Chapter 306: Actually, she saved her (2/2)

… …

Mu Linger allowed Chu Qingge to shriek and shout while pretending to not hear a thing. Both of her hands worked together to take off Chu Qingge’s outer robes.

“Ah…. Ahhhhh!” Chu Qingge was about to go mad as she screamed for dear life. She was too scared to even beg for mercy, but Mu Linger wouldn’t have spared her anyways. Very soon, Mu Linger took off Chu Qingge’s long skirt.

“You dared to drug me with an aphrodisiac. I’ll let you know what it truly means to be sick of living!”

“Save me, ah…sobsob…save me…” Finally, Chu Qingge was frightened to the point of tears. She was only wearing her inner robes by now, but still unable to move. But as it turned out, Mu Linger still wasn’t done. She grabbed the waistband tying Chu Qingge’s inner robes together. Han Yunxi might have her scruples, but she had none!

If Han Yunxi wasn’t going to do it, she’d do it herself!

“No…” Chu Qingge was on the edge of falling apart.

But right at this moment, a figure flashed into sight and carried off Chu Qingge. Mu Linger instantly gave chase, but lost sight of the two as soon as she reached the window. She gave a cold snort. “Count yourself lucky!”

She stood by the window for a while until her heart gradually calmed down. Then she looked around the disordered room before her eyes rested on the chair where Han Yunxi had sat. She knew that Han Yunxi had done everything on purpose, so she could admit…that the woman had saved her.

But who had saved Chu Qingge?

Mu Linger was too lazy to bother guessing. Her mood was much better now!

—

Currently, Han Yunxi had been stopped in her tracks by the little beggar girl named Su Xiaoyu. Wherever she went, the girl would quietly follow.

“Child, what will make you go away? Why are you following me?” It wasn’t that Han Yunxi was unkind. She’d already given Su Xiaoyu a bag full of silver, enough to help her eke out a existence in the capital city. But the girl still wouldn’t leave.

Su Xiaoyu stared at her with wide eyes, her lips drawn into a line. It wasn’t that she wouldn’t speak, but that she didn’t dare. Han Yunxi sighed and crouched down, suppressing her impatience. “Speak, what do you want to do?”

Only then did Su Xiaoyu timidly open her lips. “Big sister, I want…I want to be your servant. Please take me in.”

Servant…

Han Yunxi didn’t even know how to reply. She felt very uncomfortable hearing that word. She might have come from the future, but she knew not to use their concepts of equality for all in the past. In this world, it was the strong who lorded over the weak. Still, she didn’t like hearing a child speak of such things.

“Big sister, I don’t know who my father or mother are. I’ve always been by myself, and I can’t use up so much silver,” Su Xiaoyu said as she returned the bag of silver to Han Yunxi. “Big sister, if you take me as your servant and just give me a place to eat and sleep, it’ll be enough. I’m very hardworking.”

She was a precocious child despite being only seven to eight years old. Han Yunxi felt her heart ache at the sight of Su Xiaoyu’s large, sincere eyes. She thought it over before nodding her head. “Let’s go then, come back with me!” There was only an elderly Zhao mama at the Leisurely Cloud Pavilion. It wouldn’t be bad to give her a little girl as a companion.

Han Yunxi took Su Xiaoyu to the gates of the Duke of Qin’s estate, only to find her skid to a halt with a face full of shock.

“Let’s go,” Han Yunxi had been holding her hand the entire time, not caring that it was dirty.

“You’re esteemed wangfei?” Su Xiaoyu asked timidly.

Han Yunxi laughed. “What, you’re afraid of being my servant now?”

Su Xiaoyu quickly shook her head. “I’m not!”

After entering the estate, Han Yunxi first handed Su Xiaoyu to Steward Luo for a few days’ of training before she be sent to the Leisurely Cloud Pavilion. By the time she went there herself, Chu Xifeng had already come running over. “Esteemed wangfei, where did you pick up this beggar from?”

Han Yunxi told him about everything that had happened at the restaurant, causing Chu Xifeng’s mouth to twitch. He didn’t say much, but he was definitely going to privately investigate Su Xiaoyu’s origins. Anyone who wasn’t personally approved by His Highness Duke of Qin needed a background check, even if she was a child.

“What about His Highness? When is he coming back?” Han Yunxi asked seriously.

The empress dowager’s birthday banquet would be the day after tomorrow. Long Feiye had already expressed his stance by moving against Eunuch Xue, but he wouldn’t go so far as avoiding the banquet entirely, right?

“This subordinate doesn’t know,” Chu Xifeng really had no idea. He only knew that His Highness still came home every single night.

Two days later, on the day of the empress dowager’s birthday banquet, Han Yunxi sat waiting from noon to night without a sign of Long Feiye! The banquet was supposed to be a dinner feast, but many of the imperial clansmen had already entered the palace by noon. Naturally, Long Feiye would never go early, but he couldn’t arrive too late, either! As night fell, Han Yunxi sat by the entrance to his rooms, feeling anxious the longer she waited.

What’s happened to him? Did he run into some trouble?

1. Su Xiaoyu (苏小玉) – Su is the same character found in 噜苏 lusu, or pesky. Xiaoyu means “little jade.”