Xiao Xu kept his word. Before supper, he had Shuang Hua and a cook brought to the small residence. Mi Yao finally ate the most delicious meal she’d had in days, and was able to complete her full routine—skincare, eye steaming, and a proper cleansing of her face.
“Elder Sister, did you know? After seeing how much Brother-in-law values you, Granny Wu actually bathed—scrubbed off layers of dirt. Her daughter-in-law said she hadn’t touched water for half a year. Now, just to curry favor, she risked her life soaking in cold water this season.”
“That old woman may not be trying to please me. She might just be putting on a show for Commander Xiao.”
Shuang Hua, having heard of Granny Wu’s difficult nature, thought she might truly fear Mi Yao—but more likely, she was angling for pity from Xiao Xu, making Mi Yao look domineering.
Hearing Shuang Hua’s speculation, Mi Yao wasn’t surprised by the content, but rather by the fact that Shuang Hua voiced it aloud. Since entering the book as the original, she had rarely spoken with the maids. Not because she feared they’d notice differences, but because she didn’t want entanglements. Only when people don’t communicate can one comfortably treat them as NPCs. If you know their thoughts, you can’t reduce them to mere text in a story. So she had never regarded those around her as flesh-and-blood people. She spoke little, and they obediently stayed quiet.
Now, Shuang Hua—like Yu Xiu—was likely shaken by her disappearance and reappearance, wanting a closer bond, speaking more than usual.
Mi Yao couldn’t decide if this was welcome or troublesome. She studied Shuang Hua’s familiar yet unfamiliar face, then said: “It doesn’t matter what she thinks. We’re only staying here a few days. A servant isn’t worth the effort. If I don’t need to suffer, neither should you.”
“Understood, my lady.” Shuang Hua grasped her meaning, tidied the room, and went to Granny Wu to demand supplies for their stay. Faced with her firmness, Granny Wu dared not argue and arranged everything respectfully.
“You have something to say?”
Shuang Hua returned with a few idle books Mi Yao often read.
Mi Yao had planned to go to bed early with a book, but seeing Yu Xiu standing nearby, hesitant and uneasy, she glanced at her.
“Elder Sister, you were right. I was afraid of the future, so I thought if you were gone, I’d be valued more. And remembering the things you used to say, I even thought of helping you and Cousin. I truly deserve death. Please forgive me this time. From now on, I’ll devote myself to serving you and Brother-in-law.”
Yu Xiu knelt on the ground—not arguing, but confessing honestly and begging for forgiveness. She knew that earlier, Mi Yao had tolerated her only because there was no one else at hand. Now that Shuang Hua was here, she herself had become dispensable.
“Elder Sister may beat me or scold me as she pleases, only please don’t send me back to Jiangnan. If I’m returned, I won’t survive.”
She would not be killed outright, but without Mi Yao’s protection, as a plain and overlooked concubine-born daughter, life in the Yu household would be little better than death.
The room fell silent for a moment. Mi Yao lowered her gaze to Yu Xiu’s trembling body. She understood what Yu Xiu feared, and she knew well what awaited her if she were sent back.
A single word could decide a person’s fate—and Mi Yao had no desire to shoulder such a burden.
“Serving me will be enough.”
After a long pause, Mi Yao spoke again: “The role of a concubine is to secure favor. If even I cannot hold on to it, what hope do you have?”
“Elder Sister…”
“If you choose to climb onto Xiao Xu’s lofty branch, then you had better pray you succeed in one stroke. I will never allow a traitor to return to my side.”
At her warning, Yu Xiu was both relieved and terrified. “Elder Sister, rest assured. From now on, I will think only of you, serve only you.”
“If before you thought me unreliable, today you’ve seen how I conduct myself before Xiao Xu. I cherish my life. To speak plainly, letting you rely on me for a few years is no difficulty.”
So behave yourself for those years. Before you come of age, stop blurting out nonsense about serving your brother-in-law.
Mi Yao muttered inwardly. She truly had no wish to meddle further, but Yu Xiu frightened her too much.
“Elder Sister, Xiu’er was wrong.” Yu Xiu knelt on the floor, sobbing. “Xiu’er never meant to doubt you…”
Mi Yao cared little whether her doubt was real or feigned. She waved her hand dismissively. “Now that my illness has passed, you needn’t keep watch over me day and night. Tonight, go sleep with Shuang Hua.”
After Yu Xiu left, Mi Yao picked up a storybook, but found herself unable to settle. Her eyes rested on the idle pages, yet her mind kept circling back to the few words she had exchanged with Xiao Xu earlier that day.
Realizing this would not do, she extinguished the candles, tossed the book aside, and closed her eyes to sleep. A pampered wife’s mind could be used for soaking in water, or arranging flowers—but never for thinking.
*
While Mi Yao slept, Xiao Xu had already recovered his strength.
The meal prepared for him was made by Mi Yao’s own cook. With the first bite, he understood why she insisted on having the cook serve him. Even a simple bowl of meat noodles, when made by her cook, tasted far superior to those from any noodle shop—and compared to Madam Wu’s cooking, the difference was like heaven and earth.
When Granny Wu asked if Mi Yao should be roused to greet him, Xiao Xu replied evenly: “She’s already asleep. Why wake her?”
If he displeased her, she would accuse him of not cherishing flowers, of deliberately tormenting her.
Who would have thought that the storybook, originally meant to mock her for risking her life foolishly, could be turned to her advantage? She wielded it so thoroughly, using the image of a cherished jewel to press her case.
“Just follow her instructions. Though we are not yet married, she will sooner or later be your mistress.”
Casting a glance at Granny Wu, now tidier than before, he thought: he had never minded her slovenliness, but once one had seen a clean servant, who would want a foul-smelling figure grinning obsequiously at one’s side?
After a brief word of instruction, Xiao Xu mounted his horse. As he rode out of the courtyard, Zhao De chuckled: “After waking, I heard Lady Yu speaking with her sister. Commander, can you guess what I overheard?”
Xiao Xu shot him a glance. “Your sleeping place is a whole courtyard away from Lady Yu. Did you sleepwalk onto her rooftop? Otherwise, how could you wake and hear her words?”
Zhao De chuckled. “You once said this Lady Yu might not truly be of the Yu family. I only thought to seize the chance to dig up more news.”
He did not drag it out further. “Lady Yu is extremely domineering. She scolded her concubine-born sister, telling her not to harbor foolish hopes about you. She said that with her own beauty, even if her sister became a concubine, she would never win your favor. She berated the little girl until she cried.”
Had Zhao De spoken of someone else, Xiao Xu might not have known who he meant. But when he mentioned Mi Yao’s younger sister, Xiao Xu’s mind immediately pictured the thin little girl who scurried about fetching things for Mi Yao.
“Lady Yu was right.”
That little girl indeed should not be entertaining such thoughts. Concubines meant nothing to him. To his mind, they were merely extra attendants Mi Yao brought along, not women he was obliged to bed.
“That little girl is still young, not yet grown. But she is Lady Yu’s sister—when she matures, surely she will be graceful and charming, no less than her elder…”
“Zhao De. Twenty strokes.” Xiao Xu’s cold voice cut him off.
Zhao De instantly dropped his grin, dismounted, and knelt on one knee, bowing his head to accept punishment.
“Where was your fault?”
“My tongue was foul. I jested about a young girl.”
Zhao De had no lustful intent toward Yu Xiu, but Xiao Xu’s anger made him realize at once that he had spoken out of turn, forgetting the strict rules of the Jian’nan army.
Their Governor, Zhao Tianhe, enforced discipline with iron severity, laying down countless regulations. One of them was the absolute prohibition against violating women.
That rule was further divided into many clauses. The Jian’nan army was the only camp in the Great Xing military without camp prostitutes. Beyond that, the Governor did not care what pleasures soldiers sought outside camp—but regardless of rank, no soldier under his command was permitted to prey upon young girls or boys.
When these orders passed into Xiao Xu’s hands, he enforced them even more harshly. Once, a soldier had forced himself upon a girl not yet of age; Xiao Xu ordered him beaten with military rods until he died.
After receiving twenty strokes, Zhao De grew much quieter for the rest of the journey.
And in the silence, Xiao Xu’s thoughts turned back to Mi Yao.
Everyone who had spoken of her described a woman different from the one he himself had seen. Spies said she was aloof and proud, devoted to her cousin scholar who lodged with the Yu family. Granny Wu said she was imperious, cold, and exacting. Zhao De claimed she was domineering and jealous, unwilling to let her future husband have anyone else.
Yet in his eyes, Mi Yao was delicate and lovely, with a touch of spoiled temper. But when she spoke in her soft, tender voice, it was nothing more than a pampered pet’s coquettishness—not arrogance.
It seemed pointless to send spies to investigate her further. She was not the woman of rumor, but one skilled at playing roles, so that everyone saw her differently.
*
After that meeting, Mi Yao did not see Xiao Xu again for several days.
Five days later, when his affairs were settled, he sent men to deliver all the servants she had brought from the Yu household to her small courtyard, and prepared a carriage to take her on to Yizhou.
The one who came was Zhao De, who had once met her briefly.
Assigned the task of escorting her, Zhao De had expected Mi Yao to pepper him with questions—why Xiao Xu himself did not come, why it was he who was sent. Yet Mi Yao asked nothing at all. Her silence was convenient, but the journey itself proved troublesome.
The trip from Jingzhou to Yizhou should have taken ten days by fast horse. Instead, Mi Yao demanded the carriage be refitted whenever she tired of the jolting, insisted on stopping at inns to sample local delicacies, and stretched the road into twenty-five days.
At first, Zhao De suspected she was deliberately stalling, perhaps plotting some escape. After long vigilance, he realized she was simply indulgent, unable to bear hardship.
Even Xiao Xu’s strict schedule—arrival within half a month—did not frighten her. She declared that “Xiao Lang cannot bear to see me suffer. He would never force me to be carted about like mere cargo, caring only for speed and not my comfort.”
Zhao De had followed Xiao Xu for years, yet never knew his commander to be so tender-hearted. Strangely enough, Mi Yao, who had scarcely met him, seemed to know his mind like a worm in his belly.
“This errand is more exhausting than guarding the frontier in Yizhou. Commander will have his hands full with her,” Zhao De muttered to his comrades after delivering Mi Yao safely into Xiao Xu’s residence.
Mi Yao, meanwhile, went straight to sleep. Upon waking, she found three little “radishes” standing at her door. She frowned. “What are you doing here?”
“We’ve come to pay respects to Mother.”
The tallest radish stepped forward, leading the other two, and they bowed neatly together. Only two spoke the words of greeting.
Mi Yao’s gaze fell on the smallest, a little girl who stared at her silently. Choosing to meet the child’s eyes was clearly a mistake.
For the moment, the little radish realized she was being looked at, her round eyes lit up, her tiny teeth flashed, and she ran forward to hug Mi Yao’s leg.
“Shan’er!” The elder two panicked, fearing Mi Yao’s displeasure. They tried to pull the youngest back, but she clung tighter, arms scrambling upward as if demanding to be carried.
“Please don’t blame our sister, Mother. She’s too young to understand. She cannot speak yet, nor does she know the rules.” The eldest explained solemnly, face taut with worry.
“Shan’er, if you keep this up, you won’t get any food!” The middle child chose threats instead. But his words pierced the little one’s heart. She clung on and burst into tears.
Mi Yao: “…”
Surely she had not slept well. Otherwise, how could she wake to such a hallucination—three talking radishes, chattering away before her in a lively little radish assembly?