Crowned by the Treacherous Big Shot
Chapter 555 - 472: Little Nine’s Mother

Chapter 555: Chapter 472: Little Nine’s Mother

When Lady Yan returned to the courtyard, Meng Qianqian was earnestly laying out medicinal herbs to dry as per her instructions.

Ever since entering the Thousand Mechanism Pavilion, Lady Yan hadn’t allowed Meng Qianqian to do anything else. She wasn’t even permitted to wander around and was instead made to dry herbs day in and day out, an unbearably monotonous task.

Meng Qianqian had always known this was deliberate. Even so, she never slacked off, nor did she try to bargain with Lady Yan.

Whatever she was asked to do, she did it.

Such patience and restraint reminded Lady Yan so much of her elder sister-disciple from the past.

Yan Hanshuang’s mother passed away early, and her father sold her for ten taels of silver. To which household she was sold, she no longer remembered.

She only knew that she had been sold multiple times, had once been a child bride, had served as a ragged maid, and had even traveled with an opera troupe, performing for a living on the martial road.

She learned some martial skills in the troupe, and the old troupe leader saw potential in her. He handed her over to the Thousand Mechanism Pavilion in exchange for twenty taels of silver.

At the beginning, she was just an Outer Disciple. Through diligence and relentless training, she gradually stood out among the ranks of Outer Disciples.

During a martial arts competition in the Thousand Mechanism Pavilion, she, still an Outer Disciple, defeated three Inner Sect Disciples in succession, causing a sensation within the entire pavilion.

She thought her fate would change from then on. She waited, full of anticipation, to be accepted as an Inner Sect Disciple. But what she awaited was a brutal beating that almost claimed her life.

"What kind of trash are you to publicly embarrass Senior Brother Haoran and Senior Brother Huaian?"

"Exactly! And Senior Sister Li too—how dare someone like you, an Outer Disciple, humiliate her? Senior Sister Li has the grace not to crush you, but you took it as an opportunity to go all out against her! Do you really think you could withstand her moves if she hadn’t held back?"

They hurled both words and fists at her, raining blows down relentlessly.

Those Senior Brother Haoran, Senior Brother Huaian, and Senior Sister Li they spoke of were all disciples of two of the elders.

During the competition, those very elders had heaped praise on her, commending her exceptional talent and lauding her for bringing honor to the pavilion. In front of the old Pavilion Master, they even vied to take her in as their disciple.

The two of them had turned red in the face from quarrelling, only to be temporarily placated by a third elder stepping in to mediate.

Yan Hanshuang had felt her cheeks flush and her heart race with excitement.

Little did she know... it was all an act.

They had never planned to take her as their disciple.

It was a show, a performance put on for the old Pavilion Master.

She had defeated their disciples and made them lose face.

This was the Thousand Mechanism Pavilion; this was the so-called grand martial sect.

How utterly ironic.

She gave up resisting, letting the snowstorm of fists and feet land all over her head and body.

Soon, she was battered and bloody, her consciousness fading into haze.

Perhaps she was about to die...

Death wouldn’t be so bad.

Every day she lived felt unbearable.

What was the point of such a life?

"What are you all doing?"

A stern female voice rang out from behind the crowd.

The beating seemed to pause.

Her eyes were so swollen she could barely open them, but through a blurry slit, she vaguely glimpsed panic etched on the onlookers’ faces.

How laughable. With her vision obscured by blood, how could she truly see their expressions?

Perhaps it was just her imagination?

She really was beyond saving. Even at this point, she failed to grasp the ugliness of human nature.

Someone like her, tossed about like duckweed, how could anyone possibly stand up for her?

Ridiculous, really.

"S-Senior Sister Yuan?"

A disciple stammered in panic.

The others quickly stood upright, their bodies shifting to shield her curled-up figure on the ground.

Zhongli Yuan’s commanding gaze swept over them. "What are you all doing?"

"N-nothing."

One of the female disciples answered in a small voice.

Zhongli Yuan said sternly, "The Thousand Mechanism Pavilion forbids private altercations and prohibits abuse of personal punishments."

"She started it."

"Exactly, Senior Sister Yuan, she hit us first and insulted us. We had no choice but to fight back..."

"Please, Senior Sister Yuan, see the truth..."

Zhongli Yuan ordered, "You all, come with me to the Pavilion Master."

"Senior Sister Yuan, spare us!"

"Senior Sister Yuan, we won’t dare do this again! Please, just this once!"

"Senior Sister Yuan, I beg you, for my master’s sake, be lenient!"

The crowd began to beg for mercy.

Would she really offend the Pavilion’s two elders for the sake of an Outer Disciple?

Yan Hanshuang thought to herself that, if it were her, she definitely wouldn’t be so foolish.

As that thought crossed her mind, she smelled a warm, gentle fragrance.

A pair of soft arms lifted her from the ground.

She lost her mother when she was three and had long since forgotten what her mother felt like.

Yet in that instant, she suddenly remembered.

"Mom..."

A sourness rose in her nose, and all the grievances she had held back spilled out as she wept in Zhongli Yuan’s embrace.

Looking back on that moment many times afterward, she deeply regretted it.

How humiliating, how utterly brainless of her.

Crying out for a mother to an unmarried young woman—what if Zhongli Yuan had taken offense and cast her aside right then and there?

Fortunately, Zhongli Yuan didn’t.

Zhongli Yuan carried her filthy, disheveled self straight to the Pavilion Master’s courtyard.

She was the Pavilion Master’s favorite disciple, greatly doted upon. But the Pavilion Master was an old fox; he’d seen too much of this sort of thing before. Absolute cleanliness yields no fish, so he only sought to give a minor punishment to make his point.

The two of them had probably assumed she was asleep.

But she wasn’t.

What she saw next became a memory etched into her soul.

The disciplined and proper senior disciple everyone admired grabbed the Pavilion Master by the ear. "Old man, are you going to punish them or not? If you won’t, I’ll never call you master again! I’ll sever our ties and go find another teacher!"

The Pavilion Master flared up. "Nonsense! Complete nonsense! Once a teacher, always a father. If you dare take another master, I’ll break your legs!"

Zhongli Yuan replied, "Whose legs are you breaking?"

He pointed at Yan Hanshuang. "Hers."

An utterly exposed Yan Hanshuang: "..."

Everyone in the Thousand Mechanism Pavilion assumed the Pavilion Master accepted her as a disciple out of guilt, or to keep the elders in check. Only she knew the truth—it was to ensure she didn’t spread the story about him getting his ear pulled.

"We had an agreement, no backing out now."

"Of course, of course."

She nodded quickly. "My lips are sealed, Master. Don’t worry! You’re majestic and awe-inspiring—Senior Sister behaves like a quail in front of you!"

The Pavilion Master patted her head. "You’re teachable. Alright, go train with your senior sister."

The Pavilion Master hadn’t truly regarded her as a disciple, so her martial arts were taught entirely by her senior sister.

Though considered exceptionally talented, she never imagined that her senior sister’s abilities were on a completely different plane, like clouds and mud.

Zhongli Yuan often lamented, "How can you have practiced this needle technique three times and still not get it?"

"Shuang’er, you’re so hopelessly slow. Even Little Nine learned last time’s needle technique ages ago."

"Yan Hanshuang! Did you sneakily give Little Nine candied hawthorn again? All her baby teeth are rotting!"

Whenever she made a mistake, her senior sister never punished her physically. Instead, Zhongli Yuan would lock herself away in reflection.

Over time, she grew afraid to make mistakes.

Because her senior sister had become her weakest vulnerability.

Lady Yan gazed at Meng Qianqian quietly drying herbs in the courtyard.

Senior Sister, tell me—what should I do?