Chapter 25: The Bai Family’s Young Masters

“Hey! I am talking to you. Are you mute or something?” Seeing that Qingyun was not answering even after such a long pause, and that her gaze seemed to have passed over her entirely and landed on the Bai brothers behind her instead, the girl in peach-red clothes grew even more furious, feeling that her authority had been slighted. As someone who followed at the side of Bai Zimo and the others, she considered herself worlds apart from ordinary servants. How could she possibly tolerate a mere sweeping girl being so “insolent” before her? Her willow brows shot upward at once, and she raised her hand, preparing to slap Qingyun hard across her lowered face. That pampered hand, its nails dyed with rouge, came down through the air with a sharp swish. Yet just as the palm was about to strike her cheek, Qingyun—who had kept her head lowered all this time—suddenly lifted her eyes. There was no fear there, no pleading, not even any obvious emotional fluctuation. There were only a pair of eyes so calm they were almost indifferent, their pupils dark and deep, fixed directly upon the girl whose raised hand was about to fall. “Mm...!” The girl’s movement froze in midair all at once. For no reason she could understand, her heart tightened sharply, as though some invisible ice needle had stabbed into it. What is this? The person standing before her was clearly nothing more than some insignificant little maid, the sort she ought to have been able to knead round or flatten at will. Why, then, in the instant their eyes met, did she feel as though she had suddenly plunged into an ice cellar? A nameless chill shot up her spine, and the hand she had raised actually began trembling faintly. For a moment, she no longer dared truly bring it down. So the two of them remained deadlocked like that—one with her palm raised, the other with her eyes lifted to meet her—while the atmosphere congealed into something strangely unnatural. The subtle standoff did not last long. “That is enough, Hongrui. Why stoop to quarrel with a rough servant girl? You would only lose face.” Bai Zimo’s voice rang out at just the right moment, lazy and tinged with impatience. He strolled forward at an unhurried pace. On the surface, he seemed to be stopping the altercation, but in truth his gaze drifted with faint amusement between Qingyun and the girl called Hongrui, as though he were merely watching an insignificant little farce. The moment Hongrui heard Bai Zimo speak, the anger vanished from her face at once, instantly replaced by the obedient and gentle expression of a proper maid. She hurriedly lowered her hand, stepped back half a pace, and lowered her head as she said softly, “Yes, Young Master Zimo. I... this servant was only angry for a moment, seeing how ignorant of the rules she was.” The speed of her change was so abrupt that she might as well have become another person. Bai Zimo paid her no further attention. Instead, he walked up before Qingyun and looked her over from head to toe. His gaze was not particularly sharp, yet it carried a kind of casual superiority, as though he were appraising a piece of goods. The moment he approached, Qingyun had already lowered her eyes once more, burying that brief instant of calm completely and replacing it with an even humbler and more obedient posture. She bent her knees in a proper curtsy and said in a voice as calm and flat as still water, “This servant greets Young Master Zimo, and greets Fourth Young Master.” “Oh?” Bai Zimo arched a brow slightly, seeming somewhat surprised. “So you know who I am?” In his own mind, anywhere within the Bai Residence’s inner court, so long as a maid or servant woman had even a little beauty to speak of, or stood even slightly in favor before a master, he would more or less have some impression of her. The girl before him was dressed in the coarse cloth of the lowest servants. There were freckles on her face, and at best her looks could be called delicate and clean. If thrown into a crowd, she would disappear without a trace. A servant like this was not the sort he would ever normally spare a second glance. That she could nevertheless identify him and his fourth brother correctly at a glance stirred in him the tiniest hint of curiosity. Maintaining her curtsey, Qingyun answered neither servilely nor boldly, but with steady moderation: “In reply to Young Master Zimo, this servant has already been in the Bai Residence for several months. Steward Huang personally brought this servant into the household. At that time, Steward Huang briefly introduced the honored members of the residence, lest this servant fail to understand the rules and accidentally offend someone of rank.” She paused, her tone growing even more respectful. “From the day this servant entered the residence, she has been assigned here to attend the Young Miss. This servant has never gone about serving in the outer court or in the courtyards of the other masters. Thus, it is only natural that Young Master has never seen this servant before. It is because this servant’s fortune is too slight.” Her answer was watertight. It explained why she recognized the young master, while at the same time making clear that she had always remained in this remote corner, far removed from the disturbances elsewhere in the residence. Her posture had been lowered to the utmost. “So that is how it is.” After hearing her out, Bai Zimo tugged at the corner of his mouth and gave a faint smile of unclear meaning. Plainly, he had already lost interest in this “rough servant girl of slight fortune.” He had only asked out of idle curiosity to begin with, not because he truly cared about Qingyun at all. In truth, the moment he saw her face clearly—plain, unremarkable, even faintly rustic—the tiny spark of expectation that had arisen from seeing her silhouette and side profile, the thought that she might perhaps be some hidden little beauty, had already vanished without a trace, replaced only by a faint sense of disappointment. Without bothering to conceal it, he gave a low snort of disdain. The sound was not loud, yet it was more than clear enough for Qingyun standing before him, as well as Hongrui and the others to one side, to hear every word. “Tch. How unlucky...” His tone made it sound as though he had seen something unclean, brimming with unconcealed contempt and distaste. The fingers hanging at Qingyun’s side curled inward almost imperceptibly, only to loosen again at once. The expression on her face did not change in the slightest. She remained just as woodenly respectful and subdued as before, though inwardly she let out a cold little click of her tongue. At moments like this, she truly did feel she ought to “thank” the parents of this life for giving her such an ordinary face—the sort that would disappear the moment it was cast into a crowd. In many situations, especially when dealing with wastrels like Bai Zimo, who judged people entirely by appearance and strutted through life on arrogance alone, this very face had become the finest possible disguise, sparing her no end of unnecessary trouble and unwanted attention. Inside and outside the courtyard gate, a brief silence descended. Bai Zimo seemed to have grown bored already and was just about to lead his younger brother and attendants away from this desolate place. The few boys and girls with them had also relaxed again, their expressions once more slipping into easy laughter and casual talk, treating this as nothing more than a trivial interruption along the way. Yet just as the tension was about to ease and the group seemed ready to turn and leave— “What are you doing?!” A clear child’s voice, trembling visibly with anger, suddenly rang out from inside the room behind Qingyun, shattering the false calm. In the next instant, a small figure burst from the room like some young beast enraged, rushing out in only a few quick steps to place herself directly in front of Qingyun. It was Yueli. She had clearly heard the commotion from inside the room. At that moment, her little face was drawn tight, pale from both anger and some other tension too difficult to name. Those rare golden eyes were fixed without blinking upon the unwanted visitors beyond the gate, filled with hostility—especially toward Bai Zimo and Bai Xian, who stood at the very front. She still wore an ordinary pale dress meant for staying indoors. Her silver-white hair hung somewhat untidily over her shoulders, and her small body was trembling faintly from the violence of her emotions. Yet she stubbornly spread both arms wide, shielding Qingyun behind her. There was an unmistakable protectiveness in that posture. And yet it also made her look all the more thin and fragile. Her sudden appearance left everyone outside the courtyard gate momentarily stunned.