Chapter 5

Chapter 5

My fingers trembled. Forcing myself to stay calm, I poured him a cup of tea. “Fourth Miss? I haven’t seen her in years.”

Wei Yuanhong laughed, his tone helpless. “You really haven’t changed… Fine.”

As he spoke, he took out a hefty ingot of silver and set it on the edge of the table. “Please.”

I stared at that glittering silver ingot and felt my head split in two. Honestly, these Wei Clan siblings really had me in their sights, didn’t they?

What did I ever do to deserve this?

Wei Yuanhong was two years younger than me, but he had been clever from birth and had a steady temperament. When he spoke, he was unhurried and composed, making him seem more like my elder instead.

Until one day, when a “little incident” happened.

That year, an epidemic broke out in Jingdu. To guard against it, I brewed a huge pot of herbal soup meant to dispel chill and strengthen the body, and tried to make Wei Ningyao drink it.

She thought it was bitter, so I chased her all over the manor, but she refused to drink it. By chance, she ran headfirst into Wei Yuanhong, who happened to be passing by, and clamored for him to “judge who was right.”

Who would have thought that in order to teach Wei Ningyao that good medicine tasted bitter, Wei Yuanhong would take the bowl straight from me and boldly drain it in one go?

Wei Ningyao stared, dumbfounded. Left with no choice, she copied him, filled another bowl, and gulped it down. It was so bitter she stamped her feet and cried.

I hurriedly took out a piece of soft pine nut candy and stuffed it into her mouth. It was her favorite sweet, and I often kept a few pieces in my sleeve. Whenever she threw a little tantrum, I would coax her with candy.

After Wei Ningyao ate the candy, her furrowed brow finally relaxed. I was just about to praise her when I suddenly heard Wei Yuanhong say in a trembling voice,

“Bao’er… give me a piece of candy too…”

Then, before I could react, he braced himself against a tree and threw up all over the ground.

Perhaps because I had seen him in such an embarrassing state, from then on, this Eldest Young Master Wei stopped pretending in front of me. He would often follow Wei Ningyao’s lead and call me “Sister Bao’er,” narrowing his foxlike eyes as he watched me blush.

But back then, he had also been the one who insisted on driving me out of the manor. Even when First Madam could not bear it and said I had stayed in Marquis Manor for ten years, that if I had no great merit then at least I had worked hard, he still ordered people to throw me out.

I truly could not figure out when I had offended him. But I had to admit, if he had not driven me from the manor, how could I have ever lived the free and easy life I had now?

“I can’t accept this silver.” I refused flatly. “Lord Wei, I haven’t done anything to deserve a reward.”

Wei Yuanhong gazed at me, his bright eyes carrying a hint of nostalgia that made me uncomfortable all over.

After a long while, he sighed softly. “Fine. Being able to see you is enough for me. Once I finish my official duties, I’ll come back to discuss… an important matter with you.”

With that, he rose and left. The tea on the table remained untouched, not a drop disturbed, while the leaves in the cup swayed faintly with the fading sound of the carriage outside.

I sat in a daze for a good while. Only when the shop assistant who had gone to buy candy returned did I realize that what had just happened had not been a dream.

Could it be that back then, he had let me go on purpose?

I sat down and ate soft pine nut candy with my tea, thinking that if that was truly the case, then I still owed Wei Yuanhong a thank-you.

But before I could finish feeling emotional, I heard that shop assistant of mine suddenly say,

“Oh, right, Shopkeeper. When I was buying candy just now, I saw your cousin! Somehow, she got into an argument with Shopkeeper He from the cloth shop and got slapped hard across the face. She was sitting on the ground bawling. Tsk, what a pitiful sight.”

I immediately choked and coughed nonstop, nearly losing my poor life then and there.

No, wait. Wei Ningyao had only been in Ping’an Town for one day, and she’d already gotten herself hit?

Was she some kind of exceptionally unlucky noble young lady?