Song Shishi’s face immediately flushed, the redness creeping all the way down her neck.
She wished the ground would open up and swallow her whole.
She had been utterly humiliated in front of Tang Qingluo!
“Brother Lanyi, how could you—? I’m Shishi!”
And with that, she ran off crying.
Tang Qingluo stared at Xie Lanyi, utterly speechless. Her “convenient husband” really had a sharp tongue.
Oh wow… the poor girl’s teenage heart was probably shattered into a thousand pieces.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” Xie Lanyi asked, genuinely confused. He didn’t see what he’d said that was wrong—he really didn’t know Song Shishi.
“Nothing,” Tang Qingluo replied, eyes drifting toward the sweet soup on the table. “So… are you still going to drink this soup?”
Xie Lanyi smirked inwardly, glanced at her, and shook his head: “No, I don’t really like sweet soup.”
“Well, then I’ll drink it. Can’t let food go to waste—heaven might strike me with lightning for that,” Tang Qingluo said with a smile, lifting the bowl to her lips.
[Zzz… Warning! Warning! Energy anomaly detected in the sweet soup. Host, pay attention!]
Tang Qingluo’s hand froze, and with a clatter, the bowl slipped from her fingers.
The sweet soup spilled across the floor, shards scattering everywhere.
“What’s wrong?” Xie Lanyi asked, noticing her unusual expression.
“Oh—nothing, nothing.” Tang Qingluo patted her chest nervously. “I just… got distracted thinking about something and accidentally dropped the bowl. Um… Lanyi, why don’t you wait here for a bit while I go find a broom?”
She made an excuse to avoid him, worried he might notice something if she stayed.
Little did she know, her unusual behavior had already aroused Xie Lanyi’s suspicion—now he was even more eager to uncover her secret.
System, system… what did you mean by energy anomaly in the sweet soup? Could it be poison?
No way. Song Shishi clearly had a crush on Xie Lanyi—why would she poison him? If anyone, it would be me.
[Host, the sweet soup contains external elemental energy. Initially, this energy induces trust, but with repeated consumption, it confuses the mind, eventually creating a puppet with no independent thought.]
…So it’s worse than poison.
Tang Qingluo’s eyes widened. This Song Shishi was dangerous! Even if she liked Xie Lanyi, there was no need to go this far.
Sure enough…
People caught in the whirlwind of love are crazy.
If Song Shishi knew Tang Qingluo thought this way, she would protest. She was only trying to be kind, not harm Xie Lanyi. But this kind of misunderstanding was unavoidable—and Tang Qingluo would be the one blamed.
System… one more thing. How does Song Shishi even have external elemental energy? That’s high-tech civilization stuff!
[Correct. Host, your guess is right. She also has a bound system, but it is incomplete and severely energy-deficient. If you hadn’t been in close proximity, I wouldn’t have detected her weak elemental energy.]
Since Song Shishi also had a system, Tang Qingluo resolved to keep her at a distance.
As for staying away from Xie Lanyi… she knew that was impossible.
She might want to avoid trouble, but with her system tied to his life, she couldn’t.
Sigh.
“Big sister-in-law, are you worried?” Little tenth sister Xie Wanxuan tugged at little eleventh sister Xie Wannian’s hand. The two girls looked up at Tang Qingluo with round, black eyes.
“Why are you two out here? Shouldn’t someone be watching you? This is unfamiliar territory—you need to stay with your parents. If kidnappers came, you’d never return.”
Tang Qingluo looked around and, seeing no familiar faces, felt a chill run down her spine.
“Big tenth and little eleventh, you’re right—no one will try to kidnap you. But still… you should stay close to family; that’s safest.”
She knew the malicious intent the other branches of the Xie family held toward these children.
“Come, big sister-in-law will take you back.”
Xie Wanxuan and Xie Wannian shook their heads, their tiny voices soft: “We have to wait a little longer.”
“Why?”
“Mother is treating Father and Brother. Their shoulders are injured… from that big wooden thing—the heavy yoke—pressing down on Father and Brother.”
Tang Qingluo’s mind clicked: Ah, the yoke—that’s the shackles.
Shackles came in ten, twenty, forty, and eighty jin weights.
Young boys like the seventh son Xie Wenyu and eighth son Xie Wenzhe, just ten years old, wore light ten-jin shackles.
Fourteenth- and fifteenth-year boys like fourth son Xie Wenjin, fifth son Xie Wenrui, sixth son Xie Wenyao wore twenty-jin shackles.
Men eighteen and older—third son Xie Wenzhang, non-military elders Xie Shuzhi and Xie Jizhi, and seventh elder Xie Weizhi—wore forty-jin medium shackles.
Military veterans like Xie Laotou (the patriarch) and Xie Bozhi bore eighty-jin heavy shackles.
Tang Qingluo herself, without shackles, had been exhausted from walking long distances. The others, wearing shackles—especially the heavy ones—suffered far more.
Clearly, they needed to find a way to remove the shackles.
Tang Qingluo brought little tenth and eleventh sisters back to their room and immediately convened with the adults of the first, third, and fourth branches.
They agreed: Tang Qingluo would negotiate with the guards, while each branch would cover their own costs.
“No problem, leave the negotiation to me,” Tang Qingluo said confidently. She had experience handling such matters—meals before, the handcart before—all went smoothly.
This time, of course, would be no different.
Following a rate of one hundred taels per shackle, she ultimately spent six hundred taels and successfully freed the shackles of the first, third, and fourth branches.