Chapter 846 A Strange Servant Girl
“Yes, we are!” Yan Xi thought for a second and said. He had things to do. It was luck that Duke Xing had just advised him to go out of the mansion sometimes.
“Then let’s go now, Master. Childe w.a.n.g is still waiting for us,” the servant nodded and said with a smile.
As Yan Xi went to meet Childe w.a.n.g, a feeling of displeasure came through his head. He didn’t have a good impression of w.a.n.g Shengxue, another nephew of Duke Xing’s, who seemed to be a wretched and evil person in Yan Xi’s eyes. But w.a.n.g was very kind to Yan Xi, so it was hard for the latter to say out his wish of cutting off contact with the former.
w.a.n.g Shengxue had been wandering at an intersection of the corner. When he saw Yan Xi, he rushed over with joy and yelled, “Childe Yan!”
“Childe w.a.n.g!”
“Hurry up! We have to go now. If we are late, we will lose the chance to save her and that is really bad.” w.a.n.g Shengxue said with a very happy smile.
“Thanks for waiting for me, Childe w.a.n.g!” Yan Xi bowed to w.a.n.g Shengxue and took a deep look at him, confused with his unreasoning happiness.
“Childe Yan, you’re too polite and humble. It is you who are so warmhearted to offer help when encountering such things. I happen to be free and I am just intolerant to see that a foreigner is bullied. Let’s go, let’s go! We can’t delay anymore or there will be big trouble!”
w.a.n.g Shengxue patted his chest with a serious look, and then put down his hand again. Finally, he reached out with intimacy, wanting to grasp Yan Xi’s sleeves.
Yan Xi, feeling uneasy, raised his hand and perfectly avoided w.a.n.g Shengxue’s catching, and then he said with indifference, “Let’s go!”
He didn’t like very much the various accidents resulting from a good deed and his “friends.h.i.+p” with w.a.n.g Shengxue. But once he had taken action to help someone, he had to make it.
Actually, even Yan Xi was baffled about what had caused such a thing. And w.a.n.g Shengxue, as a “pa.s.ser-by”, was even more serious about it than he was, which drove Yan Xi to think that w.a.n.g Shengxue might not be as bad as he thought.
They finally set off in a hurry after a few words. On a rockery, Shao Wanru stood high and watched them leaving with cold eyes.
She didn’t expect that Yan Xi and w.a.n.g Shengxue had such a good relations.h.i.+p that they almost didn’t need to stand on ceremony.
“It was strange,” Shao Wanru thought, believing that there must be something covered. She still remembered that w.a.n.g Shengxue had the goods on Madam Jiang, Madam of Duke Xing, the evidence that she murdered w.a.n.g Yishu. But the “goods” were completely useless now because Madam Jiang had been disgraced and kicked out of Duke Xing’s family. Even if he made her crime public, it would not do much harm to the reputation of Duke Xing’s Mansion.
“Therefore, w.a.n.g Shengxue is no longer a threat to Duke Xing’s Mansion now?” Shao Wanru thought, “w.a.n.g Shengxue was certainly not a good person. There must be a reason for him to be so interested in the matters of Duke Xing’s Mansion like this!”
In her last life, both she and Yan Xi had almost been ruined in their lives. Was it because of her or Yan Xi? What made him so special that he was aimed and then framed?
Who it was that conspired with Duke Xing’s Mansion and plotted against her and Yan Xi at that time? If it didn’t exist, could it be that someone of Duke Xing’s Mansion was the only enemy? Before, she didn’t know that Yan Xi was living in Duke Xing’s Mansion, nor did she know why he lived there. Now, after careful contemplation, it seemed that only people of Duke Xing’s Mansion would have the intention to plot against him!
Who on earth was the real schemer?
“Take a shortcut and ask the coachman to give them a ride,” Shao Wanru ordered, because w.a.n.g Shengxue was not a man who preferred walking somewhere. She had an intuition that their destination was where she saw the City Gate that day. It was far away from Duke Xing’s Mansion, and it would take a while to get there even by carriage.
“There must be something behind! Though she was just a servant girl, it was not an easy thing to make her sacrifice herself voluntarily to set someone up. Who was the person behind?”
The coachman Shao Wanru had just mentioned was brought by her from Rui’an Great Elder Princess’s Mansion. Now he was a registered servant of her, so he could be regarded as a coachman of Duke Xing’s Mansion.
“Yes, Miss! I am going to do as you said right away.” Receiving her master’s order, Yujie nodded, ran down the rockery, and went to the parking lot through a shortcut.
w.a.n.g Shengxue with Yan Xi went to the parking lot ahead of Yujie. Yan Xi didn’t want to trouble the people in Duke Xing’s Mansion. Although Shao Jing had given them the instruction of taking good care of him, he preferred not to trouble anyone. After all, he was just a lodger in the mansion, so it was really embarra.s.sing for him to ask for services all the time.
But w.a.n.g Shengxue was different. He repeatedly emphasized that it was trivial. “Moreover, there are a lot of carriages available. It will be fine to use one of them. Look, it will take a long time either to go there or come back. It will be very inconvenient if we walk.”
After hearing his persuasion, Yan Xi thought that it did make sense. Thinking that he might have to save time for his study, he made up his mind and went to the parking lot with w.a.n.g.
As soon as they arrived there, a coachman happened to be feeding fodders to the horses which were about to pull the carriage. What the right time!
“Get a carriage and give me and Childe Yan a ride,” instead of picking a good carriage carefully, w.a.n.g Shengxue casually pointed to one as he said to the coachman.
The coachman, heading up and looking at the two Childes, nodded without hesitation and drove the pointed carriage over. “Get in, please!” he said to them respectfully.
Every time the coachmen in the mansion saw w.a.n.g Shengsue, they were very indifferent to him. It was known to all that Old Madam didn’t like him, nor did Duke Xing want to talk with him. It was said that he had created a tremendous uproar in Duke Xing’s Mansion before and it became an unpleasant memory. The coachmen knew little about the details, which, however, didn’t stop them from knowing that their masters were not fond of Childe w.a.n.g. However, he was not forbidden to come to the mansion.
Therefore, Childe w.a.n.g was quite an embarra.s.sing person in the mansion, and he was even not popular with the servants there. Today, however, there was a polite coachman who showed respect to him. And being respected, w.a.n.g Shengxue felt very comfortable when enjoying it, so he specially patted the coachman on the shoulder as a reward.
Both of them got on the carriage, and w.a.n.g Shengxue said an address. The coachman waved his whip and drove the carriage out of Duke Xing’s Mansion. Then he turned at the corner of the street and went toward the City Gate.
Shao Wanru’s supposition was proved. Their destination was indeed beside the City Gate.
As the carriage was running all the way forward, they made several turns and took detours via a few paths before they reached the destination, which was w.a.n.g Shengxue’s idea. And the road they went along was very familiar to w.a.n.g Shengxue.
They stopped at the back door of a courtyard. w.a.n.g Shengxue jumped off first, walked to the back door, and knocked on it gently. The coachman noticed that there was a certain rhythm in his knocking.
Yan Xi also got out of the carriage and stood behind w.a.n.g Shengxue. Behind the door came the sound of footsteps, and then the door was opened. They saw a servant girl with slightly wet eyes. w.a.n.g Shengxue stepped aside, and the servant girl saw Yan Xi.
“Childe Yan!” the maid cried. The moment she saw Yan Xi, she showed a complicated expression of happiness and sadness on her face.
“What’s wrong? Is your Miss well?” Yan Xi asked.
“Childe Yan, why don’t you come in and see her first? Our Miss would rather die than give in. If… if there is no way…” the servant girl wiped her tears with a handkerchief.
The coachman was sitting high on the carriage, from which he could see that the servant girl was not crying, but she was pretending to be by wiping her face with the handkerchief.
“Let’s go in first!” w.a.n.g Shengxue glanced at the coachman warily and said in a low voice while giving way for Yan Xi.
Yanshu nodded and stepped into the courtyard. The servant girl fell behind him. When she saw w.a.n.g Shengxue beside her, she also bowed to him and then turned around to follow behind Yan Xi.
It was clearly seen by the coachman that the servant girl had eye contact with w.a.n.g Shengxue when she bowed to him. It was subtle, and they seemed to be very familiar with each other, about which the coachman was not very sure. But he could tell that the servant girl behaved as if she met an acquaintance because she didn’t hide from him the fact that there were no tears on her face.
The coachman paid close attention to them because he had received an order of keeping an eye on Childe w.a.n.g and Childe Yan, which was delivered by the servant girl of Fifth Miss.
This was also the reason why the two Childes could meet him.
“Wait here until Childe Yan and I come out and then we go back together,” w.a.n.g Shengxue ordered before he went inside. The coachman nodded and then watched the three of them disappear into the courtyard.
The whole thing did not make sense. Childe Yan was the one mainly involved in the issue and also the one to whom the servant girl asked for help just now. It turned out that the Miss of this courtyard should be someone related to Childe Yan. Strangely, the servant girl seemed to be related to w.a.n.g Shengxue. When they looked at each other just now, it seemed that they had a tacit understanding.
At first, the coachman was a servant in Rui’an Great Elder Princess’s Mansion. Thanks to his cleverness, he was sent to serve Shao Wanru. At this time, the more he thought about it, the more he was convinced that there’s something fishy in it. “There was something wrong with the servant girl, so was there with w.a.n.g Shengxue. But the whole thing was the biggest mystery.”
Looking around, the coachman decided to park the carriage in a corner where there was a tree by the side of the road. Some of its branches reached inside the enclosing wall of the courtyard which Childe Yan and Childe w.a.n.g had just entered.
After the carriage was parked, the coachman found that part of it was covered by the branches from the sight. The branches even blocked part of the courtyard wall.
That was a small lane through which few people would pa.s.s. Getting off the carriage, he climbed up the wall with the help of the branches. The carriage happened to block him from the pa.s.ser-by’s sight.
High on his position, the coachman found it only a small courtyard that had nothing different from others. It was the same as most of the small courtyards in the capital city. Looking around, he saw that the door of the main room was half-closed, and heard some sounds of a woman’s crying and complaining in broken words.
The coachman couldn’t hear clearly what the woman was saying. There were also men’s voices from time to time. He could tell that most of the time it was Childe w.a.n.g who was speaking, and sometimes Childe Yan cut in. It sounded that they were comforting the woman.
That was all he could hear. From his position, he could not see the situation inside the main room.
The coachman looked around, only to find it a bad idea for him to sneak in.
After crying and speaking for a while, the woman sounded soft and calm. w.a.n.g Shengxue was persuading her with heart. Childe Yan’s voice could be heard from time to time.
After a long time, the coachman saw some figures moving out from the door of the main room, so he jumped down from the wall nimbly and got back on the ground. He stood casually beside the carriage and waited for them to come out.