Chapter 252: I am Xu Sanniu
This year’s autumn rain was about to fall as well.
Cradling her little dog, Xu Sanniu curled up in a corner of the wall and drifted off to sleep.
The night was freezing cold. As she drifted in a dazed slumber, she felt that she was probably going to go find her mother soon.
She actually still wanted to live, but living didn’t hold much meaning anyway.
The sky slowly brightened. Having stayed curled up all night, Xu Sanniu’s body had gone completely stiff.
The little dog in her arms kept whimpering and whining. Feeling a bit vexed, Xu Sanniu opened her eyes. “Can’t you just be quiet for a second?”
Instead, the little dog did a sudden flip, leaped off her body, and began running in circles in the middle of the room.
Xu Sanniu felt rather annoyed. This little dog had only turned up this autumn and wasn’t even two months old yet. She took it with her wherever she went every single day—just like her simpleton mother used to carry her—terrified that someone would snatch the pup away to eat it.
But the little dog couldn’t handle starvation; the moment it got hungry, it would whimper.
Xu Sanniu reached out impatiently to grab it, but in the next split second, her foot stepped into empty space, and she plunged straight into a hole.
“Mother?” Xu Sanniu called out instinctively.
“Huh? Are you calling me?”
On Wednesday, Jian Xingxia got out of bed early and rushed to the Manor Academy to check on the situation.
Apprentices were different from employees; they weren’t permitted to roam freely around the manor and could only move within the classrooms, the adjoining covered walkways, and the pavilions.
In other words, the impoverished souls ought to spawn directly within the academy’s boundaries.
Jian Xingxia had brought over all the unsold steamed buns, mantou, eggs, soy milk, millet porridge, and rice porridge from this morning.
Yet the sudden appearance of Xu Sanniu, dropping right into the pavilion, still gave Jian Xingxia quite a fright.
She was filthy, reeked terribly, and was skin and bones.
Without exaggeration, Jian Xingxia was nearly knocked out by the stench.
Even so, she managed to catch Xu Sanniu steadily in her arms.
“Mother?”
A faint murmur escaped the girl’s lips.
Jian Xingxia hurriedly said, “I’m not your mother, I’m the Manor Owner here. Are you… Xu Sanniu?”
Jian Xingxia had recruited several impoverished souls today, so she didn’t know which one this was.
Xu Sanniu stared blankly, remaining silent, until her body began to shiver with delayed realization.
Sensing this, Jian Xingxia immediately took off her short-sleeved outerwear, intending to drape it over the girl.
But Xu Sanniu suddenly dodged away. “Don’t touch me! Where is my puppy?”
Jian Xingxia shook her head. “I don’t know, but the puppy probably couldn’t come along. You came to the manor alone.”
Xu Sanniu looked around warily, putting some distance between herself and Jian Xingxia. However, the surroundings were filled with nothing but grass; there was no sign of a puppy anywhere.
And the spacious, bright, tall structures behind her with white walls and wooden windows left Xu Sanniu utterly dumbfounded.
Was she… dead?
Her simpleton mother had died; had she truly gone to a place to enjoy blessings?
While Xu Sanniu was lost in her daze, Jian Xingxia had already placed a straw against her lips. “No rush to speak. Eat something first.”
Startled by the object touching her lips, Xu Sanniu’s instinct was to slap it away.
However, her body reacted faster than her brain.
The sweet, piping-hot, silky soy milk caused her to instinctively begin sucking.
The warm soy milk lined her empty stomach, and a sweet flavor blossomed across her palate.
How could such a delicious thing exist in this world!
Did Mother ever get to drink this?
Xu Sanniu gulped it down greedily, and within a few seconds, a whole cup of soy milk was drained.
Hearing the slurping sound of the cup being sucked dry, Jian Xingxia quickly pulled it away, but the straw remained clamped in Xu Sanniu’s mouth.
She simply couldn’t bring herself to let go.
Every single inch of her trembling body was screaming a desperate craving for more food and warmth.
Jian Xingxia couldn’t bring herself to say the words “eating too fast and too much will hurt your stomach.” She could only ladle out a bowl of millet porridge instead.
“Drink some of this first.”
At least liquid food wouldn’t cause her to choke easily.
Xu Sanniu licked her lips, the taste of the sweet soy milk still lingering in her mouth, but she didn’t move as she looked at the millet porridge in Jian Xingxia’s hand.
She eyed Jian Xingxia with deep suspicion, her voice coarse as she demanded, “What do you want in exchange?”
Looking at Xu Sanniu’s youthful yet fiercely defensive gaze, Jian Xingxia could easily guess what kind of environment she had survived in.
She answered honestly, “Do you want to learn needlework? I am recruiting sewing apprentices here. I’ll provide your food, and once you master the craft, the needlework you produce will belong to me.”
Xu Sanniu couldn’t believe her ears. “You’re letting me be an apprentice?”
“Yes,” Jian Xingxia nodded. “You don’t know the first thing about needlework right now, do you? You can only start as an apprentice.”
Xu Sanniu froze. She had asked the question, but she hadn’t been asking about that.
She stared intently at Jian Xingxia. “Do you know who I am?”
Jian Xingxia shook her head. “No.”
She didn’t know for sure either. After all, she had handpicked the students herself rather than letting the system match them, so it was hard to say if they were definitely good people.
It was just that this child was only about eight or nine years old, so she wasn’t particularly afraid.
Da Hei and Lin Sanniang were not far away; if anything went wrong, the two of them would charge right over.
Most importantly, Jian Xingxia was the Manor Owner. Within the manor grounds, she would never be in danger; Da Hua would attack or alert her to any person or object that posed a threat to her.
Da Hua was currently pecking lazily at the grass, having no intention of looking over here at all, so Jian Xingxia felt no fear in her heart.
Xu Sanniu followed Jian Xingxia’s gaze to look around. The wariness in her eyes did not recede, but a trace of bewilderment and insecurity surfaced.
“I am… Xu Sanniu from Xujia Village. You don’t recognize me?”
Her name was known across more than a dozen nearby villages—the bastard child born of that simpleton.
Jian Xingxia handed the millet porridge over. “Talk while you drink.”
This child was starving to the point where her legs were shaking and her stomach was rumbling. She looked as fierce as a little wolf pup, yet she hadn’t lunged forward to snatch the porridge, choosing instead to repeatedly verify Jian Xingxia’s intentions…
One look was enough to tell she was a pitiful but incredibly resilient child.
Whether it was because of Jian Xingxia’s gentleness or the gnawing hunger pulsing through her body, Xu Sanniu finally couldn’t hold out any longer. She took the bowl and began drinking in huge gulps.
Jian Xingxia squatted down to watch her for a while, then said to her, “I don’t care who you are. Everyone who comes to my place carries their own share of blood and tears.”
“I only want you to answer me honestly: are you a good person? Do you want to learn a trade and work to exchange for food?”
Xu Sanniu cradled the bowl, wishing she could lick both the inside and outside completely clean. Only after a good long while did she lower the pristine bowl, knitting her brows as she said:
“I’m not a bad person, at least.”
“I want to. But let me tell you, I am Xu Sanniu, and you were the one who recruited me to be an apprentice. As long as I don’t steal, rob, or make mistakes, you can’t drive me away!”
Xu Sanniu’s wolf-like eyes stared deeply at Jian Xingxia.
It did look rather intimidating.
If only her back wasn’t shivering.
Jian Xingxia let out a soft smile and said, “Alright, I promise. As long as you don’t steal, rob, or do bad things, you can stay here.”
Xu Sanniu let out a sigh of relief. Her completely rigid body finally softened a fraction, and she plonked down onto the bench beside the pavilion railing.
“Then when do I start working? How many years do I have to work before I can learn needlework?”
Xu Sanniu’s body was trembling slightly.
She was an apprentice. She had actually become an apprentice. After her simpleton mother passed away, she had looked everywhere for work, but no one was willing to take her in.
Everyone disdained her for her unknown origins, and they despised her for fighting and cursing, for being filthy, ugly, and smelly.
But if she didn’t make herself completely filthy, rubbing mud or even cow dung onto her body, cutting her hair short and leaving it messy like a bird’s nest… she would be bullied just like her mother.
When she didn’t hear an answer from Jian Xingxia, she couldn’t help but frown. “Do you regret taking me in?”
Helpless, Jian Xingxia could only reach out and pull her up. “How can you work looking like this? Eat something first, then go take a bath. Come back once you’ve cleaned yourself up.”
With that, Jian Xingxia called Lin Sanniang over. “Sanniang, take Xu Sanniu to wash up.”
Before Xu Sanniu could even process what was happening, two steamed buns were stuffed into her hands, and she was handed off from one warm hand into another.
