Half an hour later.
At last, it was her turn.
【Beep. System 2933 at your service. Host, you only strayed slightly from your character, so I deducted just 10 points. If you’d strayed badly, I would have taken a thousand points straight off.】
【Anyway, another host is calling me. System 2933 will be at your service again next time.】
The System’s voice vanished.
Jiang nearly forgot how to breathe.
Was the Plane System so short-staffed that the Main God[1]A term used in some Chinese system and transmigration stories for an authority associated with the worlds or their governing systems. Its exact nature and powers depend on the fiction. jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_3733397_1_1').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_3733397_1_1', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], }); couldn’t hire a few more systems?
Oh, right. The Main God was probably so stingy that even a slight break from character cost 10 points.
“Hey, you’re Butler Jiang, right?”
A sudden voice interrupted Jiang’s thoughts. Two people approached her, both butlers to collateral-branch heirs.
She remembered that the one who had spoken was surnamed Liu. The butler standing beside him was surnamed Zhang.
“You don’t have to look at us so warily.” Butler Liu shrugged and smiled. “I’m here to bring you good news.”
Jiang had been kneeling in that position so long that she was sore. She straightened her back and shifted her knees. Countless sharp thorns pierced into her other knee, and a barely visible trickle of blood seeped into the fabric of her trousers.
Her expression didn’t change. She asked calmly, “What good news?”
Butler Liu said, “Our young master says that if you put this contract in Huo Shu’s bedroom, he can have you transferred and let you choose another heir with a brighter future.”
Even Jiang could hear what was wrong with that. She immediately pointed out the flaw.
“Leaving aside the Housekeeper Bureau’s rule that a butler can serve only one heir in their lifetime, could any heir with a bright future really have better prospects than Huo Shu?”
Butler Liu grew agitated. “He’s an illegitimate son—”
Jiang was already annoyed about having points deducted. They’d hit a sore spot, and she cut him off impatiently. “Don’t tell me Huo Shu has no future. If he had no future, you wouldn’t have come to me.”
Even as an illegitimate son, Huo Shu was Huo Yuan’s son—the head of the Huo family. At the very least, he had a better chance than these collateral-branch heirs.
At her words, both men’s faces turned horribly grim. She had clearly hit the mark. Without wasting any more time, they tossed out a threat—“Just you wait”—and hurried away.
Jiang spat after them, not letting them get the better of her at all.
The moment she finished, she caught sight of someone in the corner of her eye. Her gaze froze.
It was none other than her employer, Huo Shu.
Huo Shu’s view of her had been utterly overturned. He could hardly believe what had happened; it seemed too absurd.
After returning to the old estate, he had also been placed under Huo Yuan’s order not to leave his residence.
As he tended to his wounds, all he could think about was the moment she had rushed over to save him.
Before that, she had stayed where she was and shown no intention of getting involved.
Besides, when Huo Shu had made that choice, it had never occurred to him that she would save him.
But to his surprise, she shoved Huo Ye aside and hauled him up from the ground.
The whole thing had been completely beyond his expectations.
He couldn’t make sense of it. So he’d ignored Huo Yuan’s order and walked here, one step at a time.
…
Huo Shu had already arrived before the two butlers came.
He had heard their entire conversation.
He’d heard them tell her to put the suspicious contract in his bedroom. He’d heard her say that a butler could serve only one heir in their lifetime, and that he had better prospects.
And then she spat after the two men as they left. That made her seem all the more vivid and striking.
In this old estate, corroded by scheming and as dark as hell, she seemed to be the only person who hadn’t been tainted by it.
She didn’t belong here. She was utterly out of place.
There was no shortage of butlers in the old estate, and not one he’d ever met was like her.
“You’re here, Young Master.”
The woman’s voice was a little hoarse. She had been kneeling for three or four hours, until late into the night; her body was already exhausted.
Her expression was as calm as still water, without the slightest hint of panic—as if everything that had just happened were nothing but a dream of his.
Huo Shu: “…………”
In the dim light of the roadside lamps, a clear red mark stood out on his pale, cool-toned profile, lending him an air of something both alluring and fragile.
He asked bluntly, “Why did you save me?”
Beneath his half-dry hair, his dark eyes fixed intently on her face, watching for the slightest change in her expression.
But he was bound to be disappointed. The woman kneeling on the thorns was unmoved by the pressure of his gaze. Her face blank, she replied with a reasoned explanation:
“Young Master, you were close to suffocating. The Housekeeper’s Handbook explicitly says that a butler mustn’t stand by and watch an heir die.”
The handbook did say that—but only on the condition that a butler didn’t offend another heir.
She had yanked Huo Ye away with so much force that she’d knocked him to the ground, which already counted as a violation of the Housekeeper’s Handbook.
Now that it had happened, she had to talk her way out of it. She absolutely couldn’t let the male lead grow suspicious of her.
Otherwise, the punishment for breaking character would only get worse.
Huo Shu fell silent, his gaze never leaving her.
Jiang’s heart kept pounding. She was terrified he’d notice something was off. She pressed her knee hard against the razor-sharp barbed wire. Her mind stayed unnervingly clear, racing through possibilities. Then she thought of something and said at once:
“Young Master, this isn’t a place you should be.”
From what she’d heard the butlers chatting about, Huo Yuan should have forbidden Huo Shu from leaving his residence by now.
At two in the morning, the old estate was silent and still. Not a sound came from the surroundings.
The night lay heavy. A breeze rustled through the treetops.
At last, Huo Shu looked away from her. The spot on his abdomen where he’d been kicked hard throbbed, making his body twitch slightly. His gaze swept over the bloodstained barbed wire beneath her knees. Then he turned and walked off without looking back.
His footsteps gradually faded into the distance.
Jiang let out a breath, her tense back relaxing.
Next time, she’d have to be more careful—much more careful. She couldn’t make such a foolish mistake again.
A golden line split the horizon, and the dawn light spilled across the ground.
After kneeling for the required time, Jiang You struggled to her feet. Her steps were unsteady, and she limped back to her quarters.
Calling it her quarters was generous. It was an old, secluded two-story villa where Huo Shu lived.
She stayed next door so she could look after him and protect his safety at all times.
As soon as she reached the living room, she spotted a first-aid kit on the coffee table.
Given Huo Shu’s germaphobic, compulsive habits, there was no way he would leave the kit here. He would have put it in the storage room.
Jiang You staggered over and muttered under her breath,
“Could he have prepared this for me?”
She was completely exhausted and couldn’t be bothered to think it through. After treating the wounds covering her legs, she went back to her bedroom.
As she disappeared through the upstairs doorway, the door to the room next door silently swung open.
The young man, who should have been asleep, had dark, clear eyes. He walked unhurriedly to the coffee table downstairs.
The first-aid kit was half open, with a short length of snowy-white bandage hanging out. Huo Shu quickly tidied it away, then picked up the kit and returned it to the storage room.
Jiang You, back in her room and already asleep in bed, had no idea what had happened downstairs.
References[+]