"They've left?"
The jade brush suddenly broke, and a fine painting was now marred by a flaw.
The fourth young lady was so angry at the beauty that she laughed. In an instant, her fairy-like face turned ruthless with determination: "So what if she leaves? She'll be begging me sooner or later."
Yanji's eyebrows twitched, she knelt and shifted her body, her face flushed with embarrassment: "This servant, this servant has come to beg Fourth Miss..."
Wei Pingxi glanced at her coldly, without saying a word.
As soon as the gate to the villa showed signs of opening, Yuzhi turned and ran away in fright, her breathing still catching and her heart pounding wildly.
Did she really intend to become the fourth young lady's concubine?
Yu Zhi lowered her brows in dejection and sighed repeatedly.
In the Great Yan Dynasty, concubines were considered beneath their dignity. Families who favored concubines over their wives would be criticized, and if they held official positions in the court, they would be impeached by the censors.
Strangely enough, men taking concubines is often hailed by scholars as a romantic and admirable affair, while women who keep male lovers are subjected to verbal and written condemnation by moralists.
Not to mention that the fourth young lady was a woman.
Was the Fourth Miss's offer to make her a concubine sincere or feigned? If it was just a casual remark, what should be done?
Besides, Miss Four has many suitors, and countless men are eager to climb into her bed. Why risk being condemned by everyone to take a concubine in name and in reality?
Wouldn't that be like someone who's desperate enough to jump into a sea of fire?
Yu Zhi thought about it more and more and realized that she was being delusional and didn't even deserve to be someone's concubine.
My mother's greatest wish in life was not to regain her sight, but for her to marry a good man, have children, take charge of the family, and no longer be bullied by bad people.
Getting married, especially to a good man, is too difficult for her.
In both her past and present lives, the only people who were kind to her besides her mother were the fourth young lady.
Yu Zhi walked home sadly, her mind filled with thoughts of the Fourth Miss, feeling ashamed as she thought about it.
I never heard of the Fourth Miss taking anyone as a concubine in my past life.
She had many worries on her mind, which she found difficult to share with outsiders.
In the afternoon, Yuzhi carried the bamboo basket her mother had woven to the shop.
Having received fifty coins from the shopkeeper, he was worried about leaving his mother alone at home, so he hurried back.
In the courtyard, the old woman and Diao Tiezhu were vying for the bundle in the blind woman's arms.
The bundle was shaken open, revealing two silver ingots. The old woman's eyes lit up with greed at the sight of the money: "I told you so! I told you Yu Zhi was a vixen! Otherwise, where would the silver have come from?"
"Give me back my money! That's Zhizhi's dowry money!"
The woman lunged forward to grab it, but being blind, she was pushed to the ground by Diao Tiezhu's large, fan-like hand.
"Mother!"
When she arrived at her doorstep, Yu Zhi's face turned deathly pale.
Diao Tiezhu hadn't expected that his push would cause the woman's head to hit the stone steps.
As blood flowed out, the mother and son who had broken down the door and robbed the man finally realized their fear and hurriedly took the silver to leave.
"Don't let them leave..." Mother Yu said in a trembling voice, "Silver...silver..."
"Mother, Mother, your head..."
At that moment, Yu Zhi was furious at her own incompetence.
The alley was dark and narrow; even a sedan chair couldn't fit through.
The poised and elegant fourth young lady walked silently through the alley. After a while, she asked uncertainly, "Is this where she lives?"
"Yes, miss."
Wei Pingxi remained silent for a moment.
I was amazed that such a beautiful and delicate flower could bloom amidst decay, and I couldn't help but admire that this delicate flower had survived to this day.
The quiet alleyway gradually became noisy. After listening intently for a while, she suddenly quickened her pace.
The thin bamboo stick used to hit people slipped from her hand, and Yu Zhi was pushed to the ground, her clean clothes getting covered in mud.
The commotion was so loud, and no one came out to stop it for so long, which clearly shows that no one cared whether the mother and daughter lived or died.
After recovering from her initial guilt at being caught doing something wrong, the cunning old woman, having been hit on the arm by the vixen, rolled her eyes, her evil intentions growing stronger.
Diao Tiezhu had long coveted Yu Zhi's beauty, and with his mother's tacit approval, he gradually approached her.
The gate to the courtyard was bolted shut by the old woman. Seeing that things were not going well, Yu Zhi kept shrinking back, saying, "Don't come any closer!"
Upon hearing this, Wei Pingxi's heart trembled, and he kicked the wooden bolt blocking the doorway.
With a bang.
Wood chips flew everywhere.
At this critical moment, the shrew didn't expect anyone to come, and she turned pale with fright.
Diao Tiezhu was halfway unbuckling his belt when he heard the sound and suddenly turned around.
The courtyard was in a mess.
Jade and Agate were secretly shocked, and when they looked at Miss Yu, whose face was pale and whose eyes were filled with fear and tears, they felt a pang of pity.
Yu Zhi thought she was going to die again. The moment she saw Wei Pingxi, she trembled all over: "Fourth Miss, Fourth Miss, please save us!"
The sound of "Fourth Miss" momentarily halted Wei Pingxi's raging anger.
With her thin lips slightly pursed, she pointed at the terrified Diao Tiezhu, leaned down, and asked softly, "Don't panic, where did he touch you?"
Yu Zhi glanced at her mother who had fainted. She wanted to teach the Diao family mother and son a lesson, but she was afraid of saying the wrong thing and causing the Fourth Miss to misunderstand that she was dirty. In the end, she chose to tell the truth.
She shook her head: "He didn't touch me, but he wanted to, he wanted to bully me..."
Wei Pingxi took a deep breath: "Cripple him!"
A wail arose.
The Diao family mother and son ran into a brick wall and complained bitterly.
Yu Zhi, tears welling in her eyes, gently tugged at the Fourth Miss's sleeve: "Please, please save my mother."
Wei Pingxi wanted to ask her how she knew she was the "Fourth Miss," since many people in Lingnan Prefecture knew her name but few had actually seen her.
Meeting the beautiful woman's pleading gaze, she tucked the jade fan to her waist and, condescending to do so, carried the blind woman on her back to the nearest clinic.
"Keep up."
Miss Wei's voice was as clear as jade.
Having narrowly escaped death, Yu Zhi was suddenly jolted by the tone of the voice, and a subtle tingling sensation ran through her ears.
Staring blankly at the fourth young lady carrying her mother ahead, she wiped away her tears, laughing and crying at the same time.
Chapter 6 Can you handle it?
A traditional Chinese medicine clinic.
The old doctor treated the blind woman's forehead wound, and Yuzhi stayed by her mother's side, worried about her.
"don’t worry."
"Thank you."
The two people in the room spoke one after the other. Wei Pingxi chuckled, his tone rather helpless: "Why are you crying again?"
Yu Zhi is naturally prone to tears, and is made of water. Having survived this ordeal, she is filled with gratitude towards the Fourth Miss.
She owed her a meal in her past life, but without her timely intervention in this life, she and her mother would have been helpless and desperate, even bullied to death with no one to claim their bodies.
The tyranny of the Diao family mother and son, and the indifference of the neighbors in Liushui Lane, all served as a wake-up call to Yu Zhi's sensitive heart.
The desire to find a powerful backer grew stronger.
She was too embarrassed to look at the Fourth Miss's gaze, perhaps it was a rare tenderness. She steadied herself, sobbed for a moment, and reached for her handkerchief but found nothing.
"Use mine."
A brocade handkerchief with a magnolia pattern and gold thread edging was handed to her. Yu Zhi's eyelashes were wet with tears, and with a pat, the tear fell to the ground.
Stunningly delicate and beautiful.
Wei Pingxi gasped and stepped forward to wipe away the tears from the corners of her eyes.
She had never seen such a crybaby before, and found it all quite fascinating. Ignoring her mother's unconscious state in bed, she softly asked, "Does your mother know you're the reincarnation of a crybaby?"
Yu Zhi, whose plans were full of scheming, was embarrassed and at a loss when she was called a "crybaby": "Who, who is a crybaby?"
If she remembers correctly, the fourth young lady's birthday is in March, and she will only turn eighteen in April.
She was five years older than the fourth young lady. Five years apart, she was already of the age to be a wife and mother in an ordinary family. Yu Zhi blushed with embarrassment and couldn't help but tease her.
People tend to have more patience for interesting and fun things. Wei Pingxi glanced at her a few times, then glanced at her again, and stuffed the handkerchief into the beauty's palm, his slender fingers wrapping around her jade-like hand: "Have you thought it through?"
Yuzhi knew what she was asking.
"Have you thought it through and decided to be with me?"
Miss Wei glanced in the direction of the sickbed and spoke in a low voice.
Her voice was soft and gentle, deliberately lowered, unintentionally making one's ears itch and one's heart tremble.
Yu Zhi's heart was churning with emotion. Her willow-leaf eyes, red with tears, stared at the other person, neither saying yes nor no.
Yu's mother struggled to wake up.
Wei Pingxi slowly released her grip, her smiling eyes glancing at Yu Zhi from time to time. Yu Zhi felt her face flush under her gaze and quickly sat on the edge of the bed: "Mother, Mother, are you alright?"
After suffering this ordeal, Yu's mother woke up in a daze, and only after exchanging a few words of greeting did she remember what had happened.
Upon learning that the person was at the clinic, the Diao mother and son received the lesson they deserved. They also learned that they had been kindly brought here by "Zhizhi's friend," and they got up to thank the person.
"Auntie, please slow down."
The fourth young lady was well-mannered and had the air of a lady from a prominent family. She personally helped Yu's mother back to bed and smiled, "Zhizhi and I hit it off immediately. Her mother is my mother. Helping you is helping me. What I did is nothing. It would be my fault if someone dared to humiliate you."