DIDKNWGEWAFEM

Chapter 3: Little Brother Is A Little Punk

It’s a shame that though Rong Jiahui saw the legendary Zhongli Luo, she didn’t get to say more than a few words to him. Rong Chen told her to rest well and left with the others. He’d originally been brought over just so she could learn his face, after all.

Rong Jiahui has silently made the decision to use this proximity to gain his favor, but she’s not in a hurry at the moment. She knows very well that this person will live in her family’s home later. In the past, though she hadn’t found out why, she had a general idea of what had happened to Zhongli Luo’s home, and knew that her dad was familiar with Zhongli Luo’s dad. Forty years ago, her paternal grandfather had been Marquis Zhenguo [2], and his own father had fought for the Dynasty Founding Emperor in Jiangshan, establishing many outstanding military achievements. Back then, that Emperor frequently praised the Rong family’s pretty young general.

However, it de-stabilized some years later, and his pretty young general who wasn’t yet 20 years old was no more. Until many years ago, when an army had invaded the border, her grandfather had lived through twenty years of peacetime. Somewhat wanting to stretch out his muscles, he volunteered to head into battle, and brought in passing his own disreputable, all-take-no-give, unstable-horse-stance son; her father, Rong Chen. Zhongli Qing, Zhongli Luo’s father, was a young general within her grandfather’s troops at the time. Her grandfather didn’t care too much about his son, immediately having him go under Zhongli Qing’s command.

Her dad had only been a 16-year-old boy at the time, Zhongli Qing being 10 years his senior. He acted like an older brother, being very thoughtful of him, and from then on a deep friendship was forged. In a few years’ time, the invading army was beaten back step by step, and handed over a letter of surrender. After they each returned to their respective families, their correspondence lessened over the years.

Zhongli Qing is someone naturally deposed to melee combat on the front lines, becoming a 5th or 6th ranking young military official there later. Because his personality was more than blunt enough to offend people, he was eventually removed from that position. Not many years of living in humble circumstances later, his wife passed away, leaving him heartbroken with grief. After escorting her body to her hometown, he himself fell ill, leaving Zhongli Luo an orphan.

With Zhongli Luo’s temperament, even if Rong Jiahui’s parents are fine with it and life in this rich estate is cozy, he likely wouldn’t want to depend on someone else’s charity. Unfortunately, a plague had broken out in his family’s area 20 years prior, all of his relatives either dead or escaped, leaving him unable to find anyone from his father’s family. Even if he did find them, who would be willing to look after him?

Thinking about this, Rong Jiahui can’t help but sigh. She really was too ignorant and small-minded at this age, and regarded herself too highly. Always having a cold voice and cold face and pushing blame onto others – who could laugh merrily at something like this? Her attitude was too much for others to bear. Choking to death on watermelon served her right.

Thinking of watermelon, she lightly felt her own neck, having a vague lingering fear. She won’t be eating that anymore, at least.

She reached out her hand to grab another pastry to eat only to find that she had already devoured all of them when she was thinking of Zhongli Luo earlier, and what was in their place was a large plate of cut-up watermelon, scarlet, glistening, and enticingly fragrant.

“Young Mistress, here’s your favorite watermelon,” said the barely-fourteen-years-old Bai Lu sweetly.

When she heard the word ‘watermelon’, Rong Jiahui could only feel a pain in her throat. She nearly turned her back to it; forget looking at or eating it. She waved her hand and said, “I won’t eat it. You all can have it.”