Chapter Ninety-Two: The Directionally Challenged Giant Toad

That evening, the little one came home clutching a paper-wrapped parcel.

The cook had made her a braised pork knuckle to thank her.

But just as she was being led back to her room by Hua Zhi, Bai Yulan, bored out of her mind after an entire afternoon trapped in the manor, said, “Honey, what are you holding in your arms?”

With heaven and earth so vast, the pregnant woman was supreme; no one in the household would let her do this or that. Bored? That was putting it mildly.

“Ah! You scared me to death!” the little one said, hugging her pork knuckle with one hand and patting her chest. Auntie still wasn’t resting?

“Sweetheart, let Auntie see what you’ve got!”

“Mm... Auntie, didn’t you have dinner?”

“I did. I just didn’t eat enough.”

“Oh.”

“Then give me one. The cook made it for me. He’s off duty today.”

“A pork knuckle?”

“Mhm!”

After a long while—

“Auntie, leave me a piece! You’ve eaten it all!”

“Oh dear, it’s for the baby. I can’t help myself!”

“The baby’s definitely going to be fat later.”

“...”

Completely satisfied, Bai Yulan was dragged back by Han Hua, who had come out that night to look for her—his wife was far too troublesome.

The little one was delighted that Auntie had finally left. Ah! This pork knuckle was saved!

She thought to fish a paper parcel out from under her bottom, but it had been squashed flat. She’d take it back to her room and savor it slowly!

Only then—

“Fatty, what are you hiding?”

The little one blinked. Wasn’t this little ginseng supposed to be bedridden with an injury?

In the end, the little one still never got to eat the pork knuckle she had hidden left and right. It was snatched away and eaten by the little ginseng in the end.

Waaah! They were all bad people!

In the dead of night, the Duke of Han’s mansion was very quiet, apart from the guards who patrolled from time to time.

Grrr~

Guard A: “Whose stomach was that?”

B, C, and D: “...?”

“Whose stomach is rumbling?”

B, C, and D shook their heads, saying it wasn’t theirs.

Grrr~

Grrr-grrr-grrr~

A, B, C, and D: “...” Who was being so brazen?

“Put your stomachs in order and keep patrolling. When we change shifts, go ask the stewardess for something to eat!”

“Yes!”

Grrr~

Guard A: “...” Now I’m hungry too! I’ll have Cuihua add two eggs for me later.

As the guards moved on, with another grr, a huge toad the size of a child’s head sprang down from the wall.

“Grr—this is the place. That damn little fatty not only killed my cubs, she even ate so many of my disciples and grandchildren.”

This toad had once lived at the bottom of a pond in the imperial garden. For a hundred years she had been nourished by the dragon aura there, and six years ago she had been further nourished by a surge of auspicious energy, taking on human form. But on the very day before she completed her transformation, that hateful Han Wu had stepped on her.

Damn it! That had sent her back to the bottom of the pond to recuperate, and she had spent more than half a year healing before she recovered. Only after Han Wu entered the palace as a consort did she begin her revenge. Yet the little toad she had planted in the Duke of Han’s household had been killed. Later, her own cubs were eaten by a school of fish, and the frog colony she had finally gathered was either boiled to death or taken for medicine. She hated them so much!

This plump little thing who had appeared in the Duke of Han’s mansion was no ordinary child. To prevent any trouble from dragging on, she had to strike first.

So the great toad began hopping and bouncing toward the little one’s room. Good heavens, this place was huge! Everywhere she turned she smelled that brat’s scent. Where on earth was it?

Meanwhile, the little one was sleeping soundly and dreaming again.

In her dream, a giant toad crawled out from the imperial garden and hopped about leisurely on the gravel path. Then a young lady came along, also bouncing and hopping, and gave the toad a kick, stepping right on its little foot. When the young lady saw the toad beneath her sole, she let out an “Ah—” and fainted dead away. The maid behind her carried her off, and the toad, clutching its foot, hopped back into the water.

Eh—why did that young lady look so familiar?

The severely directionally challenged toad wandered and bounced all over the manor, unable to find the way to the little one’s room. How had she even found the Duke of Han’s estate in the first place?

Damn it! Why were human burrows so numerous? When she hibernated, she only ever dug one hole!

Last time, it had taken her five or six years to find her way to the Duke of Han’s residence, and she had only managed to get here by following Han Wu back when she returned home on a family visit.

For a toad with no sense of direction, life was hard. For a toad bent on revenge, it was even harder.