Chapter 8
Her request received no response.
Ming Ruixi couldn't help looking at her. Yu Xian truly had gorgeous eyes—strikingly clear and deep, pure as water, resembling that lake hidden behind the hills, rippling with a faint gleam, calm and gentle.
She tried hard to recall the days they had spent together in the past, only to find she barely had much of an impression of Yu Xian.
All she knew was that Yu Xian was her lackey, was very poor, and knew how to bend with circumstances. She was far easier to boss around than the others: as long as there were tips, Yu Xian would help her. The other lackeys either complained that her tip was smaller than last time, shirked heavy tasks, or feared being ridiculed by their peers.
Some even played nice to her face while stabbing her in the back, badmouthing Ming Ruixi behind her back. Every time she caught one of those hypocrites, she was furious.
Taking her money only to turn around and talk behind her back—such people had zero professional ethics.
Compared to them, Yu Xian was the most reliable and easiest to work with; to this day, she had never heard of Yu Xian speaking ill of her behind her back.
If not for meeting again, Ming Ruixi probably wouldn't even have remembered what Yu Xian looked like, holding only a vague impression.
The pink petals gradually bloomed across the girl's chest, slowly taking shape.
Yu Xian suddenly lifted her eyes to meet hers. Pouting with lingering stubbornness, Ming Ruixi swiftly looked away.
Yu Xian didn't know what she was thinking, assuming she was secretly cursing her again. With that thought, her brush unconsciously pressed a little firmer.
A soft, shallow whimper slipped from the young lady's lips, catching both of them off guard.
Eldest Miss Ming clamped her hand over her mouth in shock, unable to believe she had made such a wanton sound. She tried to stand up, but the knees beneath her shifted; losing her balance, she fell straight toward Yu Xian.
To avoid poking her with the paintbrush or overturning the palette again, Yu Xian spread both hands wide to either side a split second before the young lady collided with her.
Because of this, Eldest Miss Ming tumbled directly into her embrace. The freshly painted pigments across her chest slammed against Yu Xian's clothes, instantly ruining the artwork.
The girl's chest pressed flush against Yu Xian, their body warmth seemingly merging in that brief instant.
"Yu Xian, you bastard! How dare you take advantage of me?!"
Ming Ruixi's small face turned rigid with fury, her rage erupting in that instant.
Slap—
Just like that, Yu Xian was slapped across the face. A burning, stinging pain flared up, echoing the exact sharp agony of that slap from the birthday banquet.
Ming Ruixi's watery eyes were filled with shame and fury, her palm tingling numbly. She glared at Yu Xian, her chest heaving violently, her anger rising and falling with it. Only after a long moment did she see Yu Xian recover from the shock, her gaze cutting into her like a pair of sharp knives.
Belatedly, Ming Ruixi felt a chill of terror. Before her eyes, Yu Xian set the paintbrush onto the palette and placed the palette down on the floor with one hand, clearly preparing to settle the score.
"What do you think you're doing?! This lady is your benefactor! You cannot—"
Before Ming Ruixi could finish her sentence, Yu Xian grabbed her wrist with an icy glare and yanked her sideways. Ming Ruixi tumbled by her feet, her stomach pinned over Yu Xian's thighs and knees.
Accompanied by a sharp shriek from Eldest Miss Ming, several loud spanks echoed crisply across the art studio.
"Stop it right now!" Ming Ruixi's pupils trembled in disbelief. She couldn't fathom that this woman dared to spank her behind—in all her years growing up, even her parents had never laid a hand on her like this.
"Stop it this instant!" Ming Ruixi braced herself, shouting in a high, furious voice, "You dare hit me?! You woman, do you know what will happen to you?! I'll have my father come and destroy you!"
Yet, as her curses echoed one after another, Yu Xian pinned her fair back down firmly, pressed her thin lips together, and brought her hand down across her behind again and again.
"Keep yelling, why don't you?"
"Yu Xian! You with the surname Yu! You have no right to hit me! You have no right!"
Yu Xian suddenly let out a cold sneer: "Let's see if I have the right or not!"
Five minutes passed. Tears brimmed in the young lady's eyes, dripping down onto the paint palette below. "Stop hitting me, it hurts so much... sob sob sob..."
"Stop hitting me..."
Ming Ruixi sniffled, trembling and shuddering continuously. Seemingly tired from the exertion, Yu Xian finally stopped, glancing at the bright red swelling on her behind before looking down at her own reddened palm.
"Get up." Yu Xian's expression didn't soften in the slightest.
Ming Ruixi scrambled off her lap, her feet finally touching the floor. Meeting Yu Xian's frosty glare, she shrank back in terror, retreating several steps in succession.
Yu Xian picked up the palette and looked down at her top, which was ruined with smudged paint. Her brows furrowed deeply, but she still chose to deal with the palette first.
With tear-stained red eyes, Ming Ruixi glared at her with bitter resentment: "You're not human!"
After shouting curses from the corner, seeing that Yu Xian remained completely unfazed while continuing to scrape her paints and palette—like punching a cloud of cotton—Eldest Miss Ming gritted her teeth in fury.
With her small face tense with rage, she spat out a venomous threat: "You with the surname Yu, this lady will remember this! You took advantage of me today and dared to hit me—you're going to get what's coming to you!"
With that parting shot, Ming Ruixi snatched her clothes off the chair, yanked the door open, and ran all the way back to her room, crying and sobbing the entire time.
Ming Ruixi wanted to collapse onto the bed, but she was terrified of smearing paint onto the sheets. Yet when she tried sitting on the chair or the floor, her behind ached so agonizingly that she couldn't bear it.
In the end, she knelt on the floor, burying her face against the table as she wept and sobbed uncontrollably.
...
Only after cleaning everything up in the art studio did Yu Xian return to her bedroom. In the mirror, the slap mark on her cheek had faded considerably, but the moment she recalled the scene, she could still feel the stinging humiliation and malice.
It mirrored that slap from the birthday banquet and the sneered phrase "you useless trash" with terrifying accuracy.
Yu Xian ground her back teeth, bracing both hands against the desk. Taking this young lady in was pure self-inflicted torment!
Instead of serving her a slice of humble pie, she had ended up suffering another blow!
However...
Yu Xian lifted her right hand. Even now, her palm still tingled with a faint numbness. She hadn't completely failed to strike back—at the very least, she had spanked the girl until she cried.
She had reduced the haughty heiress who once bullied and humiliated her to tears.
If she stepped out of line again in the future, she would keep spanking her until she yielded—until she properly apologized.
Comforting herself with this thought, and seeing that the night had deepened, Yu Xian prepared to change out of her paint-stained clothes.
Once changed, Yu Xian got ready to sleep as usual.
Suddenly, an inexplicable dampness on her knee caused her nerves to jolt. She pulled back the duvet, switched on the light, and took a closer look—there was another dried, darkened patch over her knee.
What's more, it was several times larger than the previous night's, covering an area half the size of a palm.
Yu Xian dabbed a trace onto her fingertips and sniffed it. The faint musky fragrance caused her expression to shift. Unsurprisingly, just like yesterday, this belonged to that delicate young lady she had spanked to tears.
So that was what she meant by "taking advantage" of her?
Wasn't that entirely her own body's fault?
If the young lady considered this humiliating, then all the better.
Yu Xian stood up, went to the wardrobe, and changed into another clean pair of pajama pants before finally falling asleep in peace.
...
At six-thirty the next morning, Yu Xian woke up as usual, rinsed her mouth, and headed to the kitchen to prepare a simple breakfast. Midway through cooking, it suddenly struck her: why was she still making breakfast herself?
Didn't she have a maid now?
With that thought, Yu Xian glanced at the bubbling congee, placed the lid on the pot, turned around, and headed upstairs.
She knocked on Eldest Miss Ming's bedroom door.
After several knocks, there was no response.
Her brows knitting together, Yu Xian turned back to grab the master key. Even as she unlocked and pushed the door open, the person inside showed no sign of waking.
Eldest Miss Ming's eyes were red and swollen like walnuts. Her delicate face was crumpled in grievance, her willow-leaf brows tightly knit as though caught in a nightmare.
Without the slightest inclination to show tenderness to the fair maiden, Yu Xian yanked the blanket aside. Seeing the young lady flutter her bleary eyes open, Yu Xian said expressionlessly, "Get up and make breakfast. I've already done half of it; you finish the rest. At seven, you're heading to town to buy groceries."
Ming Ruixi's consciousness cleared by seventy to eighty percent. Catching sight of this woman, her behind flared with phantom aches, and she barked impatiently, "Go away! Don't disturb this lady's sleep!"
Last night, she couldn't even indulge in a proper crying session—she had been forced to scrub every bit of paint off her skin before she could even get into bed.
It was suffocatingly miserable.
Worse yet, she couldn't leave; she had no choice but to shamelessly stay under this roof. Every single threat she had spat out last night had turned into an absolute joke this morning.
Yu Xian's gaze darkened: "Do you want another round of spankings?"
"You—" Ming Ruixi instinctively covered her behind.
Yu Xian: "Are you getting up or not?"
Forcing down the fury on the verge of erupting, Ming Ruixi dragged herself out of bed: "Why are you always so fierce? What's wrong with this lady sleeping in for a bit? Are you in a rush to reincarnate or something?"
Yu Xian glanced coolly at those non-stop chattering lips and let out a sudden, faint chuckle: "I'm in a rush to spank you."
Ming Ruixi choked on her temper and snapped her mouth shut: "..."
After finally finishing washing up, Ming Ruixi was handed an apron by Yu Xian. Putting the apron over her clothes gave her a dawning, painfully clear realization of where she now stood in this household.
"..."
Ming Ruixi stared at the video tutorial on the phone while dumping chunks of beef, sliced fish, and pork liver into a small meat grinder.
Pressing down on the top button, the machine suddenly whirred into a ferocious frenzy. Ming Ruixi jumped in fright, stumbling several steps backward. Only after determining that the grinder posed no danger did she cautiously step back up and hold down the button again.
Practice makes perfect; once the meat was finely minced, she tossed in oil, salt, sugar, cooking wine, and starch, giving it another pulse to mix everything thoroughly. Using a spoon, she scooped the seasoned meat into the bubbling white congee scoop by scoop.
The tutorial instructed her to sprinkle in some shredded lettuce and julienned ginger. Looking down at her bandaged finger, Ming Ruixi felt a fresh wave of annoyance—she was clearly injured, yet Yu Xian still had the nerve to order her around like this.
Whatever. She had the fate of a lowly maid now; she couldn't afford to be squeamish.
Washing a handful of greens and a slice of ginger, she chopped them into shreds and fine strips according to the video, dumping the whole lot into the pot. She stirred gently while turning the heat down to low.
Before serving, she sprinkled in a pinch of salt and sampled a taste. Ming Ruixi felt that what she had cooked was nothing short of a gourmet delicacy.
Finally turning off the stove, she ladled out a bowl and carried it over to Yu Xian, who was seated at the dining table: "Eat up. Fresh congee prepared personally by this lady—it's a blessing you wouldn't earn in several lifetimes."
Yu Xian: "..."
Looking at the presentation, Yu Xian thought it looked decent enough: "Spoon."
Swallowing her irritation, Ming Ruixi went and fetched a white porcelain spoon for her.
Yu Xian didn't take it: "Rinse it. It's been sitting out all night."
Ming Ruixi's temper flared up a few notches higher, but in the end, she still turned back to the sink to wash the spoon for her.
Only then did Yu Xian begin tasting the congee: "It's fine. The bottom is slightly scorched, so the burnt flavor has seeped in and affected the taste. Remember to watch the heat next time—once the porridge comes to a boil, turn it down to low."
Who knew if Eldest Miss Ming had absorbed any of that advice. In any case, she ladled a bowl for herself and sat down opposite Yu Xian, taking a dainty, refined sip. Sure enough, she tasted the faint bitterness of scorched rice, and her willow-leaf brows knit together—though there was no way she would ever pin the blame on herself.
Ming Ruixi: "There's no helping it. When you can't afford to hire a five-star executive chef, this is the best porridge you can get. The fact that this lady managed to cook it this well just following a tutorial means you should be burning incense in gratitude—at least you weren't poisoned."
Yu Xian: "..."
Having finished breakfast, Ming Ruixi looked at the used bowls and chopsticks on the table and the cluttered disaster of a kitchen, an overwhelming sense of aversion welling up in her chest once again.
Yu Xian checked the time and cast a calm glance her way: "Wash up. It's almost seven. Once you're done, the shopping basket is behind you. Today's grocery list is two carrots, half a catty of kelp, half a catty of mung beans, and one catty of bean sprouts. For meat, buy one crucian carp and two racks of pork ribs. Have the butcher scale, gut, and chop the fish and ribs into pieces before bringing them back; otherwise, you'll have to butcher and prep the raw meat yourself, Eldest Miss."
Ming Ruixi felt a massive headache coming on just listening to the list.
Yu Xian: "I've sent it to your phone."
Ming Ruixi: "What about the grocery money?"
Yu Xian: "Transferred to your phone as well."
Ming Ruixi immediately checked the device. Seeing the pitiful sum of two hundred yuan, her brows knit tight: "Just this little bit? What can this possibly buy?"
Yu Xian: "It can buy everything I just listed, with plenty left over."
Ming Ruixi looked skeptical: "And what about you? What are you doing today? Why does this lady have to do everything?"
Yu Xian closed her eyes and took a breath: "I have my own work today. As for why you have to do all this, I believe you know the answer full well."
Ming Ruixi's expression soured visibly: "It's just staying in one of your rooms and eating two meals with you. Bossing this lady around like a slave—don't you feel any shame?"
Instead of taking the bait, Yu Xian gestured toward the window: "There's a plot of land out back. If you think the workload is too light, you can go till the soil and plant some crops."
"In your dreams!" Bossing her around like a slave wasn't enough; now she wanted to drive her like an ox to plow fields and farm?!
"This lady will never farm! Doing all these chores is already exhausting enough!"
Yu Xian smiled without saying a word. As the saying went: if you want to open a window, people will object; but if you propose ripping off the roof, they will gladly agree to open the window, having subconsciously accepted the compromise.
She was the one proposing to "rip off the roof"—and sure enough, Eldest Miss Ming had readily accepted the "window" of grocery shopping.
Yu Xian stood up: "Whatever money is left over from buying groceries is yours to keep as a tip. How much remains depends on your bargaining skills."
Ming Ruixi scoffed disdainfully: "Just this pittance? Who are you trying to brush off like a beggar? You expect this lady to haggle over pennies?"
Yu Xian: "You don't want it? Then transfer the change back to me later."
Ming Ruixi tensed her small face, staring at her in sheer disbelief: "You're even going to take back pocket change like that? This lady has to trek all the way out there to buy your groceries—don't you have any shame refusing to pay an errand fee?! Yu Xian, back then this lady tipped you hundreds at a time! Now you expect me to haggle just to scrape together some pocket money—you're going way too far!"
"Who is the one going too far here? Are you the maid or am I the maid? Is this how a maid talks back?"
Yu Xian's expression cooled: "From now on, if you dare talk back to me again, I will deal with you at night."
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