My Wife Is A Sword Immortal
Chapter 536 - 352: Your servant’s name is Qian’er, a delicate body born in Zhao Mansion (Part 2)

Chapter 536: Chapter 352: Your servant’s name is Qian’er, a delicate body born in Zhao Mansion (Part 2)

Because indifference is directed at people, how can it be directed at objects?

Thus, Zhao Qian’er never believed in the existence of such parents.

Therefore, as an abandoned infant, she always felt that her situation was due to her parents having difficulties, either passing from illness, being pursued by enemies, or... accidentally losing her, and then exerting great effort in vain to find her.

Thus, Zhao Qian’er felt she was extremely fortunate, compared to the most "heartless" parents mentioned above. Well, Qian’er, aren’t you happy and content yet?

She even feared that perhaps she had caused her mother’s death, who had carried her for ten months.

But if it had merely been that her careless parents had accidentally lost her, while Zhao Qian’er felt extremely privileged, she also felt a bit of sadness.

Just a bit.

If she could have the chance to meet them in this lifetime, she would very much like to tell them,

Please, both of you must be more cautious in the future, so as not to lose another child again, even if that child is very small, even if they cry a lot and are troublesome. Because losing them means missing them for a very long, long time...

Later, when Zhao Qian’er had some free time, she once chuckled and showed her small fangs while asking Auntie Liu about what happened at the beginning.

Auntie Liu said that Zhao Qian’er was estimated to be only a few days old when she was found lying outside the side door of the Duke Mansion. It was the mistress of the fourth house, the personal mother of the young lady, who after seeing her, decided out of kindness to let the Duke Mansion take her in.

Instead of sending her to the government-run orphanage in Qianjing, where she would have been deemed a part of the stock claimed by brothel madams, human traffickers, and other unsavory characters.

Latterly, whenever Zhao Qian’er recalled this event, she silently estimated that the mistress of the fourth house must have just given birth to a daughter, the current young lady, and saw her lying there when she went outside. Despite considering it bad luck, she felt a bit of mercy that comes naturally to women after becoming mothers.

However, that sense of mercy nearly stopped at that point.

Because it was not the fourth house of the mistress that adopted her, the Zhao Qian’er who entered the mansion as an infant spent her first few years in other areas designated for abandoned children within the Duke Mansion.

Even for such nobles, it took just a word to decide whether to take Zhao Qian’er into the fourth house within their mansion, placing her life vastly apart from others.

But she was just a little girl unwanted by her careless parents, a baby girl whose whereabouts were unknown, not worthy of the time for such a dignified mistress to even mention.

However, that the mistress could barely glance at the basket-lying Zhao Qian’er at the door and lightly lift her chin to signal the alert servant to bring the basket inside, made Zhao Qian’er feel extremely grateful and extremely lucky when she remembered it later on.

Nevertheless, even so, she was yet connected to the fourth house in some way.

Later, not long after Zhao Qian’er started to remember events, when the mansion was assigning maidservants, because she couldn’t outfight others, couldn’t grab more food, was malnourished, and even more unable to fight other abandoned infant maidservants, her tiny, frail body stood out.

None of the stewards from any quarter considered her worthy, selecting her who resembled a charred reed pole after autumn, dark, short, and frail.

Indeed, in those stewards’ eyes, on this crucial day of being selected by a master, her hair was messily tied, possibly unsure how to do it properly, with her tangled, dry, and yellow strands appearing to have soil in them, and her cheeks bearing several distinctly straight faint pink marks.

She was nothing like a clever and neat maidservant suitable to serve the masters.

Moreover, she stood at the very back of the crowd, somewhat deliberately, somewhat unintentionally hidden by several taller abandoned infant maids in front.

She went unnoticed completely.

Even as Zhao Qian’er tried her best to stand on her tiptoes, tying her neatly washed hair with ice-cold well water, enduring the throbbing pain of eight swollen scratch marks covered with white flour on her face, pursing her lips tightly, and opening her dry, unfocused bright eyes, displaying the most brilliant smile of her life,

she still failed to catch a steward’s attention, including Kunber, whose behavior, it seemed, hadn’t changed over the years.

In her hopeful gaze, the calm glance of this tall elder simply swept past and landed on a few maidservants in the front row who looked clever and lovely, never to return again.

At that moment, Zhao Qian’er, who was young enough to count her age on one hand without needing all her fingers, slowly put down her heels, her eyes still bright but she bent over to crouch, shrinking behind the thick wall of people formed.

She still wore the smile on her face she had put on to appear cheerful for others, seemingly forgetting to let it fade, or rather, at that moment, this radiant smile seemed to be the most comfortable.

She had endured the pain for a long time, becoming numb to it. If she restrained her smile, it would stretch her wounds and cause pain so intense it might make her roll on the ground.

So, she had to smile.

Zhao Qian’er, who knew little and had no one to teach her, wore a broad smile while hugging her knees and burying her head. This was also her most comfortable position, which she maintained defensively when those peers attempted to scratch and kick her that morning.

Her thin, short frame didn’t consume much food, and she couldn’t outrun them; besides, it would have drained her energy.

This crouching defensive method, once discovered by Zhao Qian’er, seemed exceedingly effective against beating.

It was also a "Magical Treasure" she had always cherished in her heart since her childhood, believing it to be incredibly special.

Once employed, it could minimize the pain, serving as the best defense.

However, later on, those who disliked her face still managed to scratch it badly.

Although young, Zhao Qian’er was aware that she was quite pretty; her face was the only bright spot on her otherwise thin and short frame that strangers noticed at first glance.

So, after her face was scratched up, a muddy Zhao Qian’er ran to the back kitchen and quietly begged a temperamental cook for a long while until she was given a bit of flour.

The condition was that she had to haul many buckets of water and clean even more chimneys.

Zhao Qian’er agreed with a smile, then, with this hard-earned bit of pale yellow flour, she ran back to the woodshed, shut the leaky door tightly, used a dry cloth to dab the blood oozing from her wound, and applied the flour to cover the red swollen scratch marks. Despite the pain, the reflected face in the water tank showed less visible marks.

But the coarse flour felt like sand of a different color mixed into her flesh.

And even after such turmoil, she seemed still an unattractive foundling maid.

The little maid, how laughable.

Zhao Qian’er squatted at the back of the maids’ crowd, their dark silhouettes ahead of her, and behind her the slanting spring sunlight pouring in through the window.

The little blonde maid crouched there, not obstructing anyone’s path or the light.

She just lifted her little head and, through the gaps between the legs ahead, could breathe somewhat fresh air and see the blinding sunlight covering the floor where the different stewards of the rooms stood.

Zhao Qian’er’s smile was radiant, and so were her thoughts.

Would she have to sleep forever on the cold brick bed next to the latrine in the woodshed? Might she one day wake up early to find it covered with prickly wood, piled over her?

Would she lose even the woodshed to live in, be driven out of the mansion to become a street beggar, then get her legs or arms broken by old beggars making her play pitiable to beg? And if she didn’t manage to beg any money, would they still give her food?

Would she be unable to go and thank the senior madam of the fourth room with a kowtow...

At her young age, she was naive and pure.

Joy and sorrow, pain and suffering, hunger and cold, sadness and fear.

All were pure, as were the hardships.

Even many years later, it was still the same.

But in Rong’er’s arms, she experienced a purely delightful affection and a melting happiness.

This feeling was like that summer day years ago, finally swinging on a swing...