After Xiao Jingkong, Gu Yan and Gu Xiaoshun took their turns.
Gu Xiaobao also let Nanny Fang carry him to take a fragrant New Year’s Eve bath.
Gu Jiao: She’s not in a hurry, hmm, she’s not in a hurry.
"It’s ready!" Yao Family, with a beaming smile, walked in through the rear door of the main house.
Gu Jiao sprang to her feet!
Xiao Hen, who was pasting couplets in the eastern room, suddenly choked!
Yao Family laughed and said, "The New Year’s Eve dinner is ready, let’s eat first."
Gu Jiao: "...Oh."
Xiao Hen sighed.
This kind of thing was after all quite embarrassing; agreeing so quickly back then was because the mood had been set. It couldn’t be the case that, with her about to leave for war, he couldn’t even grant such a small request.
Thinking about it afterward, he felt quite sheepish.
Besides, he hadn’t expected that someone would actually take such a matter to heart, remembering it for three months and still not forgetting...
That’s just too—
Xiao Hen cleared his throat, glanced at Gu Jiao out of the corner of his eye. Gu Jiao had been watching him all along, and during this brief exchange of looks, she caught his gaze squarely.
However, Gu Jiao did not look away guiltily. Instead, she curved her lips into a smile at him.
Xiao Hen: "..."
It seemed that tonight, he really couldn’t just be a regular person.
This kind of thing, although he was the one being watched, he wasn’t unwilling, so strictly speaking, it could be said that he was taking advantage of her.
Oh Xiao Hen, only nineteen, and already you’re becoming a beast.
With many people at home, two tables were joined together to accommodate everyone.
The New Year’s Eve dinner was lavish, featuring home-cured bacon and sausages, as well as neighbors’ gifts of fried meatballs and battered eggplant. Besides, a chicken was slaughtered... not their own, bought from the marketplace, but it really did frighten the other chickens at home for a good while nonetheless.
In addition, Old Libation Master made braised yellow croaker, winter mushroom and duck soup, smoked bamboo shoots with sliced meat...
Of course, Xiao Jingkong’s vegetarian dishes and steamed eggs with mock shrimp were also indispensable.
Throughout the New Year’s Eve dinner, the Emperor recalled many childhood memories and deeply realized how much harm he had caused his mother during those years when they had turned against each other.
He had even caused his mother to contract leprosy, what inhuman cruelty!
Thankfully, his mother had encountered the divine physician. If not for the divine physician’s miraculous healing and kind heart, he might have regretted it for the rest of his life.
After the New Year’s Eve dinner, he found Gu Jiao in the kitchen, splitting firewood and boiling water.
"I’ve decided, I want to properly express my gratitude to you," the Emperor said solemnly.
Gu Jiao looked at the Emperor oddly.
The Emperor earnestly said, "If not for you, I would have never been able to reunite with the Empress Dowager. Also, if not for you, the battle at the border pass wouldn’t have gone so smoothly."
Why did it come to speaking of war?
The Emperor’s train of thought weakly wandered off for a moment, associating Gu Jiao’s kindness towards the Empress Dowager with Gu Jiao’s performance in the border skirmishes.
"I’ve heard all about what you did at the border pass. You went deep into the remnants of the former dynasty to save your grandfather, along with Gu Chengfeng, and ended up being madly pursued by the former dynasty’s army, nearly dying under the consort prince’s arrows."
"Afterward, you unfortunately contracted the Plague while taking care of the Plague patients of Lingguan City."
"And then, for the sake of your elder brother, you went to kill the consort prince’s assassins but ended up frozen into an ice sculpture on the frozen plains."
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