"Yes!" Chu Lange nodded, then frowned at the palace maids and eunuchs bustling back and forth nearby. "But that's not right. Father said everyone should rest before digging again, and it hasn't been that long since I left the palace to go to your house."
"Could it be that they never rested at all, and your father just wanted to send you away so he could dig by himself?"
Jiang Yourning immediately unraveled all the twists and turns behind it.
"Ohhh!"
Realization dawned on Chu Lange, and Jiang Yourning and Little Wukong both looked up at her.
"Father must have thought supervising was too exhausting for me! And those palace maids and eunuchs might fool me by doing that outwardly impo-whatever thing, so he came to oversee them himself!!!"
"Impotent? How could they be impo-"
Only after the words reached her lips did Jiang Yourning's brain begin sluggishly turning. She hurried to salvage the situation. "The phrase you're looking for is 'outwardly obedient, inwardly defiant.'"
[I'm done for, I'm done for. I think my mind's gone dirty.]
[It's like there's plastic floating around in my brain. My first thought was actually, how could palace maids and eunuchs be impotent?]
[I nearly embarrassed myself again.]
"Oh! Right, outwardly obedient, inwardly defiant!!!"
Chu Lange and Little Wukong nodded thoughtfully.
Nearby, the corner of Qing Qianxue's mouth twitched. He decided to wait until Jiang Yourning went to Zichen Hall before leaving.
Jiang Huai'an and Jiang Li, meanwhile, fixed Jiang Yourning with piercing looks.
"Ningning, what you just said... where did a young girl like you hear about something like that?"
"Father, Third Brother, hear about what? Isn't 'outwardly obedient, inwardly defiant' written in books?"
Jiang Yourning tried her best to look innocent and guileless.
The two stared into her eyes for several seconds.