw him, Li Yun wouldn’t care. In his heart, Ming Lingyi was his wife, so there was nothing wrong with him coming out of his wife’s room. His only concern was that Ming Lingyi wouldn’t agree, since she still thought of their relationship as just a fleeting affair.
Ming Lingyi quickly understood the meaning behind his words. The second before he stood up, she reached out and grabbed his arm.
"Forget it," Ming Lingyi said.
’If Li Yun really walked out and was seen, I’d have no idea how to explain it to everyone.’
But Li Yun obviously wasn’t going to let Ming Lingyi go hungry.
So last night, unnoticed by anyone at Ming’s Restaurant, Li Yun swept Ming Lingyi into his arms and carried her from the restaurant directly to the courtyard next door. Or rather, the three Wu Family siblings did notice. But upon seeing their master carrying the lady over a wall, none of them were tactless enough to interfere.
Although there was no ready-made dinner in the kitchen here, this private residence belonged to Li Yun. The Emperor himself was staying here; couldn’t he have a meal whenever he pleased?
Ming Lingyi didn’t have to wait long for a hot, freshly made dinner.
The flavors were somewhat familiar. It was the work of a chef from the Imperial Kitchen.
If her brother hadn’t suddenly brought up last night, Ming Lingyi definitely wouldn’t have thought again about the ridiculous things she had done with Li Yun. Now that Ming Chengyu had said this, she couldn’t help but seriously consider his point.
"Right, there’s one more thing," Ming Chengyu said.
