Chapter 51
This person had been conscientious in the Mistress’s shop, dyeing silk threads day and night, and had made the greatest contribution to reviving the reputation of Huayan Fang this time. Moreover, he had never been alone with the Mistress, and the words they had spoken were few and far between, even more distant and proper than that Chu Hong. Why kill him?
Song He desperately wanted to ask. Thinking of the precedent of Jingyu pleading for Yingniang, he took a few deep breaths and swallowed his words.
He only said in a business-like manner, “This person is still of some value to the Mistress’s shop. Can we dispose of him in a few days?”
Xie Yao stared at the person in the building opposite, his tone unchanged. “At the latest, by the hour of Zi tonight. Leave no trace.”
Song He’s palm tightened. He followed his gaze and also saw Ye Weiqing’s eyes. They were not simple, but he still felt that his crime was not punishable by death.
Moreover, to have met the Mistress in such a situation and to have developed feelings was also reasonable. He really shouldn’t die immediately.
Especially when the Mistress’s shop couldn’t do without him.
Song He didn’t understand. The hand by his side tightened and then loosened. In the end, he took his order. “Yes.”
After Song He left, Xie Yao turned to another shadow guard. “Go to this person’s home and collect all the papers with writing on them.”
The shadow guard took his order and left.
Xie Yao still looked in that direction. Others didn’t understand that gaze, but he could see that it was by no means as simple as admiration.
*
On the third floor of Wangxian Tower, Chu Hong finally finished his farewells.
As he left, he mentioned again, “If Madam Song comes to Jiangnan in the future, you must let me, Chu, know. If you need any help,” he swallowed the words of going through fire and water and said with a smile, “just mention my name, Chu Hong. I guarantee it will work.”
Yuli saw that he seemed to be putting on an act again and also said politely, “Hehe, I will, I will. We’ll meet again if fate allows.”
Chu Hong looked at her seriously one last time, as if something was about to break. He quickly looked away and turned to leave.
As he left, he laughed twice. “No need to see me out.”
Everyone held back their laughter. Yuli held it in for a moment and said, “Have a safe trip.”
Chu Hong waved his hand and left without looking back.
After the parade of beauties had passed Wangxian Tower, the noise downstairs gradually subsided and returned to a normal liveliness.
Yuli and the others chatted on the upper floor for half an hour. They saw the bailiffs come to clear the way again. Not long after, the regent’s carriage came from the south and headed towards the Imperial Palace.
It was still covered by gauze curtains. The pedestrians stopped, held their breath, and lowered their heads. Yuli was on the upper floor and couldn’t help but follow the carriage with her eyes. The direction the ebony carriage was going was so far away from her, so far that it made her feel a sense of awe.
She couldn’t imagine how she would face the supreme him if she were to enter that palace city.
The carriage went far, and the crowd began to move again. Yuli also let out a sigh of relief.
Good, it wasn’t that she had to face this problem suddenly. She still had time to prepare mentally. The most important thing now was to get Huayan Fang on a new track.
After everything was running normally, she would face this problem again.
Everyone had lunch in the building and was about to go back to the shop. Perhaps there were already customers gathered outside the shop, waiting to buy flowers. Yuli had made a plan and could open the door and greet the customers in an orderly manner when she got back.
Just as lunch was served, a guard suddenly came to pass a message to Jingyu. After listening, Jingyu walked to Yuli’s side. “Mistress, the Young Master has arrived and is waiting in the building opposite.”
Yuli’s spirits sharpened. She subconsciously glanced behind her. The restaurant opposite was bustling with people, but the windows from the second floor upwards were all closed, and the curtains were also tightly drawn.
He was in that building. Was the regent in the carriage just now a fake?
The food here had just been laid out, and everyone had not yet started to eat. Yuli nodded, indicating that she knew. She raised her wine glass, which was filled with fruit wine, and spoke to everyone.
“I won’t say much more. Everyone, eat and drink well. In the afternoon, we’ll go back to the shop and take orders according to the plan. After these few days, I’ll give everyone a two-day break to rest well.”
Yuli raised her glass with everyone, drank, and then picked up her chopsticks to eat.
The table quickly became lively. Yuli felt that it was not good to leave now, but since Xie Yao had sent a message, he must have been waiting for some time. And she also wanted to see him and share her joy with him.
Yuli ate a few bites and put down her chopsticks. Anyway, it was just opposite. She could go and have a look, say a few words, and then come back.
But she was also worried that Xie Yao would not let her come back. Before leaving, she still gave an instruction. “I still have some things to do. Everyone, eat first. After you’ve finished, go about your own business. You don’t have to wait for me.”
As she left, she also reminded Xiyun to take good care of everyone.
Yuli went downstairs, with only Jingyu following silently. When she reached the building opposite, Yuli immediately sensed that the atmosphere was different from the lively and noisy one opposite.
The people in the shop were dressed in various styles, but they were almost all men, and they were not like ordinary people who would look at her with curiosity when they saw her attire.
She was afraid that the people here were all arranged by him.
But it was not as if she hadn’t experienced it before. Yuli maintained a normal demeanor and, under the guidance of the shopkeeper, went up to the third floor.
The window sashes and curtains were all closed, but the sun was very strong, and the room did not seem dim. Only Xie Yao was standing in the room.
Yuli entered the room. The shopkeeper withdrew and closed the door.
Having just come into contact with his identity as the regent, Yuli was a little uncomfortable and stood at the door for a while.
“When I came, I heard people discussing your Huayan Fang. Did you succeed?” Xie Yao first said to her with a smile.
It was still the familiar him. Yuli secretly let out a sigh of relief, quickly walked to his side, and wrapped her arms around his waist.
Yuli looked up at him, her smile radiant. “Almost. You didn’t see the look on the young master of Wanse Fang’s face when he admitted defeat. It was so satisfying.”
Xie Yao gently held her shoulder and smiled. “Let’s eat first.”
It was expected that he would not let her go back. Yuli was prepared and didn’t feel anything. She sat down with him and talked while eating.
She talked about the difficulties along the way. “It was so smooth at the beginning, but I had the bad luck of running into a second Chu and was almost forced to cooperate with him. If I hadn’t thought of having Husband to support me, I might have really had to close down.”
She also talked about the gains. “Fortunately, I got through it all, and it was all on my own.” She thought for a moment. “It wasn’t all on my own. It was also thanks to the shopkeeper and the clerks in my shop.”
Yuli smiled slyly. “But in the end, it was also my good judgment.”
Xie Yao looked up at her for a while and hummed in agreement.
His reaction was calm. He probably didn’t think much of her small achievement, but Yuli didn’t feel disappointed at all.
It was because of his calm composure, the solid backing he had given her, that she had the courage to do such a thing.
If it were in her past life, even if she was always dissatisfied with the status quo and occasionally felt that with her knowledge, being a small clerk in a company was a waste of her talent, she would not have dared to think of starting a business, let alone setting up a small company that integrated design, production, and sales.
Modern society was too competitive. University students were everywhere. Not to mention studying hard for sixteen years, there were even those who had studied for nineteen or twenty years. But the vast majority of them were doing routine, repetitive, and trivial things, which were boring and endless. It was completely unmatched by the talent they had acquired through years of hard study.
When she had just started working, from being a university student envied by her relatives to being an ordinary screw, Yuli had once fallen into a state of meaninglessness in life, questioning why she was alive, what was the use of studying for so many years and learning so many things.
Later, her spirit was completely worn out. She found that everyone was living a routine life, so she stopped thinking about it and went with the flow.
Later, the pressure became greater and greater. She wanted to give up, to lie flat, but she couldn’t stand being treated as an unemployed person, and she didn’t know where else to find meaning besides work. She also had some self-esteem of “I can do it, even if you give me more work, I have to do it well.”
So she had never really lain flat.
After transmigrating here, this inertia also continued, until she met Xie Yao.
Trying too hard would make her suspected of wanting to escape, so she could only lie flat. What else could she not do?
After really lying flat and having enough fun, she could actually treat doing business as a game.
From opening a pastry shop to now, along the way, she had experienced all kinds of twists and turns, all of which she had overcome in various ways.
She hadn’t realized it at the time, but looking back now, everything she had achieved today was related to her sixteen years of hard study, to her failure in the postgraduate and civil service entrance exams, to the grievances she had experienced in the workplace, and even more so to her being given extra work but completing it seriously.
She was very amazing. She could do great things. It was just that in an era where everyone was a child of heaven, there was simply no place for an ordinary person like her to display her talents.
And here, she might have been even more miserable, but Xie Yao had given her the opportunity to display her talents, allowing her to find the meaning of everything she had experienced in her past life.
Yuli was eating, and her movements of picking up food slowed down. Her heart was filled with a thousand emotions, but she could not confide in the person before her.
And he just treated it as normal, not thinking that he had done anything particularly good for her, and instead disliked her going out to ask for trouble.
Previously, he had been ready to help her at any time, which had given her an invisible pressure, but it was also the strongest support.
A thousand words piled up in Yuli’s heart, but they only turned into one sentence. “The most important thing is still you, Husband. Thank you.”
Yuli was silent for a long time, then suddenly said this to him.
Xie Yao chuckled. “What did I tell you before?”
Yuli was taken aback, then came to her senses and smiled. “Alright, Boss Xie.”
After leaving the restaurant, Yuli had originally wanted to go to Huayan Fang to have a look, but Xie Yao had motioned for her to get into the carriage without question.
After getting into the carriage, they soon arrived at the Xie Residence, and Yuli returned to Mingyue Residence.
The courtyard was quiet. Xuemi was sleeping on the rockery. Seeing them, it only moved its tail and then closed its eyes to continue sleeping.
In the early summer afternoon, after leaving the hustle and bustle of the outside world, and after several consecutive days of non-stop work, now that she was relaxed, Yuli was also a little sleepy.
Xie Yao looked at her. “Take a nap. I still have some things to do. I’ll be back in the evening.”
Yuli kissed him, then turned and went back to her room, and fell into a peaceful sleep.
*
Xie Yao left the main room. Only Jingyu was standing in the courtyard gate. He only paused in front of her for a moment, and Jingyu understood, lowered her head, and followed.
Wangyun Courtyard.
Xie Yao stood under the eaves. “You once said that that Ye Weiqing was frail, timid, and shabby. Did you intentionally deceive me?”
The standing Jingyu was slightly startled. It seemed that the master had seen Ye Weiqing today. Jingyu’s mind raced, and she explained, “This servant has never had any intention of deceiving. He was like that at that time. It’s just that these days, he has received a salary from Huayan Fang, bought new clothes, and is no longer hungry, so there have been some changes.”
“Some changes,” Xie Yao repeated these five words calmly.
The person he had seen today had a straight back, was neither servile nor overbearing, was tall and thin and could be considered tall and straight, his face was very fair, he was wearing coarse clothes, and his expression was gentle. If money could make him full and strong, the change in his temperament was by no means something that could be achieved overnight.
Jingyu thought quickly. These days, Ye Weiqing had indeed changed a lot, but they all thought it was natural. Xiyun would occasionally tease him a few words.
The only thing that could make the master ask was something closely related to the Mistress.
A cold sweat suddenly broke out on Jingyu’s back.
“Say a proper farewell to her today and go back to the Duke’s Residence,” Xie Yao said lightly.
Jingyu was greatly alarmed and knelt on the cold, hard stone slabs. “I beg the master to be merciful and let this servant stay here. It doesn’t matter if I don’t follow the Mistress. This servant can be a cleaning maid.”
“I do not use disloyal people,” Xie Yao said, and was about to leave.
Jingyu knelt and blocked him. “Master, please listen! In the past three months, all the words the Mistress has spoken to him have been about business. Even for business, it’s only about twenty sentences in total. This servant has not seen anything amiss. It is this servant’s incompetence. This servant has not been disloyal. I beg the master to give me another chance.”
“I have spared your life, which is already a chance.”
The color drained from Jingyu’s face.
Xie Yao did not stop and strode away.
Jingyu prostrated herself on the ground, not daring to look at his back. After a long time, she straightened up.
It was as if an invisible boulder were pressing on her shoulders. Jingyu’s back was bent, and she couldn’t even straighten her head.
It turned out that all of this was a dream. Thinking of the even more ridiculous beautiful dream she had just had, Jingyu forced a pale smile.
Fortunately, she had kept her life. It was just that the dream had ended and she had returned to reality.
If she had never had hope, she would not have had any delusions. But she had had it, within reach, and it had been easily taken away by him.
Used to being submissive, Jingyu felt resentful for the first time in her life.
In the cold, hard courtyard, the sunlight turned from golden to red, and the stone slabs reflected a dazzling light. Jingyu’s eyes were red from the light.
What had she done wrong? What had Ye Weiqing done wrong? Sparing her life was a gift, but what about Ye Weiqing?
If he killed Ye Weiqing, how would he explain it to the Mistress?
An insignificant person could be killed without a trace, and the Mistress could be informed of his disappearance. And then? The Mistress would surely be anxious to find him. At that time, would he therefore determine that they had had an affair?
And how would he treat the Mistress?
The resentment was swept away. Jingyu suddenly felt a chill all over and couldn’t stop trembling.
The events of that courtyard from many years ago came back to her intermittently.
At that time, she was still too young, and her memory was already blurry. But the sounds from that room would occasionally appear in her nightmares, like the coupling of livestock, mixed with muffled roars.
She and a few children were starving, waiting for their meal. The person inside came out with his trousers on. It was the groom in the courtyard. As he fastened his belt, he met a pair of eyes glinting with cold hatred. He walked over and kicked him in the chest.
A ten-year-old child naturally had no strength to resist. He was beaten until he was on the verge of death but did not make a sound.
The children cowered. A woman walked out of the room, her face flushed, her hair disheveled.
“You dog, don’t kill my son,” she said, but her face was coquettish, without any accusation.
Such a scene had happened several times. Later, that groom died. He had been stabbed in the chest, and at the same time, money had been lost in the small courtyard.
Besides a mistress, there were only two old women and a few thin children, the oldest of whom was only ten, in the small courtyard. No one suspected that it was someone from the courtyard who had done it. The government finally ruled it as a robbery.
But from then on, the mistress never beat or scolded her son again, but was so afraid that she would take a detour when she saw him.
Jingyu had long been suspicious, and now she was certain. It was he who had killed that woman’s lover.
That groom had always smelled of livestock. He was indeed a beast. It was only right that he had died a violent death.
But Ye Weiqing was not.
And the Mistress was even more untouched by dust.
He was going to kill Ye Weiqing on a baseless charge. Did he then project his birth mother’s viciousness and filth onto the Mistress?
Jingyu was a little horrified and didn’t dare to use those two words to describe him.
He had been inhumanly abused in his most helpless childhood, which had caused a shadow. It must be like this.
Just like when she had been slapped in the Duke’s Residence. When she was beaten again, she was controlled by the helplessness and panic of that time and acted abnormally.
But she knew now and could also control herself.
But he was now the supreme ruler of the world. It was impossible to recreate the tragic situation of that year. Even if it were recreated, she didn’t dare to imagine how miserably the other party would die. Perhaps he still didn’t realize his own abnormality.
Jingyu thought of what Xiyun had said, that the Mistress could handle him…
There was only this faint hope.
Jingyu pinched her fingers until the tips were red. In the end, she stood up, took a deep breath, and went towards Mingyue Residence.