Chapter 105: Settling Old Score

She was prepared for Pei Xingju to ask her questions; after all, with his suspicious nature, he wouldn't give up. But she waited a while, but he didn't ask again.

He seemed to believe her words and said calmly, "Even though you had no choice, it's a fact that you lied to me."

"Then what do you have to do to let me go?"

"Let you go?" Pei Xingju calmly put down his pen and said, "If anyone deceives me like this, I will kill him."

Zhuang Wan's neck shrank, and the little courage she had left disappeared, leaving only cowardice.

"But..." Pei Xingju noticed her change in demeanor and secretly found it amusing. He then changed the subject and pretended to be stern: "Since you are still somewhat useful to me, I will spare your life."

I'll spare your life...

Zhuang Wan swore that this was the most beautiful sentence she had ever heard since she came here, and she was so moved that she almost cried.

At this moment, it was as if a huge rock that had been hanging in her heart for a long time fell to the ground, and she breathed a sigh of relief.

"Are you serious? Can you really forgive me?"

"That depends on how you perform."

This fits Pei Xingju's personality perfectly, Zhuang Wan thought. He always weighs the pros and cons. Even when deciding whether to kill her, he would consider it so calmly.

Fortunately, he was the one who weighed the pros and cons, allowing her to get the chance by chance.

To seize this opportunity, Zhuang Wan suppressed her excitement and asked sincerely, "How do you want me to behave?"

Pei Xingju seemed to think seriously about it, then said slowly, "You've lied to me so much and behaved so badly. I can't just let it go like this."

"Yes, yes, let's take our time and figure it out." As long as she could be saved, everything would be fine. Zhuang Wan nodded hurriedly.

Pei Xingju couldn't help laughing, and the corners of his lips subconsciously curled up a little, but then quickly suppressed it.

"Then what do you say...how should we settle it?" He looked like a creditor collecting a debt, glaring at Zhuang Wan like a superior.

It only made Zhuang Wan look even more humble and insignificant.

But what could Zhuang Wan do? She had been a liar and was already in debt, so she could only accept his demands.

She asked weakly, "How do you want to calculate it?"

"Hmm..." Pei Xingju pretended to think, "That's simple. I'll write down everything you've done, and you can pay me back one by one. We'll be done when you've paid it all off. How do you say that?"

"But..." Zhuang Wan whispered, "I don't remember what I did."

"Really?" Pei Xingju said patiently, "In that case, I'll help you remember it."

"ha?"

Pei Xingju raised his chin and gestured, "Grind the ink."

Zhuang Wan swallowed and, like a criminal, moved to the table with a dusty face to grind ink.

"You remember every word I say." Pei Xingju stood up and walked to the dining table and sat down.

"oh."

He ate slowly and his thoughts were clear.

"On the sixth day of March, you hugged my thigh and said you and I had an affair. This incident tarnished my reputation and even led to me being impeached and slandered in the court. This account must be settled."

Zhuang Wan's scalp was tingling and he found it difficult to write.

"Write!" Pei Xingju glanced at him lightly, and Zhuang Wan was so scared that her hands started shaking, and she immediately wrote crookedly on the paper.

"On the same day, you fabricated a story about Tan Lang and Xie Nu falling in love at first sight, deliberately causing an uproar in public opinion." Pei Xingju paused and asked with a half-smile, "Did they meet over the wall?"

“.......”Zhuang Wan’s old face turned red.

"Composing poems and sweet-talking you?"

“.......” Zhuang Wan wished she could crawl into a crack in the ground.

"I also promised you a lifetime..."

"Stop...stop talking!" Zhuang Wan stopped him. "I remember this. I'll just write it myself."

Pei Xingju turned his head, his long eyelashes suppressing a restrained smile.

After a moment, he continued, "It's only been two days since I entered the mansion, and you changed my guard's name without my permission. This must also be counted."

"And twice I provoked the wives of the Marquis of Cheng'en, both times I was forced to apologize."

Zhuang Wan weakly retorted, "I didn't provoke her, she provoked me first, so I..."

Under Pei Xingju's cuckold gaze, she cowardly swallowed the rest of her words and muttered, "Alright, whatever you say is true."

"And..." Pei Xingju didn't need to think too much, just read it like a book: "You have deceived me with sweet words many times, especially the night when I was looking for the letter in Zhuang Mansion, what you said..."

"I'll write it, I'll write it! I'll write it right away!" Zhuang Wan wrote it down bitterly.

At the end of her speech, Zhuang Wan's head almost buried in her chest. She lacked confidence and felt ashamed and embarrassed as a quail.

I don't know why his memory is so good. There are actually more than ten things in total. He even forgot that she had deliberately made the medicine a little stronger for him.

Just, I really want to cry.

Seeing that he finally stopped, she asked with sweat dripping down her face, "Anything...anything else?"

"That's all." Creditor Pei waved his hand generously. "That's all for now. You're done. Oh, and make sure your notes are neat and there are no typos."

“........”

Zhuang Wan looked at the dense debt piled high above her and asked gravely, "How am I supposed to pay it back?"

Pei Xingju finished his meal and blew on the soup lazily.

Then he said, "There's a rule in my Great Zhao laws that if someone maliciously defames another, they must compensate him with money. I've calculated that you've committed sixteen offenses in total, and I'm a third-rank official in the Great Zhao. Compensation for your reputation shouldn't be easy. Five thousand taels is the minimum."

Five thousand taels? Why don't you just go and rob it?

Zhuang Wan's eyes widened, unable to accept it.

Pei Xingju lowered his eyelashes, his thin gaze a little bit pressing: "Why, you don't want to?"

"Ah, no, no, no!" Zhuang Wan waved her hands hurriedly, chuckling, "Why wouldn't I want to? I just... where can I find so much money to compensate you?"

"No problem!" Pei Xingju slowly put down his bowl of soup. "As the saying goes, if you have money, you pay it back, and if you don't have money, you sell yourself. I just happen to be in need of a maid to feed and clothe me. You can work for me and pay off the debt first."

“!!!”

I don’t know if it was Zhuang Wan’s illusion, but she always felt that she had trapped herself in a trap. But when she looked into it carefully, she couldn’t tell what was wrong.

It seemed that she had no choice but to sell herself as a maid to pay off her debts.

Pei Xingju stared at her for a moment, then slowly asked, "Do you have a better idea? Tell me. As long as it can pay off this debt, it's all good."

“.......”

After thinking for a long time, Zhuang Wan gritted her teeth and said, "It's not that I can't agree, but we have to set three rules."

"you say."

"My monthly salary cannot be lower than Guard Lu's."

"Can."

“I must have freedom in my life.”

"What freedom do you want? Do you want to run away again?"

"......." Zhuang Wan paused for a moment and said, "I'm just selling myself to work and earn money. I'm not selling myself to be your personal property. Can't I have a little freedom in my life?"

Pei Xingju nodded: "For example?"

"For example, I can come and go freely in the mansion and make my own decisions. Also, I cannot be forced to work overtime."

“What is overtime?”

"It's just that you can't force me to do anything when I'm resting."

"Can."

"And...I should have some vacation time, right?"

Pei Xingju squinted his eyes and said, "You're asking for a lot."

Zhuang Wan muttered, "This is about fighting for personal rights."

"I promise you," Pei Xingju said helplessly, "If you have anything else, tell me all at once."

Zhuang Wan thought for a moment and said, "For now, I don't have it. How about bringing it up again later if I remember it?"

Pei Xingju glanced at her twice and stretched out his hand.

Zhuang Wan quickly picked up the written debt and handed it over. "Does this look okay to you? Is there anything else to add?"

Pei Xingju took it. The densely packed words on the paper were sometimes big and sometimes small, like a chicken scratching its teeth, which gave him a headache.

"You used to..." His expression was hard to describe: "When you were in the boudoir, didn't the elders hire a teacher for you?"

Zhuang Wan laughed dryly, "Yes, but there are always some people in this world who can't write well no matter how hard they try."

Pei Xingju shook the debt book and said, "It's barely enough, but there's something missing."

"What's missing?"

His eyes were dark, like a fox's: "You haven't signed yet."

“..........”

As expected of someone working in the Ministry of Justice, he is so rigorous.

Zhuang Wan took the ink and angrily pressed a thumbprint on the paper.

Just like that, he sold himself out without knowing why.