Chapter 9: Crying Solves Everything

He raised a brow and looked around the room. He was about to call someone to ask when he heard a soft murmur from inside the bed curtains.

“My lord is back?” she asked groggily.

The curtain parted. The beauty was warm and soft from sleep, like someone just waking from a spring dream. Her face was flushed with rosy clouds, and her chest rose and fell sharply.

He sat down at the bedside with a half smile and glanced at her shoes: “Didn’t Nanny Xun say you were up?”

She lowered her eyes: “My body felt unwell, so I lay down again for a while.”

“Oh? Then why are you sweating?” He reached out to touch her forehead with a show of concern. “Are you sick?”

After running that hard, not sweating would be the real sickness.

Ming Yi panted a couple of times and nestled against his hand, whimpering: “I had a nightmare. I dreamed my lord found a new love and did not want this servant anymore.”

Ji Bozai chuckled: “How could that be? Yi’er is so delicate and moving. Who could please this lord more than you?”

If she had not seen that scene in the study with her own eyes a moment ago, she might actually have believed this nonsense.

She secretly wiped the sweat from her forehead and smiled innocently: “I knew my lord was the best.”

Ji Bozai looked down at her and found it very amusing.

This girl clearly knew martial arts, yet she played weak and coy in front of him. Her background was so clean, but her behavior was so strange, and it was hard not to think of the one in the inner court.

Was there something in the study of this villa that the grand overseer wanted?

He tucked away his feelings and breathed his wine-scented breath onto her face: “Since you do not want to get up, sleep a little more.”

Along with the wine came the scent of unfamiliar rouge, boring straight into her nose.

Ming Yi frowned, then relaxed it, and coaxed in a soft voice: “I feel so unwell, and it is all my lord’s fault. I cannot sleep anymore now, so this servant will get up and attend to my lord’s bath.”

Her small hand pushed against his chest, her distaste impossible to hide.

She realized she lost her composure and was about to smooth it over when she saw him look down at her hand. Not only did he not get angry, he gave a soft laugh: “I used to think a woman’s jealousy was the least lovable thing. Now I see it depends on the person.”

She tensed slightly, her spine going rigid.

What did that mean? Whose jealousy? The woman from the study just now? Did Ji Bozai say that because he found out she had been in the study?

She swept a quick glance at her embroidered shoes by the bed. Inevitably, they were stained with plenty of dirty moss from the eaves.

She was finished.

She lost on a detail.

Her face went pale as she thought, would he kill her? Afterall, with his formidable martial prowess, slapping her to death would be an easy matter for him.

But the man before her smiled with gentle eyes and even a touch of indulgence. He did not look angry.

What was going on? A big shot like him, finding out someone broke into his study, and he did not suspect anything at all?

Or did he not know what she went there for?

Countless thoughts flashed through her mind. Ming Yi steeled herself and simply covered her face, choking out: “My lord, this servant tried her best.”

She sounded so pitiful, like she was breaking down. Her small voice caught, and then she wailed out loud. It did not look deliberate, which only made her seem more pitiable.

Ji Bozai did not understand: “Tried her best at what? Why are you crying for no reason?”

“This servant knew from the start that my lord dislikes jealous women. Before coming, I made every preparation and promised myself that whatever I saw, I would not be jealous of my lord. But… but I never expected that jealousy simply cannot be hidden.”

She lowered her hands. Her face was already streaked with tears and snot, her eyes full of grievance: “This servant is only a roadside flower my lord plucked on a whim. I had no other grand illusions. I only wanted to spend a few days with my lord and keep some memories to live out the rest of my life. I never thought that after only one day, my lord would have a new love.”

“This servant wanted to pretend not to know, but my lord, I heard you went back to the residence and into the study, so I went there especially to wait for you, and who would have thought I would run into… run into…”

She covered her face and sobbed bitterly, her shoulders trembling like thin grass in the rain.

Ji Bozai patted her back lightly: “You went to the study. How did Nanny Xun not know?”

“My lord’s status is noble, and the study is an important place. Ordinary nannies are not allowed there. This servant just received your first favor and got a little carried away, so I sneaked over to give my lord a surprise, huu…”

“You sneaked over. Where did you hide?”

“On the roof beam. This servant followed my father up mountains to pick herbs since I was little. That study has a long table with a display shelf stacked on it, so it was easy to climb, huu…”

She hiccuped through her tears and glared up at him: “After all this, my lord still asks where this servant hid. There is truly no place for this servant in your heart!”

She glared with total righteousness and a touch of girlish pique, and even Ji Bozai was bewildered for a moment.

Could he really have misjudged her?

He looked at her palms and asked: “You scraped calluses off here?”

It would have been better not to mention it. The moment he did, the girl cried even harder: “Of course I did. Before, I cut grass and chopped firewood at home, and my palms were full of calluses. The nanny in the inner court said that would not please the noble guests, so she made this servant scrape them off a little at a time with a small knife. It hurt so much, and I never thought that after all that scraping, no noble guest would like me anyway, huu…”

She did not care at all about her decorum when she cried. Her brows and eyes scrunched together, and she looked as pitiful as could be. Anyone soft-hearted who saw her would cry along with her.

Ji Bozai thought for a while and his expression eased: “All right, do not cry. This lord likes you.”

“If you like this servant, why bring someone else home? How long has it been?” Her eyes were red and she looked deeply wronged. “This servant never thought it would last forever, but can you not even hold out one or two months?”

After scolding him, she felt that having taken his money she was not in the right, and her head drooped: “In any case, it is all up to my lord. My lord may favor whomever he wants.”

Having said that, she shifted around and turned her back to him, pressing her head against the wall, her back puffed up with anger.

Ji Bozai was amused by her antics. He laughed and pulled her back into his arms: “It was only playing along for the occasion. Why take it to heart? She is Prince Gong’s person, and I have to send her back sooner or later. Besides, there are only the two of you in this courtyard, so she could never bully you.”

Wow, eating from the bowl while eyeing the pot. When a man wants to philander, he really has ten thousand reasons.

Ming Yi rolled her eyes hard inwardly, but on the surface she could only look at him pitifully: “Really? My lord only brought her back and will not sleep with her?”

“This lord sleeps only with you.” He smoothed the ends of her hair and teased her chin.

Ming Yi found it ticklish and dodged, whining: “My lord must not hurt this servant’s heart like this again. You do not know, when that door opened, my heart nearly broke.”

It was nearly broken, from the fright he gave her.

She touched her chest with lingering fear.

Luckily Ji Bozai was a lecher and kept her to ask a couple more questions. If he were the suspicious type and dragged her down and beat her to death on the spot, she truly would have had no way out.

“Your heart broke? Let me rub it for you.” He laughed, coaxing her again and again in a low voice, and did not press the matter further.

It was not that Ji Bozai was careless. This villa was not his main residence and held nothing truly important, so if Ming Yi really had some sort of mission, she would not search the villa’s study.

There was only one thing he was curious about now. When she said she could not fight, was that true or false?