Chapter 19: Little Sister Huaixu…

In the end, at Liu Huaixu’s insistence, Yu An tucked a hundred copper coins into her robes—after all, selling at the market meant paying rent every day, and she couldn’t leave with not a single coin to her name.

After the meal, Liu Huaixu boiled some hot water for Yu An to bathe with. Yu An had assumed the water was meant for Liu Huaixu herself, never expecting it to be for her, and just as she moved to refuse, Liu Huaixu had already gone back to her room.

Yu An stood where she was, glancing at the water in the bucket, then at Liu Huaixu’s tightly shut door. Oh well, might as well wash up. It wasn’t as if she dared knock and call Liu Huaixu out…

After her bath, as Yu An tipped the water out, she discovered that the ladling bucket was already dry—the water Liu Huaixu ought to have refilled. Evidently, Liu Huaixu had done no more than a quick wash that day.

So the next morning, Yu An woke a little earlier than usual, went to the river to fetch a bucket of water, and only then set out to sell rice.

When she left, Liu Huaixu hadn’t woken yet, so naturally there was no breakfast. Reheating the previous night’s leftovers felt like too much trouble, and so Yu An headed out on an empty stomach.

You really had to hand it to a Lord Alpha’s stamina—never in her wildest dreams had Yu An imagined she could push a loaded cart without eating breakfast.

Yu An’s pace wasn’t slow, and she reached the market still fairly early, before the vendors had all arrived. She found her spot from the previous day, paid the steward two days’ rent, and set about selling her rice with peace of mind.

When she’d first arrived yesterday, Yu An hadn’t known what to expect or whether the rice would sell at all—and yet it had sold astonishingly well.

There was little farmland in the county town, and the rice from Zeyuan Village was famous throughout all of Linyang County. Unfortunately, everything went through rice merchants: what they priced high, no one could afford to eat, and what they sold cheap was nothing but stale grain.

Yu An traded openly under the Zeyuan Village name. Though her rice couldn’t rival the harvest from other farming families’ fields, it was at least tastier than that stale rice—and she sold it even cheaper than the old stuff.

As for why the county’s rice merchants didn’t come out to put a stop to this?

It was because very few people could come sell at the market in the first place. For one, the roads were bad; for two, no one wanted to grind it out here. The village’s big households mostly rented their land out or sold in bulk to the merchants. Selling at market did fetch a little more, but it was time-consuming and exhausting, and families with plenty of fields and good grain weren’t short of that silver anyway.

So the ones who did come to sell rice at the market were mostly people in the same boat as Yu An—households with little land and mediocre yields who couldn’t command a good price, coming to market hoping to sell whatever bit they could.

Today Yu An had brought one dan more rice than on previous days. She wanted to sell out fast and repay Second Grandmother the money.

But the amount she sold was about the same as yesterday—nearly two dan—leaving more than two dan that Yu An would have to haul back home. As the market broke up, she was busy packing up for the trip back when several people blocked her path.

At their head was a boy of fourteen or fifteen, presumably a Alpha who had presented not long ago. Flashily dressed, he swaggered right up to Yu An. “Hey, rice-seller. How about you sell me all of this at a discount?”

Though the person before her was just a child, that arrogant, strutting tone rubbed Yu An the wrong way.

Yu An covered her goods with the cloth and turned back to say, “Not selling. I’m heading home.”

With that, she turned to push her cart off—only to hear the Little Alpha cry out in surprise, “Huh… aren’t you Yu An?”

Yu An turned back and studied the Little Alpha’s face—now that she looked, he did seem rather familiar.

The Little Alpha had three servants in tow, one of whom chimed in, “That’s right, Young Master, it really is Yu An. Why isn’t she at the gambling den—selling rice at the market now?” The fellow had wandering hands; as he spoke, he reached out to flip back the cloth Yu An had just covered, but she stopped him with one hand.

Pressed under Yu An’s grip, the servant looked toward the Little Alpha in apparent agony. “Young Master…”

The Little Alpha’s brows snapped down and he shouted, “Yu An, let go! How dare you lay hands on this young master’s people?” With a wave of his hand, the two servants behind him swarmed forward and surrounded Yu An.

Yu An knew that yesterday, when she’d fought the Alpha who had attacked Liu Huaixu, it was because her pheromones had suppressed the opponent. She meant to use them again today, but the wretched things chose the crucial moment to disobey her.

Recalling yesterday’s scene, Yu An strained with all her might to release her pheromones, but no matter what she did, nothing came out.

Seeing this, the servants assumed she simply didn’t dare fight back and flew straight at her.

In a straight fight, Yu An might not have lost to these men, but her whole mind was fixed on forcing out her pheromones, her attention not on her attackers at all. Within a few moves, they had knocked her to the ground.

Looking battered, she raised her head and wiped the blood from the corner of her mouth.

A surge of frustration rose in her chest—punched twice, no less, and made a laughingstock in front of the Little Alpha watching nearby.

She sprang to her feet and unleashed a flurry of fists and kicks on the men.

The Little Alpha watching went wide-eyed. He’d thought Yu An didn’t dare fight back—never expected her to floor all three of them.

Yu An straightened her clothes, glanced at the three men wailing on the ground, then walked toward the Little Alpha.

Thinking she meant to hit him, the Little Alpha immediately took a defensive stance and asked in a trembling voice, “Wh-what are you doing? My father… if you hit me, my father won’t let you get away with it!”

The corner of Yu An’s mouth twitched into a smile. “Children really ought to learn some manners before going out.”

Without waiting to see how the Little Alpha took it, she pushed her cart and headed home.

The reason Yu An had been in such a hurry to leave—besides the Little Alpha’s irritating tone—was that… it was about to rain.

So she traveled faster than usual on the way back, but no matter how she calculated, she couldn’t outguess the heavens. Just when she wasn’t far from home, the rain came pouring down in earnest.

Getting drenched herself, Yu An wasn’t afraid of. What she feared now was the rice getting soaked.

She had covered it, but the covering was hardly waterproof.

So she sprinted all the way to her gate, and only after unloading the rice into the woodshed did Yu An finally breathe easy.

Liu Huaixu, cooking inside, heard the commotion and came out—just in time to run into Yu An emerging from the woodshed, soaked through, hair plastered messily across her face. Without so much as a glance at Liu Huaixu, Yu An said, “What are you coming out for? It’s pouring out there!”

She moved to shove Liu Huaixu quickly back inside, then remembered how drenched she herself was, and waved her hand instead, motioning for Liu Huaixu to hurry in.

Liu Huaixu stepped back through the door, and Yu An followed her in.

The weather in late September was already cold, and soaked as Yu An was, she sneezed the moment she stepped inside.

Seeing her like this, Liu Huaixu felt a pang of sympathy and handed over the ginger soup she had prepared earlier.

The ginger soup was just the right temperature. Yu An took it and drained it in one go, then looked up with a smile. “Thank you~”

While Yu An’s head had been down, Liu Huaixu hadn’t noticed; now, at a glance, she saw the wound at the corner of her mouth.

Her face went cold in an instant. And remembering how she had prepared ginger soup because she’d feared Yu An would catch a chill in the rain, her mood soured further. She turned her back without a single word.

Yu An stood there at a loss. She was just handing me ginger soup—why the cold shoulder all of a sudden???

How can this woman switch faces so fast???

Utterly failing to notice that the wound on her face was inviting misunderstanding, Yu An stewed in gloom.

She went back to her room and changed into dry clothes. When she came out again, she didn’t try to strike up conversation with Liu Huaixu either—just took a small folding stool and sat by the fire.

Warming herself soon grew boring; Yu An propped her chin in her hand and zoned out, until she shifted and aggravated her wound, which finally reminded her of the fight.

And Liu Huaixu had turned icy precisely after seeing her face.

Realizing it was probably because of this, Yu An’s earlier gloom dissipated. She turned her head and poked Liu Huaixu in the back.

Liu Huaixu gave no reaction at all. Yu An poked again.

Still nothing.

Just as she readied a third poke, Liu Huaixu suddenly spoke. “What exactly are you trying to do?”

Yu An scratched her head and said, stumbling over her words, “I didn’t start trouble. Someone came looking for it with me today.”

“Oh.”

The frosty reply made its message clear: she didn’t believe a word.

The two of them weren’t the strangers they’d been at the start, and Yu An’s courage had grown considerably. Dragging her little stool along behind her, she scooted bit by bit until she was in front of Liu Huaixu, and said, face propped in both hands, “Sister Huaixu…”

“Shut up.”

Oh, right—she forbade me from calling her sister.

So Yu An switched terms. “Wifey…”

This time Liu Huaixu said nothing, but Yu An could read the word get lost plainly in her eyes.

She switched again. “Little Sister Huaixu…”

This time Liu Huaixu didn’t tell her to shut up, and there was no “get lost” in her eyes either. She just stared at Yu An in disbelief.

Yu An waggled her head, and just as she prepared to call out again, she felt a sharp twinge of pain in her arm.

Looking down, she found Liu Huaixu twisting her arm.

“Ahh…!!!”