Chapter 9: A Little Commotion

Sumei and the others knelt down, but no one took the initiative to apologize. After the initial panic, they felt somewhat indifferent.

"Young Mistress, I..." Sumei covered her cheeks, tears welling up as she began to speak.

"Save whatever you have to say for later." Qiyue interrupted her, sounding somewhat impatient. "Disturbing someone's sleep early in the morning—A-Hao, come in and comb my hair. A-Ru, prepare breakfast..."

Having said that, she turned back into the room, leaving them all hanging.

Sumei bit her lower lip, her face a mix of shame and anger, and looked over at A-Ru.

Ever since receiving that slap, A-Ru had been standing to the side without a word. Seeing Sumei look at her now, she turned and walked away.

"What is she so proud of..." Sumei muttered, biting her lip and twisting her handkerchief fiercely. "If I'm to kneel, I'll kneel. I'm not getting up until the truth is laid bare."

Qiyue sat before the vanity, where she could see into the courtyard. She noticed that while the group of maids had been kneeling obediently at first, they were soon swaying and shifting, clearly unaccustomed to such punishment or having not endured it for a long time.

"...She used to be with us in front of the Old Mistress. Her parents were in charge of the stables, and they spent a fortune to get her into the Old Mistress's courtyard. She would fawn over the elder sisters like a little dog..." A-Hao said. While biting the hair tie in her mouth, she braided three loops into Qiyue's hair. "...After the Old Mistress passed away, she was assigned to the Second Young Mistress's room. Somehow, she managed to worm her way into the room of the newly arrived concubine. With that kind of rootless, grass-like character, she actually got promoted to a second-rank maid in the concubine's quarters, and now her tail is wagging in the clouds... Mistress, you might not know, but there's no qualification for a 'head maid' in a concubine's room... She thinks she can stand on equal footing with Sister A-Ru... She doesn't even stop to think that she's just in a concubine's room, and that concubine was only brought in as a mistress from outside..."

Qiyue listened and chuckled. She hadn't expected so many twists and turns within a group of maids; the interpersonal relationships in this noble household must be incredibly complex.

This Dingxi Marquis was a "new noble," or rather, since the Great Xia Dynasty hadn't been established for long, the entire court was essentially filled with new nobles.

The first-generation Dingxi Marquis was a founding hero who had followed the founding emperor through countless battles. Father and son had earned this glory and family estate over two generations. It had now passed to the third generation, who had grown up in a honey pot. After the old Marquis passed away, his eldest legitimate son, Chang Rong, inherited the title and married a daughter of the Xie clan, a prominent family in the capital. They had an eldest son, Chang Yuncheng. Eighteen years ago, the first wife, the Xie woman, passed away due to illness. The successor was the younger sister of the first wife—the current mistress of the house, the Dingxi Marquis's wife, known as the "Little Xie" to distinguish her from the late mistress.

"Ah? So the younger sister married her brother-in-law?" Qiyue turned her head in surprise.

"Young Mistress, please don't move." A-Hao, who was inserting a hairpin into her hair, said hurriedly.

"Don't wear this one. We aren't going out, so let's be more comfortable at home." Qiyue pulled her hand down and laughed, then asked excitedly, "Tell me more about this younger sister marrying her brother-in-law."

A-Hao was about to say something when A-Ru walked in with the food and happened to hear this. She cleared her throat.

"Young Mistress, it's time to eat," she said, casting a glare at A-Hao.

A-Hao was familiar with that look and knew she had spoken too much and said the wrong thing. She stuck out her tongue and hurried over to help set the table, stopping her chatter.

The meal was still radish, pickled vegetables, millet porridge, and unleavened flour cakes...

"Let's make leavened pancakes next time. This unleavened flour gives me heartburn," Qiyue said.

A-Ru looked ashamed.

"It is this servant's dullness," she said.

"I'll go to the kitchen later and ask how to make them," A-Hao added from the side.

Qiyue looked up at the two of them.

"Oh," she realized, "you two don't know how to cook?"

No wonder the food didn't feel like it belonged to an ancient wealthy family.

Hearing this, A-Ru and A-Hao couldn't help but smile. They were maids who served the mistress and young ladies, not cooks; why would they learn such things?

Qiyue laughed too.

"No need to ask, I'll do it," she said, standing up and walking toward the door.

"Young Mistress, you've eaten so little, have a bit more," A-Hao urged, looking at the millet porridge that had barely been touched.

"No rush, I'll eat more later," Qiyue waved her hand and stepped out.

The two didn't know what she was planning, so they had to follow.

In the courtyard, Sumei and the others, whose knees were aching, heard the movement and looked up. Seeing Qiyue walk out, they immediately straightened their posture, putting on expressions of grievance and pride. However, they didn't expect that this Young Mistress, who had only finished dressing when the sun was high, didn't even glance at them as she walked straight into the kitchen.

"Sister Sumei, if she doesn't tell us to get up, are we just going to keep kneeling?" a maid asked in a low voice from behind.

Sumei bit her lip until it bled, watching the kitchen. The three mistress and servants inside were doing something, and faint laughter drifted out.

"Kneel, what are you afraid of?" she sneered, answering the girl. "When she had the power to show off, she was worse than a servant. Now that she's living worse than a servant, she wants to start acting high and mighty. I want to see what she can actually pull off."

Although this Young Mistress had been in the Dingxi Marquis's mansion for five years, she had spent two of those years with the Old Mistress and wasn't someone the household maids and servants could see whenever they pleased. For the last three years, she had been shut away in her courtyard as if she had vanished, so no one was familiar with her temperament.

"Sister Sumei, you were in the Old Mistress's room before, you must know the Young Mistress well, right? What is her temper like?" the maid asked in a low voice. "We followed you here, so it would be good to know what to expect."

*Good heavens*, they've only been kneeling for a bit and they're already wilting? Sumei glanced at the girl sideways. *You'll be a fourth-rank maid for the rest of your life.*

"Speaking of this Young Mistress," she said with a sneer of disdain, "when the Old Mistress was alive, she truly doted on her. I'm not lying; there wasn't a hint of pretense. Our family's three young ladies were all pushed to the background. If outsiders didn't know better, no one would have guessed she was actually picked up from the streets. She was clearly treated like a beloved biological daughter..."

"It's because the Young Mistress saved the Old Mistress's life..." the maid whispered.

"Saved her life?" Sumei scoffed and curled her lip. "A fourteen or fifteen-year-old beggar girl, what kind of life could she save? I don't know what kind of tricks she used to make the Old Mistress lose her mind. Bringing her in to raise her is one thing—treating her like a cat or dog for amusement—but to actually betroth her to the Heir? What kind of person is our Heir?"

She was so angry she couldn't even stand, her face no longer hurting as she let go of her hands and flicked her handkerchief.

"Sister Sumei, everyone knows she isn't a match for him, but now isn't the time for that. Tell us about her temper—is she a troublemaker or a pushover?" the maid next to her urged.

Sumei finally returned to the point.

"I can't even talk about it; just mentioning it makes my liver ache, let alone how angry the Mistress must have been. Our Mistress had a major illness back then, and it definitely had something to do with this..." she said, clutching her chest. "Speaking of her, she's an orphan who cursed her parents, with no father or mother to discipline her. She ate from a hundred families and wore clothes from a hundred families, spending her days fighting for food with dogs and chickens in front of the temple. Even when the Old Mistress taught her hand-in-hand, she still couldn't carry herself well. She always looked like a petty thief, and you couldn't get a word out of her even if you tried. Forget about meeting the Mistress or the young ladies—she wouldn't even dare to lift her head. Even in front of us maids, she was like a grasshopper, trembling at every little thing. What kind of temper? She has no temper at all. Oh, my god... I can't talk about this anymore. Why am I even kneeling for her? What is she, anyway?"

She started to get up as she spoke, but fortunately, the maid beside her held her down.

"Regardless of whether she was 'something' before, she's in that position in our mansion now..." the maid said, suppressing a laugh as she held up two fingers.

In the inner residence of the Dingxi Marquis's mansion, the Old Mistress was supreme. Now that she was gone, the Marquis's wife was the head, followed by the legitimate eldest son's wife. This position of the primary wife was something the young ladies of the house couldn't compare to, and as for the Marquis's concubines, they were even further down the line.

"The position is there, but it depends on who is sitting in it," Sumei huffed.

"You all seem to be having a lively discussion."

The Young Mistress's voice rang out. The group of maids holding a tea party on their knees realized that the three people from the kitchen had already walked out.

"Young Mistress, this servant..." Sumei's face no longer held grievance, replaced by undisguised anger as she started to speak.

"If you're having such a good time talking, then keep talking for a while longer," Qiyue said with a smile, waving her hand and walking straight into the room without stopping.

Sumei was so angry she almost fainted.

"Xian'er," she called out behind her.

The rough-work maid kneeling at the very back immediately crawled over on her knees.

"What are your orders, Sister?" she asked.

"Get up and go," Sumei said.

The rough-work maid didn't care about anything; she had been impatient from kneeling for so long anyway. Since someone else would take the blame, she stood up immediately and ran off.

"Go tell the matrons in the courtyard that if the Concubine asks for me, cover for me. Tell them Sumei is being disciplined by the Young Mistress and can't get away." Sumei hadn't expected the girl to run off without a word, so she hurriedly shouted her instructions.

Fortunately, while the girl had no other skills, she was adept at finding backers and complaining. She acknowledged the order and vanished in a flash.

Sumei's voice was neither loud nor soft, and the people in the room heard it clearly.

"Young Mistress, she went to call for reinforcements," A-Hao stood at the door and shouted. "How bold, she ran off without permission."

Qiyue was washing the flour off her hands in the basin A-Ru had brought. She smiled at the news.

"I thought she would have gone earlier; she's quite honest to only go now," she laughed, then continued her conversation with A-Ru. "In a while, once the dough has risen, I'll make sugar pancakes for you all to eat."

"How could we dare to trouble the Young Mistress?" A-Ru said, looking uneasy. "It's because we didn't serve you well..."

"Oh, stop talking about that," Qiyue took a towel to dry her hands. A-Ru went to pour out the water, and A-Hao was still standing at the door watching. Qiyue walked to the vanity and pulled out the hand cream A-Ru had used on her the other day.

Just as she finished applying the cream, she heard A-Hao cry out.

"She's here, so fast," she said, her face filled with panic as she looked outside. "Oh my, it's actually Mother Zhou..."

Hearing this, A-Ru couldn't help but look at Qiyue, who was still at the vanity.

Qiyue was still poking around.

"What's her background?" she asked casually.

"She's in charge of the storeroom for the Mistress..." A-Hao's face turned pale.

The person in charge of the storeroom, logistics, and finance was always a close confidant of the leader, so their status was naturally extraordinary. Qiyue nodded, put down what she was holding, and looked out. She saw a woman standing outside the door, followed by two or three other women.

The woman was in her forties, wearing a brown vest over a dark green inner robe. Her hair was combed neatly, and she had a round face with kind features.

"What are you little hussies doing running over here so early in the morning?" she asked, looking at Sumei and the others. "Your Concubine is busy tidying up the courtyard, and a group of little maids is running around with no one to manage them. You've become quite arrogant lately..."

When Sumei and the others saw her arrive, their faces showed surprise and disbelief.

"Mother, Mother." Sumei crawled to her feet, crying and kowtowing, holding her head high so the red marks and scratches on her face were clearly visible. "I offended the Young Mistress."