“This isn’t something you can settle with a single careless remark like that,” Li Jingyun continued. “You’re practically a daughter the Marquis’s residence raised — do you think it’s so easy to be cast out of the family? What’s more, if you throw away even your own family for the sake of a man, won’t people break your spine over it with their gossip?”

“Let them break it, then,” Su Miao scoffed. “Once Aunt passed away, you’re the only one left in the whole Marquis’s residence I’m still close to. As long as Cousin still cares about me, then I’m not without family. As for everyone else, they can say whatever they want — I never let that sort of thing into my ears anyway.”

Li Jingyun truly didn’t know whether to praise her for her free spirit or scold her for having no sense. He shook his head with a sigh and waved his sleeve. “We’ll talk about it when it actually comes to that.”

Hearing this, Su Miao knew her cousin couldn’t bear to see her go through such an ordeal. She said nothing more, only bid farewell with a bright smile, and headed back to the Marquis’s residence.

“Third Young Master.” Wen Guzhi said with some concern, “Once the young miss gets it into her head to go mad, there’s no stopping her.”

Li Jingyun rubbed his forehead, quite baffled. “What does that Shen Zhiluo have going for him besides a handsome face? Why is she so hopelessly devoted to him?”

“Who can say when it comes to matters of the heart?” Wen Guzhi pressed his lips together. “Take yourself, my lord, for instance — ever since sister-in-law came into your life, you’ve become like a different person too.”

Nonsense — he was no different from before. How could he be as obsessed as Su Miao? Li Jingyun grumbled inwardly.

Besides, the little pup he kept was far better than Shen Zhiluo — obedient and sensible, and though she occasionally had some little schemes of her own, they never went beyond what he could clean up afterward, so it hardly counted as anything at all.

Ever since Huayue learned there was new life growing inside her, she had become much more well-behaved, no longer running around here and there, only chatting with Shuang Jiang while taking her walks.

“Zhou Heshuo is still investigating Kang Zhenzhong’s case,” Shuang Jiang said gravely, the two of them alone in the courtyard, holding Huayue’s arm. “It might trace back to this servant.”

Looking at the yellowed ginkgo leaves in the courtyard, Huayue laughed lightly. “So what if it traces back to you? There’s neither witness nor physical evidence. If you deny it to the death, it’ll be just like De Sheng — no way to implicate anyone behind you, and you’ll come through unscathed.”

No one would ever suspect that a maidservant could have such deep enmity with a minister of the Grand Secretariat. Even if someone deduced that Shuang Jiang alone had had the opportunity to commit the act, without sufficient evidence, and with the Marquis’s residence’s protection, they wouldn’t be able to touch her.

The only concern was that it might arouse Zhou Heshuo’s suspicion.

But then again, Zhou Heshuo’s suspicious nature was nothing new either — previously she’d had some fear of him, but now, having lost his military authority and fallen from grace, he probably wouldn’t be so aggressive about it.

Thinking of the complicated relationship between Li Jingyun and the Crown Prince, Huayue actually didn’t feel entirely confident. She feared that Li Jingyun might, in order to preserve his relationship with the Crown Prince, hand Shuang Jiang over to appease his anger.

That shouldn’t happen, though — should it? She pondered.

That evening when Li Jingyun returned, the two of them cuddled together on the soft couch, and he suddenly asked, “I heard Shuang Jiang has been in a bad mood and burned some of her old clothes and shoes?”

Huayue paused slightly, lowering her eyes uneasily. This lord was so busy these days — why would he care what clothes a maidservant burned? For him to even bring this up, he must have heard some rumor.

It wasn’t Shuang Jiang’s fault, either — there had been blood on those shoes; burning them was necessary.

“Oh—” Her eyes darted, and Huayue let out a long sigh, pinching her handkerchief to dab at the corner of her eye. “How could there not be. That girl has always been sentimental — she used to always wear that one outfit while attending to the mistress. Now, seeing those things only brings back painful memories, and she’s grown thinner by the day. Better to burn them than keep them around. This concubine has already promised to have new clothes made for her.”

The person behind her fell silent for a moment, then said, with deep meaning, “Oh?”

Feeling uneasy, Huayue sat up straight and turned to look at him. “What is it you want to ask?”

Propping his chin up with a half-smile, Li Jingyun said leisurely, “Nothing. Just asking, that’s all.”

Huayue’s expression turned serious. “Shuang Jiang and this concubine practically grew up together. If you feel she’s done something wrong, please tell this concubine first — don’t suddenly make things difficult for her.”

“This lord isn’t an unreasonable man.” He laughed lightly. “Why are you so anxious? Just asking casually — it’s not as though I’m planning to take a concubine.”

“If it really were about taking a concubine, that would actually be fine…” she muttered quietly. Given the current situation, no one would dare touch Grand Protector Li’s people anyway.

Li Jingyun narrowed his eyes, studying her, a flicker of displeasure crossing his dark eyes. “Are you hoping this lord takes a concubine?”

Huayue shook her head. “Not hoping for it exactly, but you hold a different position now, and this concubine is still carrying your child — adding someone to the household is a common enough thing. This concubine was only making idle conversation.”

His heart sank, and Li Jingyun’s face darkened on one side, turning to look out the window at the bleak autumn wind sweeping the leaves, his lips pressing tight.

There were, indeed, plenty of people trying to place someone by his side. Now that he had just come into power, using the back-courtyard method of maintaining relationships and consolidating his position would have been the most convenient path, but he hadn’t chosen that route — worried it would disturb her peace, he had insisted that Su Miao turn all such people away.

And yet, here she was, calling it a common enough thing. All that worry on his part, apparently for nothing.

The atmosphere in the room turned somewhat off. Huayue looked at him in confusion, then, after a moment’s thought, brought over a piece of candied fruit for him.

“You really think this is some cure-all?” Li Jingyun said coldly. “Take it away, this lord doesn’t want it.”

Her brow drooped, and Huayue pulled at his sleeve cuff.

She wasn’t one for acting coy — her temperament had always been reserved and cool, and besides, she genuinely had no idea where she’d gone wrong, her whole face full of bewilderment.

Li Jingyun eyed her sideways for a long moment, and in the end still softened, saying grudgingly as he touched her small belly, “Are you feeling all right today?”

“Fine.” Huayue answered obediently. “Lunch went down well too.”

“Mm.”

He reached out and pulled her back into his embrace, his anger more or less gone, and began to stroke her hair again.

Li Jingyun considered this already the height of tenderness — surely, if she had any perceptiveness at all, she’d be able to sense just how good he was being to her.

But Huayue, leaning against his chest, feeling this rough tousling of her hair, could only think that this lord was venting his frustration in some roundabout way, and so she stiffened, not daring to move at all, afraid of setting him off again and having Shuang Jiang suffer the consequences.

On the soft couch, one leaned back with a faint smile, the other sat rigid with apprehension, their thoughts entirely at odds — yet somehow, rarely, in harmony.

“The new residence is almost finished. This lord is thinking of sending Shuang Jiang over to oversee the final work — what do you think?” Li Jingyun asked quietly.

Zhou Heshuo had stumbled badly over Kang Zhenzhong’s death and naturally wouldn’t let the case go easily. He had assigned Huo Geng along with several civil officials to pursue the investigation with full force, and Shuang Jiang had already been placed on the list of suspects — it was only a matter of time before the investigation reached her.

Though it wasn’t certain that Shuang Jiang was the killer, if because of one maidservant Zhou Heshuo’s investigation traced back to Huayue, that would be a disastrous outcome not worth the risk. So sending Shuang Jiang away to avoid the trouble for a while was the best option; once things settled down, she could return.

That was how Li Jingyun saw it, but to Huayue’s ears, the words sounded as though he already knew the truth and wanted to distance himself from Shuang Jiang.

Huayue could well understand his desire not to let the Marquis’s residence get dragged in, but if Shuang Jiang left this household, she would face nothing but death. After all they’d endured together through hardship, there was no reason for her to simply stand by and watch her die.

“My lord.” She frowned. “This concubine currently has only Shuang Jiang as someone truly close to her. If you send her away, what am I supposed to do?”

“There are plenty of maids and old women in the household. Does it have to be her?”

“It has to be her.” Huayue said firmly. “If you feel there’s no one to oversee things at the new residence, then this concubine will go there together with her.”

Wasn’t this absurd? In her current condition, he already worried about her bumping into things or getting hurt just staying in the residence — and now she wanted to go off to that dust-and-mortar construction site? Li Jingyun shook his head repeatedly. “You’ve really gotten bold, learning how to threaten people now.”

“This concubine wouldn’t dare.” She turned to look at him. “But with the mistress gone, Shuang Jiang is the only one in this household this concubine feels close to. This concubine wants to keep her close.”

With her putting it this way, Li Jingyun had no way around it, and leaned back against the soft cushion in resignation. “You’re just relying on this lord doting on you.”

Her tense body relaxed, and Huayue bowed to him. “Thank you.”

Being pregnant did make a difference — her words carried weight now. If this had been before, had she defied him like this, wouldn’t he have packed her and Shuang Jiang both off to the new residence together? Huayue found this all rather bittersweet — earlier she’d actually been somewhat anxious, worrying that her situation, carrying a child of the Marquis’s residence, seemed inappropriate no matter how she looked at it. But now she’d come to terms with it — take it one step at a time; it might not necessarily turn out badly.

It was just that Sun Yaozu and Yinru were rather annoying — having heard she was pregnant, they now thought the entire Marquis’s residence could be used to their advantage, even wanting her to whisper words in Li Jingyun’s ear to persuade him to help the Fifth Prince.

What a joke. If she so much as mentioned the Fifth Prince, Li Jingyun would want to eat her alive.

Glancing sideways at his unusually severe expression, Huayue gave a small shiver.

“What, cold?” Li Jingyun pulled a blanket over for her, then glanced out the window. “It has gotten a bit chilly. You should dress warmer too.”

Before, Li Jingyun would have found such words too sappy to even say, but Wen Guzhi had told him that pregnant women couldn’t take shocks, that she needed to stay calm and at ease, so he had rarely brought out his twenty years of accumulated patience to speak to her gently, in a low voice.

But for some reason, the person before him, listening, had a flicker of fright cross her eyes.

“All right.” She agreed, then hurriedly stood up from his embrace and went into the inner room to change clothes.

Fleeing faster than a rabbit.

Puzzled, watching her hurried retreating figure, Li Jingyun shook his head, thinking that this woman really had no sense of what was good for her — there wasn’t a second husband in the whole capital as good as him — and yet she wasn’t the least bit moved.

Unreasonable.

“My lord.” Badou called out from outside. “The steward is here.”

Hearing this, he stood up, let down the curtain to the partitioned area for her, and then unhurriedly went out to ask, “What is it?”

“My lord, this is bad — please come to the study at once.” The old steward, sweating profusely with urgency, said, “The young miss came back to the residence for some reason today and got into a fight with the Marquis in the study. The Marquis is truly furious — he’s already sent people to move the ancestral tablets at the family shrine.”

Li Jingyun froze for a moment, then his face turned green as he understood.

That wretched girl — she really hadn’t listened after all.