Chapter 34
Chapter 34: Feudal Workplace Bullying
The courtyard gate at the Auspicious Cloud Residence was left ajar. Four maids bristling with aggression didn’t even knock—they barged straight in.
Yao Xiao Man happened to be cornered in the garden.
In that instant, she had only one thought: Was she cursed this year?
Even in a feudal society, the workplace had workplace bullying.
Little Peach led the charge like she had a death wish. She wore a rosy-red skirt cinched tight at the waist, a freshly hammered silver hairpin glittering bright, her chin lifted to the sky.
“Yao Xiao Man, don’t think that just because you’ve entered the Auspicious Cloud Residence you’ve really climbed a high branch! What are you, anyway? And you think you’re worthy to serve the Eldest Grandson Young Master up close?”
Behind her stood three more: the burly Qiu Ju, the sharp-faced Chun Xing, and the shifty-eyed Dong Mei—girls who always fought to be first, always dreaming of soaring into the clouds.
“That’s right!” Qiu Ju spat. “Why don’t you piss in a bowl and take a good look at that poor, pathetic face of yours!”
She shoved Xiao Man hard in the shoulder.
Xiao Man twisted aside, but Chun Xing and Dong Mei clamped down on her arms from both sides, locking her in place.
The old quilt she’d been carrying out to air thudded onto the ground, dust puffing up around their feet.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Xiao Man forced herself to stay calm, voice tight. “This is the Auspicious Cloud Residence, not a place for you to run wild!”
“Da Ya is the head of the Auspicious Cloud Residence, huh? Ha!”
Little Peach stepped in close, sharp nails hovering near Xiao Man’s face.
“So it’s just you, you filthy little bitch, left here?”
“The Eldest Grandson Young Master isn’t here. Granny Chen isn’t here. Old Chen Tou is snoring away. Who’s going to back you up now?”
She cut her eyes toward the others.
“Sisters, teach her the rules!”
“Rules?” Xiao Man snapped. “You’re just picking a fight for fun!”
She struggled hard, but two fists couldn’t beat eight hands.
Qiu Ju grabbed a fistful of Xiao Man’s hair and yanked back. Pain ripped across her scalp, her vision swimming.
Smack.
Little Peach put her whole body into it and slapped Xiao Man hard across the left cheek.
The burn exploded instantly.
“So you dared to seduce Young Master! Shameless slut!”
Smack.
A backhand across the right cheek.
Xiao Man’s face felt seared by hot iron. Her ears rang. A metallic sweetness rose in her mouth.
She clenched her teeth and refused to cry out. She only stared at Little Peach, eyes blazing.
“What are you staring at?” Qiu Ju sneered. “Not convinced?”
That stubborn look lit Qiu Ju’s temper like oil. She lifted her foot and drove it into Xiao Man’s lower belly.
Held in place, Xiao Man had nowhere to dodge.
“Ugh!”
The grunt tore out of her as pain knifed through her abdomen. She doubled over, cold sweat soaking her back in an instant.
Meanwhile, on the preaching platform at Fa Hua Temple in the capital…
The Buddhist Scion Lin Qing Xuan was explaining a crucial passage from the Diamond Sutra—“let the mind arise without dwelling anywhere.” The devotees below were silent, immersed in his chanting, clear and calm as spring water.
His eyes were lowered, his expression solemn, a faint Buddha-light seeming to veil him.
But in that instant—
Smack.
A fierce, burning pain struck his left cheek without warning, as if someone had slapped him with all their might.
Lin Qing Xuan’s fingers froze on his prayer beads. His chanting cut off dead.
Stone, standing closest, stared in disbelief as a clear, faintly red handprint bloomed on Young Master’s pale left cheek, visible to the naked eye.
What…?
Stone’s eyes nearly popped out of his head.
Then—smack.
The same savage burn flared across Lin Qing Xuan’s right cheek.
He saw stars. That rusty taste of blood filled his mouth, too.
He lifted a hand to cover his face on instinct, all the calm of a Buddhist Scion ripped away.
It was too sudden. Too strange.
The crowd below began to stir, whispering as they stared at him on the platform—shaken, clutching his cheeks like a man struck by madness.
Before Lin Qing Xuan could recover from those two ghostly slaps—
Thump.
A heavy, brutal blow slammed into his lower belly.
The force was so real he stumbled forward. His face turned paper-white, sweat beading at his temples.
“Young Master!”
Stone forgot propriety and lunged up to catch him, feeling his body trembling under his hands.
Lin Qing Xuan clutched his burning stomach. A cold, bone-deep panic seized him.
It wasn’t him who was hurt.
It was Xiao Man.
She was bearing all of this.
Someone was hurting her. Beating her.
The thought sank fangs into his heart. Vows, rules, composure—everything scattered.
In those eyes that always looked down on the world with pity, a terrifying storm surged: shock, rage, and panic like never before.
“Xiao Man… something happened.”
Lin Qing Xuan seized Stone’s arm, gripping so hard it nearly crushed bone. His voice was raw, urgent.
“Back to the manor. Now. This instant.”
He didn’t even wait to descend the steps. Ignoring the stunned stares of a thousand devotees, he brushed Stone aside, gathered his robe, and leapt straight off the side of the platform.
His moon-white sleeves cut a panicked arc through the wind.
“Young Master!”
Stone went pale, scrambling after him.
Lin Qing Xuan could think of nothing else. One thought screamed in his head: get back—fast.
Back to the Auspicious Cloud Residence.
Xiao Man was being beaten.
She needed him.
Outside the temple gate, a gentle old horse waited, tied up and ready. Lin Qing Xuan reached it like a man possessed.
He had never looked so unsteady, so wrecked—like a trapped beast, enraged and desperate to tear its enemy apart.
“Move!”
He shoved aside a novice monk reaching for the reins, then climbed into the saddle with hands and knees, clumsy and savage.
He snapped the reins. The old horse cried out and bolted, hooves flying as it tore toward the Heir Apparent’s manor as if it had gone mad.
Hoofbeats fell like storm rain, shattering the calm outside Fa Hua Temple.
Lin Qing Xuan lay low over the horse’s back, robe whipping. The bright handprints still burned on his cheeks, and his eyes held no Buddha-nature now—only sky-burning fury and bone-deep urgency.
Back in the Auspicious Cloud Residence’s courtyard, the maids had gone vicious, pinning Xiao Man to the ground and raining down fists and kicks.
“Stop! What are you doing?!”
An older maidservant with a broom had just reached the courtyard gate. Seeing the scene, she let out a shriek.
Little Peach planted a foot on Xiao Man’s hand. She glanced back, smug as poison, not afraid in the slightest.
“Where did you old thing come from? Get lost! Mind your own business and sweep your floor!”
No one cared about a mere sweeper.