Chapter 18: Planting
Yu Xian didn't give a concrete promise of an exchange. Eldest Miss Ming was displeased, terrified that after all the hard labor, she would still end up starving.
Yet if she did nothing, there truly would be no food—she would have to wait until tomorrow to eat anything.
Unable to endure another single moment, she had no choice but to place temporary faith in Yu Xian's character.
And so, Eldest Miss Ming finally deigned to lower her noble jade feet, stepped down from the chair, pulled on the plastic gloves, picked up a small trowel, and struggled to carry a ceramic pot over to Yu Xian, shoveling dirt into it bit by bit.
Yu Xian paused, watching the delicate heiress squatting before her. Only now did she realize how petite the girl actually was. Squatting like that, her long legs and slender waist folded up compactly, making her look remarkably small and dainty.
"Yu Xian, how much dirt should I add?" Eldest Miss Ming asked feebly.
Yu Xian bent down and pointed to a horizontal line along the inner rim of the pot: "Up to here is fine. No need to pack the soil down."
Ming Ruixi filled one pot after another. When she reached the fifth, she used the last dregs of her remaining strength to let out a piercing shriek.
Startled by the scream, Yu Xian turned around just in time to see a figure hurling herself forward. Instinctively dropping her tools, Yu Xian caught the pampered heiress in her arms.
"Yu Xian... in the dirt, there's... there's a worm, sob sob sob!" Ming Ruixi locked her arms tightly around Yu Xian's neck, her face drained stark white, tears on the verge of spilling over.
"...It's so fat and green, with so many bristly hairs, and it was squirming right by this lady's feet, sob sob sob!"
Yu Xian couldn't see her face, only catching the familiar fragrance rising from her hair. The soft body in her arms was trembling violently; it was clear Eldest Miss Ming had been terrified out of her wits.
"It's just a caterpillar," Yu Xian explained helplessly, moving to set her down. To her surprise, Eldest Miss Ming refused to touch the ground, wrapping both arms and clamping both legs tightly around her body.
The young lady pleaded frantically into her ear: "Yu Xian, carry me out right now! I'm not helping you do this anymore!"
There was no reason to scare herself half to death over a single meal. If she had known there were bugs in the soil, she wouldn't have stepped in here even if she starved to death.
Listening to her words—phrased as a plea yet delivered like an imperious command—Yu Xian's expression cooled involuntarily: "Why should I listen to you?"
Yu Xian let go, intending to let her slip down.
Losing her support, Ming Ruixi felt her body slowly sliding downward from sheer exhaustion. Terrified, she clung to Yu Xian even tighter, refusing to touch the dirt and terrified of seeing that caterpillar again.
"Yu Xian, help me! This lady is slipping!" Ming Ruixi scolded in a frantic, delicate temper while scrambling upward with all her might.
Yu Xian could distinctly feel the soft, full swell of her bust rubbing against her own chest. The sensation was impossible to put into words, sending her thoughts into disarray for several seconds. Perhaps because the contact was far too intimate and snug, her mind unbiddenly flashed to images of Eldest Miss Ming sitting bare across her lap, and those glistening, damp patches on her pants...
In the end, Yu Xian knit her brows and placed her hands firmly under her behind to keep her from falling. Carrying her a few paces aside, she snapped in a stern tone: "Get down."
Eldest Miss Ming glanced toward the loose soil. After confirming she was nowhere near the bug, she reluctantly allowed her feet to touch the ground.
"Yu Xian, it's not that I don't want to help you—there are bugs in the soil." Even though she had barely lifted a finger, Ming Ruixi still desperately wanted to eat.
Yu Xian glanced at the pots already filled with dirt. Sitting atop the tamped, firm ground, they shouldn't harbor any insects. She said, "Go bury the flower seeds in those. I'll handle the rest."
Ming Ruixi wanted to ask what if there were bugs in the pots too, but before the words could leave her mouth, Yu Xian had already walked back to the plot to continue filling the remaining pots.
"..."
Ming Ruixi stood frozen, agonizing for a long while. In the end, with profound reluctance and misery, she picked up the small trowel, squatted before the pots, scraped aside a thin layer of dirt, and buried the seeds.
Remembering something, Yu Xian called out to instruct her: "Don't bury them too deep. A thin dusting over top is enough."
Eldest Miss Ming huffed back, "Understood!"
The afternoon drifted by, and by dusk, the small and medium ceramic pots had all been sown with various flower seeds. Only the large ceramic pots remained.
Yu Xian intended to use these for the larger greenery: snake plants, gardenias, areca palms, and money trees.
"Don't damage the root systems of these plants." Fearing the girl would botch it, Yu Xian planned to handle them personally.
The two fell into a rhythm of cooperation: Eldest Miss Ming was responsible for scooping out a deep hole, while Yu Xian carefully lowered the root ball inside before filling in the soil.
Yu Xian pulled off her rubber gloves: "Go fetch some water."
Swallowing her grievances, Ming Ruixi picked up the pressure spray bottle and hurried inside to fill it with water.
After misting all the pots with water, Yu Xian scattered the remaining flower seeds across the open plot, planting several pink Eden rose climbers along the base of the exterior wall.
Ming Ruixi followed Yu Xian back inside. Watching her head straight for the kitchen, her dizzy, famished eyes lit up as she swallowed hard.
She should finally be able to eat now, right...?
Yu Xian rolled up her sleeves and motioned toward the dining table: "Sit down."
Ming Ruixi nodded eagerly. Clutching her rumbling stomach, she took a seat at the table, watching as Yu Xian retrieved the takeout dishes ordered from the teahouse from the refrigerator and popped them into the microwave for a minute or two.
So she hadn't touched a single bite—she had saved every bit of it for her.
Braised prawns, pickled pepper fish fillet, tribute pepper snowflake rabbit, stir-fried choy sum, double-boiled chicken feet and fish maw with shiitake mushrooms...
Ten minutes later, staring at the lavish spread filling the entire table, Ming Ruixi let out a disobedient streak of tears.
Yu Xian ladled out a bowl of freshly cooked, steaming white rice and set it before her: "A reward for your good behavior this afternoon. Don't act so impulsively in the future."
Ming Ruixi nodded vigorously, accepting the chopsticks and the bowl of glistening white rice. Before digging in, she noticed Yu Xian hadn't sat down and asked in confusion, "Aren't you eating?"
Yu Xian turned back to ladle a bowl of rice for herself, taking a seat beside her: "Start eating."
Midway through the meal, Yu Xian noticed that only she had touched the braised prawns; Eldest Miss Ming hadn't touched a single one.
If she remembered correctly, when she went to bail the girl out yesterday, a small mountain of shrimp shells had been piled on the teahouse table. That restaurant offered a peeling service.
So Eldest Miss Ming only ate shrimp if someone peeled the shells for her?
Yu Xian slipped on a disposable glove and peeled a prawn. This time, instead of dropping it into her own bowl, she placed it onto a separate small dish.
Only when the entire plate of prawns had been peeled did she leisurely peel off the glove and set the platter of succulent, shelled meat right in the center of the dishes.
Ming Ruixi was simply too famished. With eyes only for food, she didn't realize someone had shelled the prawns specifically for her, assuming it was just Yu Xian's personal dining habit to peel them all at once to share.
Before long, she had eaten several plump prawns. Savoring the fresh, savory, spicy kick with its tender, bouncy texture, she recalled how she used to eat only braised prawns made from live, top-grade catch—anything less than pristine, she wouldn't touch. But now, she was in no position to be demanding. Just having a warm meal was already a blessing.
Ming Ruixi felt rather touched by her own newfound resilience.
Watching her chew slowly and delicately, Yu Xian smiled helplessly, sliding the bowl of reheated double-boiled chicken feet and fish maw soup toward her: "Drink it while it's hot."
"Mm-hmm." Ming Ruixi ladled the soup contentedly, sipping it down with genuine relish.
More than half an hour later, Ming Ruixi finally felt as though she had returned to the land of the living.
"Yu Xian, this is the best meal this lady has ever had." Ming Ruixi wanted to praise her cooking, then remembered it wasn't made by her, and awkwardly dropped the subject.
After taking a shower, Ming Ruixi was in her bedroom blow-drying her hair when a knock came at the door midway through.
"Come in."
Yu Xian walked in carrying a bowl filled with an unfamiliar broth, setting it down on her nightstand: "Finish drinking this before you brush your teeth."
Ming Ruixi peered into the bowl. Seeing the murky greenish broth, her willow-leaf brows knit in reflexive distaste: "What is this?"
Yu Xian: "Mung bean sweet soup."
Ming Ruixi's brow furrowed even deeper: "I don't want to drink it."
Yu Xian: "You have to drink some."
Thoroughly baffled, Ming Ruixi resumed drying her hair: "Why?"
Yu Xian: "To clear internal heat and detoxify."
Ming Ruixi was puzzled: "This lady doesn't have excess internal heat, nor am I poisoned. Why would I need to drink this kind of stuff?"
Yu Xian had no choice but to explain: "Oil paints contain trace amounts of heavy metals. Direct, repeated skin contact can be harmful to the human body. You don't need to overreact—it's only microscopic amounts, and the pigment doesn't stay on your skin for extended periods, so the harm is negligible."
Ming Ruixi was about to flare up—how dare she allow toxic substances to touch her skin?! But on second thought, she relied on being a canvas to keep her roof over her head. As Yu Xian had said, a housekeeping maid was easy to hire and replace, but a human canvas was an entirely different story—someone suitable for that role wouldn't be easy for Yu Xian to find.
Being a canvas was where she, Ming Ruixi, held the most value, and was likely the primary reason Yu Xian took her in. Swallowing her anger, she held back. Besides, every time Yu Xian finished painting, she washed it off immediately, so it shouldn't be anything serious.
"Since it's negligible, this lady won't drink it."
"No. You have to drink some."
"You're so annoying."
"Do you want me to discipline you again?"
Images of being spanked flashed across Ming Ruixi's mind in an instant. Tensing her face against the rush of indignant shame, she pouted: "Fine, this lady will drink it! Happy now?"
Before stepping out, Yu Xian gave her a deep, lingering look: "When you finish drinking, come to my room."
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