Chapter 5

Still concerned about Yun and You, I quietly went to You’s rooms.

The maids told me Madam Song had taken him to play in the garden.

I nodded and went straight after them.

But just as I reached the garden entrance, I heard two children arguing inside.

“That’s mine!”

“What’s yours is mine!”

“My mother gave it to me!”

“What mother? Your mother’s dead! That’s your stepmother!”

Fury rose in me. I strode inside and saw Lady Li’s eldest son, Cong, quarreling with You.

Two years older, Cong was noticeably taller.

He snatched the nine linked rings puzzle from You’s hands, then gave him a hard shove.

Tears spilled from You’s eyes. With his reddened eyes and wounded expression, he looked utterly pitiful.

But Madam Song and the maids seemed used to this. They merely comforted him, saying he had other toys back in his courtyard.

Forcing down my anger, I marched over, seized the toy back, and snapped, “Cong! You’re the elder cousin. Why are you bullying the younger one?”

You looked as though his savior had arrived. “Mother,” he sobbed, “he’s taken so many of my toys! He keeps taking them…”

“Madam,” Madam Song said hastily, “it’s only children playing and squabbling. There’s no need to…”

One cold glance silenced her. I tapped Cong between the brows. “You’re so young, and already behaving this badly!”

No one had ever scolded Cong like that. He burst into loud sobs.

An older servant hurried forward to stand between us. “First Madam,” she said resentfully, “the children were only playing. You’re an adult. How can you take a child’s things?”

A whole crowd of adults had stood here pretending to be dead. Now one of them had decided to make herself useful?

I slapped her hard across the face. “No wonder Cong has learned such bad habits. It’s you insolent servants who taught him!”

Clutching her cheek, she wept. “You… How could you hit me?”

“Cong steals from You, and instead of stopping him, you egg him on,” I said coldly. “Don’t you deserve it? Let me tell you something. Little You may have lost his birth mother, but he still has me, Yue Wujiu! He still has the Yue family! My grandfather is the General of Valor, defending our country at Jialing Pass! If he learns you’ve been bullying his great-grandson, he’ll cut off your head as an offering before his battle flag!”

At those words, the woman and the maids turned deathly pale, trembling all over.

They had known all this. They had simply assumed You’s maternal family could not interfere here.

After I had finished dealing with them, Madam Song stammered, “Madam, isn’t this… a little too much? They belong to the second branch, after all… Second Madam, she…”

“Someone bullies You, and instead of telling me, you make the child give way?” I demanded. “Little You is the eldest legitimate grandson of the Zhao family! Why should he have to swallow insults? What kind of reasoning is that?”

I wanted to make a scene. I wanted everyone in the household to hear it, and see who would dare slight my sister’s children again!

In a great household, servants took their cues from those around them.

If you failed to command respect from the beginning, life would only grow harder!