Chapter 16

 

Seeing how badly the younger girl reacted to the scene, An Jing lifted the terrified girl into her arms to leave the place, not before giving An Wan a meaningful glance which An Wan returned with a nod.

 

"Clean it up," An Wan ordered the other servants, and they instantly moved, fearing that if they were a second slower, they will be punished.   

 

An Jing carried Xiao Hua to a quieter place but still within the same courtyard. She advised kindly to the trembling girl in her arms. “You have to get used to violence soon.”

 

When Xiao Hua gazed at her wide eyes filled with confusion and fear, An Jing further explained. “The Third Prince aims for something that is beyond reach for a normal person. We, as servants, must support our master and smooth the journey to achieve his goal.”

 

“His aim…he will use force to achieve it?” Xiao Hua’s heart squeezed in fear. She did not know what the Third Prince’s exact objective was, but if he had to use force to achieve it, it must be something big.

 

An Jing brought them entered a bedroom that was much larger than the old Madame MingLu’s bedroom. The room was decorated in a simple style, with only a white vase filled with a bunch of flowers to brighten the room.

 

Xiao Hua was placed down on a stool and An Jing took a seat as well. “If we do not use violence, we will die by other people’s violence. To stay alive, our master has no choice but to attack instead of defending until the end. If we do not attack, many of our people will die and our master is not a cruel person to his own men.”

 

Xiao Hua pursed her lips. She could understand what An Jing said, but that does not mean she could easily accept it!

 

Le XiaoTing was familiar with business war, family war, and politic war, but never wars that used weapons and fists to exchange blows until the victor was decided by the last person that survived. She never really liked violence, and playing video games was just a game, not reality.

 

“Sister An Jing, I don’t think I could not accept it.”

 

“I was the same as you in the beginning,” An Jing revealed, not at all angry at Xiao Hua’s averseness. Her eyes were staring at Xiao Hua, but at the same time, she was not truly gazing at her. She was seeing her past, remembering what she had experienced.

 

“I have seen and experienced the horror of starvation, and I never want my family to suffer that again. I am eternally grateful for the Third Prince to save my family and me from hunger and poverty.”

 

Xiao Hua shivered at the older maid’s words. Le XiaoTing knew how unfortunate a person’s life could be, but she chooses to remain ignorant and willingly close her eyes on the darker side of society. But now that she was living as Xiao Hua, she was forced to live in that dark side and it will be darker in the future.

 

“When I was appointed as a lower ranked maid for the Third Prince, I worked very hard to become an inner maid.” An Jing chuckled softly as if laughing at herself. “I’ve got a mindset that the higher my position will be the lesser worries I will have.”

 

“But it won’t,” Xiao Hua said softly with her head bent low, her eyes revealed empathy and pity as her hand grips onto her blue skirt until her knuckles turned white.

 

An Jing smiled in agreement. “You are right, it won’t. But my worries had changed. In the beginning, I’m worried about food, shelter, and safety of my family. Now my worry is focused on my master. His safety, his enemies and his worries are the factors that could harm the safety of my family.”

 

“You want to keep the Third Prince safe just to protect your own life?”

 

“What do you think?” An Jing asked with clear eyes.

 

Actually, Xiao Hua does not know what to think at all. She has no choice but forced to step onto the Third Prince’s boat. She does have another path, which was to seek the heroine and board her ship, but she has a mixed feeling about that path. The novel had clearly mapped out the future, but Xiao Hua knew better than to place all her eggs onto a basket, not when there were already events different from what was written in the novel.

 

An Jing poured them a cup of water each that was already provided in the room. Xiao Hua politely gave her thanks and slowly took a sip of the warm water. It was slightly sweet but it gradually turned bitter and the taste lingered in her mouth.

 

“The Third Prince has allies just as he has enemies. You must have guessed that we, the inner maids, have a high level of martial arts.”

 

Xiao Hua nodded. It was very cool to meet maids that could fight! (ಠ o ಠ)¤=[]:::::>

 

“We had willingly sworn an oath to protect and serve our master till our death. We learned how to fight to protect our master and ourselves. Violence is common here but that does not mean there are no rules to prevent people from senselessly committing an offense. However, the law could not stop the strong people from thriving while the weak people will be used to sustenance the strong ones.”

 

“Sister An Jing.” Xiao Hua stared seriously at An Jing. “I’m just a commoner that does not know how to read or write. I don’t even know martial arts. Yet your master chooses me as his personal maid. Why is that?”

 

An Jing’s lips tilted upward as she stared down at her cup between her palm. She could still remember vividly the day before they set out to get Princess Long Lian back from Munzhu Country. Her master suddenly announced that he will bring back his new personal maid along with the princess.

 

Naturally, his blackguards and inner maids voiced out their disagreement. Having a stranger that no one had heard before to occupy the position that would place her to be the closest to their master’s side, they were worried about their master’s state of mind!

 

‘This prince trusts her.’ That was the only thing their master had said and after that, he disregarded any of their objections.

 

Her younger sisters had guessed the new maid to be a rare beauty, but when they meet the new maid, they were disappointed to find an unhealthy thin and small-sized young girl with plain features. Xiao Hua was not intelligent or street smart, but a simple minded person with honest disposition.

 

Tian Chi and Tian Zi were saddened that their master had chosen a plain looking girl with no special talent while An Wan was determined to analyze Xiao Hua until she found out what she had in her that captured their master’s attention.

 

Among the four inner maids, it was An Jing that had served him the longest, which was nine years when the prince was still an eight-year-old child. She could be considered as one of the people on his side that understand him the most. Even his biological mother, the Empress, was not truly clear about what her biological son was thinking about most of the time.

 

An Jing guessed that this new maid was related to the ‘nightmares’ that her master had unconsciously revealed in his mumbles during his sleep. After the discovery, she prohibited any servants to be around his bedroom during his sleeping time to keep his ‘nightmares’ a secret. It would be dangerous if someone managed to piece together the clues her master had unintentionally revealed during his sleep.

 

That was why, as a person that had pieced together the clues given by her master, she trusted his decisions and judgment. If her master said that Xiao Hua was his important person, then An Jing will protect her and use her own life to do so if needed.

 

“He trusts the people that the princess chooses,” An Jing finally answered after a while. It could be considered as the truth but it was not the main reason behind her master’s action.

 

“It was just because of that?”

 

An Jing chuckled at Xiao Hua’s look of disbelief. “Do not underestimate Princess Long Lian’s judgment. It was not widespread knowledge, but our princess usually only like people that have a higher moral compass.”

 

“It was tested?”

 

“On a few people, but it will only work if princess does not hold certain biases and only on a person she had no knowledge of before.”

 

An Jing’s face revealed that she holds Long Lian on a high pedestal but Xiao Hua was ashamed to admit it was nothing special to be amazed about.

 

Le XiaoTing had a fellow co-worker that was very good at calculating a person’s fate just by looking at their facial features. The results were very accurate and their HR supervisor would often pass a stack of application form for her co-worker to choose the best candidates.

 

Her co-worker did accept the task, with charged fees of course.

 

But even without Xiao Hua saying it out loud, just by seeing her honest face, An Jing already knows that she was not marveled with Princess Long Lian’s talent.

 

Xiao Hua’s image in An Jing’s eyes improved and further approving of her being the princess’ friend. She could see that Xiao Hua would not abuse the princess’ trust by using the friendship card.

 

If Xiao Hua knows what An Jing was thinking, she would be embarrassed to be praised for looking down on Long Lian’s talent instead!