“Halt!”
Yuan Siyin had only been lost in thought for a moment when panicked screams erupted around her, accompanied by the screeching sound of a carriage braking abruptly.
“Are you blind?!”
The coachman tugged at the reins, shouting angrily.
Yuan Siyin instinctively tightened her grip on the reins, about to apologize, when she realized the voice came from ahead.
A crowd had gathered around the carriage, and both sides immediately began arguing.
“We were walking just fine on the road when you suddenly rushed out from the intersection!”
“Nonsense! It was clearly you who charged forward!”
“What’s going on here?”
A slender woman in blue lifted the curtain and gracefully stepped down from the carriage with the support of her maid.
“Miss, please be careful. Don’t fall.”
The woman nodded primly, her round fan covering her face. Her eyes held an aloof pride, concealing a barely noticeable disdain.
“Second Young Miss, these people charged forward without any explanation and even accused us of hitting them! It was clearly them who threw themselves in front of the carriage!”
The coachman immediately fawned over Shen Ruolan when he saw her descend.
“Oh, so this is the Second Young Miss of the Grand Tutor’s household? Truly elegant and refined!”
Second Young Miss?
Yuan Siyin dismounted, holding the bridle as she craned her neck to listen to the gossip from the people ahead.
“No mistake about it. This Second Young Miss Shen is the top talented lady in the capital—unmatched by any other! She’s also among the highest ranked on the Beauty List!”
“Then does that mean there’s someone else ranked first on the Beauty List?”
“Tch, don’t even mention it! Such bad luck! You must be new here, so you haven’t heard. Although the top-ranked eldest young miss of the Yuan family on the Beauty List is beautiful, she’s a femme fatale!”
The man pointed and gestured as he spoke.
Yuan Siyin: ?
So it begins, does it?
Buddy, what you’re doing is being watched by the person you’re talking about behind their back!
“You have no idea about that one’s reputation, tsk tsk.”
He mysteriously shook his raised finger.
“What? Could it be… she’s notorious?”
“More than that! She’s downright terrifying! Anyway, Second Young Miss Shen is simply incomparable to the Yuan family’s eldest young miss.”
Yuan Siyin took several deep breaths, telling herself not to get angry.
After all, we’re indeed at a disadvantage, right?
However, at that very moment, something extraordinary happened.
Taxue snorted and turned around, delivering a precise kick to the precious rear end of the man in front.
Yuan Siyin: “…”
Well done.
Taxue, you’re the best, thumbs up.
Her already tarnished reputation was completely ruined by him!
Now it’s really over, like a phone with no credit left.
As a horse, how can you be more aggressive than your owner?
And with such practiced moves—it seems you’ve done this quite often.
Yuan Siyin felt utterly hopeless inside.
She never expected that even a horse could become a stumbling block on her path to survival.
“Who did that?!”
The man was sent sprawling on the ground, limbs splayed. He scrambled up, cursing and ready to argue, but the moment he saw Yuan Siyin behind him, he immediately slunk away into the crowd.
Yuan Siyin: “Hey, you!”
Don’t go—do you need compensation…
But hearing her call out only made the man run faster.
Yuan Siyin felt momentarily touched.
Truly worthy of ancient people—so simple and honest, without any awareness of staging accidents for extortion. If it were her… well, she couldn’t do such a thing either.
The truth was, someone had indeed tried such a scheme before, and as luck would have it, they targeted the original host. The original host had taken her whip and publicly lashed the person until they crawled away.
This incident was passed down by the eyewitness vendors through word of mouth. Even three-year-old children knew that when going out on the street, one must never bump into people recklessly—especially women, particularly those dressed in red, who are good-looking and carrying a whip in their hands.
@Yuan Siyin.