Quick Transmigration: Kitten's Healing Handbook - Chapter 63

Chapter 63: Raccoon Dog! To Combat! 18

“Prince, if we don’t stockpile grain, merchants will take advantage of the situation and raise grain prices, selling to other wealthy merchants in the area. The grain will not reach the commoners. This drought will last until mid-July before the first widespread rainfall. That’s three whole months. If Your Highness does not prepare early, more commoners will die. ”

“Three months, huh? This Prince understands. Concubine Qi, the information you provided is indeed useful. If you desire any reward, just have Liu Yi tell Butler Li. ”

Seeing Zhou Qingyan about to leave after receiving the message, Qi Yu hurriedly tried to persuade him, saying, “Your Highness, the journey must have been tiring. Please stay and rest. Your servant has already prepared dinner in the kitchen. ”

This reminded Zhou Qingyan that the mansion’s food standards should be lowered. It wasn’t about sharing the people’s suffering. Since he planned to use this drought to win the public’s favor, using it as bait to lure the Emperor and the Crown Prince into his trap, he had to act the part completely.

He couldn’t tell the outside world that the Prince’s Mansion couldn’t afford grain anymore while feasting on rich food inside. In recent years, Jia Yu had managed Nanzhou City on his behalf. Far from the Emperor’s reach, he didn’t know if the servants in the mansion had gossiping habits or whether the rules were properly enforced since he’d just arrived at the mansion.

Controlling others’ mouths is clearly not as easy as controlling oneself.

It was understandable to have a better meal for the first time after a long journey. Since Qi Yu had already arranged his dinner in the kitchen, adhering to the mentality of starting to practice frugality from this moment on and not wasting food, Zhou Qingyan stayed.

There was still a quarter of an hour before dinner. The two sat opposite each other in the outer room, silently.

Zhou Qingyan didn’t even glance at the tea on the table. Qi Yu’s intentions toward him were too obvious. Even if there was no poison in the tea, there might be something else.

It wasn’t that Qi Yu wasn’t pretty. As an illegitimate daughter, if she wasn’t pretty, she wouldn’t have been tormented by the head wife. It was simply that the head wife thought Qi Yu was too beautiful and feared she would overshadow her own eldest daughter.

But even the prettiest face couldn’t withstand prolonged torment. She needed some time to recover. She had just been confined to the wood shed for several days before her marriage to the Prince’s Mansion, followed by several months of travel. Her current condition was only slightly better than the day she arrived at the Prince’s Mansion.

Zhou Qingyan felt no emotion towards Mu Wanyin, such a pretty woman. He felt even less towards Qi Yu.

Of course, for Zhou Qingyan, feelings were unimportant. But these two women, one poisoned him, and the other claimed to have precognitive abilities. It was quite strange. This ability, currently, was useful to him, but only to a limited extent.

He really wasn’t interested in having children with these two women. Moreover, this was a crucial time for him to scheme for that position. A child would only become his weakness.

Having great strength meant not fearing these things. But to be realistic, his influence was indeed less than the Crown Prince’s. Otherwise, why would he go to such great lengths to scheme?

Qi Yu clearly wanted to talk to Zhou Qingyan, but she didn’t know what to say, especially since Zhou Qingyan was ignoring her and clearly didn’t want to talk to her much.

Qi Yu bit her lip. Hadn’t her mother always regarded her beauty as a thorn in her side? Why did it have no effect on the Prince?

She chose this time to talk to Zhou Qingyan about the drought, naturally with ulterior motives. After arriving at the mansion, Zhou Qingyan didn’t even visit the Princess Consort, going straight to her room and even staying for dinner. With a little more effort, he might even spend the night with her. Even if that didn’t happen, her status in the backyard would still be higher than the Princess Consort’s.

After dinner, Zhou Qingyan instructed Mo Shu to inform the kitchen to keep the meals simple starting tomorrow, restoring them to their usual standard after the drought passed.

Zhou Qingyan didn’t stay long at Qi Yu’s place. He returned to his study. It had just been moved to this location, and even though Jia Yu had reported some matters, he only reported the important ones. Many trivial matters needed his own attention.

Liuli returned to the Prince’s Mansion kitchen and saw Li’er, who would squat by her cat bed every day. They were life-or-death friends, and Li’er became increasingly impolite towards Liuli.

Seeing the raccoon dog, who had disappeared for nearly ten days, finally return, Li’er breathed a sigh of relief, then grabbed the kitten by the scruff of its neck and slapped its butt several times: “You little cat, you’ve gotten bold! You’ve been out playing for so many days and you still know how to come home! If you hadn’t come back today, I was going to ask the Prince to find a new raccoon dog for the kitchen! ”

Liuli, with thick fur, didn’t mind being hit and instead rubbed her head against Li’er’s chin flatteringly. She was good at coaxing girls.

“I know you’re just being sweet. The Prince said that Nanzhou City is suffering from a drought, so the food rations are halved. Your food ration is only one ounce of chicken. If you’re hungry, go find some food outside, but you can’t disappear for so many days again, do you understand?!”

Li’er didn’t know how much the cat understood, but she still had to nag. Maybe it would work.

And the fact that the cat knew to come back meant that it still considered this place home and wouldn’t run away permanently.

The Prince had told her to take good care of the raccoon dog. If she really lost it, she would likely be punished with a beating.

“Remember to stay away from the refugees outside. Those people are starving. If they see such a fat cat like you, they’ll definitely catch you and eat you. Also, the Princess Consort is sick. The physician says it might be the plague. Except for her personal maid, no one is attending to her. I know you like to run around, but don’t go near her. They say that animals are more likely to catch the plague than humans. ”

Li’er didn’t know if her nagging worked, but she saw the cat staying obediently in the mansion. Could it really understand what she was saying? Maybe it only understood some of it, like not running around.

Liuli ran back to the mansion because there were more and more refugees. It was fine for her to stay in the Prince’s Mansion kitchen where no outsiders could see her. But with more and more refugees flooding in, if a refugee saw her enter the Prince’s Mansion, she might be forced to become someone’s food.

As for her cat companions outside, they were all stray cats. If there was no food for humans in the city, there would be even less for animals. With refugees possibly hunting them for food, many of them would have run to the woods outside the city. Hungry refugees wouldn’t be able to catch agile cats.

Liuli, who used to love sunbathing, couldn’t withstand the increasingly intense sun. When she first arrived in Nanzhou City, she could still find some shade in the mansion. But in just over ten days, the trees had withered and turned yellow due to the drought. It was uncomfortable outside in the sun, and indoors, the closed room was like a steam bath. Opening the door let in the hot air; the only difference from being outdoors was the lack of direct sunlight, but it was equally uncomfortable.

Liuli could only hide in a corner of the large room where Li’er and the others slept, stretching her body out on the floor, hoping to dissipate some of the heat into the ground. It was only slightly better than curling up into a ball. She had already lost a lot of fur, but she was still unbearably hot.