Chapter 869: From sweet to salty, eating without miss (1/2)

In the silent room, chaos reigned on the floor. Tang Li leaned against the bed while he stared expressionlessly at Ning Jing’s tantrum. This wasn’t the first time it had happened. Late one night not long after they married, Ning Jing had been hungry. Instead of calling for a servant girl, she had woken up Tang Li from his sweet dreams and made him look for food.

Ning Jing was a right and proper president of Cloud Realm Trade Consortium who controlled large business deals in the organization as well as the Di Clan’s family business. How could she ever be a spoiled rotten princess? Tang Li knew that she was deliberately making trouble for him to set him off, so he was willing to play along to the end. How well he used to act. No matter how much Ning Jing fretted, he would wait on her like a slave to his wife while seeming perfectly willing. He personally went to fetch a bowl of red bean soup from the kitchens, but Ning Jing only drank a sip before smashing its contents on the ground, complaining that it was too sweet. He didn’t get mad, but chuckled as he asked her to wait. Then he personally boiled another bowl and added twice as much sugar, preparing to deal with her by acting like a crazy fool. He even figured that he’d add four times as much sugar if she complained again until she stopped pestering him.

But instead of falling for his tricks, Ning Jing finished the bowl in one gulp and praised Tang Li for his cooking skills. She even said that she would only drink his red bean soup in the future. Ever since that fateful night, Ning Jing would occasionally pester Tang Li--sometimes in the middle of the night, sometimes in the morning--to cook her soup, no matter how sleepy he was.

Tang Li wasn’t an easy foe. He added more and more sugar into the soup, but Ning Jing could always stomach his soup. Finally, Tang Li added ten spoonfuls of sugar into the soup one day, only to see Ning Jing swallow it all without knitting her brows once. He even began to suspect that her tastebuds had problems! Their silent sugar war finally ended in Tang Li’s defeat. He grew truly afraid of Ning Jing getting sick if she continued to eat that way. From then one, he didn’t dare add too much sugar into her soup. Ning Jing never discuss the difference in flavors with him, but simply finished each bowl without a word. This made Tang Li understand one thing: don’t get serious with women, because they were too scary when they got serious back!

Although this scene resembled the past, the people in it had already changed…

Tang Li arched a brow at Ning Jing before he laughed coldly. “If you won’t eat, then forget about it!” As he finished, he rose and strode out of the door. Ning Jing chased him to the door, but was held back by the guards before she could get out. In reality, she didn’t want to chase after him anyways, but only put on appearances. Now she was certain that he wouldn’t return tonight. Without him here, she could finally calm down and think about what she should do.

Tang Li didn’t go far before he ran into Lady Tang. Her face was full of anxiety. “A’Li, the elders have all been looking for you. You...what’s wrong with you in the middle of the night, hiding in the kitchens to make soup?!”

That’s right. The red bean soup that Ning Jing had overturned was made by none other than Tang Li himself. He had left the Tang Clan elders waiting for nothing while shutting himself up in the kitchens to cook. He had no idea what had gotten into his head tonight, either.

“I didn’t!” Tang Li denied.

“You can lie to your father, but could you really trick me? A’Li, tell your mother the truth. Have you long taken a fancy to that Ning Jing girl?” Lady Tang asked.

Tang Li ignored her and took long strides forward, but Lady Tang quickly chased after him, unhappy. “You reckless boy, if this old mother can’t see through your heart, then I would have raised you for nothing in the past twenty some years!”

Tang Li still refused to speak as he headed towards the meeting hall. Lady Tang gave up chasing him and shouted, “Someone come, take Ning Jing to Dragon’s Peak. Hand her into Aunt Ru’s custody!”

The Tang Clan’s ancestral hall was located on Dragon Peak, where generations of the departed were enshrined as memorial tablets and worshipped. Lady Tang had no idea that Aunt Ru was trapped up there until Han Yunxi’s identity was exposed and Tang Zijin rushed there in a hurry to find her. Currently, Ning Jing was only being confined within the Tang Clan. If Lady Tang delivered her to Aunt Ru, then based on the woman’s hatred for East Qin, Ning Jing would be tormented to death within three days.

Tang Li kept walking forward, but Lady Tang’s lips only curved into a grin as she began a mental count. One, two, three…

She thought she could make it to five, but she didn’t even reach four before Tang Li stopped. However, he didn’t turn back and only said coldly, “Do as you want! But if Aunt Ru torments her to death, I can’t guarantee I’ll get Cloud Realm Trade Consortium’s arms trade agreement!”

Then he stalked off, walking too quickly for Lady Tang to catch up.

“This damned brat!” Lady Tang was so furious, she nearly turned green!

“Old Madam, calm yourself. Be careful of your health, “ her servant girl coaxed.

“Will you look at this child...just what is he thinking?” Lady Tang realized that she understood her son less and less now. After some hesitation, she went to Ning Jing’s room. It was already the middle of the night, so she didn’t expect a trip from Lady Tang herself. She was still in the middle of making herself presentable when Lady Tang dismissed all the servant girls and went into her rooms. Ning Jing had been living at Reclining Dragon Peak for a few months now, but Tang Li had always shielded her from Lady Tang. She had never met the woman in person. For some reason, she felt a little flustered. A complicated look flickered past her eyes before she sat unmoving on the bed.

Lady Tang leisurely sat down on one side and said, “Ning Jing, seeing as you’re still this madam’s daughter-in-law, I’ll give you a way out. Whether or not you want it, decide quickly.”