Chapter 145 Picked Up Someone
Zhou Zhining looked at Zhiyun as if she wanted to devour her, and slapped her hard across the face.
Zhiyun turned her head to one side, covered her face, and knelt down with a thud.
"Miss, I am guilty, I am willing to be punished." She prostrated herself on the ground, her body trembling slightly.
Zhiyue dared not step forward to plead for mercy, keeping her head down and shoulders hunched, hoping that the anger would not extend to her.
Xiao'er was so frightened that she cried and ran over to hug Zhou Zhining's leg, begging her not to hit her sister.
Zhou Zhining looked down at the child, her brows furrowing slightly. She took a deep breath and said coldly, "What are you still kneeling for? Go and bring her back!"
"Yes—" Zhiyue scrambled to her feet and turned to look for someone.
Zhou Zhining's face was gloomy, and she let out a heavy snort from her nose.
Turning to the child, her expression softened: "Mother is disciplining the servants. These servants should be punished if they don't do their jobs well; that's only right. Zhiyun isn't your older sister; you must remember, you are the master..."
She patiently guided the children, teaching them the difference between master and servant, while also showing them love and care.
Xiao'er was only four years old when he was sent to be a servant. In just a few months, his sense of mastery was completely disrupted.
I really hope Zhan Xingzhuo comes back soon.
Zhou Zhining hated Yao Qingling even more.
In her letter to Zhan Xingzhuo, she wrote: "Xiao'er has developed a problem with his thinking. He doesn't know that he is the master and even acts like a brother to the maid. I am very sad. It's all my fault for not protecting him and causing him to have to go to the Ministry of Agriculture to perform hard labor with me."
She added, “Although I have left that place, I am no different from a servant serving Prince Xin. Now, all those around me are just servants. No young ladies or wives of officials interact with me. In such an environment, how would Xiao’er know that I am the master?”
She was simply moved from a place of hard labor to a luxurious and respectable shop; in essence, she was still a slave.
The letter concludes with: "Ning and Xiao'er both miss you dearly and hope you will return home in glory soon."
Zhou Zhining forbade Hongying from writing to Zhan Xingzhuo, and she never mentioned Hongying in her own letters.
What right does a lowly maid have to waste ink on her, to write a single sentence about her?
Zhou Zhining felt that Hongying was Zhan Xingzhuo's plaything when he was lonely in Luozhou. She kept her in the capital, ostensibly to train her, but actually to make Zhan Xingzhuo forget Hongying and not allow them to have any private feelings.
She had already learned her lesson once, and that experience sowed the seeds of future trouble.
When Zhan Xingzhuo married Yao Qingling, wasn't it because they developed feelings for each other over time?
Although Zhan Xingzhuo himself hadn't noticed it yet, Zhou Zhining, being a woman, was very sensitive to even the slightest changes.
The existence of the red cherry blossom is the best evidence.
“Miss, what if we don’t find Hongying, and she goes back to Luozhou and talks nonsense in front of the Second Master?” Zhiyue asked.
Zhou Zhining gave a haughty sneer: "So what? Did I not do my best to teach her?"
That lowly maid couldn't endure hardship and ran away halfway. If Zhan Xingzhuo knew, he would only think she was hopeless and despise her even more.
Zhou Zhining believed that her relationship with Zhan Xingzhuo would not be affected by a few words from a lowly maid.
She thought to herself: Xingzhuo knows my personality. He agreed to leave her here, which means he's handing her over to me. Even if he knows I hate Hongying and want to do something to her, he won't say anything.
...
Taoye is renovating the village and using the village's ancestral hall to set up a school.
She set up the school in a proper manner and hired two scholars to teach. Not only people from the village could attend, but also people from other villages who were interested.
Everyone called these two scholars Mr. Bai and Mr. Ye.
As the name suggests, one teaches during the day and the other teaches at night.
Anyone who is free can come to the class.
With more people, it's easier to get mixed up. Those bandits mingled with the original people in the village and then mixed with the villagers. Today they were this one, tomorrow they were that one, getting familiar with each other and making them feel more like locals.
Even Qingling praised Taoye for her brilliant move.
This will lay a solid foundation for the future staff in the shop to learn, thus enabling everyone to move around freely.
The villagers are simple and honest, but it is not easy for them to get an education. Taoye has brought them real benefits, and they are grateful to her. They will also help her if anything happens in the future.
Just now, as soon as the school was established, the villagers brought sweet potatoes they had just dug up from the ground and walnuts they had picked from the mountain to the village to express their gratitude for Qingling's righteous act.
“Miss Qingling is a very kind person. Over the years, we have rented her land but have not been able to pay the rent, and she has never pressed us for it. Now she has given us the opportunity to study. We have nothing else to express our gratitude, so this is all we have.”
At the same time, they also brought in a woman who was unconscious.
Taoye looked at the woman lying on the cart, next to baskets piled high with sweet potatoes.
The woman was lying on her side with her hands and legs crossed, and at first glance, she looked like a reclining deer.
"Ah..." Tao Ye smiled awkwardly, "I can accept these things, but this girl... whose family is she?"
Tao Ye subconsciously assumed that the villagers had brought their wives or daughters to the village.
In recent years, the land has yielded poor harvests, and many families have sold their children just to survive. Tao Ye subconsciously assumed that some villagers were taking advantage of the situation to send their daughters to be maids for young ladies.
“No, she isn’t. We found her on the mountain,” an older woman said.
"Found it?" Tao Ye asked in confusion, glancing at the woman again.
Judging from her clothes, she certainly didn't look like a peasant woman. The villagers' clothes were all patched coarse cloth, while the woman's clothes, though torn, were made of better cotton, and the tears looked like they had been broken in an accident.
Her skin was delicate and fair, not like someone used to doing rough work; but she wasn't a pampered young lady either.
Like...like a maid.
Moreover, she was a second-class maid.
Tao Ye frowned slightly. Second and third-class maids in wealthy families serve noblemen in the mansion. How could they run up the mountain?
"Could they have escaped?"
She scrutinized the woman closely, staring intently at her eyes. The shape of her eyebrows and eyes was so similar…
The villagers sent agricultural products to Hui Bafang and relayed the news to Qingling.
"...Miss Taoye said, please go and take a look at the estate."
The next day, Qingling took a carriage to the manor.
Taoye greeted them at the door, and as she helped Qingling down from the carriage, she began to talk about the girl.
“Miss, her eyes are almost exactly like yours! If it weren’t for her eyes, I wouldn’t have wanted to take her in…”
Taoye did not help Qingling walk into the village, but instead walked along the path towards the farmer's house.
She gave the old woman some money and asked her to stay at the old woman's house to recover from her injuries, saying that there were too many men in the village and it was inconvenient to take in a woman.
Qingling smiled and said, "You're becoming more and more thorough in your thinking. You're starting to act like a head manager."
Tao Ye touched her face shyly and said, "I learned it all from Miss."
If you've followed them for so many years and still haven't learned any skills, then what's the point of living?
When they arrived at the farmer's house, Widow Chu was washing clothes in the yard; the clothes she was washing were the dirty ones that the woman had changed out of.
Upon seeing Qingling arrive, he hurried forward to greet her and then said, "That girl has woken up, but she looks a little dazed. I wonder if she damaged her brain in the fall."
Widow Chu pointed to her head, then to the house: "Mao Ya is inside taking care of her."
Mao Ya is her daughter's name; people in the countryside believe that humble names are easier to raise.
Qingling nodded, exchanged a few words with Widow Chu, and then went inside.
Hearing the widow mutter behind him, "Those eyes are so similar..."
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