11 The arrival of Yu Xiang

"Get out."

Those were the two words Jiao Yu spit out to the man in front of her.

....

Jiao Yu and Jing Chu had only got inside their carriage and with no spare clothes found in the carriage, she told the young maid to buy a new one in the nearest dress shop she could get to, while she waits for her in the carriage.

With no disturbance, no eyes watching her and no evil cousin sisters beside her, Jiao Yu could finally relax her nerves. Stretching her legs and toes, taking off her outer clothing and veil.

"Why must I have to suffer time to time just after getting outside?"

Sighing, she could only blame her own fate given by the heavens. She'd been struck with misfortune ever since she was young, no scratch that, probably ever since she was born in this world.

Turning and twisting the thin silk in her hand, she found that she'd been extremely bored these past three years. The only thing that she could probably consider as 'fun' was reading books and playing with her daggers inside her courtyard but aside from that, there's nothing really. She could not consider being with Fan Zi Yi a 'fun' thing to do because every time she's with her, the only thing she feels, was worry about the innocent and stupid young female that resembles her past version.

Another wave of pain formed inside her head as she exasperatedly thought about the statement Liu Sheng Xiao gave away.

As Jiao Yu's mind was preoccupied, she did not notice the curtain of her carriage was lifted and a man in dark blue moved inside.

The man just got in and briefly stills as he stops midway inside, he was about to leave undetected but as he moved outward, the young female's eyes focused on him.

The appearance of the young female inside the carriage was outstanding maybe even exceptional from all the ladies he had seen and that surprised him a tiny bit, but it did no more effect on him as he did not really care about the appearance of anyone as it was only a useless thing to possess.

He saw and have met different kinds of women, trying to use their beauty to seduce, to get power and wealth. And because his father won't just shut up and made him meet all the girls he liked to Yu Jie Xing, he could only try to be cordial and show some patience towards his old man.

That's why Yu Jie Xing thinks that women who have outstanding appearance is a double edge sword; useless but dangerous.

"I apologize for entering, I was looking for a squirrel and saw it came here but I did not know this carriage was already occupied, please excuse me." The Yu Jie Xing casually said as he starts to inspect the carriage with his eyes and seeing that there was nothing, he promptly turned to leave without waiting for her to react or speak.

Seconds passed and the young female sat inside the carriage stared at the closed curtain, flabbergasted.

'...What did just happend??..... A squirrel?' Jiao Yu could not believe what she just heard and it took her some time to register what was spoken.

After the carriage curtain was lifted and slowly falling again, covering the insides of the carriage from the outside, Jiao Yu stared at the closed curtain in disbelief. Moments later, she heard two voices speaking softly outside.

Something suddenly registered in Jiao Yu's mind as she remembered that when the man came inside her carriage, she had not wore the veil on her face since and only lifted the thin silk once she found out that she was not alone.

Jiao Yu gathered her dress skirt and lifted the corner of the curtain as she called after the man. "Wait!"

The man did not stop and just continued to walk away with an older man she recognized from the main hall, seemingly not heard her calling after him. The older male, the man who had been beside the qinwang this whole time looked at her way suspiciously and said something to Yu Jie Xing , then turned his head away.

With clenched fist, Jiao Yu reluctantly closed the curtain and sat back to her seat. After some time, Jing Chu arrived with nothing on her hand. The young maid wasn't able to buy a dress anywhere near the vicinity as there was no dress shop near the qinwang's fu and she can't go back to the Liu fu to get some clothes for her young miss because it would take her an hour and a half before she could reach the Liu fu and another hour and a half to get back to the qinwang's fu.

"Young Lady, what should we do? We can't go back inside with young lady's dress like this." Jing Chu worriedly said.

"If there's none, then there's none. What can we do? We should just wait for father to come." Jiao Yu sighed.

Few hours later, people slowly came out of the qinwang's fu and went to their own carriages, palanquins and horses. On a horseback, Liu Sheng xiao who was also one of the first people that came out of the front gate peeked inside Jiao Yu's carriage.

Looking at his daughter's demeanor and saw nothing's amiss, Liu Sheng Xiao released a breath of relief before saying, "Bai Chen already told me what happened outside and since everything's alright, you should get back to the fu first."

"You're not coming with us?" Jiao Yu said.

"No, it's just that there's some matters I need to finish before going back."

Jiao Yu just stared at him, not speaking. Seeing that his daughter seemed to want to know more Liu Sheng Xiao said, "It's nothing to worry about." Turning towards Jing Chu, he said, "Jing Chu make sure your young miss gets to the fu safe and warm, and also do not let anyone inside without permission."

"Yes, master." Jing Chu monotonously said.

Before turning to leave Liu Sheng Xiao told Jiao Yu to be safe and she nodded to him in return.

.....

The celebration for the qinwang's birthday have finished grandiosely and with little complications. Figures after figures of people walked out of its huge front gate and headed back to their own fu and some officials went directly to the court.

The servant and maids inside the qinwang's fu busied themselves; cleaning, throwing away the trashes, and bidding farewell to the remaining guests. However, in the Eastern courtyard of the Qinwang's fu, the servants and maid stationed there were tensed but most of them were excited to see the Young Prime Minister pay a visit.

Later, two figures passed the crescent entrance of the Eastern courtyard. One of them was the Chief servant of the qinwang's fu, Yi Mou. The other one was a tall young man wearing dark blue with white thread linings. Two oblique flying handsome long brows, tall nose, thin lips lightly hooking up and the smile looked slightly evil. His handsomeness was somewhat overbearing and was clearly callous, but he unexpectedly had a pair of bright peach shaped eyes. When looking at others, they were passionate and resembled uprightness, having the delusion of a touch of gentleness.

The female servants and maids felt their chest squeeze and hard to breath as they held each other from falling against the stone cold ground. Some of the male servants gasped aloud and couldn't take their eyes off the tall young man. It was spread around the whole Jing capital that the young Prime Minister was the epitome of a beautiful man, causing many men to feel contempt and mocked him for that. They also doubted that the young Prime Minister was able to achieve all his accomplishment without the favor of others by using his face and probably he was able to captivate the emperor with the same weapon.

But who would've known that after seeing the person in person, one would also feel astonished and bewitched at his beauty. Some of the male servant immediately thought that, so what if there's tons of female servants in front of them, compared to the man in front, they don't care if they were considered as 'cut sleeves'.

(Cut Sleeves- meaning 'gay' and was derived from a story of an emperor who cut his sleeves to not wake his sleeping male lover to go to the morning court.) - ;) Gosh so sweet of him!~

Yu Jie Xing stood outside of a red cinnabar door and only went iin after Yi Mou announced his arrival to the person inside.

Upon entering inside, Yu Jie Xing instantly detected a whiff of minty scent from around the room. Then with haste, he sat down to the chair unoccupied in front of the Qinwang, who was sitting erectly on his chair.

"I apologize to wang ye for paying a visit so suddenly." Yu Jie Xing solemnly said.

"No need to be sorry, this old one should be the one who's sorry for taking Yu Xiang's time." Zhao Gao politely said and spoke again, "Since Yu Xiang came here so suddenly, this old one won't lie to you and say that I expect that there's some good news you've gathered, right?"

"There's none at this moment, but I was able to find an inkling to the whereabouts of wang ye's grandson." After pausing, Yu Jie Xing continued, "But the location is still uncertain and needed to be checked."

"Check and check, do what you want for as long as Yu Xiang can get my grandson back." Zhao Gao drunk the remaining tea in his cup before saying promptly, "Naturally, after this old one's grandson is secured and got back to our fu, I will give tens of thousands of golds for remuneration."

Yu Jie Xing's brow was raised and the corner of his lips hooked up, "No need for tens of thousands of golds for I don't need it and was never lacking of it either."

Clearing his throat, Zhao Gao awkwardly looked towards the young man in front of him. He secretly praised the youth's arrogance and thanked that his unmarried daughters and granddaughters were not here to budge him to get them married over.

"Then, what does Yu Xiang wants for payment?"

"Just an information on something." Yu Jie Xing plainly said.

Zhao Gao was stunned and carefully said, "I will try to look for what information Yu Xiang wants but this old one might not have what you wanted, so I'll apologize first."

"Since it's like that then, I'll just let wang ye know that the information I want to have concerns an incident happened in a small village called Xiangli three years ago."