“This is the Commandery Prince’s residence. If the Commandery Prince doesn’t want to eat, naturally no one dares to force him. However, I am under Her Majesty’s orders—if the Commandery Prince refuses to eat, then I will have no choice but to report to Her Majesty!” Emily Foster had also calmed her anger by now, and spoke coldly. In truth, she didn’t want to bother with Henry Clark either, but if Henry Clark’s health suffered again, she would also be held responsible.

“Fine! You win!” Henry Clark heard her bring up his mother, Empress Gao, to pressure him, and could only sit down resentfully and start eating breakfast, one bite at a time.

The previous Henry Clark had left him with very few fragments of memory, the most vivid of which concerned Empress Gao. For some reason, the original Henry Clark seemed to be very afraid of his mother. The last time Empress Gao came to visit, Henry Clark also felt that she didn’t seem to care much about her own son—she asked a few perfunctory questions, told Emily Foster to keep an eye on him, and left without saying anything comforting. Could it be that there truly is no affection in the royal family, that even the bond between mother and son is so indifferent?

Thinking of that emotionally distant mother, and combining it with the memories left by the previous Henry Clark, Henry Clark felt quite apprehensive toward Empress Gao. There was no need to alarm her over trivial matters, so after Emily Foster invoked her name, he could only obediently finish his meal. In fact, he had his own tricks for dealing with unappetizing food. Back in school, the cafeteria food was just like this—boiled vegetables, and sometimes you’d even find bugs or flies in it. The taste was even worse, but as long as he closed his eyes while eating and imagined delicacies from the mountains and seas, he’d find the food wasn’t quite so hard to swallow.

Henry Clark stuffed his breakfast down as quickly as possible, slammed his bowl and chopsticks onto the table, glared at Emily Foster, and said, “I’m done. Weren’t you supposed to supervise my meals? Fine! Now that I can walk on my own, there’s no need to bring my food to the bedroom every day. Starting today, I’ll eat with you every time. I want to see if you can keep eating nothing but vegetables and tofu!”

With that, Henry Clark turned and left. This time, he was truly determined. He didn’t believe it—he’d eaten this kind of pig slop for years in his previous life, so he could keep doing it now, just treat it as a reminder of hard times. But as for Emily Foster, a pampered young lady, Henry Clark didn’t believe she could keep eating vegetables and tofu with him. He was determined to make her take the initiative to improve their meals!

Unfortunately, Henry Clark had greatly overestimated his own endurance. As the saying goes, “It’s easy to go from frugality to luxury, but hard to go from luxury to frugality.” Although Henry Clark had suffered before, after reaching adulthood he’d never mistreated his own palate, and as a result, he’d long since become picky. At the same time, he’d underestimated Emily Foster. Maybe she was naturally fond of vegetarian food, or maybe her endurance was just stronger than his. After half a month of eating nothing but vegetables and tofu, Henry Clark felt like he was heading to the execution ground every time he went to the dining room, while Emily Foster could always finish her meal with perfect elegance.

At dinner that night, Henry Clark listlessly poked at the tofu on his plate, sipping millet porridge absentmindedly. Finally, he couldn’t take it anymore, coughed, and said, “Um… Emily Foster, we are, after all, the Commandery Prince’s household. As the master of this residence, having only one dish per person per meal—isn’t that a bit improper?”

Hearing Henry Clark’s words, Emily Foster, who was eating, looked up at him, then unexpectedly nodded and said, “As a prince, having only one dish per meal does seem beneath your status. Little Bean Sprout, have someone add another dish for the Commandery Prince tomorrow!”

After saying this, Emily Foster continued eating, while Henry Clark was left puzzled. Based on his understanding of Emily Foster over this period, she wasn’t someone who gave in so easily, and she clearly disliked him. There was no way she’d agree to his request so readily.

Henry Clark’s confusion was answered the very next day. At breakfast, there was no longer a single lonely plate of vegetables and tofu in front of him—there were now two plates: one of vegetables, and one of tofu.

Chapter Six: Sweet and Sour Pork

“Women and petty men are hard to deal with!” Henry Clark muttered under his breath as he sliced meat. This was the kitchen of the prince’s residence, and it was already midnight. Henry Clark simply couldn’t endure the torment of vegetables and tofu any longer, so after his attendant Little Bean Sprout fell asleep, he quietly slipped out of his bedroom and into the kitchen to make himself something tasty. For a single man in his twenties in the twenty-first century, cooking was a basic survival skill.

Henry Clark’s Guangyang Commandery Prince’s residence was very large, but overall it was divided into the outer and inner quarters. Most of the servants and craftsmen lived in the outer quarters, while the inner quarters housed Henry Clark and the trusted attendants of Emily Foster. Ever since Emily Foster took charge of the household affairs, all of Henry Clark’s people had been driven out of the inner quarters, which were now filled with the maids and matrons that Emily Foster had brought as part of her dowry.