Since she could preserve the shop, helping Shen Qiyuan with some matters was entirely acceptable to Ruyi.

Though this affair wasn’t particularly simple.

Perhaps because Shen Qiyuan had been present earlier, that murderous aura from yesterday hadn’t dared to appear.

Ruyi walked forward along Divine Providence Street, arriving at yesterday’s ambush site.

This place was quite lively, with shops selling pastries and snacks nearby, and behind it four or five-story tall pavilion storefronts.

She briefly considered the direction from which the plum blossom dart had flown, looking sideways toward the signboard on the left rear.

Shuyi Wine House.

While other colorful buildings used red and green colored paper and embroidered silk for their festive decorations, this establishment used water-red flower lanterns. No one solicited customers at the entrance—it only appeared mysteriously alluring in the light and shadow.

She curiously walked inside.

“What tea would the guest like?” An attentive waiter brought over a tray of wooden plaques.

Casually flipping one open, Ruyi’s eyes brightened.

They were names.

She immediately flipped through three or four more.

The waiter’s expression immediately became knowing: “Honored guest, the tea here isn’t cheap. Did you bring enough silver?”

How could silver be insufficient? She still had the banknotes Shen Qiyuan had given her last time.

Ruyi pulled out one note and stuffed it into the waiter’s hand. He glanced at it briefly and bloomed with smiles: “Please go upstairs, I’ll prepare your tea immediately.”

There are many places of leisure in this world, but this was Ruyi’s first time witnessing handsome young men serving tea.

She had originally thought it would just be pleasing to the eye, but unexpectedly, the young man in green robes walked directly to sit beside her, reaching out to embrace her.

Ruyi clicked her tongue.

“Don’t be shy.” The green-robed youth covered his lips and smiled, reaching out again. “Just try it—I’m very warm.”

Shaking her head to block his wrist, Ruyi circled her hand, applied force with her arm, and instead drew him over to embrace him in her arms.

The green-robed youth was stunned.

The person before him had smiling eyes, sipping from her tea cup while looking down at him: “This is better.”

Her body was soft as jade and gentle as flowers, yet her arms were slender and strong, steadily supporting the back of his neck without the slightest tremor. She brought the cup rim touched by her vermilion lips to his lips, her eyes surging with teasing: “Drink some tea to warm yourself?”

“…”

His face flushed lightly: “Guest, this…”

“How have you become shy now?” The interest in her eyes quickly faded. She helped him sit up to one side and beckoned to the next person wearing moon-white wide robes: “You come.”

Having witnessed the previous scene, Moon-white was much more tactful than Green-robe, obediently leaning over to nestle in Ruyi’s embrace. With red lips and white teeth, he said timidly, “I’ve never seen a female guest like elder sister before.”

Her index finger caressed his straight nose tip as Ruyi smiled: “Then that’s good. Even if you encounter thousands of people in the future, you’ll always remember me.”

Covering his lips with a smile, light flowed from his eyes as he looked up and touched the cup rim in her hand with his lips.

Ruyi nodded with pleasure, tucking a small silver ingot into his collar.

Green-robe stood stunned nearby for a moment before finally coming to his senses, lowering his head to beg her forgiveness: “I spoiled the mood earlier, please, guest—”

Before he finished speaking, his waist went soft.

Ruyi drew him onto her knee, gently kissing his eyelashes. The warm touch penetrated through his eyelids, burning straight to his heart.

Green-robe’s pupils trembled slightly, his long lashes quivering continuously.

Two strands of her black hair fell, brushing against his cheek tenderly and lovingly.

He looked up with reddened eyes, gazing into her deep eye pools, somehow becoming somewhat choked up.

Usually it was they who manipulated these guests’ emotions—that was a specially practiced skill to make them spend money.

This was the first time that in just two rounds, he was utterly defeated.

He even wanted to seek her favor.

“Qingqing, what’s that in your sleeve pocket?” She was injured and drew in a sharp breath.

Green-robe came back to himself, hurriedly gathering his sleeves and frantically checking her hand: “Are you alright?”

Ruyi extended her finger—a cut had already opened on her pale fingertip.

“This, I, I forgot to change clothes.” He fumbled to pull out a handkerchief to press against her wound.

Moon-white said disapprovingly: “How can you bring things from the blacksmith shop to serve guests? Too careless.”

Ruyi groaned softly, looking plaintively at his sleeve opening: “What wicked thing is it? Take it out and show me.”

“Guest, please forgive—we who make our living in tea houses all have it hard,” Moon-white explained while searching Green-robe’s sleeve pocket. “His family urgently needs money, so he comes to the tea house during the day and works at the forge at night. He inevitably carries some broken odds and ends.”

Two small knife blades fell out, both already sharpened.

Ruyi glanced over lightly, seeming unconcerned, only taking Green-robe’s hand and chiding: “Aren’t you afraid of hurting yourself?”

Green-robe pressed his lips together, his hand on her wound, quite at a loss.

“Forget it.” Ruyi pulled out a bank note and stuffed it into his sleeve pocket. “Work less hard.”

A hundred-tael bank note—seeing it, Green-robe was dumbstruck, his eyes widening by a full circle.

“I injured you, yet you still…?” His lips trembled.

Ruyi didn’t care much.

After all, it wasn’t her money.

Green-robe looked at her with reddened eyes, like an injured small beast that had received help.

After embracing and teasing all the handsome young men in the room, Ruyi ultimately kept only the Green-robe.

When Shen Qiyuan came upstairs, he saw a young man with a flushed face sitting in Ruyi’s embrace, eating refreshments she fed him bite by bite.

“My lord has arrived?” she said with a light laugh.

Seeing the newcomer, Green-robe’s face instantly turned deathly pale. He struggled to rise and knelt at Ruyi’s right rear side.

Shen Qiyuan walked over with a dark expression: “I told you to wander around, and you found quite the place.”

As if dark clouds pressed overhead, Green-robe’s thin body trembled violently.

Ruyi glanced at him and curved her lips, pulling the person back into her embrace: “You frightened him.”

Shen Qiyuan’s eyelid twitched directly.

He struggled not to become angry: “The matter you promised me!”

“Isn’t it already finished?” She lovingly stroked Green-robe’s hair.

Green-robe looked at her in amazement.

Her fingertip caressed his still-tender cheek as Ruyi’s eyes filled with regret: “Among those several people earlier, I liked you most, but why did it have to be you?”

“You, what are you saying?”

“Yesterday, a carriage with brown cloth curtains passed below here.” She curved her lips, propping her chin to blink at him. “I was sitting right inside it.”

His face suddenly turned white as Green-robe retreated abruptly, only to bump into Shen Qiyuan.

Without another word, Shen Qiyuan pulled out shackles and fastened them on his hands, then looked up and asked: “How did you know it was him?”

“The scent.” Ruyi wrinkled her nose tip. “Forge fire mixed with grass—the same as on that plum blossom dart.”

And only this tea house could have struck at her and Zhou Tingchuan from that angle at the time.

Green-robe felt incredulous and somewhat angry: “You were deceiving me the whole time just now?”

“How could that be?” Ruyi rose and walked before him, gently caressing his chin. “You truly most suit my heart.”

If he were an ordinary person, keeping him to play with wouldn’t be impossible.

A scrawny thing whose hair hadn’t even fully grown—he suited her heart?

Shen Qiyuan sneered coldly, his hand tightening as the iron chain clanked and pulled Green-robe away from her.