Daily Survival After Inheriting a Harem (GL) - Chapter 26

Without the Mystic Ice Rings, Pei Yuqing was no longer tortured too badly when she went into this cold water, but because of her constitution, she still disliked it in the end. This time, however, she patiently stayed with Qiu Qi in the water for a full hour.

Qiu Qi hugged Pei Yuqing and, in a daze, rubbed against her messily. In the end, she very naturally found a comfortable position in Pei Yuqing’s arms. Her ears shook off water droplets, and she settled down peacefully, falling asleep.

Pei Yuqing’s gaze darkened. She raised her hand and lightly touched Qiu Qi’s furry head. When she brushed past that pair of ears, she deliberately added a little more strength, then watched in satisfaction as Qiu Qi’s expression unfolded in her palm like a blooming flower.

Did all cat-beasts’ ears feel the same when rubbed?

She lowered her eyes. Her pale, onion-white fingertips intertwined with Qiu Qi’s soft black hair, focusing on feeling the smoothness sliding through her fingers. Even she herself did not notice that the corners of her mouth had unknowingly curved upward in a gentle arc.

After an hour, feeling that the temperature of the person in her arms had gone down, Pei Yuqing raised her hands and lifted Qiu Qi in a bridal carry. She grabbed a long cloth from the clothes rack, wrapped the person up, and walked outside.

Ever since Lan Tang learned that her master had returned, she had been crouching at the door waiting to see her. The instant she heard the stone door move, she immediately stood up from the ground and impatiently called out,

“Master! You finally came out!”

Pei Yuqing held the person in her arms and nodded at her.

“Go sleep. Do not wait anymore. I will not go back tonight.”

Lan Tang caught sight of Pei Yuqing’s slightly red and swollen lips. Her brows furrowed in disbelief.

“M-Master, your mouth…”

Pei Yuqing turned her face away.

“It is nothing.”

“Did she bully you?”

Lan Tang made as if to raise her hand and hit Qiu Qi.

“Lan Tang.”

Pei Yuqing stopped her with one sentence.

“Do you think she can move me in her current state?”

That was true. She was someone who could be flung away with a flick of Pei Yuqing’s fingers, yet Pei Yuqing had stood there like wood and let her bite her lips until the skin broke.

Sinful.

Lan Tang instantly wilted like a vegetable. Her round eyes were full of grievance.

“Oh. Lan Tang understands now. Were you two doing that kind of intimate thing unsuitable for children inside just now…”

Pei Yuqing’s brows tightened.

“Who taught you that?”

“Sister Chu’er.”

Pei Yuqing made a mental note of this, then turned to Lan Tang and said,

“No. I did nothing with her. In the future, interact less with that human. You keep learning bad things.”

“Okay. Lan Tang will listen to Master.”

…

After Qiu Qi returned from Heyang House, the harem had been terrifyingly calm for the past few days. Usually, when she passed by the small garden, she could still see a few people admiring flowers and drinking afternoon tea. But now, even at mealtimes, there were barely any living people at the table. Occasionally, when she ran into someone on the road, they would turn around and run the moment they saw her from far away… It seemed everyone was avoiding her.

Qiu Qi boredly plucked a blade of grass and bit it in her mouth.

“No way. Is my face not pretty enough anymore, or is there something wrong with these people’s taste? Why do they run the moment they see me?”

She did not get the answer to this question until one time, when she rarely got up early and wanted to diligently run to the kitchen to make Pei Yuqing breakfast.

Behind the kitchen was an artificial mountain. Beside it was a small pavilion and several rows of stone benches. Usually, it was used by the cooks and kitchen maids for their afternoon rest, but occasionally, other people would sit there to enjoy the shade too. The main reason was that its location was remote, making it a good place to whisper.

Qiu Qi had not originally planned to walk that way, but those muttering voices came through the air and were captured by her without obstruction. Her sensitive ears stood up, and only then did she discover that the person being gossiped about was herself.

“Tsk, tsk, tsk. Look at this pose where the fish gaze at each other. This woman’s waist looks like it’s about to snap from being bent.”

“And this one.”

There was the sound of a page turning.

“I never thought drawings of two women could be this seductive. Even I can’t help wanting to try.”

“Be careful.”

The speaker lowered her voice.

“That person is exactly a mirror-grinder and prefers women. Be careful that one day she drags you to Heyang House too, and with that courtesan…”

“Courtesan? What happened?”

“Isn’t that right? Now, this whole courtyard full of pretty beauties isn’t enough to serve her anymore. She even went to a pleasure house to seek pleasure. Going there was one thing…”

Someone else cut in.

“She even specifically brought Mianmian along.”

Someone did not understand.

“What’s wrong with bringing Mianmian?”

“Look.”

That person opened the illustrated booklet to a page and pointed at the several women tangled together.

“Practice brings true knowledge. The more people there are… the more fun it is.”

The pause and shift in tone in the middle of “the more people, the more fun” was especially thought-provoking.

Qiu Qi grew both anxious and embarrassed hearing this. She wanted to go up and explain, but she did not have the face for it.

Her former readers had never discussed her personally either. After all, in that era, everyone was a master of coconut meat. Just because an artist knew many poses did not necessarily mean she had rich experience. It was also very possible that she was like Qiu Qi, a peony who had “read widely.”

“Hahahahahaha, shh…”

“It’s enough that everyone knows it in their hearts.”

“I wonder whether Madam Pei can endure it. Usually, the two of them probably… mm, you all understand.”

The more Qiu Qi listened, the hotter her ears became. She had not been this embarrassed when drawing those pictures, but hearing people discuss them afterward made her face unable to hold up.

She hugged her arms and shivered, lifting her foot to quietly turn around and leave. But the moment she turned her head, she directly met a pair of blue eyes. That blue was like an unfathomable sea, instantly pinning her body in place.

“M-Madam.”

Qiu Qi was so frightened she hiccuped and instantly became a stammerer.

“When, when, when did you get here?”

Pei Yuqing smiled.

“I have been here the entire time.”

“Then you heard everything?”

Qiu Qi lowered her head and hooked Pei Yuqing’s hand with her little finger, shaking it.

“None of what they said is true. Don’t believe it, okay?”

“What did they say?”

Pei Yuqing looked straight ahead and directly walked past Qiu Qi into the pavilion. Then, among the crowd of melon-eating onlookers who had turned stiff as wooden chickens, she turned and beckoned to Qiu Qi, who was still hiding behind the artificial mountain.

“My lord, come closer and listen. From so far away, you cannot hear clearly.”

Everyone stretched their necks out, all gazes gathering on Qiu Qi’s flushed red face. Some looks were frightened, some surprised, but everyone very unanimously took half a step back and left the middle bench position to Pei Yuqing and Qiu Qi.

Under this “warm invitation,” Qiu Qi could only brace herself and sit down on the stone bench. Then she twisted a little uncomfortably.

“Good morning, everyone. Have you eaten?”

“We have, my lord.”

The people gathered around her answered in unison.

Qiu Qi clenched the hem of her clothes, feeling that this was simply a public execution site.

“What were you talking about just now? Say it again and let my lord hear.”

Pei Yuqing smoothed the hem of her clothes and slowly sat down.

The one who had spoken the loudest earlier instantly closed her mouth and pushed the girl beside her from behind.

“We were just chatting about household matters. It was nothing interesting.”

“Oh, household matters.”

Pei Yuqing nodded thoughtfully, then raised her hand and pointed to the girl standing in the middle.

“Lend me the thing in your hand to have a look.”

The girl bit her lip and tremblingly offered up the booklet.

Qiu Qi bravely glanced at the cover.

Yo! Goodness gracious, it was even the color-painted version. This reader was a VIP customer.

Under everyone’s held breath, Pei Yuqing calmly opened the first page. The opening was an extremely censored description. The characters’ expressions were rich, and the visual impact was powerful, as if one could experience the protagonist’s excitement bursting through the top of her head with just one glance.

As the author of this illustrated booklet, Qiu Qi only wanted to find a crack in the ground and crawl into it on the spot. She even felt that Pei Yuqing’s beautiful, slender fingers would be dirtied by holding the pages for even one more moment.

Pei Yuqing read seriously, as if she did not notice the frozen atmosphere around her at all. The sound of each page turning landed in Qiu Qi’s ears like someone sawing her skull with a saw. It was a slow, drawn-out pain, like being sliced to death by a thousand cuts.

The scene was far too “harmonious.” If someone passed by, they might even think this was another temporary reading club formed by Pei Yuqing, and that what she was reading was some great poet’s masterpiece.

The color-painted booklet was not long. Pei Yuqing flipped through a few pages and reached the end. She slowly closed the booklet, then picked up the tea that had already gone cold and lightly sipped it.

“My lord is truly experienced.”

Pei Yuqing leaned forward, propping her chin on her hand. Her gaze on Qiu Qi was deep.

“You lost your memory, lost your memory, but these filthy things were not forgotten at all. Would you say this counts as a kind of extraordinary talent?”

Qiu Qi shrank her neck, yet still felt a cold wind she could not avoid pouring into her clothes from the collar.

“I, I… I just have rich theoretical knowledge. My practical experience actually isn’t much.”

How was it just “not much”? It was directly a zero egg!

“Oh?”

Pei Yuqing smiled and lifted her chin toward the illustrated booklet.

“With such a dazzling array of poses, can this truly be drawn by someone lacking experience?”

Qiu Qi’s lips trembled, and her face instantly turned pale. Right now, she felt that the move of selling drawings to get rich was simply courting death. It was a pass accelerating her death, an express train straight to hell!

She was wrong! She should not have frantically tested the edge of what was forbidden!

“Madam.”

Qiu Qi raised her head, looking as if she was about to cry. She knew that what Pei Yuqing truly wanted to hear was not an explanation about the illustrated booklet, so she simply answered more plainly.

“I really am innocent. I’m willing to use anything as a guarantee. Zu Mianmian insisted on following me to Heyang House herself. And that courtesan—I didn’t want to go to her room at all. I originally planned to go home early after watching the performance, but in the end, she directly dragged me in and even drugged me. Didn’t I resist to the death? If I really were that kind of person, I would have taken advantage of her long ago…”

Pei Yuqing lifted the end of her brow, but skipped over the main point of her words and asked lightly,

“You are not stammering now?”

“I… I’m anxious.”

Qiu Qi’s two hands hooked together and twisted, like a child being punished for doing something wrong.

Pei Yuqing nodded. Then she lifted her head, but her gaze turned to the group of women watching the excitement.

“Did you all hear what my lord said?”

“Ah?”

Someone had not reacted.

“Hear what?”

The person beside her, who knew how to read the room, immediately delivered an elbow strike to her. She half-blocked that girl and answered,

“We heard it, we all heard it. What happened to the Beast God at Heyang House that day was purely an accident. Not only did she restrain herself, she also rescued Zu Mianmian from dire straits. Even when facing the courtesan’s temptation, she held her ground and did not forget her original heart. My lord’s sincere feelings for Madam Pei can truly be witnessed by the bright moon and envied by all.”

Qiu Qi’s face looked like an old man on the subway looking at a phone. Inwardly, she thought: Sister, your ability to blow rainbow farts is really even better than mine.

Pei Yuqing, however, looked very satisfied. She nodded, which counted as turning this matter over.

She waved the speaking woman to her side and asked,

“Have you seen Mianmian these past few days?”

Now that this was mentioned, Qiu Qi noticed it too.

Never mind the others, but Zu Mianmian’s biological clock was very stable. She slept until noon, ate lunch, then went to the pavilion in the small garden to drink afternoon tea in the afternoon. But Qiu Qi had not seen her these past few days.

Although most people were avoiding her, those few with orange plaques were not afraid of her. For example, Yin Ci. Every time she ran into Qiu Qi, her eyes were fierce, as if she wanted to eat her.

It made Qiu Qi unable to resist complaining: Yin Ci, Yin Ci—what a wasted name. The person herself had nothing to do with the word “kindness” at all!

As a core member of the gossip princess group, the green-clothed woman really could answer any question and seemed to know everything.

“I heard that her condition hasn’t been very good recently. After she came back from Heyang House that day, first she…”

“First she what?”

Pei Yuqing pressed. This was exactly what she wanted to know. Whenever anyone mentioned what happened that day, they hesitated and refused to answer directly. If not for that, why would she have come to question this group?

“They say she grabbed people and hugged and gnawed at them. More than half the girls in the courtyard suffered disaster. In the end, Yin Ci beat her up and locked her in the bathing room before she calmed down a little.”

Qiu Qi covered her mouth and secretly laughed. So many people could not control one Zu Mianmian and even got wildly taken advantage of. No wonder none of them dared tell Pei Yuqing.

“Afterward, when she came out, the drug effect had worn off, but she started having a fever.”

The green-clothed woman sighed.

“When she slept during the fever, she kept saying strange things, like ‘Anbao’ and ‘sorry’ and such.”

“Anbao.”

Pei Yuqing frowned, seeming to recognize this name. She nodded.

“All right, go on.”

“Madam?”

Seeing Pei Yuqing’s expression was not very good, Qiu Qi thought she was worried about Zu Mianmian.

“Do you want us to go see her together? If it really doesn’t work, I can go to the pharmacy and get some medicine for her. I’m pretty familiar with treating colds and fevers.”

Although most beastmen had thick skin and tough flesh and a single cold or fever would not cause anything serious, Pei Yuqing had spent quite a long time with Zu Mianmian’s group, and they had long since stopped having the kind of relationship where elves and beastmen looked at each other with mutual disgust. They all treated each other as real sisters.

Besides, these past few days, Pei Yuqing had been pestered by Qiu Qi the whole time and had not properly gone to visit her. Perhaps she was already terribly worried in her heart now.

Unexpectedly, after she asked this, Pei Yuqing sent her a chilly look.

“My lord truly feels distressed for her.”

“I…”

Qiu Qi, who had thought herself considerate and understanding, shut her mouth like slamming on the brakes.

I’m fucking unable to explain myself no matter what, huh?