Chapter 3

After that, His Lordship’s attitude toward me changed.

Whenever I bathed him in the past, he would squirm with embarrassment and curse me viciously.

“Get away from me! Don’t touch me with your filthy hands!”

Now he deliberately cast smoldering looks at me from the bath and flexed his chest, his stomach, and his biceps.

“You must have been beside yourself with delight when you rubbed my stomach with that cloth.”

“You’ve seen every inch of my body, you lecherous maid!”

“Don’t lust after me. I have a fiancée, and I’ll never fall for you!”

Ha! As if I did not have a fiancé of my own.

My fiancé might have been poor, but he was more handsome than this man, and his legs were longer too.

Because unlike His Lordship, he could actually stand on them.

Still, I was a broad-minded maid devoted to my work.

Providing emotional reassurance to my employer was part of the job.

So whenever His Lordship said such things, I merely smiled.

“Whatever makes you happy.”

His Lordship said, “You adore me that much? I’ve told you already, I have a fiancée!”

For heaven’s sake. As if wiping a man’s backside every day was not irritating enough, now I had to endure harassment at work.

I said, “Yes, yes, I understand. Your Lordship has a fiancée.”

Come to think of it, ever since His Lordship had been crippled by his fall, his fiancée—the Chancellor’s daughter—had not visited him once.

She had probably dumped him.

So I teased him on purpose.

“If your future wife decides she doesn’t want you, would you consider me?”

He could not have suppressed his smug grin if he tried.

“Impossible! Not in this lifetime!”

Oh, you had better remember saying that.

Payday came around again, and the Marchioness gave me half a day off.

I told His Lordship I was going shopping and would bring him something tasty on my way back. Then I took my savings and went to see my scholar.

But the moment I reached his courtyard, I heard a woman speaking inside.

“My dear Zhou, my father already knows about us. I broke off my engagement to the heir of Zhenbei for you. You must never betray me.”

Zhou Yanchen said, “Huiniang, don’t worry. I, Zhou Yanchen, will never betray you as long as I live.”

What the hell? My scholar had betrayed me?

That was not right!

And His Lordship’s fiancée had betrayed him?

My fiancé was carrying on with His Lordship’s fiancée?

I had been cheated on, but His Lordship had it even worse. What a lively world we lived in.

The shock made me stumble, and I knocked over a wooden bucket beside me.

“Who’s there?”

My scholar barked the question. When he stepped outside and saw me, a trace of shame crossed his face.

“Chunxi? Is that you?”

“Did you see everything just now?”

I lowered my head, feeling a little embarrassed myself. “Yes.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were having a secret tryst. It was my fault for coming back without warning you. I do apologize.”

I supposed this was what a useless fiancée looked like.

Ling Huiniang stepped outside and looked me up and down with her chin raised.

“You’re that little maid serving Xie Ningyuan, aren’t you? I’ve heard everything. He injured his spine and will never stand again. I am the Chancellor’s daughter. I could never spend my life with a cripple who can’t even stand.”

“Only a man of my dear Zhou’s extraordinary promise deserves me.”

“You’re a woman too. Surely you understand?”

I could understand well enough. The problem was, this extraordinarily promising lover of hers was my fiancé.