The night was deep and heavy.

Chu Zhao sprawled on the bed with her limbs spread out, smelling her freshly dried fragrant hair, and let out a long, comfortable sigh.

“This is the most relaxed I’ve been in quite a while,” she said.

A’Le lay beside her and also let out a long sigh, saying, “Because we finally found A’Jiu, Miss, so you can have him deliver those letters you wrote to the General.”

Chu Zhao laughed heartily: “The poor man was beaten and injured so badly, and you’re still thinking about having him deliver letters?”

That’s right. A’Le sat up with her brows tightly furrowed: “In his condition, he won’t be able to travel far in the short term. What should we do? What medicine can we give him to make him recover immediately and get to work?”

“A’Le, could you have a bit of the sophistication of a capital city maidservant?” Chu Zhao laughed, poking her with her finger. “Stop obsessing over A’Jiu. Think about who your young miss met today! Young Master Xie the Third, Young Master Xie the Third!”

What was so special about meeting Young Master Xie the Third? A’Le thought hard: “I know the Third Young Master is very famous, but he may not be better than A’Jiu at delivering letters.”

Of course Young Master Xie the Third was more famous than A’Jiu—pursued by everyone, like an immortal from heaven. Had such a person ever suffered hardship? Could he travel roads like a postal courier?

Although A’Jiu had a bad reputation and a terrible temper, and A’Le didn’t like him at all, A’Jiu didn’t live the life of someone above others.

“I gave medicine to his maidservants, saying this medicine was particularly effective and could make wounds heal quickly. They were especially happy, saying this time when the young master was beaten and injured, he wouldn’t need to recuperate for so long.”

Clearly A’Jiu was frequently punished.

It wasn’t surprising. During their journey together, she had wanted to hit A’Jiu several times herself.

Such a person was very annoying, but such a person was more suitable for delivering letters.

Watching A’Le’s earnest analysis, Chu Zhao smiled, sat up and nodded: “Yes, A’Jiu is most suitable for delivering letters. When he’s recovered, I’ll find him. But there’s no need to be so urgent now, because now we have Young Master Xie the Third. He can help me do another matter. Once this matter is resolved, delivering the letters can be less urgent.”

A’Le understood: “Miss had me inquire about Young Master Xie the Third before, it was to do this matter.”

Chu Zhao nodded and lay back down again: “Now that this matter is done well, I feel even more at ease.”

In this life, she had avoided Xiao Xun and would not repeat her mistakes, avoiding her own tragedy. Now she had also warned Xie Yanfang about the Third Prince wanting to kill the Crown Prince, so the Crown Prince’s fate would also change, wouldn’t it?

Xie Yanfang. She recited this name once, the corners of her mouth curving in a smile.

A’Le heard it and, lying beside her, giggled and asked: “Miss, you like Young Master Xie the Third more, don’t you?”

“No, I don’t,” Chu Zhao immediately said. After saying it, she felt something was off about those words. Like him more compared to whom?

A’Le giggled: “It wouldn’t be strange to like him. Everyone likes Young Master Xie the Third. Young Master Xie the Third is a good person, isn’t he? Even though Miss said those things about him on the street, when Miss saw him, he wasn’t fierce at all.”

She had followed them in at the time, standing to the side watching. Although she couldn’t get close enough to hear what they were saying, she saw Young Master Xie the Third and Miss raise their cups three times, talking and laughing elegantly.

Not like that A’Jiu, who was only sarcastic whenever he saw Miss.

Like him? Chu Zhao thought. A thirteen or fourteen-year-old girl, or rather, women nowadays, regardless of age—who didn’t like elegant young gentlemen? Not just now, but later, when Young Master Xie the Third became Yan the Wolf, although he was no longer elegant, with his hands and body stained with blood, he transformed into another kind of beauty that still attracted many women.

In that previous life, there was a prominent family entrenched in one region, wavering between the Xie traitor and the court. Yan the Wolf scaled the walls late at night and entered this family’s residence. Somehow he bewitched the family’s daughter, who then encouraged her own brothers to lead the family to pledge allegiance to Xie the Wolf.

When Xiao Xun heard about it afterward, he cursed furiously in the palace, cursing that woman for being shameless, and also cursing Yan the Wolf for being shameless.

“Whether you like someone or not isn’t because of whether they’re a good person,” Chu Zhao said to A’Le. “Moreover, whether a person is good or bad can’t be clearly determined.”

Can’t be clearly determined? A’Le blinked. Did Miss not consider Young Master Xie the Third a good person?

Chu Zhao looked at her: “A’Le, do you know who provoked the Third Prince’s anger toward me?”

A’Le froze. It couldn’t be?

Chu Zhao smiled: “Didn’t expect that, did you? Moreover, he told me himself.”

A’Le jumped off the bed: “Miss, how can this person be so wicked! Miss has no grievances or enmity with him, why would he harm Miss!”

The girl with loose hair paced back and forth on the ground like an angry fighting rooster, wishing she could charge to the Xie residence right now and peck that elegant young gentleman all over.

Chu Zhao laughed and got up to grab her: “Why are you angry? I have no grievances or enmity with him, but no kinship or friendship either. He’s the Crown Prince’s man, doing things for the Crown Prince, scheming against the Third Prince—how could he possibly consider me?”

These words made sense yet something seemed off. A’Le stared at Chu Zhao, looking at the girl smiling calmly under the dim lamplight, without a trace of anger in her eyes.

“Miss,” she grasped the girl’s arm. “How can you not be angry? Even if you have no kinship or friendship, he still can’t bully people like this.”

Bully? Chu Zhao thought about it.

“In my eyes, this really doesn’t count as anything,” she said, smiling gently at A’Le. “I just need to achieve my goal. What kind of person he is, how he treats me—it’s unimportant, and I don’t care.”

A’Le said nothing and reached out to hug her.

“Miss, I know why you’re like this,” she murmured. “It’s because you’ve been bullied too much, so you don’t care anymore.”

Chu Zhao paused. Was that it?

Been bullied too much?

She had indeed been bullied quite a bit, and it was all from people close to her—Uncle’s family, and Xiao Xun.

If relatives could treat her this way, strangers mattered even less.

“I used to be like this,” A’Le said, leaning on her shoulder. “Before I met the General, I scraped by in the city stealing things. I got beaten every day, and the things I stole were often snatched away, but I wasn’t angry at all back then. I often told myself, they’re not my parents, why should they treat me well? Bullying me was normal. Miss, I know now—it wasn’t that I wasn’t angry, it was that I couldn’t be, didn’t dare to be angry. If I didn’t accept the bullying as reasonable, I couldn’t survive.”

Chu Zhao had long forgotten about A’Le’s childhood experiences and reached out to pat and rub her shoulder and back.

“Until I met the General and Miss,” A’Le said. “Only then did I know I didn’t have to be bullied, that being bullied was something to be angry about, something that could be avenged.”

She lifted her head and patted Chu Zhao, her eyes firm.

“Miss, in the future you’ll also be like me—you’ll meet someone who treats you well, who won’t let you be bullied.”

Every time she herself felt too hardened to feel anything, A’Le would warm it back up. Chu Zhao let out a soft sigh and nodded forcefully: “I will. I’ll definitely meet someone.”

A’Le breathed a sigh of relief, then said indignantly: “Young Master Xie the Third isn’t a good person. Can Miss rely on him to do things?”

Chu Zhao said: “The matter I’m asking him to do, logically speaking, isn’t for me—it’s for himself.”

At this point she smiled. Of course, it also benefited her.

She raised her eyebrows with some satisfaction.

In the previous life, Xie Yan the Wolf was also one of those who bullied her, constantly cursing her and her father, and was ruthless in hunting down Uncle Zhong and the others.

Then in this life, by having Xie Yanfang protect the Crown Prince, this way, Xiao Xun couldn’t become emperor, and Xie Yanfang couldn’t become Yan the Wolf—he could only remain an elegant young gentleman under the Crown Prince for his entire life.

……

……

The night was already deep. In the postal station, only Xiao Xun’s quarters were still lit.

The incident on the street today that everyone knew about—he knew about it. And the matters that no one else knew about—he also knew about those.

“That Xie family son was the postal courier who was with Miss Chu at the time,” Tie Ying said. “Seeing him being punished, Miss Chu rushed out frantically to protect him and cursed Xie Yanfang loudly.”

Xiao Xun’s expression showed some surprise: “Such a coincidence?”

This coincidence naturally didn’t refer to Miss Chu seeing the Xie family son being punished, but rather that when Miss Chu fled to the border commandery, the Xie family son happened to be working as a postal courier delivering letters to the border commandery.