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CHAPTER 1: The Little Maid Has a Dream
In the rear residence of the Marquis of Dingyuan's estate, the peach blossoms outside the window were blooming in all their delicate, dazzling beauty.
Yet the eldest young lady, Huo Yingyun, was currently tugging at the peach blossoms that the little maid had just picked for her. She crushed those peach blossoms into tiny pieces, and their rosy-red juice stained her slender, jade-like fingers with a faint blush.
“Xiang Wu, what do you think?”
Huo Yingyun looked toward the maid beside her, Xiang Wu.
“What...?”
Xiang Wu looked at Huo Yingyun somewhat bewilderedly. She hadn't heard what her young mistress had just said.
“I mean the young master of the Chu family. Didn't you hear what I just said?”
Huo Yingyun looked at Xiang Wu suspiciously.
“No.”
After hearing that, Xiang Wu hurriedly shook her head.
“What did Miss just say about the young master of the Chu family?”
Huo Yingyun carefully looked Xiang Wu over.
She confirmed that Xiang Wu wasn't pretending. She really hadn't heard what she had said.
Without showing anything unusual on her face, Huo Yingyun smiled.
“I'm talking to you, so why aren't you listening properly? What are you thinking about?”
When Xiang Wu heard this, she immediately felt ashamed. She lowered her head and said awkwardly,
“I had a dream last night... I was thinking about my dream...”
Huo Yingyun smiled as she bit her lip, deliberately teasing her.
“What kind of dream could make you think about it this much? Don't tell me it was a spring dream?”
Xiang Wu instantly became flustered. She hurriedly shook her head and waved her hands.
“No, it wasn't! Really, it wasn't!”
Huo Yingyun's gaze lightly swept over her.
“Wasn't it? If it wasn't, then why are you so nervous?”
Xiang Wu bit her lip. Her expression was aggrieved and helpless as she said,
“Miss, Xiang Wu had a dream. In the dream, my head was shaved, and I went to a nunnery to become a nun.”
Although Xiang Wu was merely a little maid, she had been born with a bright and delicate beauty. Her skin was fair and pure, like newly fallen snow in the mountains, while also possessing the translucent smoothness of the finest young jade.
Her pair of dark eyes were large and bright, as though they held a layer of clear water within them.
Now, with an innocent and bewildered look of grievance on her face, shaking her head and waving her hands, she looked rather sweet and adorably naive.
From time to time, when Huo Yingyun sat before her mirror doing her hair and makeup, she would glance at the little maid beside her.
Every time she did, she couldn't help feeling that this little maid's beauty could actually outshine her own.
This made Huo Yingyun somewhat displeased.
There had even been a time when she had considered selling this little maid off.
Fortunately, Xiang Wu was truly and utterly loyal to her.
Once, Huo Yingyun had come down with a cold. She had deliberately made up a prescription off the top of her head, casually claiming that wrist blood was needed as the medicinal guide.
To her surprise, Xiang Wu had actually believed her.
With her eyes tightly shut, she had steeled herself and actually cut her own wrist.
Quite a lot of blood had flowed at the time.
Fortunately, they discovered her in time, and it hadn't resulted in a death.
Huo Yingyun had struggled with the matter for a while.
In the end, she decided to keep Xiang Wu and allow her to continue staying by her side.
She had even planned that once she got married, Xiang Wu could accompany her as part of her bridal entourage.
With Xiang Wu's temperament, she would be extremely easy to control.
If she were placed in the household and used to win over the future husband, she would be the most suitable choice of all.
However, she was merely a tool meant to attract the future husband.
Naturally, she could never be allowed to steal the mistress's position or become more important than her.
If anything happened, Huo Yingyun would have to make a decisive move and get rid of her immediately, lest she bring about trouble.
After all, this little Xiang Wu was simply too beautiful.
Not to mention men, even Huo Yingyun herself would occasionally find herself unable to resist the urge to reach out and touch that small, tender, rosy face.
Now, hearing Xiang Wu say this, Huo Yingyun couldn't help but let out a little laugh.
“It's only a dream. Why take it seriously? I thought you were going to—”
“What does my lady mean?" Xiangwu asked timidly.
Huo Yingyun's gaze shifted playfully, and she deliberately said, "I thought that when you heard me mention Young Master Chu, your heart would flutter and you'd be dreaming of him too!"
Hearing this, all the rosy warmth drained from Xiangwu's delicate face. With a wry expression, she pleaded, "Why must my lady tease this servant so? If I ever dared harbor improper thoughts toward Young Master Chu, may I be struck by lightning and meet a miserable end! My lady must believe me."
Huo Yingyun was rather surprised by this reaction. She had only meant to tease the little maid, never expecting her to resort to such a harsh oath. "Oh, there's no need to go that far," she relented. "I was just thinking… though our Xiangwu is only a little maid, she's blessed with quite a striking face. Who doesn't take a second look when she walks by? If you truly had your heart set on Young Master Chu, I wouldn't mind at all. I could give you to him; it would be doing a good deed to make a match."
Xiangwu hastily replied, "My lady, you really must be joking. You and Young Master Chu are a match made in heaven… a talented scholar and a beautiful lady, as the books say. Young Master Chu is of noble birth; how could he ever take a fancy to a lowly maid like me? Everyone says I have some looks, but my status is too humble to ever grace high society. I'm nothing like my lady, who excels in the zither, chess, calligraphy, and painting, carrying herself with the refined grace of a true noble daughter. Whenever people see us together, they can tell at a glance: the lady is the lady, and I am simply born with a maid's destiny. We are... we are as far apart as clouds and mud!"
She spoke with such earnest fervor that by the end of it, her little face was flushed with anxiety.
Hearing this clumsy, unorthodox flattery, Huo Yingyun couldn't help but chuckle. After pondering it for a moment, she conceded, "Though your phrasing is vulgar, there is some truth to it. Great aristocratic families place far more weight on lineage, character, and talent. Only when choosing concubines and bed-attendants do they care about mere looks. Though you are beautiful, you are far too striking and lack true decorum. Even if I were to gift you to Young Master Chu, you could only ever be a lowly concubine."
Her words were, naturally, a warning meant to put the little maid in her place and remind her to keep to her station.
After all, earlier today at Nanshan Temple, Young Master Chu had seemed to linger a second glance upon Xiangwu just before leaving. It had stirred an uneasy, lingering doubt in her heart.
Lowly though Xiangwu may be, the thought of her becoming Young Master Chu's concubine—even a low-ranking one—still felt like a thorn in her side.
Xiangwu nodded vigorously, her large, limpid eyes wide and compliant as she murmured, "This servant understands. If I were to harbor improper thoughts, I would only end up as a lowly concubine, despised and beaten by everyone!"
Satisfied, Huo Yingyun stopped pulling apart the peach blossom and walked over to her vanity mirror, signaling her other maid, Yueqing, to help her dress her hair. The new set of hair accessories she had ordered had finally arrived today. They would be perfect to adorn herself with for Lady Chu's upcoming birthday banquet next month, where she would surely draw the admiration of all!
Seeing that her mistress had dropped the subject, Xiangwu finally let out a silent sigh of relief.
She picked up a piece of half-finished embroidery lying nearby, working on it absentmindedly while her thoughts drifted back to the dream she had suffered through last night.
The dream had been utterly bizarre.
In it, she had apparently been living inside a book, cast as some sort of female supporting character. She was still a lady's maid, and her mistress still held feelings for the young master of the Chu family. The two of them quickly fell deeply in love, followed by the Chu family sending a formal proposal. Everything went smoothly: her mistress was married off to the Chu household with a grand procession stretching for miles, and she herself had tagged along as a personal dowry maid.
Yet once she arrived, she had grown restless. She began to flirt with and seduce the young master of the Chu family. To her horror, once the young master tasted forbidden fruit, he couldn't tear himself away from her. Every single night he demanded her company, holding her close in his arms and doting on her as if she were a precious treasure.
Though Xiangwu had no particular feelings for the Young Master Chu of the dream, having such an affectionate and doting partner didn't seem like the worst thing in the world, and she wouldn't have considered it a nightmare—except for the catch: the Chu master had doted on her for less than half a year before suddenly growing sick of her. He went straight to her mistress, claiming that she had seduced him, that she had clung to him relentlessly, and that he had only been temporarily blinded by lust while his true love had always been the mistress!
The mistress forgave the young master, and the two of them became as inseparable and thick as thieves once more. As for herself? She was branded a seductive vixen of loose morals, and the mistress decided to cast her out—gifted away as a concubine to some withered old man.
Despite Xiangwu's desperate, tearful cries and pleas to escape the fate of serving an old man, she had ultimately grabbed a pair of scissors and disfigured her own face.
With a ruined face, she was naturally worthless, rendering her impossible to present to the old man. In the end, she had been cast out into a desolate, remote nunnery, left to spend the rest of her days surrounded by nothing more than flickering oil lamps and cold Buddha statues.
When Xiangwu woke up, the lingering anguish in her chest was overwhelming.
She couldn't make sense of the dream. Why on earth would she go out of her way to seduce her mistress's husband? She truly disliked that Young Master Chu!
As for falling into such a miserable fate because of that seduction, it was simply beyond reason.
Xiangwu felt utterly wretched inside. Waking up, she had felt like a wandering ghost—spiritless and completely lost. Now, being put on the spot and manipulated by her mistress's interrogation only made her heart race with terror.
Gripping the needlework tightly in her hands, she vowed to herself that come what may, she must never harbor any stray thoughts about "seducing the master." Her mistress was a formidable woman; if she ever entertained such notions, she wouldn't even know how she died!
Just as her mind raced, she suddenly heard Yueqing cry out, "Xiangwu, what are you doing? Who told you to embroider this?"
Xiangwu snapped back to reality, jolted with fright. She hurriedly looked down at her hands—and froze in absolute shock.
"I, I—" She hadn't been thinking; she had simply seen the needlework and automatically picked it up. Normally, she was the one who handled the vast majority of the sewing in her mistress's chambers anyway, so grabbing it out of habit seemed natural enough.
But this piece of needlework seemed to be different from what she usually worked on.
This was the Marquis's belt!
Huo Yingyun had just finished dressing herself and was admiring her own dignified and beautiful appearance in front of the dressing mirror when she heard this. She frowned slightly and looked over.
She beckoned. “Bring that belt over here and let me have a look.”
It was her father's belt.
Normally, everything her father used was made by professional embroiderers. But a few days ago, when she had gone to see her father, she had suddenly wanted to show her filial devotion. She had taken the initiative to say that she would embroider a belt for her father herself.
Her father had merely glanced at her indifferently and said nothing.
She had ended up stuck halfway through the project and could only force herself to continue embroidering it. Now that she had been working on it for several days without producing anything worthwhile, she had been wondering how she was going to hand it over without embarrassing herself.
Yueqing brought the belt before Huo Yingyun in both hands, while continuing to mutter,
“This is something Miss personally made for the Marquis. How dare Xiang Wu touch it? She certainly has some nerve! She's ruining the filial devotion Miss has shown toward the Marquis!”
Huo Yingyun carefully examined the belt.
It was embroidered with auspicious clouds and orchids.
Originally, the embroidery she had done looked rather dull and lifeless. But after Xiang Wu had added just a few stitches, the auspicious clouds suddenly became light and graceful, while the orchids suddenly appeared fresh and lively.
The entire design seemed to have come alive.
She smiled.
“Give this to my father and tell him I embroidered it.”
Huh?
Xiang Wu was slightly startled.
She could do that?
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