Xiao Ling'er took two steps forward with her whip in hand, her boots clicking against the bluestone slabs. Tilting her head, she looked Chen Xuan up and down suspiciously with her clear, almond-shaped eyes. "Hey, you lowly slave! I've been watching you from over there for ages! Tell me the truth. When my eldest brother was practicing his punches in the yard, you were skulking behind the stone table... just what were you secretly watching?!"
Boom!
Her words struck like a muffled thunderclap. The air at the edge of the training grounds froze for three seconds.
Even Old Sun, not far away, was so frightened that his fire tongs clattered to the ground, his face deathly pale.
The hairs on Chen Xuan's back stood on end, but not a trace of panic showed on his face. Instead, he dropped to his knees with a thud and cried out in a tearful voice, "Please judge fairly, Third Young Miss! How would this lowly servant dare skulk about? I was just... I really was watching the young heir practice his punches!"
"Oh, so you actually dare admit it?!" Xiao Ling'er's slender brows shot up, and she gave the snakebone whip in her hand a slight shake. "Speak! What was a menial slave who feeds horses doing staring at the marquis's peerless arts? Were you harboring ill intentions, trying to steal martial arts?!"
"Oh, Third Young Miss, even if you lent me ten thousand brains, I couldn't understand an immortal art like that!" Chen Xuan lifted his face, covered in dust and dried blood, his eyes filled with the bewilderment and awe of an illiterate pauper looking at a heavenly scripture. "I just thought the young heir's shouts sounded so mighty! When he struck out with his palm, it was like thunder! In all my years in the countryside, the most I've ever seen was a butcher swinging a sledgehammer. When have I ever seen such powerful divine arts? While I was pouring tea, I was thinking-the young heir must be Lord Thunder himself reincarnated from heaven! With divine arts like those, even if I grew eight heads in my next life, I couldn't cultivate so much as a hair's worth!"
His half-true, half-false speech brought the image of a country bumpkin servant who had never seen the world vividly to life.
Beside them, Lin Wan'er couldn't hold back a snort of laughter. "Ling'er, just listen to him! He actually compared Brother Heir to a butcher swinging a sledgehammer. How can this servant be so funny?"
Xiao Ling'er could no longer keep her little face stern either. The corners of her mouth twitched as she stared at Chen Xuan's pathetic, comical appearance for a full three seconds before giving a loud snort. "Hmph! At least you have some self-awareness, you lowly slave. You know what a stupid fool you are! A blockhead like you, who can't even grasp the rudiments of the Boulder Art, couldn't learn half a move even if you watched for a hundred years!"
"Yes, yes, yes! You're absolutely right to scold me, Third Young Miss! I'm just a piece of rotten wood in a cesspit, stupid beyond saving!" Chen Xuan seized the opening and frantically belittled himself.
Xiao Ling'er's gaze shifted down to the back of Chen Xuan's right hand, red, swollen, blistered, and still flecked with tea leaves. Then she glanced at the dried bloodstains left on his forehead from yesterday.
Her delicate brows furrowed slightly. Biting her crimson lower lip, she suddenly raised her red-tailed snakebone whip high-
"Spare my life, Third Young Miss!" Chen Xuan instinctively hunched his shoulders and squeezed his eyes shut.
Crack-!
A sharp report burst out.
Yet the expected agony never struck him. The fiery-red tip of the whip skimmed past the hem of Chen Xuan's clothes and lashed hard against a corner of the white marble table beside him, leaving a faint white mark.
"What are you crying for? Did I hit you? You useless, mouse-hearted coward!"
Xiao Ling'er drew back her whip and lifted her chin high, her voice fierce, though an inexplicable, awkward flush tinged her ears. "I'm warning you. Next time you're serving tea, keep your eyes open instead of always fumbling about and making my eldest brother angry! If you dirty the tiles of the training grounds, someone has to scrub them. What a nuisance!"
She turned away, her hair swinging in a lovely arc, and tossed out a stiff command. "What are you still kneeling for? Go replace the tea!"
Still kneeling on the ground, Chen Xuan froze for a moment.
He glanced at the whip mark on the corner of the stone table, a full half-foot away from his knee, then looked up at that dainty figure in red.
With this third young miss's cultivation at the middle stage of Ming Jin, that lash had clearly missed on purpose.
"What? Still standing there like a block of wood? Do my words mean nothing now? Do you need a couple of real lashes before you're satisfied?!" Hearing no movement behind her, Xiao Ling'er suddenly turned and glared at him, her almond-shaped eyes wide.
"They mean something! They do! Your words carry more weight than an imperial decree, Third Young Miss!" Chen Xuan hurriedly scrambled up, covering the back of his hand and bowing repeatedly. "Thank you for your instruction, Third Young Miss! I'll replace the tea right away! Right away!"
Chen Xuan picked up the broken tray and quickly retreated behind the tea stove.
He lowered his head to look at the redness and swelling rapidly fading from the back of his hand, and a meaningful smile flickered in his eyes. Interesting. This third young miss, notorious throughout the residence for being willful and overbearing and testing her whip on servants at the slightest provocation, seems far more human than that real beast Xiao Yuxuan... A tsundere with a knife-sharp tongue and a tofu-soft heart.
Meanwhile, beside the weapon rack.
Lin Wan'er sidled up to Xiao Ling'er, covered her mouth with her handkerchief, and gently bumped her shoulder, teasing in a lowered voice, "Well, well, well, the sun must have risen in the west! The third young miss of our Marquis of Zhenbei's Residence, whose word is law, normally hates servants fumbling about. Today it was all thunder and little rain. How did that lash miss all the way to your grandmother's house?"
"Lin Wan'er, shut up! Who missed? My hand was sore from practicing with my whip, so my aim was off! Is that not allowed?!" Xiao Ling'er's pretty face reddened, and she stamped her feet in protest like a cat whose tail had been stepped on.
"Heehee, you're still trying to fool me? Just now, you hit a wooden post from ten paces away without missing by a fraction, and now you miss by half a foot from two paces?" Lin Wan'er blinked and smiled mischievously. "I think you saw that little groom called Chen Xuan beaten half to death by Brother Heir yesterday, then saw how badly his hand was scalded just now, and your bodhisattva heart stirred. You couldn't bear to strike him, could you?"
"What nonsense are you talking about? Who feels sorry for that lowly slave?!" Xiao Ling'er's cheeks burned fiercely, and she raised the snakebone whip in embarrassed annoyance, threatening to strike. "He was already injured so horribly! If I gave him another lash and he died on the spot, not only would it dirty my whip, but if word got out, people would think I was just like my eldest brother, only capable of venting my anger on cripples! I was protecting my reputation! What do you know?!"
"All right, all right, it was for your reputation. Our Ling'er is the most reasonable and kindhearted of all!"
"I told you to shut up! Still talking? Just watch me tear that mouth of yours apart!"
The two girls chased each other along the edge of the training grounds, laughing and playing, their silver-bell laughter carrying far on the wind.
Chen Xuan had just helped Old Sun hand the freshly brewed tea to another servant to deliver and was about to catch his breath when Liu San's cracked-gong voice came barking like a summons to death from outside the side gate of the training grounds:
"Chen Xuan! Where the hell did you sneak off to cool yourself?! Half an hour to deliver two buckets of water? Are you trying to die in the training grounds?! Get your ass back to the stables and shovel horse shit!"
Old Sun gave Chen Xuan a sympathetic look. "Go on. That bastard Liu San holds grudges worse than anyone. Don't give him anything to use against you."
"Yes, thank you for looking out for me, Uncle Sun! Brother Liu San, stop scolding! I'm coming, I'm coming!"
Chen Xuan called back, shouldered the two empty water buckets, and, with his head bowed extremely low and the back of his right hand covered, hurried toward the stables in the rear courtyard.
The setting sun stretched his shadow long. Though his posture remained as lowly as mud, every step he took on the bluestone slabs was steadier and stronger than when he had arrived.