A whole year had passed.
No. 3 Ginkgo Alley.
This spacious courtyard now had a fourth resident in all but name.
Early in the morning, Elonore wore a coarse linen outfit washed nearly white, her sleeves rolled high. Squatting beside the well, she vigorously scrubbed a large basin of clothes.
The girl's movements were outrageously practiced. In no time, she had wrung out several large robes and hung them on the line.
"The oil in the wok is hot!" Saina's booming voice rang out from the kitchen. "Pull up two scallions from the backyard! The tenderest ones!"
"Coming, Sister Saina!" Elonore wiped her hands haphazardly on her apron and dashed for the backyard.
On the second-floor corridor, Elena wore a pure black silk nightgown and held a cup of expensive black tea.
Looking down at the elf girl running back and forth through the yard, she said, "You've completely trained this girl into a servant."
Saina came out holding a wooden spatula and shot back without mercy, "Still better than some young miss whose fingers have never touched so much as spring water. All you do every day is drink tea and pick faults—freeloading for an entire year!"
Elena lifted her smooth chin. "My job is to be as beautiful as a flower."
The living arrangement among the four had become completely set in stone.
During the day, Elonore assisted Su Li in the woodshed, swinging the sledgehammer. By evening, she would voluntarily take over all the little chores—sorting vegetables, feeding chickens, sweeping the yard. Other than occasionally returning to the Elven Merchant Association headquarters to sleep at night, she was no different from someone who lived here.
Saina had silently accepted one more mouth at the table, while Elena was even happier to dump all the housework onto someone