Chapter 5
“Comrade Young Master, Shi Liaoliao pulled out all those flowers you worked so hard to grow. Is it really wise to let him stay?”
The servant tried earnestly to persuade him.
Inside, his resentment had reached its peak.
If it weren’t for Shi Liaoliao, the personal valet’s position would have been his!
Lu Yanzhou had put on a pale blue apron and was wearing gloves as he inspected the thriving Chinese chives in the flowerpots.
“He’d only just arrived. Unless he wanted to get himself fired, why would he happen to choose my flower bed to plant chives?”
Lu Yanzhou idly parted a few of the chives.
The servant laughed awkwardly. “Even if he didn’t know, he still made a mistake. We need rules to keep things in order. There should still be a punishment. Otherwise, what will the other servants think?”
The well-lit sky suddenly darkened. Before their eyes, clouds gathered thickly, and it looked as though rain was imminent.
Lu Yanzhou stood, casually removed his gloves, and accepted the handkerchief the servant offered. He wiped his long, well-defined fingers clean.
“No rush.”
The little valet wore a blank face every day and only fought back when pushed too far. She really didn’t seem like someone who’d do something this mindless.
The servant looked at Lu Yanzhou as though he were a foolish emperor blinded by a fox spirit.
Then something suddenly occurred to him, and he lowered his head to hide his expression.
A personal valet had to remain with the master twenty-four hours a day, even at the academy.
But Shengdon Academy was an elite school for the privileged, with strict social divisions, that accepted only outstanding students. Money alone couldn’t buy admission. How could a lowly person like Shi Liaoliao, who’d never even been to school, possibly get in?
…
Shi Liaoliao stood beneath the covered walkway, staring at the hamster in her palm as it stared back.
[So… I’m not getting fired for now?]
Her lips twisted into a wry smile.
Good news: she wasn’t getting fired.
Bad news: no feeling up a male nightclub model’s abs.
[If I don’t do this mission, I can’t go back. Is that right?]
A notification arrived saying the courier had delivered her things. As Shi Liaoliao headed outside, she couldn’t help asking.
Wanwan sat obediently on her shoulder. [That’s right.]
Although Shi Liaoliao had neither a mother nor a father in her original world, she at least felt she belonged there.
Not like here… where she had to keep her sex hidden and tread carefully just to stay alive.
[Do you know where the body’s original owner went?]
[Her wish was to be reincarnated as a panda. You can see her at the zoo in S City, host, but she no longer remembers her previous life.]
Shi Liaoliao: “………”
The original owner really knew how to enjoy herself.
[Why did she say she’d die if her sex was exposed? Did she have enemies?]
Wanwan: [Sorry. You don’t have sufficient access to make that query.]
Fine. She’d have to find that answer herself, too.
By the time she collected her things from the gatehouse, the cloud-choked sky had finally worked itself up. Fine rain came pouring down, soaking Shi Liaoliao to the bone.
Wanwan hurried into her jacket pocket. [Ah! Host, get out of the rain! You’ll catch a cold!!]
Shi Liaoliao wiped the rain from her face.
[That’s exactly what I want.]
The separate little building in the back garden was Lu Yanzhou’s favorite place to spend time.
It had originally belonged to his mother, but after her suicide, it had fallen into disuse. His father, consumed with researching ways to bring the dead back to life, had no time for it, so Lu Yanzhou had asked to have it.
Sitting on a high stool beside the floor-to-ceiling window, he opened his laptop to finish the paper his teacher had assigned before he left school.
Rain fell thick and fast outside, blurring the scenery.
Lu Yanzhou glanced out casually and was just about to look away…
When a figure suddenly entered his field of vision.
“Hm?”
A trace of surprise appeared in his tea-brown eyes.
Though the figure had hastily thrown on a raincoat that barely covered anything, he could still make out a slender frame.
The little valet seemed never to have done this sort of thing before. She crouched in the flower bed, pulling up the Chinese chives one clump at a time.
Lu Yanzhou’s eyesight was excellent. He could even clearly see the rain washing over her pale cheeks and the eyes she could barely keep open beneath the falling water.
A man, yet with a woman’s soft fragility. A rare case of a boy with a girl’s beauty.
People with that sort of face were said to be blessed with good fortune.
Shi Liaoliao was pulling away vigorously. Though the heavy rain made it hard to see and her soaked gloves were awkward to work in, she persisted in pulling out the chives that had angered Lu Yanzhou, one clump after another.
She raised a hand to wipe water from her face, sniffed, and was about to get up and move to the next row.
The pattering rain abruptly stopped beside her ears.
Shi Liaoliao slowly looked up.
The surrounding clamor seemed to pause for an instant as she met those tea-brown eyes.
Lu Yanzhou had silently come to stand behind her with an umbrella. He looked down at her now, neither happy nor sad, the mole by his eye adding a beguiling touch to his refined face.
“What are you doing?”
His voice was low and gentle, so much so that ordinary conversation sounded like sweet nothings. Shi Liaoliao had heard the servants say he had plenty of admirers even at Shengdon Academy, a boys’ school.
Surprise flickered across Shi Liaoliao’s face, pale with cold, for only an instant before disappearing.
As before, she merely replied in a quiet, indifferent voice, “Pulling chives.”
Not a ripple crossed her expression. She looked exactly like a soulless doll of an NPC.
Lu Yanzhou thought her terribly foolish.
Coming out in a downpour to make up for a mistake was hardly sensible.
Idiot…
[Why hasn’t he left yet?]
[I went to all that trouble to buy yeast and flour in secret. If you don’t leave, how am I supposed to take these fresh chives back and make chive buns?]
[Oh, I’m drooling. If I pretend it’s rain dripping off my hair, he probably won’t notice, right?]
And so, right under Lu Yanzhou’s nose…
The aloof little valet raised a hand and wiped her mouth.
Lu Yanzhou: “………”
Wanwan, who’d thought she was deliberately trying to make amends: [………]
[The buns… Could I have one?]
Yes, well, those were chive buns!!
Just as Shi Liaoliao was wondering why this young master still hadn’t left, her vision suddenly darkened, and something cold touched her forehead.
She struggled to move it aside before realizing it was Lu Yanzhou’s umbrella.
The young master had tossed her the umbrella, then turned and stepped out into the curtain of rain himself.
“Young master…”
Shi Liaoliao stood with the umbrella in her hand.
Lu Yanzhou looked back, a smile at his lips. Even drenched, he maintained an elegance ingrained in his very bones.
For an instant, Shi Liaoliao’s gaze went distant.
[It’s hopeless. I’ll never be leading-character material.]
[The male lead walks through the rain without an umbrella.]
[Everyone else: Silly~]
[Me: What a poser.]
Lu Yanzhou, the poser: “………”
Despite the snark, Shi Liaoliao was actually a little touched.
Lu Yanzhou… didn’t seem quite so unfeeling after all.
Good Guy Lu Yanzhou narrowed his tea-brown eyes and suddenly spoke.
“A personal valet’s duty is to take care of me.”
“If I catch a cold from the rain, you can say goodbye to this month’s wages.”
Shi Liaoliao, who’d been feeling so touched just a moment ago: shocked-dead-pig.jpg
[At that moment, a beast of a man shed a tear.]
Lu Yanzhou: “………”