“Xiao Wan girl ah! Don’t mind this old man.” The old man said and followed by kneeling beside the fat girl as he wanted to help her.
However, the little girl held his hand tightly, “No, grandpa, you are my closest person. I can’t ignore you and let you go unattended. Even though I haven’t known you for long, if it wasn’t for you, the girl would have died long ago. You’re just like my own grandfather.”
After comforting him, she again kowtowed to Ouyang Qingming and banged her forehead on the ground, “Young master, please, if you are willing to take in my grandfather, no matter what, the girl will agree to it.”
Ouyang Qingming narrowed his eyes. His eyes fell on the old man and then again on the little girl. He was slightly moved when he listened to her saying that whatever he wanted she would agree to it. On the other side, when the page boy saw him, he couldn’t bear to smile. But he still smiled stiffly and tried to persuade him by bluntly saying, “Young master, I hope you think twice before accepting them. You are already not regarded highly by the master in the mansion.” ‘If the master is disgusted by you again, your status will be even worse.’
It was all okay until he didn’t mention the matters regarding the mansion. By this mention, Ouyang Qingming thought of those days, when many young masters used to surround him from both sides and flatter him. However, when they got to know his gloomy life under the bright surface, they immediately changed their countenance. Thinking of those people in the mansion holding him high when they saw his bright life and then stepping down on his face when he was low in life; his stubborn temper surged up at the moment.
“I don’t want him to like me anyway. It doesn’t matter, I just want to be willful once.” Then he said to the girl, “Our house still lacks an old man to play the drums. This old man is blind, it’s just right to come out and play the drums at night. Most importantly, it can be used to scare people, haha!”
The pageboy’s eyes brightened when he listened to his young master. He smiled before saying, “Yes, yes, our mansion still lacks an old man who beats the drums. Send this man to beat the drums.”
When that fat girl heard this, she immediately kowtowed a few times again in gratitude. “Thank you for taking in my newly recognized grandfather, this girl thank you for your kind heart.”
The pageboy smiled coldly. The look in his eyes, by which he was looking at the fat girl was quite unkind. He said, “If you want to thank, then thank our young master for being kind-hearted. From now on, you must work hard to repay the young master.”
“Yes.”
After she answered this, in the crowd, the little girl who had earlier been praised for being beautiful by several people, unexpectedly knelt down in front of Ouyang Qingming in tears at this moment.
“Young master, have a look at my little brother. He can be a good errand boy, so it’s good to take him away as well.” As she said this, she raised her hand and pointed to an extremely skinny boy who stood nearby. Her face was full of pleading.
This time, Ouyang Qingming’s face was not very good. When the first one came to plead, he reluctantly accepted it. However, now another person who has not yet entered the mansion came to him to make an exception. Now, what is he? Ah!
He couldn’t contain his smile and snickered out as he said, “Yo, you’ve got a really big face. Before even entering the mansion, you learned to manipulate the master to act. Broker lady, you’ve trained these two very well ah!”
The broker lady immediately reprimanded the girls, “You don’t have any eyesight, how can you make such a mess, ah! Hurry to apologize to the young master.”
Even though she was reprimanded, the pretty little girl was proudly raising her head. The sunlight reflected on her face, making her fair neck look like jade snow tofu. Although he was only about eleven or twelve years old, he had also seen a fair share of girls. However, it was his first time to see someone with this extraordinary demeanor and pride that could be seen by just looking at her once. She kowtowed and looked at Ouyang Qingming with a sincere smile. “Young master, she can make a request, then this slave servant can also make a suggestion, right?” The little girl’s bright big eyes, and her unfazed attitude, made Ouyang Qingming interested and so he asked her, “Why?”
“If I say that I simply followed after her because I don’t like her, would the young master believe me?”
Ouyang Qingming became more interested, “Oh, Let me hear it! How is she not pleasing to the eyes?”
“I can’t bear to see that when she has nothing to do, she would always be smiling at people with her fat face. Everyone likes to coax her and follow her around. You say she had eaten till she got this fat, why does she like to act as a sweet and good person. It looks disgusting. The person is small, but her brain is not small, and the wickedness of this grinch makes people hate by even just looking at her.”
The little girl was only seven or eight years old, but her words were very smooth and sharp. After saying this, she discontentedly pouted her lips and looked a little spicy and playful.
Ouyang Qingming looked even more interested and lifted his eyes to look at the weak boy she referred to. In fact, the other person was full of elegance, the only problem was, he was slightly thinner. But in a large family, sometimes there was a need for some of these small boys and such. “To exactly say, that skinny kid can barely count as an errand boy or something. Hanxiao! Then take this kid with you.”
Hanxiao was puzzled and said, “Young master, why are you doing this?”
Ouyang Qingming glanced at her coldly. “It’s not up to you, a slave girl, to preach this young master on when and how should this one act.”
Swept away by his sharp cold phoenix eyes, Hanxiao retreated slightly. She had overstepped the bounds of propriety. Even if this young master was disregarded, he was still a proper master. What’s more, it was Concubine Mei, the mother of Ouyang Qingming, who came to pick slaves this time.
Thinking till now, Hanxiao quickly stopped her calculations and immediately responded to Ouyang Qingming in a soft voice.
*
No one knew whether the arrangement was intentional or not. When the party got on the carriage, the fat girl and the girl who deliberately confronted her, as well as the people they both chose, were all arranged in the same carriage.
Ruyi looked at the arrangement and knew that it was the young master who was being playful and wanted to make the two girls fight against each other.
Her eyes flashed slightly, and she reported everything about the selection of servants to Concubine Mei in detail.
Even though Ouyang Qingming was only about ten years old, the graceful and elegant Concubine Mei was still gorgeous. After hearing this, her eyes turned cold and she said, “Send someone to look at those two girls secretly. I feel uncomfortable just by thinking about them. These people are just trying to cloy my Ming’er. He is also rebelling now, and these two just happen to be good at performing such a play…”
Ruyi quickly promised and went down.
Their Ouyang mansion had become more and more powerful over the years, so they had to be more careful in choosing servants.
The reason why Concubine Mei took the initiative to act on the idea of coming and recruiting people here was, in fact, to nurture her own eyes. After all, her own courtyard was now full of people from several other courtyards.
If they were now deceived by someone from here, they would really be laughed at.
Afterward, Concubine Mei called Ouyang Qingming in her carriage to teach him some lessons.
The debauched and unruly Young master Qingming, on the other hand, mocked his own mother.
“This one was just picking a few slaves, and it is still in this far place of the city. How can there be so many bad-hearted people planning to plant personnel here? If there really is someone doing strange things, then just beat them to death or throw them away. If there really is a problem, it is that Concubine Mother has become more and more cowardly these years.”
Being so despised by her son, Concubine Mei was half speechless. She wanted to tell him that sometimes a small slave, if not properly placed, could make the big picture a total loss. However, looking at her son’s disdainful look, she forcibly swallowed those words back.
In the carriage, the fat girl who was acting all sweet and cute in front of the people earlier, was now completely relaxed. She weakly leaned on the window frame. Her small face was written with the word “relaxed” but her big eyes showed a little sadness.
“Miss…” The girl that was confronting her earlier softly called her from the side.
Shen Xiangwan gently grasped her hand. She sighed and reached out to stroke the head of the little skinny girl, “Fortunately, we can still be together…”
Finally, she leaned in the arms of the elderly one-eyed old man and said, “Grandpa Jiang, we are pretty much together now.”
Master Jiang stroked her head with a smile, “I’m sorry. I have also increased your burden.”
Shen Xiangwan sullenly shook her head, “It doesn’t matter, who could tell that our family would encounter such a big crisis. The good news is that almost everyone is still together. Evidently, the news exchanged for that silver ingot is pretty reliable.”
After saying this, she and the pretty girl looked at each other and in the end, they both let out a sigh of relief together.
What Ruyi and Concubine Mei had guessed was true. They both were just acting for Ouyang Qingming and the others.
The reason behind this was, of course, to take away their relatives together.
The girl, who had always been with her, tightly held her hand. She lightly chewed her lips and tears appeared in her eyes as she said, “Miss, I’m afraid that from now on, we’ll always have to confront each other.”
She couldn’t suppress the grief anymore and big tears immediately rolled down her face. In contrast, the fat girl had now calmed down a lot. She held a hand towel and gently wiped her tears, and began to sooth her in a deep voice like a small adult.
“Ru Yue, at least we are still together. Thank you for still treating me as your master. It’s just that from now on, you and I must be slaves of equal status. Remember it well, we’re just...ordinary slaves in this mansion.”
The little girl firmly grasped her hand and categorically agreed while the pale old man, who was listening on the other side, quietly lowered his head. ‘The young lady of his house has really suffered a lot. At this young age, she had to forcibly take a burden and be a sensible little fellow....’