Indulging in Carnal Desire
chapter-252

Since Chu Jiao was related to Zhang Shun, although she was still young, she had become the meal-holding eunuch for the Directorate of Palace Delicacies. Her daily responsibilities included acting as a support for the eunuch in-charge of delivering the meals, sending them to all six concubines. The work wasn’t much, in fact, it could even be considered to be as light and breezy.

Additionally, the thing that made her most pleased was today’s meal. Usually, after delivering the meals to the emperor and his six concubines, there would always be scraps of leftovers. According to the provisions, these scraps were supposed to be thrown away with the remaining leftovers. However, the eunuchs and the palace maids usually made a meal out of the leftovers, just as long as they were still delicious and edible. And so, the people on duty today stealthily set aside their share. This was also considered an old custom in the palace because everyone was well-aware of it, but no one has ever put a stop to it.

The original owner’s family previously sold breakfast foods to make a living, making items, such as stuffed buns, steamed buns, dumplings, wontons, and more. The original owner often helped her parents out at their shop, eventually becoming well-versed in the art of dim sum making. Occasionally, when a little glutinous young master expressed his hunger, she would often be able to put her skills on display, and combined with her pleasing nature and sweet mouth, she was able to mingle in the Directorate of Palace Delicacies like a fish back in water.

On a certain day, after dinner had been finished and the servants slyly took the leftovers back to the Directorate of Palace Delicacies, Chu Jiao offered to take responsibility of cleaning up from another little eunuch, and after washing all the dishes mounted in the corner, she obtained a word of thanks from that little eunuch.

She casually ate a little before waiting until the moon rose to its peak and all the other eunuchs had gone to rest before secretly getting up and concealing the paper bag in her hands, taking advantage of the darkness’s camouflage to run off to Qiu Xi Palace.

While washing the dishes, she secretly set aside several little steamed buns and one duck confit. Recalling how much the small boy liked the strawberries from before, she also grabbed two soft permissions, which were filtered out due to their unsightly broken skin, and wrapped them all up together.

Ever since that day, Chu Jiao became more proactive about delivering food to the Qiu Xi Palace and visited the Sixth Prince several times in secret, the two gradually becoming closer than before.

She had gotten to know from the boy that he was actually fast approaching twelve but only looked to be about 8 or 9 years old. He was extremely skinny since he was only able to eat cold leftovers due to the delivering eunuchs consuming most of them. Upon hearing this, Chu Jiao angrily rolled up her sleeves, wanting to deal with those snobbish slaves but was immediately pulled back by the boy.

The boy gazed at her with his big red eyes and quietly shook his head.

Jing Chen had lived in the depths of this palace for already 10 years now and knew well of the filthiness and darkness hiding under the palace’s bright surface. He had already gotten used to this dark life and never expected to have a ray of light come in.

Though this ray of light was small and weak, Jing Chen couldn’t bear to let it die out.

Chu Jiao also knew that even if she felt indignant, even if she truly went to argue for the boy’s sake with her current lowly identity, the consequences would be dire.

Sigh. Even if she knew the male lead would become an all-powerful figure in the future, his present hardships and difficulties were hard for her to ignore.

Chu Jiao sadly pressed down the swelling pain in her heart and could only settle on finding every opportunity she could to aid the child.

A person was currently standing guard at the entrance of the Qiu Xi Palace, so Chu Jiao quickly slipped away at the side and evaded the eunuch at the entrance, secretly feeling around the Western walls of the Qiu Xi Palace. She cautiously glanced left and right. As this place was the farthest among all the 6 palaces and closest to the wall of the outer palace, it was quite desolate and remote. Apart from having patrols at fixed times, no one else passed by this path.

Chu Jiao had already made sure to remember the patrol times of the imperial bodyguards. She knew that they had just finished patrolling the West side and were now heading to the East, so during this short window, no one would be passing by.

She skillfully took two steps back, carefully holding the paper bag in her hand and threw it to the other side of the wall.

Seeing the bag go over the wall and hearing it land, Chu Jiao covered her mouth with both hands and mimicked the sounds of a bird, “Gugu.”

This was the secret signal she had agreed on with the little boy, notifying him that his extra meal had arrived.

Chu Jiao crouched at the corner of the wall and patiently waited for a while until her legs had turned numb, but she didn’t hear the usually quick response the boy gave after she threw his food over.

She felt a little worried, not knowing whether the child was asleep or had gotten involved in some troubling matters. She had even planned on calling out the child’s name, but upon hearing the sound of footsteps approaching, she could only quickly flee.

Upon returning to her room and languidly lying on her bed, before closing her eyes, Chu Jiao fervently wished in her heart that the child was only asleep and that nothing else had happened.

However, the world never usually goes the way we want it to.

[Completed]