Chapter Seventy: It Had Gone Bad

This girl is a little lazy and not very particular; that was Xiao Yi’s impression of Hong Lian. He decided that, at some suitable moment, he would have to mention it to Xue Fanzhi and have that girl’s bad habits corrected. What if she ever splashed him by accident one day?

Most importantly, this girl always spoiled his chance to be close with A Zhi. She needed a lesson.

Thinking this, Xiao Yi leaped in through the window and landed inside the room.

Hong Lian was still as tactless as ever. “Why have you come again?”

Xiao Yi was even less pleased with her and said, “Then why are you asking again? Why haven’t you withdrawn yet?”

Hong Lian: “...”

Hong Lian looked toward Xue Fanzhi. She was the one who mattered. As for the Ninth Prince or whoever else, as long as she was not breaking the law, he had no business meddling with her.

Xue Fanzhi nodded, and Hong Lian and Hong Xiao both withdrew.

Once the maids were gone, Xiao Yi saw Xue Fanzhi kneeling on the couch. In front of her stood a small table, and on it were black and white chess pieces.

She was holding a black piece in her hand, uncertain whether to play it.

Clearly, she had something on her mind.

Xiao Yi knew Xue Fanzhi very well. He understood that this was one of her habits: when she was pondering something important, she liked to toy with a chess piece. She had done this ever since he had known her, and it truly could not prove that she was, like him, reborn.

Xiao Yi pressed his lips together and did not ask. Instead he said, “Shall I take a seat?”

Xue Fanzhi thought of the favor she had come to seek, stood up, and raised a hand. “Please, my lord.”

Xiao Yi thought, so you do know I am your lord. Ungrateful girl. If I did not say anything, she would not even offer me a seat.

After sitting down, Xiao Yi deliberately said, “You don’t look well. Have you run into trouble?”

Xue Fanzhi lifted a hand to touch her face, thinking, Is it that obvious? Have I not yet learned to keep my joys and sorrows from showing?

She said, “My lord, could you assign me a few people? I need them when I go out.”

Xiao Yi had not never considered assigning a few people to her to make her work easier, but in his heart Xue Fanzhi was shy and honest, not the sort who would go commanding others at will, so he had let the matter drop.

Why was she bringing it up herself?

Of course, he would not dampen her enthusiasm.

“What is there to make difficult?” Xiao Yi said. “With my character, if I have nothing else, I do have plenty of people loyal only to me. Assigning a few to you would not be impossible.”

Xue Fanzhi thought: He is far too brazen.

But it was true that, from the experience of her previous life, the guards by Xiao Yi’s side were all utterly loyal to him. He had always been very kind to his own people, which was why she dared to use them.

Xue Fanzhi clasped her hands in thanks, though she added a condition. “I can use them, but not all the time. It would be best if they appear only when I need them. When I do not need them, they must not pry into my life.”

Every one of Xiao Yi’s subordinates was skilled at tracking, and all of them knew martial arts. Having people assigned to her was not the issue; the problem was that those people might be easy to borrow and hard to send away. She was afraid Xiao Yi would have them shadowing her day and night.

That was also why she had hesitated before about asking Xiao Yi for help. But if she did not ask him, she would have to ask her elder brother, and he was often not at home.

More importantly, her brother’s people could be easily controlled by Xue Yang, making them unsafe to use.

Xiao Yi laughed when he heard Xue Fanzhi’s words. “You have quite a few demands. Have I agreed to let you use anyone? And now you are already guarding against me?”

Xue Fanzhi frowned. “What do you mean? Didn’t you just say you could assign people to me?”

Xiao Yi gave a cold snort. “I said I could assign people to you, yes—but do you have the nerve to use them? You claim to be my retainer, yet you have achieved no merit to this day, while I have helped you quite a bit. Now you are already asking me to do things for you. Tell me, who is the lord here, you or me? Who is the retainer, you or I? Put your hand on your conscience and tell me, are your demands not excessive?”

Xue Fanzhi: “...”

She had relied too much on Xiao Yi before. Whatever she wanted, he would satisfy without condition. She had not expected that one day he would even bargain.

Perhaps that was the difference between a wife and an outsider.

Xue Fanzhi sighed inwardly. Even so, she was not going to marry him anyway.

“Didn’t I say I could help my lord seize the great position? Do not think I am of no use now. In the future, I will be of great use,” Xue Fanzhi said earnestly.

Xiao Yi was startled by her confidence, but he only scoffed aloud. “I do not care. If you want to beg me for help, that is fine, but I cannot keep helping you for nothing. What benefit do you give me?”

Such a miserly man, always demanding something in return for everything.

Xue Fanzhi stood up, walked to the dressing table, picked up the jewelry box upon it, and placed it before Xiao Yi. “These are all I have. My entire fortune.”

Xiao Yi frowned slightly, took the shabby box, and opened it. With a soft click, several gold and silver ornaments were revealed inside.

Yes, only a few pieces of gold and silver. There was less gold than silver, and not even a single gemstone had been set into them.

Xiao Yi was momentarily stunned as he thought of what Xue Fanzhi’s life had been like before she was married.

In his previous life, he had not known her very well during this period. He only knew that although she was the legitimate daughter of the family, she had not lived well.

He had not expected it to be this bad.

If he remembered correctly, just a few days ago when he saw that “birthday star” Xue Jiaoyue, Xue Jiaoyue had a ruby headdress on her head. Not to say it was priceless, but it was far more valuable than this entire box of Xue Fanzhi’s belongings.

A young girl at the age when she first begins to cherish beauty, yet his A Zhi had nothing at all.

On the surface, Xiao Yi said dismissively, “How much is this even worth? You want royal guards assigned to you, and this is all the reward you offer?”

If you do not want it, then forget it.

Xue Fanzhi snatched the jewelry box back. “Then I will have nothing at all!”

Though Xiao Yi was not exactly sternly offended, she had the shameless air of someone who would not care no matter what happened. He could not help but laugh. “You are the one begging me, Xue Eighth Miss. Why are you acting as though you are the important one? If you are asking a favor, at least have the proper attitude, all right?”

The Xue Fanzhi of her previous life would have thought so, but the Xue Fanzhi of this life did not.

Could a good attitude really win someone over? No. Anyway, Xiao Yi was not the sort of man who would help merely because you were polite, or else he would already have been canonized as a holy benefactor of men.

In any case, having nothing left to lose, Xue Fanzhi said very frankly, “I think that before, when it came to what I asked, Your Highness has already helped me. If you do not help me now, I will certainly bear a grudge. Then all of what my lord has done before will be wasted, and in the future you will still have to guard against my revenge. Thinking of it this way, I believe my lord will help me.”

Is this really A Zhi?

To say her thoughts so plainly and foolishly was indeed very much like A Zhi.

Xiao Yi was both amused and exasperated. So it turned out he had raised a little scoundrel.

“It is said that women and petty men are the hardest to deal with,” Xiao Yi said. “You have simply taken it for granted that I am a good person!”

Speaking of this, Xue Fanzhi felt a bit shameless. Of course she did not think Xiao Yi was a good person, but she knew that Xiao Yi liked her. Since she had nothing now, she could only make use of his feelings.

If it had been her from her previous life, she would certainly have looked down on the person she was now. But in this life, she had long since understood matters clearly. Xiao Yi had cost her one life; now she was merely collecting a little interest.