My Husband Is Not Easy To Mess With. - Chapter 29: He's Different
Du Suilan casually reviewed some memorials.
“Your Majesty, the Prime Minister is here,” Little Douzi announced from the palace door.
“Please invite Minister Dou in.”
Dou Jin Yuan entered, looking around but not spotting the person he would rather not see.
Du Suilan: “Daddy, stop looking, Brother Yao has already left.”
He quickly finished processing the memorials.
Happily, he invited his father to stay for dinner.
“Brother Yao sent me some fish. The imperial kitchen is preparing it. You should try it later, Daddy, and see if it’s good!”
“You like eating fish from the lotus pond?”
His son could have gold mountains and silver seas if he wanted them, yet that man only sent a few fish he raised himself?
It was beyond merely being meager.
At this moment, Dou Jin Yuan only felt that Nie Yao was a stingy pauper, not worthy of his son, and wasn’t treating him well.
He was not worth entrusting his son to at all.
“Yes, I like it!” Du Suilan said. “It’s being made into sour fish soup. My late-Daddy used to love it. Brother Yao even specially dug a pond for him to raise fish and grow lotus roots.”
Dou Jin Yuan fell silent.
The guilt towards his deceased husband caused a sourness to spread in his heart.
“You don’t need to bring up your late-Daddy,” he said faintly. “I promised you I wouldn’t do anything to him.”
Both his son and his late husband held Nie Yao in high regard. As someone who had failed them, what right did he have to lay a hand on Nie Yao?
Furthermore, no matter how much he disliked Nie Yao, he had to admit: he was a benefactor to their family.
Even though he had long abandoned his conscience.
But his husband had specifically written a letter before he died, instructing him to repay the man well.
His husband’s dying wish.
He would not go against it, no matter what.
Dou Jin Yuan: “Are you two together?”
“Yes, we are~”
Du Suilan smiled and offered his father a bowl of lotus root starch soup. “Let me tell you, Daddy, Brother Yao is definitely going to like me! It won’t be long before we have a baby~”
Dou Jin Yuan was noncommittal.
He didn’t like lotus root starch soup, but he drank it anyway.
“How much of those matters did you reveal?”
His father was well aware of the things his son had done to Nie Yao.
That’s why he wasn’t optimistic about their relationship.
Nie Yao was not someone to be easily manipulated.
His actions seemed greedy and limitless, giving people the false impression that he would be easy to talk to as long as he was given money and assets.
In reality, he just wanted people to think that way.
Since Nie Yao returned to the capital, he had never miscalculated a single thing. Even the incident a few years ago where he indirectly embezzled the Ministry of Works’ budget was intentional.
Personally going to apologize was just a tactic.
The goal was to let people understand that he wasn’t trying to eliminate everyone. As long as you were useful, he wouldn’t kill you.
The effect was immediate.
Those who liked to cheat and slack off were now working their hardest to avoid having their property confiscated.
“Just a little bit,” Du Suilan thought for a moment and said, “He knows I arranged someone near him, but I didn’t tell him who it was.”
“Oh? How did he react?”
“He looked a bit surprised… Oh, Daddy, don’t worry about this! I know what I’m doing, Brother Yao will definitely love me! He won’t escape my grasp!”
His precious son said this with certainty.
Dou Jin Yuan, however, was not so optimistic.
In his opinion, the two were completely incompatible.
His precious son was too possessive, while Nie Yao only wanted to do what he believed was right and would never compromise.
When two strong-willed people are together, if no one compromises, the only outcome can be separation.
Dou Jin Yuan: “If you let him know these things and he goes back and replaces the person, what will you do?”
“He wouldn’t dare!”
Du Suilan pouted and glared at his father. “Brother Yao is very sensible; he wouldn’t do something so useless!”
Sensible? Nie Yao?
Dou Jin Yuan couldn’t possibly believe such a monumental joke.
But he wouldn’t contradict his precious son.
He only said, “A sensible person cannot command a million soldiers.”
“Right? Daddy, you also think Brother Yao is amazing, right! Ninety thousand Nie family troops, each can fight ten! Who else could be so formidable besides Brother Yao!”
“Brother Yao is just usually lazy! Actually, he is very capable! Everything he sets his mind to, he can achieve!”
“He’s handsome, has a good physique, is skilled in martial arts, and is a kind person! Such a wonderful Brother Yao, no one else deserves him but me! He should be mine! &*￥#@%￥@…”
Once Nie Yao was brought up, his precious son had endless things to say.
Every single word was about Nie Yao’s good qualities.
He said Nie Yao was a perfect person.
Dou Jin Yuan was used to it and lowered his head to meticulously debone the fish for his son.
“Daddy, you eat too!”
Du Suilan, like his late-Daddy, liked to eat fish without bones.
He was first persuaded to let Nie Yao pinch his cheek because of a piece of roasted fish. Since then, both parties became completely immersed: the one who loved eating fish became obsessed with eating fish, and the one who loved pinching cheeks fell in love with pinching the little son’s tender cheeks.
Chew, chew, chew~
Chew, chew, chew~
As expected of the fish raised by Brother Yao, it’s really delicious!
Du Suilan: “Brother Yao said he also has shrimp, crab, eel… in his mansion, and he said he would have someone send some to me every day!”
His precious son loved seafood. To ensure he could have fresh fish and shrimp daily, Dou Jin Yuan once spent tens of thousands of taels of silver to build four fish ponds and hired nearly a hundred experienced fishermen to take care of them.
His carefully nurtured son.
Now, he was so happy for just two fish.
Dou Jin Yuan would be lying if he said he wasn’t upset.
Fortunately, the action of lowering his head to remove the fish bones effectively concealed the resentment on his face. He kept telling himself in his heart: He’s a benefactor, he’s a benefactor… Nie Yao is a benefactor. If he hadn’t intervened years ago to save his son and husband from the deep palace, any remorse he felt now would have been too late.
“I’m sorry to you and your late-Daddy.”
No, Dou Jin Yuan still couldn’t convince himself.
He hated his past self for being powerless and insignificant, so much so that he didn’t even dare to see his husband and son.
“It’s all my fault!” If he had unscrupulously climbed to a high position sooner, how would his two most beloved sons have suffered such hardships!
The all-powerful Prime Minister couldn’t stop two streams of clear tears from running down his face when he closed his eyes.
“Oh, Dad! Here you go again!”
Du Suilan awkwardly wiped away his father’s tears. “No wonder late-Daddy said you were fragile! Dad, you cry so easily, late-Daddy always made fun of you for it!”
When he was very young, Du Suilan didn’t like his father.
Ignoring him and his late-Daddy for several years, how could he be a good man?
He thought his late-Daddy was just foolish for praising him.
It was only later that he gradually understood his father’s difficulties. During the years his late-Daddy was in the palace, the pain his father endured was no less than anyone else’s.
If Brother Yao was selectively kind, his father was truly pure-hearted in the beginning.
A person who even pitied a small sparrow, transformed into an all-powerful official who could exterminate an entire family without batting an eye, all for him and his late-Daddy.
Du Suilan: “Daddy, you did it for my and late-Daddy’s good. Back then, you had so many enemies. If people had known about me and late-Daddy, wouldn’t we all have been finished?”
“Anyway, I met Brother Yao when I was two, and he was very kind to me and late-Daddy!”
Back then, all it took was letting Brother Yao pinch his cheek and occasionally hugging him.
Then he could have everything he wanted.
Du Suilan felt nostalgic: How easy to manipulate Brother Yao was back then!
Unlike now, when he wouldn’t even accept the offer of being kept as a lover.