Chapter 6

Xiao Chuan kept his word. Before dinner, he had Shuanghua and the chef brought to the small house, where Mi Yao ate the most delicious meal she had had in days. He also allowed her to have a complete skincare routine, including an eye mask, and a thorough face cleansing.

"Sister, do you know that when Wu saw how much her husband valued her, she boiled water and washed off several layers of mud? I heard her daughter-in-law sigh and say that she hadn't been in water for more than half a year, but now she's risking her life to please this important person. She even dares to soak in water and scrub off the dirt at this time of year."

"That old woman might not be trying to please the lady; she might just be putting on an act for Governor Xiao's benefit."

Shuanghua had heard about how difficult Wu was, and now, hearing her taking a bath, she felt that Wu might genuinely be afraid of Mi Yao, but more likely, she was using this to gain Xiao Chuan's sympathy and to show how domineering Mi Yao was.

Upon hearing Shuanghua's guess, Miyao was not surprised by the content of her guess, but rather by the fact that she would voice it.

After she transmigrated into the book and became the original owner of the body, she rarely spoke to the original owner's maid.

It wasn't that she was afraid they would discover the difference between her and the original owner, but rather that she was too lazy to get too involved with them.

Only when people don't communicate with each other can they comfortably treat each other as NPCs. If they get too involved and know each other's thoughts and ideas, they can't treat each other as characters in a book.

Therefore, she never regarded the people around her as living, breathing human beings.

She doesn't usually talk to Shuanghua and the others, and they obediently listen to her and do their things quietly.

At this moment, Shuanghua was probably just like Yu Xiu, frightened by her disappearance and reappearance, and wanted to form a closer connection with her, so she became more talkative.

Mi Yao couldn't tell whether she was happy or annoyed by this. She looked at Shuang Hua's familiar yet unfamiliar face as if she were looking at Yu Xiu, and said, "It doesn't matter what she thinks. We're only staying here for a few days. A servant isn't worth the trouble. You don't have to suffer the same kind of treatment as me."

"This servant understands."

Shuanghua understood Miyao's meaning, tidied up the furnishings in the house, and went to ask Wu Ao for the necessities they had used for the past few days.

Seeing her assertive nature, Wu Ao knew she was a maid and dared not say a word, respectfully arranging everything.

"Do you have something to say?"

Shuanghua brought Miyao a few books that she often read. Miyao had planned to go to bed early to read, but when she saw Yuxiu standing to the side, looking hesitant, she glanced at her.

“Sister is right. I’m afraid of the future, so I had the idea that I would be more valued without you. Plus, thinking about what you said before, I also wanted to let you and my cousin be together. I deserve to die. Sister, please forgive me this time. I will definitely serve you and my brother-in-law wholeheartedly from now on.”

Yu Xiu knelt on the ground. Instead of making excuses, she told the truth and begged for mercy.

She knew that Mi Yao hadn't held a grudge against her before because she had no one else to rely on. Now that Shuang Hua was available, she was no longer needed.

“Sister, you can hit me or scold me, but please, sister, don’t send me back to Jiangnan. I won’t survive if I go back.”

She wouldn't be beaten to death after being sent back, but without Mi Yao's protection, her life in the Yu family as an unattractive and neglected illegitimate daughter wouldn't be much better than death.

The room was quiet for a moment. Mi Yao looked down at Yu Xiu's trembling body. She knew what Yu Xiu was afraid of, and she also knew what would happen if Yu Xiu was sent back to the Yu family.

A single sentence could determine a person's fate, and she didn't want to bear such a responsibility at all.

"Serving me is enough."

After a long silence, Mi Yao spoke up, "The purpose of a concubine is to secure favor. Do you think that if I can't even retain your favor, what can I secure?"

"Sister..."

"If you choose to climb the social ladder in the future, you'd better pray that you succeed on your first try, because I will not allow a traitor to come back to me."

Hearing Mi Yao's warning, Yu Xiu was both happy and afraid: "Don't worry, sister. From now on, I will only think of you and serve you."

"If you thought I was unreliable before, you've seen how I am in front of Xiao Chuan today. I value my life. Not to mention the distant future, it won't be difficult for you to rely on me for a few years."

So you should behave yourself for a few years, and before you come of age, don't keep saying things like you're going to serve your brother-in-law.

Mi Yao thought to herself, "I'm so annoyed."

She really didn't want to meddle, but she was genuinely afraid of Yu Xiu.

"Sister, Xiu'er was wrong."

Yu Xiu knelt on the ground, sobbing, "Xiu'er doesn't disbelieve her elder sister..."

Mi Yao didn't care whether she truly disbelieved or not, and waved her hand, "I'm cured, you don't need to watch over me all the time. Tonight you can sleep with Shuanghua."

After Yu Xiu left, Mi Yao picked up a storybook but found herself unable to calm down. Her eyes were on the book, but her mind kept replaying the few words she had spoken to Xiao Chua that day.

Feeling that this wouldn't do, she simply extinguished the candles in the room, threw down the book, and closed her eyes to sleep.

A wife's brain can be used to fill water, or to arrange flowers, but it's definitely not for thinking.

*

Mi Yao fell asleep, while Xiao Chua had already rested and recovered.

The cook who prepared his meals was Mi Yao's chef. As soon as he tasted the food, he understood why Mi Yao insisted on having a chef serve her. Even a simple bowl of meat noodles tasted better when made by her chef than any noodle shop, and it was worlds apart from what Wu Ao made.

When Wu Ao asked whether she should wake Mi Yao up to greet or see her off, she heard her mother ask.

Xiao Chuan said calmly, "Why wake them up when they're already asleep?"

If he upsets her, he'll then tell her he doesn't know how to cherish flowers, and he'll deliberately make things difficult for her.

Who would have thought that those words, originally meant to mock her recklessness and stupidity, were used so thoroughly by her, using the pretense of pampered Mingzhen as an excuse to try and get something from him.

"Just do as she says. I'm not married to her yet, but she will be your master sooner or later."

Glancing at Wu's much neater appearance, he originally thought that it didn't matter that the old woman was slovenly, but who would want a smelly thing standing in front of them and fawning over them when they could see a clean servant?

After giving a brief explanation, Xiao Chua stepped into the stirrups, mounted his horse, and had just ridden out of the courtyard when he heard Zhao De laugh and say, "After I woke up, I heard Yu Nu talking to her sister. Commander, guess what I heard?"

Xiao Chuan glanced at Zhao De: "Your sleeping place is a courtyard away from Yu Nu's. Did you sleepwalk to her roof? Otherwise, how could you hear her talking after you woke up?"

Zhao De chuckled: "The town magistrate said that this Yu girl might not be a real member of the Yu family. I just wanted to take this opportunity to gather more information."

After finishing his sentence, Zhao De stopped keeping her in suspense and said, "Yu Nu is very domineering. She scolded her half-sister for not having any ideas about the master and said that with her beauty, even if her half-sister became the master's concubine, she would not be able to win his favor. She made the little girl cry."

If Zhao De had mentioned someone else, Xiao Chuan wouldn't have known who it was, but if he had mentioned Mi Yao's younger sister, the image that came to mind was that of a thin, small girl running around preparing things for Mi Yao.

“What Yu Nu said is correct.”

That little girl really shouldn't have had any illusions about him.

He didn't care about concubines at all. To him, it was just that Mi Yao had brought an extra maid to serve her, not that she had an extra woman he had to sleep with.

"That little girl is still young and hasn't fully grown up yet. She's Yu Nu's younger sister, and when she grows up, she'll definitely be stunningly beautiful, no less so than her sister..."

"Zhao De, twenty strokes."

Xiao Chuan interrupted him coldly, and Zhao De immediately dropped his joking expression, dismounted, knelt on one knee, and bowed his head to accept the punishment.

"Where did we go wrong?"

"My subordinate has a foul mouth and makes lewd jokes about young girls."

Zhao De had no romantic feelings for Yu Xiu, but when Xiao Chua got angry, he immediately realized that he had spoken carelessly and forgotten the rules of the Jiannan Army.

The patriarch, Zhao Tianhe, was strict in governing his army and established various rules, one of which was that women must not be sexually assaulted.

This clause is further subdivided into many smaller clauses. Jiannan Army is the only military camp in Daxing Army without military prostitutes. Apart from that, the military governor does not care what kind of fun they seek outside the military camp, but regardless of their military rank, as long as they are soldiers under his command, they are not allowed to lay a hand on young girls or children.

When these military orders came into Xiao Chuan's hands, he enforced them even more harshly. There was a time when a soldier forced a woman who had not yet reached marriageable age, and he ordered her to be beaten with military sticks until she died.

After receiving twenty strokes of the military rod, Zhao De became much quieter for the rest of the journey.

With the surroundings quiet, Xiao Chuan's mind, now free, turned to Mi Yao.

Everyone who met Mi Yao described her to him differently from the one he had met.

The scouts said she was aloof and arrogant, and in love with her scholar cousin who was staying at the Yu family's house. Wu Ao said she was domineering, cold, and demanding. Zhao De said she was domineering and jealous, and did not want anyone else besides her to be by her future husband's side.

In his eyes, Mi Yao was charming and beautiful, with a somewhat spoiled temper, but when she spoke in her soft, sweet voice, it was just a cat being affectionate, not arrogant.

In this light, sending spies to investigate Mi Yao's background is completely unnecessary. She is not the same as the rumors suggest; it's just that she is good at acting and concealing her true feelings, which makes everyone have different opinions about her.

*

After that first meeting, Mi Yao didn't see Xiao Chuan again for several days.

Five days later, Xiao Chuan should have finished his business. He sent all the servants she brought from the Yu family to the small courtyard and prepared a carriage to take her to Yizhou.

The person who gave it to her was Zhao De, who had met Mi Yao once before.

Having taken on the task of delivering the goods, Zhao De expected Mi Yao to have many questions for him when he met her.

For example, why didn't Xiao Chuan come to see people off? And why was he the one seeing people off? But Mi Yao didn't ask any of these questions.

It's better not to ask, but sending Mi Yao on her journey will still be troublesome.

The journey from Jingzhou to Yizhou, which should have taken ten days by fast horse, took Mi Yao twenty-five days because she couldn't stand the bumpy ride and wanted to load the carriage again, and she also wanted to stop and rest to taste local delicacies at restaurants.

Zhao De initially thought that Mi Yao had other escape plans, so he deliberately delayed on the road. After a long period of caution, he discovered that Mi Yao was simply pleasure-seeking and could not endure any hardship.

Xiao Chuan had already set the travel dates, and the fact that he had to arrive in Yizhou within half a month wouldn't scare her.

She immediately said that Xiao Lang couldn't bear to see her suffer, and wouldn't force her to be transported like cargo, only caring about speed and not whether she was happy or not.

He had followed Xiao Chuan for several years and never knew that his superior was so tender-hearted towards women. On the other hand, Mi Yao, who had only met Xiao Chuan a few times, became like a tapeworm in Xiao Chuan's stomach.

"Anyway, this job is even more tiring than sending me to guard the border in Yizhou. The garrison commander is in for a tough time from now on."

After sending Mi Yao to the Xiao residence, Zhao De clicked his tongue in amazement as he remarked to his familiar colleagues.

Meanwhile, Mi Yao arrived at the mansion and took a nap. After waking up, she looked at the three little kids standing at her door and frowned: "What are you doing here?"

"We've come to pay our respects to Mother."

The tallest radish stepped forward, leading the remaining two smaller radishes, and bowed neatly to Mi Yao.

However, only two people opened their mouths and said "May your mother be well."

Mi Yao's gaze shifted to the smallest of them, the girl named Luo Bo who had been staring at her without opening her mouth.

Her choice to make eye contact with the little radish was clearly a mistake.

Because Little Radish noticed her looking at her, his round eyes sparkled, he opened his mouth to reveal a few tiny white teeth, and ran a few steps forward to hug her leg.

"Shan'er!"

Big Radish and Medium Radish were afraid that Mi Yao would get angry, so they tried to pull Little Radish back, but Little Radish refused. Not only did she cling to Mi Yao, but she also struggled to climb up with both arms, clearly wanting Mi Yao to carry her.

"Please don't blame my sister, Mother. She is young and doesn't know any better. She can't speak yet and doesn't know any rules."

The big radish can't pull the little radish. Seeing her face all scrunched up, and afraid that she would cry and make Mi Yao even more unhappy, he explained to Mi Yao with a straight face.

"Shan'er, if you keep doing this, I won't give you any food!"

Compared to the big radish, the medium radish directly chose to threaten, and his threat clearly hit the little radish where it hurt.

Little Radish still didn't let go, but burst into tears.

Mi Yao: "..."

She must not have slept well, so she hallucinated as soon as she woke up, seeing three radishes opening their mouths and talking, having a lively radish party in front of her.