Xie Zhifei’s gaze shifted toward Ding Yi.

“Return to the Xie estate immediately and bring Steward Xie to the villa. Tell him to bring the treasure from under his bed.”

“Steward Xie?”

That dead fatty covered in white, jiggly flesh?

Li Buyan thought this was utterly absurd. “Can he play the qin, or can he only fluff cotton?”

Xie Zhifei: “Play the qin!”

Li Buyan stood stunned for quite a while before recovering. “Third Master, enlighten this hero with an explanation!”

“I’d also like to know this explanation.”

Xie Zhifei cast a helpless look toward Yan Sanhe.

“I’ve thrown tantrums and pressured him, but he refuses to speak no matter what. However, I know it’s because of a woman.”

What kind of woman?

A noble lady from a prestigious family or a gentle beauty from a humble home?

I heard this dead fatty quite enjoys frequenting brothels—could it be a prostitute from one of those establishments?

Li Buyan also looked toward Yan Sanhe: “When he arrives, why don’t you ask him?”

Yan Sanhe: “Weren’t you the one who said we should respect people’s privacy?”

Li Buyan’s expression remained utterly calm: “Xie Little Flower isn’t just anyone—he’s one of our own!”

……

Very soon, “one of their own” Xie Little Flower walked into the flower hall, cradling a seven-stringed qin in his arms.

Not only Li Buyan, but even Yan Sanhe found this scene somewhat eye-searing.

When others played the qin, they had slender, elegant fingers. But this person?

Was he going to play with ten pig trotters?

As soon as Xie Little Flower entered, his heart trembled with trepidation—why were they all looking at him with such “tender affection”?

“Third Master, you summoned this old servant…”

“It wasn’t me who summoned you, it was Miss Yan.”

Xie Zhifei stepped forward to take the qin and placed it on the table. “Miss Yan requests that you play a piece. If you play well, Miss Yan will reward you.”

A reward?

He wouldn’t dare accept it!

Xie Little Flower wore a smile of utmost deference. “To play the qin for Miss Yan to hear is truly, truly this old servant’s blessing.”

“Since it’s such a blessing…”

Yan Sanhe deliberately put on a stern expression. “Then please, Steward Little Flower, explain how you learned to play the qin.”

Xie Little Flower froze, staring at Xie Zhifei in bewilderment.

What’s going on?

Miss Yan wants to eat an egg, but she also wants to know how that egg came out of the old hen’s rear end?

Xie Zhifei deliberately avoided his gaze, instead lifting his eyelids to glance at Li Buyan.

Li Buyan drew her soft sword and slammed it heavily on the table: “Steward Xie, my young lady is asking you a question. Whatever you know, speak truthfully.”

Xie Little Flower: “……”

Young Master Pei stirred his tea lid: “Miss Li’s sword doesn’t discriminate.”

Xie Little Flower: “……”

Huang Qi swung his feet: “It’s quick too—chopping off a head is just like chopping a radish.”

Xie Little Flower: “……”

Ding Yi shook his head: “Steward Flower, just surrender!”

Xie Little Flower: “……”

Xie Little Flower was just about to cry out, “Miss Li, this old servant sells his art, not his body!” when he saw Yan Sanhe’s pitch-black, ice-cold gaze turn toward him.

Xie Little Flower dropped to his knees with a thud. “Must Miss Yan truly have this old servant speak?”

Yan Sanhe crossed her arms and coldly replied with five words: “Get up, sit down, speak!”

Even bandits aren’t as domineering as you!

Xie Little Flower climbed up from the ground feeling wronged, sat on half his buttocks, and his gaze gradually became distant and empty.

……

He was from Anhui Prefecture. His father fell ill, and his mother ran off with another man.

When he was eight years old, the family pot lid couldn’t be lifted—they had nothing to eat. Watching his father about to starve to death, he ran to the sesame cake stall, snatched two cakes, and turned to run.

But as soon as he turned around, he collided with someone and fell face-first like a dog eating excrement.

The stall owner chased after him, fist raised to strike, when that person pulled out a copper coin from his robe, sparing him from a beating.

That person was none other than Xie Daozhi, several years his senior.

When he brought the cakes home, they had already gone cold, and his father’s body had also gone cold.

In storybooks, it was always young maidens who sold themselves to bury their fathers or mothers. He thought that as a half-grown boy who could eat less and work harder with his hands and feet, surely someone would want him.

And someone truly did want him.

A refined woman bought him, saying her son needed a book servant.

Upon arriving at the woman’s home, he discovered that her son was the refined young man who had paid for his cakes. Thus, he changed his name to Xie Little Flower and stayed by Xie Daozhi’s side.

His original name had been: Gou Little Flower.

The Xie family wasn’t wealthy, but compared to his Gou family, they were heaven and earth apart.

When Xie Daozhi went to the capital to study, to save money, the master and servant duo lived in a house in the rear courtyard of another family’s residence.

That household had only three people—a master and two servants. The master was a young woman in a wheelchair who, it was said, had been crippled by her husband’s family for not maintaining wifely virtue, then banished here.

To supplement the household income, she rented out the empty rooms in the rear courtyard.

The residence was very quiet, except that every night, the sound of a qin would drift over from the front.

Xie Daozhi needed to study intensively at night and couldn’t bear the qin sounds, so he sent Xie Little Flower to negotiate with the woman.

He went with great trepidation.

The woman had a blanket over her legs, but her waist and back were held perfectly straight, her hair combed without a single strand out of place—clearly someone from a good family.

After hearing him out, she said indifferently: “From now on, I’ll play during the day.”

During the day, Xie Daozhi went to the academy, while he stayed home to watch the house.

It was truly strange—whenever that qin music started, his soul would fly off somewhere unknown, as if he were bewitched or turned foolish.

Somehow, he developed the desire to learn the qin.

He shamelessly went to help the woman with chores—chopping firewood, carrying water, lighting fires, cooking… whatever hard or exhausting work there was, he scrambled to do it.

The woman said: “I have no silver to reward you.”

He said: “I don’t want a reward, just teach me to play the qin.”

The woman looked at him without speaking.

After a long while, she asked: “Why do you want to learn?”

He said: “It sounds beautiful.”

The woman smiled: “Good!”

Only then did he realize that the woman was beautiful—as beautiful as pear blossoms blooming in spring.

From that day forward, he did the household chores in the morning, worked for the woman at night, and spent the afternoons learning the qin.

After one month, he couldn’t play a proper tune.

After eight months, he could already play seven or eight pieces.

The woman said: “You have talent.”

He said: “It’s because my teacher teaches well.”

One afternoon, he went to the front courtyard to learn qin as usual. Just as he entered the courtyard, the woman scolded him, telling him not to come in.

He didn’t dare move, waiting under the eaves for half an hour, until he heard a loud crash from inside the room.

Rushing in, he saw the woman collapsed on the floor, her body reeking of urine, and both servants were nowhere to be seen.

She cried, sobbing so hard she could barely catch her breath.

He found her pitiful. He picked her up, closed his eyes as he changed her pants and clothes, then wrung out a damp cloth and wiped away her tears.

Through her tears, she told him that her leg tendons had been severed by her natal family.

He was shocked.

Her name was Liu Zhen. Her family circumstances were comfortable. At seventeen, she married into the Sang family. Her father-in-law was an official—not a high-ranking one, only seventh rank.

At nineteen, she gave birth to a son. At twenty-two, her husband died. Her father-in-law wanted her to remain chaste her whole life with her son, and when the time came, the family estate would pass to her son.

After she had maintained her chastity for five full years, she developed feelings for the martial arts instructor teaching her son.

When the affair was discovered, her father-in-law summoned her natal family and gave them two choices:

Either let Liu Zhen take her son and leave, with not a single tael of silver from the Sang family estate;

Or continue maintaining her chastity, the Sang family would support her until death, and her son could still inherit the estate—provided her leg tendons were severed.

Her natal family chose the second option, with the reasoning: The Sang family is wealthy and powerful, just endure it a bit, and when your son becomes the head of the family, you’ll enjoy blessings.

She asked: “Why is it that when a man loses his wife, before the new grave is even half a year old, the family rushes to arrange a second marriage for him; but when a woman loses her husband, she must remain chaste her entire life?”

She asked: “Through one long night, the wild cats outside yowl thirty-two times, the house dog howls sixteen times, when the night watchman is in a good mood, he strikes the watch slowly; when he’s in a bad mood, he pounds the wooden block heavily… who among you knows these things?”

She said: “I’m alive, yet what difference is there between me and a dead man’s memorial tablet, except that no one burns paper offerings or lights incense for me?”

She said: “For a widow to lose her chastity is better than an old prostitute reforming.”

She said: “I am a widow, but I am also a person!”

—