Chapter 1

With a handful of melon seeds, I watched the spectacle with great interest.

Miss Xu was wrapped in a quilt, sobbing so pitifully.

“Lord Zhou dragged me in here… I had no choice…”

Shocked and at a loss, Zhou Jichuan searched the crowd for me.

I was indignant, too.

Such a lovely girl. Zhou Jichuan had the family, the looks, and everyone in the Marquess of Dingnan’s household doting on him.

If he admired Miss Xu, why couldn’t he go to her family and seek her hand with all the proper matchmakers and betrothal gifts?

Why ruin her reputation by such vile means at her coming-of-age banquet?

Trash!

What a scumbag!

Zhou Jichuan finally spotted me between the bobbing heads. When he saw me cracking seeds, curling my lip, and giving him a tremendous eye roll, he swayed with fury and nearly fell backward.

He glared at me, his eyes frantic.

He wanted me to hurry up and explain for him.

I leisurely brushed the bits of seed husk from my hands and cleared my throat, ready to say a few words in his defense against my better judgment.

Suddenly, comments filled my vision:

[It looks ugly now, but nothing actually happened between the leads. After they marry, the heroine will gradually cure his muteness. Marriage first, love later. They’re so sweet together.]

[What’s the point of the maid running around trying to drive them apart? The hero will only think she’s scheming. One tear from the heroine does more than a hundred things the supporting girl could do.]

[To reassure the heroine and show he’s drawing a firm line, he’ll casually marry off this maid who’s served him to Qingfeng, his quiet personal guard.]

???

What was this?

Were my eyes playing tricks on me?

They said the world I lived in was merely a romance novel.

Zhou Jichuan was the hero, and Xu Lianyi was the heroine.

And I, a humble maid who’d served him since childhood, had somehow been lucky enough to land a supporting role with quite a few scenes.

Not only did I harbor delusions about the hero, but I also did all sorts of terrible things for him, including, but not limited to, driving a wedge between him and Xu Lianyi and causing endless misunderstandings.

In the end, considering my years of service and all the effort I’d put in even if I’d achieved nothing, Zhou Jichuan would magnanimously marry me to his most capable guard, Qingfeng.

So… I was going to end up with Qingfeng?

My heart skipped happily. Qingfeng was wonderful. A fine figure, a handsome face, a man of few words, with two little dimples when he smiled.

Unlike Zhou Jichuan. The man was a complete chatterbox!

Though he’d unfortunately lost his voice and couldn’t speak, Heaven had seen fit to let me hear his thoughts.

Everything Zhou Jichuan couldn’t say aloud, he said inside my head.

I had the misfortune of becoming his mouthpiece.

Perhaps he’d been bottling things up for too long. Whatever the reason, this young lord had an awful lot to say to himself.

From morning until night, he never stopped.

Even lying in bed at night, his brain kept yammering away…