The Emperor’s Beloved Ugly Girl

32. The Sweet Memories

Translator: Iris Guo

“Anything interesting?” asked A’Chou cautiously. She felt uncomfortable and sad because she couldn’t bear listening to Zhong Mingwei’s sigh, “You wanna share?”

“Actually, there is,” Zhong Mingwei looked at A’Chou, his eyes sparkling, “When I was a child, I was so greedy that I would eat several bowls of iced dessert without a break. Thus, one day I had diarrhea at midnight, which disturbed the Empress Dowager. She massaged my belly for half of the night, just like you do now.”

“Really? I can’t imagine you as a naughty kid. I thought that you were born sophisticated,” A’Chou also laughed and thought of her childhood while tilting her head. After a while, she recalled something interesting and giggled before she could speak.

Zhong Mingwei got curious: “What? What’s so funny?”

“There were a lot of stray cats in the Imperial Washhouse, and it seemed that the washhouse was their favorite place. When I was a child, I wondered why they didn’t prefer the Imperial Kitchen.” A’Chou squinted while massaging Zhong Mingwei’s belly: “Do you know why?”

Zhong Mingwei couldn’t figure it out, so he shook his head.

“I figured it out when I saw Mammy Xiang always feeding them half of her food,” A’Chou smiled softly when thinking of Mammy Xiang, and her voice also softened, “The cats were attracted by her, and later I began to feed them. They didn’t know me at first, and dared not come near me when I gave them steamed buns. However, they got familiar with me gradually, and became very clingy. When they saw me, they would mew sweetly. Mammy Xiang said that I was more popular with them.”

“What happened next?” Zhong Mingwei couldn’t help asking.

“Mammy Xiang passed away,” A’Chou whispered, “And I left the Imperial Washhouse.”

Zhong Mingwei stopped asking. He looked at A’Chou’s downcast eyes and the scarlet scar on her chin, paused, and said: “When I was a child, there was also a kind Mammy around me.”

Suddenly, his eyelids tickled a little and twitched a few times, so he stopped talking.  A’Chou’s hands immediately left his belly. She gently removed small fluff from his eyelids, and blew it away.

“Actually, she wasn’t kind,” continued Zhong Mingwei, “Because she was only kind to me, but she was very bossy to others. As the personal maid of the Empress Dowager, she brought me up alone. Naturally, no one dared to provoke such a senior with an imposing manner, so she became more and more arrogant. Ha ha! However, she was still nice to me. As long as I liked something, she would try every means to get it for me. When I was nearly 18, she had memory loss, but she still remembered that I liked milk tea when I was a child, and she would bring me milk tea at intervals.

“Was the milk tea tasty?” whispered A’Chou.

“Yes. However, it was always overly sweet because she got confused and put either too much milk or honey,” Zhong Mingwei smiled faintly, “Anyway, as long as it was made by her, it tasted good.”