[We still aren’t back to Chuchu’s POV… and won’t be for a bit longer, I’m afraid.
Slight TW for the original Zhang Qinglian being a rat b.a.s.t.a.r.d.]
Hong Feng always remembers her first day at the Zhang Residence, as she had truly never seen such a gorgeous place before.
It was the first time she entered Zhang Qinglian’s designated bedroom, and the first time that intricately-carved mahogany bed that was as big as small room.
“You will sleep here.” He pointed at the footstool at the end of the bed that was a person wide. The lamp’s flame flickered, illuminating his abnormally attractive face, and in the indistinct shade his eyes held covert treachery, his thin red lips being exceptionally red. He was only a bit like a human, more resembling a legendary monster.
Hong Feng looked at it, expression unchanging and saying nothing, only her high eyebrows betraying a faint trace of awkwardness. Yet his sharp eyes caught it, and he said, “You are my personal maid. If I need water in the middle of the night, and you have to attend to me, then of course you’d sleep here! …What? Is the lone heroine regretting this?” His voice got shrill at the end.
Hong Feng lightly shook her head, her peaceful temperament still going strong. She won’t mind this very small disgrace.
The torment truly was doubled at night. She had just laid down upon the cold and stiff attendant’s footstool, wrapped in only a thin single-layered blanket. Fortunately, she’s someone who knows martial arts and doesn’t fear cold or heat; were an ordinary girl in her place, she could freeze or fall ill.
A moment later, she was just beginning to drift off due to being weary for a whole day when she was suddenly lightly kicked awake. Zhang Qinglian was glaring at her with his beautiful black eyes. “I need water.”
She rubbed her eyes, rapidly getting up, the winter night freezing one to the bones, and she’s only wearing a close-fitting inner robe. Going to grab him a cup, before she carried to the the bed, he sat up, his long black hair hanging before his white satin clothing, coolly looking at her for a long time without continuing on, until, “I want to use that jade lotus-leaf cup.”
Hong Feng rummaged around for a time, found the cup he wanted, and poured water into it. He only drank one sip from Hong Feng’s hand before he didn’t want anymore.
Then, a little while later, Hong Feng was asleep, and was awoken again. He said, “I’m cold.”
The drowsy-eyed Hong Feng looked at him blankly.
“If you don’t want to warm my bed, go find a quilt.”
Therefore, there was another scene of overturning trunks and boxes. With great difficulty, she found for him the feather-stuffed, all-birds-look-up-to-the-phoenix-pattern quilt he wanted, and covered him with it. Just as she laid down, he called her again, “I need to go to the bathroom.”
He was reclined on the bed, no tiredness in his bright eyes, expressionless as he spoke.
Hong Feng stared for a moment, then got up and went to fetch the chamberpot. He sat up again, but didn’t take it. “How can I use it if you’re not holding it?”
[T/N: ಠ_ಠ]
Hong Feng couldn’t stop her face from getting red. Clenching her jaw, she still lowered her eyes and calmed her brows, holding it in her hands to serve him as she turned her head and didn’t dare to look. There was the sound of him undoing his clothes, followed by the sound of water echoing close from her hands, and she’s unable to even think of the smell.
“Embarra.s.sed?” He sneered as he shuffled his clothes back together. “Since you’re to be my maid, you can only belong to me in this life, and whether you’ll have to serve me lying down is also hard to say. Don’t tell me you didn’t think of that then, lone heroine?”
He was still asleep in the morning. A young maid brought him hot water to wash his face with. Hong Feng can’t bear to wake him up immediately, and after taking the basin and having the young servant withdraw, she waited half a stick of incense until he woke.
Who would’ve thought that Zhang Qinglian’s complexion would sink after he put a finger in the water? He called for the young maid standing outside the door to come in, then dumped the basin of hot water over her head. “Wh.o.r.e!” he cursed, “You want me to freeze to death?”
Hong Feng startled, promptly saying that it had been her own idea, but Zhang Qinglian turned a deaf ear to it, repeatedly calling for people to come and hang the young maid. The girl was only thirteen or fourteen, drenched in water and thoroughly trembling, not daring to refute it and merely pulling back into a corner to weep. Someone came in to drag her out and she grabbed onto a chair leg for dear life, sorrowfully calling out to Hong Feng with a “Miss, please save me!”, her voice mournful and desperate, her entire person being dragged out along with the redwood official’s hat chair; the situation is difficult to watch.
The boundary between Hong Feng’s alarm and fury was blurred, and after her first explanation came pleading for leniency. He acted as if he heard nothing until Hong Feng came to her knees before him, and then he only looked her in the eyes, reaching out to hold her chin. “You’re asking for mercy for her?” His voice is slightly soft.
The awfully conscientious Hong Feng lowered her eyes, voice not loud or soft yet very distinct. “I’m begging you.”
He slightly turned up his lips, which slowly appeared as an evil smirk. Bending his head to look at her up close, he said unhurriedly, “What is this ‘you’? Do I not have a name?”
Hong Feng can’t stop from feeling extremely mortified. Having already been forced to her limit, she had no choice but raise her head and look at him in earnest sorrow, whispering, “I’m begging you, Brother Qingtong.”
His smile gradually widened, but there was a very faint gloom in his eyes. “Remember,” he spoke right next to her hear, voice very airy and gentle yet with a fine steel dagger inside, seemingly a mix of black Antarctic ice mixed with viper’s venom. “There is no Brother Qingtong here, only your Master, and you have call me Master or Sir.”
Hong Feng’s straight, kneeling body quaked, the four basic human emotions unable to be seen on her face. She slowly lowered her eyes with her beautiful long eyelashes, and obediently said without wavering, “Yes, Sir.”
Zhang Qinglian didn’t have the maid hanged, but did get people to give her sixty lashes. “Sell her to a brothel if she doesn’t die,” he instructed indifferently. No matter how Hong Feng pleaded with him, it was useless.
“I’ve already given you quite a lot of face.” He reached out to feel the exquisite texture of the skin on Hong Feng’s face. “You’re just a maid here, no matter how favored you are you can’t be spoiled.” His eyes flashed with light. “Or… is the lone heroine going to do the work of the Heavens and strike down the evil tyrant that I am?”
From outside came the pained yelps and cries of the young maiden, making one’s stomach clench. Hong Feng knelt on the ground, not making a move the whole time. One the sixty lashes were done, blood was coming from her bottom lip where she had bitten it through.
This is the bed she’s made. Searching for him for a very long two years, a few things had noisily shattered in her world and were no longer able to be fixed. She knows that she is no longer her own and will never again have a clear conscience. She no longer has any time for her ideals and morals, and no longer has the most important thing she insisted upon.
However difficult it is for one to persist in their beliefs, the alternative is truly the most painful thing in this world.
Her ideals collapsed the way an idol crumbles and it hurts worse than a hundred knives, more despairing than deception and betrayal, because before that sge could blame others to ease the pain but now she can only corrupt and torment her own soul.
From that day forth, she grew accustomed to called Zhang Qinglian “Sir”. Her words grow fewer and more concise while her att.i.tude gets more prudent, doing whatever matter by herself, quickly evolving down the path of a perfect maid from that of a heroine.
Zhang Qinglian spent the rest of the day happy and didn’t torment her again that night.
That young maid was weak-bodied and ultimately didn’t hold out after three days, meaning she naturally couldn’t be sent to a brothel. Was she unlucky, or lucky?
Such an event isn’t rare in the Zhang Residence, and apart from Hong Feng and that maid’s mother, there aren’t many people who’d remember it.
As for Hong Feng’s career as a maid, it had only just begun.