Cuddling with the Cold Female Protagonist – Chapter 28

Volume 2: The Captivating Splendor of Jingdu

Female protagonist, a massage girl

The young master Li Qifu met on the street turned out to be none other than the Prime Minister’s son, Xiao Zhengjun.

After he returned from the teahouse, his subordinates took the portrait he had drawn and inquired about it everywhere.

            

That day was when Su Yi’s aunt’s principal husband, Xiao Long​¹, was so angry that he returned to his maternal home. There, he cried his heart out, severely scolding Su Yi’s aunt, accusing her of being ungrateful and disregarding their conjugal bond.

His mother, heartbroken for her son, immediately took him to the Prime Minister’s residence to appeal to the Prime Minister and lodge a complaint against Su Yi’s aunt. As luck would have it, they encountered the manservant holding the portrait.

Xiao Long immediately recognized Su Yi in the portrait. Feeling this was strange, he called out to the manservant.

            

The manservant, upon hearing that he recognized the person in the portrait, quickly went to find Xiao Zhengjun. After some back-and-forth, Xiao Zhengjun learned that the person he was at odds with was Su Yi, the concubine-born great-granddaughter of the Marquis of Pingyang.

Originally, he wouldn’t have paid any attention to a woman born of a concubine. But after hearing about Su Yi’s background from Xiao Long, he sneered and planned to send someone to give Su Yi a show of force.

However, what he didn’t expect was that, overnight, Su Yi was invited to the Marquis of Pingyang’s mansion.

            

Rumor had it that the Marquis of Pingyang intended to adopt a granddaughter through her legitimate daughter. Although the Marquis of Pingyang didn’t participate much in court affairs, she was still a Marquis. After his mother became Prime Minister, she demanded that he be extremely cautious in everything and not stir up trouble.

Out of consideration for the Marquis of Pingyang, he didn’t dare to act rashly. But he was unwilling to let Su Yi go. After much thought, he decided to ruin Su Yi’s reputation​².

Since Su Yi loved beauty even more than he, a man, did, and since she was even more beautiful than he was, he would help her achieve her desire by letting everyone in Jingdu know her appearance.

            

The current dynasty placed great emphasis on reputation. He wanted to completely cut off Su Yi’s path, preventing her from having any chance to rise in society. Of course, if he could anger Su Yi to death, that would be even better.

Having made up his mind, he sent people to hire several hundred individuals to copy his portrait of Su Yi two thousand times. These copies were then sold in low-class places, especially in the flower street​³.

He originally thought this move would be enough to crush Su Yi, but shortly after his paintings went on sale, portraits of Su Yi began to circulate from other sources, and the artistry of those paintings was far superior to his.

            

Those portraits also included text. Originally, he only wanted to sell Su Yi’s image, so those who didn’t know the truth would surely assume Su Yi was a low-class prostitute from a female brothel serving people, thus ruining her reputation. But the text accompanying those portraits clearly stated that she was a young lady from a landlord family surnamed Su, residing in Fengcheng, and that she was visiting relatives. Several short stories were also added, all explicitly stated to be written by Su Yi herself.

With this, Su Yi’s image jumped from that of a brothel girl to a rather talented young lady from a wealthy family.

Not only did his plan fall through, but he also lost a considerable amount of silver in the process.

            

Enraged, he returned home and tore up those portraits.

After calming down, he sent people to investigate who was working against him.

His manservant spent a large sum of money to bribe a manservant from the Marquis of Pingyang’s household, and only then did he learn that Su Yi had actually come up with a method of movable type printing.

            

Since Su Yi could do it, why couldn’t he?

After learning how this so-called movable type printing was done, he sent people to find skilled woodcarvers.

Within a few short days, he gathered all the woodcarvers in Jingdu. He offered them very high compensation to carve things for him.
Li Qifu rode this wave​⁴ and was noticed by Xiao Zhengjun, receiving a large sum of money to carve.

            

But her craftsmanship was too poor, and it was quickly discovered that she hadn’t carved the statue given to the handsome young master herself.

Xiao Zhengjun was both furious and alarmed. To prevent Su Yi from creating anything else with movable type printing, he had already snatched up all the woodcarvers. Could there still be someone who slipped through the net​⁵?

He immediately ordered his men to interrogate Li Qifu about who had carved the statue.

            

Surrounded by manservants and guards holding clubs and whips, Li Qifu trembled and replied, “It…it was carved by the principal husband of a young lady surnamed Su?”

“Surnamed Su… principal husband?” Xiao Zhengjun carefully thought back and suddenly remembered the delicate and handsome man with impressive martial skills he had encountered when he clashed with Su Yi. He seemed to have called himself Su Yi’s fulang. Could it be him?

“The young lady surnamed Su you mentioned, is she from the Marquis of Pingyang’s residence?”

            

“Yes, yes, yes, this little one​⁶ has heard from a sister in my clan that she is a young lady from the Marquis’s residence. I heard she uses a wheelchair.”

This, without a doubt, confirmed it was Su Yi and her fulang.

An ordinary country man, unexpectedly possessing exceptional skills, had easily subdued the strong manservant he had specifically chosen last time, embarrassing him in front of so many people. Thinking of this, Xiao Zhengjun felt uncomfortable again.

            

“Heh, Su Yi, and your fulang, we’ll see.”

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Using the carvings delivered by the woodcarver, Su Yi quickly printed the images she wanted. Paired with text, they became small picture-newspapers​⁷.

Ji Qingchi and Feng Ruoqing were both extremely intelligent. When Su Yi described the kind of images she wanted, they guessed who she intended to sell these images to.

            

Ordinary people usually lived peacefully and worked hard to support their families. Their whole year revolved around the hope for a harmonious and happy family, and they didn’t have much spare money. Those who did have spare money were scholars, merchants, and some landlords and nobles.

Therefore, apart from two New Year pictures​⁸ and one portrait of Su Yi herself, the remaining pictures were of things like “a roc soaring ten thousand li”​⁹, “plucking osmanthus in the eighth month”​¹⁰, and the like – the kinds of things those people would appreciate.

Su Yi had the maids and manservants in her household help with the printing, and then had Yan Shen lead people to sell them.
The people of Yanxue Kingdom had never seen such books and paintings before and were particularly curious. Seeing them, they wanted to buy a copy, so they sold a large quantity.

            

They could sell about eight taels​¹¹ of silver a day. After deducting the costs and the extra expenses for the maids and manservants, they could make a net profit of over six taels ​¹².

Su Yi oversaw things for two days, but felt that constantly tinkering with this was not very interesting. Therefore, she let go and let Yan Shen manage it for her. She also selected a maidservant who could read and calculate, named Shaoyao​¹³, to help with bookkeeping.

The two were overwhelmed by the favor​¹⁴ and diligently led the others in their work every day. After a month, Shaoyao presented the account book to Su Yi, and Yan Shen converted the earned money into silver and brought it to Su Yi.

            

Shaoyao held the abacus​¹⁵ and calculated each entry for Su Yi, one by one. “Miss, in total, we earned two hundred and sixty-two taels and three hundred wen​¹⁶ in a month. After deducting the cost of ink, paper, and the wages of the other brothers and sisters​¹⁷, the net profit is two hundred and thirteen taels​¹⁸.”

Su Yi gently rubbed her temples. She wasn’t sure if the poison that Feng Ruoqing had suppressed was spreading again, but lately, she had been feeling frequent dizziness and a lack of energy.

In her daze, a pair of hands suddenly reached out from behind and pressed on her temples. She immediately felt much less uncomfortable.

            

Assuming it was one of her attendant maids, Su Yi didn’t turn around. She took a sip of water and said, “I trust you all to do your work. By the way, did you encounter any difficulties while selling things?”

Yan Shen, holding the money box, said aggrievedly, “Miss, please look up at us.”

Su Yi looked up and immediately saw the dark circles under the eyes of both Yan Shen and Shaoyao.

            

Surprised, she asked, “What’s this?”

“Miss, doing business is so tiring.” Yan Shen had been by Su Yi’s side for a long time and knew that her mistress would feel sorry for them. She directly pouted and complained, “We were afraid that the printed books and paintings wouldn’t be enough to sell, so every day, before the rooster even crowed, we got up to print. Then we ran around selling them, and we also had to do the accounting. Miss, I want to serve you by your side. I don’t want to sell paintings anymore. Otherwise, please let me switch with Gancao.”

Shaoyao hadn’t been serving Su Yi closely for long and didn’t dare to speak so directly. She just nodded along with Yan Shen.

            

Su Yi looked closely and indeed saw that the faces of the several maids who had been selling paintings were somewhat haggard.

She apologized, “You’ve all worked hard. Each of you take another two taels of silver.”

A senior maid like Yan Shen only received a monthly allowance of two taels of silver. Hearing Su Yi say this, they were all extremely grateful.

            

Only Yan Shen didn’t care about the money. She genuinely wanted to be by Su Yi’s side. “Miss, please still switch me with Gancao.”

“Gancao is only fourteen now. She’s still young. We’ll talk about it in two years when she’s older.” Su Yi coughed a few times and thought for a moment, then said, “You all have indeed worked hard, and I’m not used to being without your service… In a few days, I’ll go out and see if there are any shops available.”

If she bought a small bookstore and had someone specifically manage it, her own maids wouldn’t have to work so hard. Moreover, she originally didn’t have many maids serving her, and if another group left, there would be even fewer people.

            

Having made up her mind, Su Yi told Yan Shen to lock up the money box and put it away.

After finishing the official business, she patted her forehead. It was true, the maid who had been rubbing her temples had really good technique. She didn’t feel as dizzy as before.

She wondered where this maid had come from to work. It would probably be good to have her transferred to serve her closely.

            

Thinking this, Su Yi smiled and turned around, “Your technique is quite good…”

The rest of her words were swallowed back down her throat after she clearly saw who was standing behind her.

“Qizhu,” Ji Qingchi, who had appeared behind her at some unknown point, smoothed her sleeves and wore an expression of a shy and demure ‘husband’ who considered her qizhu to be greater than heaven. “This slave thanks Qizhi for the praise.”

            

Su Yi had no idea what kind of trick the female protagonist was trying to pull. Meeting her smile, she could only force herself to smile back. “So it’s fulang. Why isn’t fulang resting? Why have you come here?”

Since arriving in Jingdu, Ji Qingchi had often been like a divine dragon, you see its head but not its tail ​¹⁹. After helping her finish the drawings this time, she had been absent for three days. Su Yi guessed she had gone to contact her shadow guards. As long as the female protagonist didn’t kill her or harm the people of the Su family, she didn’t care to interfere. She herself was perfectly happy eating, drinking, and having fun in her courtyard every day.

Ji Qingchi, supporting the heavens and standing on the earth​²⁰, looked at her and was suddenly at a loss for words.

            

In fact, she herself didn’t know why she had put aside investigating the imposter who was impersonating her and had come to Su Yi’s place. It was just that yesterday and this morning, she had noticed Su Yi constantly clutching her forehead, and she had unconsciously walked over.

Perhaps it was because she had been staying with Su Yi for so long that suddenly leaving her made her feel uneasy.

Her thoughts fluctuated, her heart feeling like the tide, rising and falling, and her expression also changed constantly.

            

Su Yi stared at her doubtfully, what was wrong, had the female protagonist suddenly become mute?

Under Su Yi’s puzzled gaze, after a good while, Ji Qingchi finally stammered, “This slave… had nothing to do today… um… saw that Qizhu was not in good spirits, and fearing… fearing that the maids were not attentive enough, I came to check.”

Su Yi didn’t believe her nonsense. The female protagonist became extremely cruel in the later stages. How could she care about the life or death of a cannon fodder like her?

            

But even if she didn’t believe it, she had to pretend to be moved to tears. “Really? Fulang is so considerate.”

Unexpectedly, her reaction was so big, Ji Qingchi was taken aback, unconsciously saying, “It’s nothing, as long as Qizhu is well…”

Before she could finish her sentence, a maidservant came walking from the front courtyard. She was from Su Ban’s courtyard, and she hurriedly came to deliver a message, “Nineteenth Miss, the Emperor has bestowed many gifts upon you. They are all piled up in the main hall. The Marquis is currently there waiting for you to go together to express gratitude.”

            

“Okay, I’ll go right away.”

Su Yi finally understood the reason for the female protagonist’s sudden attentiveness. She must have found out from somewhere that her Emperor mother had bestowed gifts upon her. She wanted to quickly get involved with the imperial family so she could safely return to the palace.

She should have said so earlier, it made goosebumps fall all over her.

            

She was finally going to get rid of the homicidal maniac that was the female protagonist. Her good days were about to come.
The more she thought about it, the more Su Yi couldn’t contain her excitement, so she said with a smile, “Fulang, since it’s a gift from the Emperor, let’s go together.”

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The author has something to say:

There was a huge rainstorm, the roads were flooded, and I couldn’t even order takeout. I was so hungry I almost started gnawing on the table, and I didn’t even have the strength to write. I hope the heavy rain rolls away.

            

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