Chapter 338 - First Visit to the Prince Jings Estate (2/2)

Yu Xiaocao picked up Little Linlin’s personal bowl and broke the fillet into smaller pieces. She scooped up a spoonful and carefully checked whether there were any bones inside. The fish porridge was made with snakehead fish, which didn’t have a lot of bones. However, it was still better to be more careful since it was being fed to a child.

“Come on, follow Older Sister and call—Mother…Mother…” Yu Xiaocao lured the little fellow with the fish porridge.

Sure enough, Little Linlin was lured by the fragrant smell. All of his attention was focused on the spoon, which he was very familiar with, “Eat, eat… Sister… Eat!”

His cute appearance was seriously too adorable, but Yu Xiaocao didn’t compromise. She suppressed her smile and said, “You can only eat the fish porridge if you learn how to say ‘mother’! Come, follow me—Mother… Don’t grab it. If you don’t call ‘mother’, Older Sister will eat up all of the fish porridge!”

As she said that, she delivered the spoon to her own mouth. Seeing this, Little Linlin immediately became anxious and turned to look aggrievedly at Lady Fang. He pointed at Yu Xiaocao, who had already put the fish porridge into her own mouth, and complained tearfully, “Mother—eat… eat…”

When Lady Fang heard her son calling her ‘mother’ for the first time, she was so elated that tears welled up in her eyes. She softly said, “Good, good! Since our Lin’er wants to eat fish porridge, Mother will feed the fish porridge to Lin’er!!”

Yu Xiaocao washed the spoon with boiled water, and then she scooped up another spoonful of the porridge. This time, she didn’t tease the little fellow and directly delivered it into Little Linlin, who was waiting to be fed. Yu Xiaocao had woken up early in the morning to make the fillet porridge in the small kitchen. The porridge was soft and aromatic, while the fish was delicious and tender. So, it was the best supplementary food for children.

After Little Linlin ate the various supplementary foods that Yu Xiaocao made these two days, he didn’t even drink milk anymore, which saved him from the painful experience of weaning.

After he finished the bowl of fish porridge, Little Linlin burped and continued to stare at other people’s fish porridge. Lady Fang was afraid that he would overeat, so she didn’t dare to feed him anymore and told the wet nurse to take him back to his room.

“Don’t forget to feed Little Linlin the medicine!” Yu Xiaocao couldn’t help but remind her.

When Little Linlin heard the word ‘medicine’, his face instantly wrinkled up and he looked as if he was about to cry. The wet nurse quickly coaxed, “We’re not eating it. Our Young Master won’t eat that bitter medicine, but we’re eating the sweet sugar water instead. You just ate it last night. Did Young Master forget?”

When the sugar water was mentioned, Little Linlin’s tears immediately stopped like it was tap water. ‘After drinking the yummy sugar water, my throat feels very comfortable and I won’t cough anymore!’

While the wet nurse prepared the loquat leaf cough syrup, Little Linlin stared fixedly at her as if he was supervising her to ensure that she didn’t change the sugar water into the bitter medicine. When she tried to feed him the first spoon, he still had his lips pursed together. He lightly touched it with his lips, and then licked his lips. After he confirmed that it was indeed sweet, he drank it in big mouthfuls.

Yu Xiaocao watched from the side and said with a smile, “Godmother, Younger Brother is really smart. He already knows that he needs to guard against others deceiving him at such a young age!”

Lady Fang showed a gratified smile on her face, but then sighed and said, “It’s just that he has a weak constitution, and thus easily falls ill.”

“Children have weak immunity. I know a prescription for enhancing one’s immunity. In the next two days, I will make it into a honey paste. Mix it with some water and drink it at least three times daily.” What honey paste? In actuality, it was just an excuse to cover Yu Xiaocao’s usage of the mystic-stone water. Adding honey would give it a sweet taste, which children favored.

Zhu Junyang was bored to death as he sat on the side. Seeing that she had finished breakfast and feeding medicine, she should have time to pay attention to him now, right? He cleared his throat and said, “Xiaocao, Lady Mother knows that you have come to the capital, so she wants to invite you to come visit to our estate.”

“It’s our negligence. When we were at Tanggu Town, Her Highness took great care of us, so it’s only right and proper that we visit her.” Lady Fang asked Royal Prince Yang to wait for a moment. She picked a set of clothing for Yu Xiaocao to change into, and then had Hupo comb her hair into a cute and lovely hairstyle. After that, she personally prepared a gift that was neither too conspicuous nor disrespectful, and took her goddaughter to Prince Jing’s Estate.

Royal Prince Yang, who rode on a tall steed, followed behind the General’s Estate’s horse carriage all the way to the Prince Jing’s Estate. Some of the noble young masters in the capital recognized Royal Prince Yang. Upon seeing that it wasn’t Princess Consort Jing’s carriage, they were very curious about who would have such a great honor to be personally escorted by someone favored by the emperor.

They entered the Prince Jing’s Estate through the side entrance. Meixiang had been waiting by the festooned gate. When she saw the mother and daughter pair, Meixiang smiled politely and said, “Lady Fang, it has been a long time since you have come to chat with Her Highness. Our mistress really misses you ah!”

With a smile, Lady Fang politely replied, “My child is still young, so it’s hard to leave him alone! I’ll personally apologize to Her Highness when I see her later!”

Yu Xiaocao followed behind her godmother with a smile and quietly listened to the two of them exchanging polite greetings. However, her eyes weren’t idle. It was a rare chance to come to the Prince Jing’s Estate, so she would treat it as a tour. The courtyard was surrounded by green walls and lush weeping willows. With flower filled corridors on all sides and decorative stone mountains along the pathways in the courtyard, the entire courtyard appeared elegant and magnificent…

[1] reference to the drama My Fair Princess