The two walked out of the west wing and were about to part ways, but saw Ren Yaohua coming out of the main room.
Her gaze paused on Ren Yaoqi and Han Yunqian for a moment, and her brows furrowed slightly.
Han Yunqian bowed to Ren Yaohua from a distance and turned to leave. Ren Yaoqi casually called over a maid from the west wing and asked her to follow Han Yunqian to get the painting.
When Ren Yaoqi turned around and looked back, Ren Yaohua had already crossed the courtyard and went to her room.
About an hour later, the maid sent to the Han family delivered the painting to Ren Yaoqi.
"Sister, when I came back, I met Du Juan, who was with the Seventh Sister of the East Palace. She pestered me and asked me many inexplicable questions, and even asked me what I was doing in the Han Mansion."
Ren Yaoqi took the painting and glanced at the maid with raised eyebrows: "So what's your answer?"
The maidservant said, "I'm telling the truth. The Third Master asked me to go to the Han Mansion and get a painting. Seeing that she kept asking questions and I was anxious to report back, I just answered her casually and left."
Ren Yaoqi nodded and said, "Thank you for your hard work. Go to Xueli to collect the reward."
The maid happily agreed, thought for a moment, and then said with a smile: "Fifth sister, when I was at the Han family, I encountered a strange thing."
Ren Yaoqi's heart skipped a beat when he heard this: "Oh? What's strange?"
The maid said, "Young Master Han went to the study to get a painting, and I was waiting at the second gate. But Young Master Han didn't come back for a long time, and I was in a hurry, so I called a maid from the Han family and asked her to take me to the bathroom. Because it was very close to a bathroom in the inner courtyard, the maid took me to the inner courtyard. When I came out of the bathroom, I saw Young Master Han and an old man in his fifties walking past the fork in the road in front of me. The old man seemed to be scolding Young Master Han, but his words were with our Youzhou accent. I was about to I asked the maid who the old man was, but she was startled and quickly pulled me away through another path. "It's the Han family's strict rules, and it's not good for anyone to see me." After the maid left, Master Han and the old man came out again soon, but this time I heard the old man speak with a Jizhou accent. Only then did I realize that the old man was Master Han's grandfather. "Sister, isn't this strange? Aren't all Han family members born and raised in Jizhou? How could Master Han's grandfather speak our Baihe Town dialect?"
Ren Yaoqi smiled and said, "Maybe Mr. Han came to Baihe Town when he was young."
"But I heard that Mr. Han fled from the famine in the south to Jizhou, and was accepted into the Han family because he was favored by the previous head of the Han family."
Ren Yaoqi thought for a moment and instructed the maid, "Don't mention this to anyone else for now. After all, you entered someone else's inner courtyard without permission and accidentally overheard their conversation. This is extremely inappropriate."
The maid nodded quickly and said, "I understand. I will only tell Fifth Sister about this matter."
Ren Yaoqi nodded and sent the maid away.
Sitting down on the kang, Ren Yaoqi spread the scroll in his hand on the table. It was indeed the painting of autumn chrysanthemums just as Han You had described. It also had Ren Shimin's personal seal. After carefully examining it, Ren Yaoqi finally breathed a sigh of relief.
Then she thought of what the maid had just done to her.
Was it because the maid heard Old Man Han speaking in Baihe Town's local dialect that she misheard, or was it because Old Man Han was adapting too quickly? Was it some other, more insignificant, excuse?
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