“What? You don't seem very pleased to see your master.” Sheng Qing coiled the little girl into her embrace. With no clothing between them, cold scales as hard as iron pressed against warm skin.
Warmth flowed steadily from Yu Mian's fragile, flesh-and-blood body into the serpent's. “But your master is very pleased.” Murmuring, Sheng Qing stretched out a hand tipped with sharp claws, supported the back of Yu Mian's head, and held her against herself as if soothing a child.
Yu Mian struggled to no avail, then gave up and went limp. Only from the rockery three to five meters above the water could she see the full extent of this rotten woman's tail, which looped around the pool more than twice.
She forced a flattering, awkward laugh. “N-no, it's not that I'm unhappy, Master. I simply didn't expect your true form to be so… overwhelmingly majestic. I was completely stunned.”
Inwardly she complained: who wouldn't be frightened when a giant snake suddenly appeared in the middle of their bath?!
Oh, you wouldn't be afraid. You're a giant black snake yourself!
Suppressing the prickling feeling across her scalp, she added, “Once I realized it was Master, I was overjoyed.” She was a breath away from sobbing as she said it.
“That's… good.” Sheng Qing uncoiled her tail and glided toward the edge of the spring with Yu Mian, light as a swimming dragon. The water rippled and splashed in her wake. All trace of her earlier gloomy madness vanished as her eyes sparkled with laughter. “Mian'er, once someone becomes your master, they're like a parent for life. You've seen the paper people in Floating Jade Palace; they can't get wet. Why don't you attend to your master's bath instead?”
Yu Mian lifted her head from where it had been buried against Sheng Qing's chest. Her imprisoned arms were finally free. Sitting on the serpent's lower abdomen and tail, she stared at the endless coils in the pool.
Everything went black before her eyes.
Wait a moment. Other people's masters at least behaved like masters. You're simply going to start exploiting your disciple for labor, aren't you?!
Who makes a disciple serve their master on the very first day of apprenticeship?!
“O-okay.” Yu Mian felt like crying. Perhaps she'd reached her limit of terror, or perhaps this rotten woman's shamelessness was so shocking, but she was no longer quite so frightened of the enormous tail.
Whatever. She'd already hit rock bottom.
She fished out the old clothes she'd been using as a washcloth and prepared to scrub the scales as though wiping down a table.
A slender tail tip knocked the rag aside.
A spark of anger flared inside Yu Mian. What now? She was already serving you. Did you really have to make things difficult for her too?!
Her round eyes instinctively wanted to glare. But when she saw that blossoming smile, her courage instantly withered. She laughed sheepishly. “Master, is something wrong?”
Sheng Qing's dazzling, seductive expression held a trace of displeasure, as if to say: how dare you wash my tail with such a vulgar mortal object?
“Use this.” As soon as the words fell, a neatly folded stack of embroidered crimson brocade appeared on the bank, decorated with subtly woven clusters of brilliant flowers.
Yu Mian's eyes went wide. Why did it look so much like the material used for the crimson mandarin-duck bellyband that Male Lead Number One, Pei Yunqing, had given the heroine in the novel? The cloth that couldn't be bought even with a hundred thousand pieces of spirit jade?
Sunset-Weave Brocade!
It was woven from threads of rosy dawn light captured with magic at the instant the sun rose and auspicious purple energy arrived from the east. Only a tiny fraction could be woven each morning.
A hundred days for a single inch.
Thirty years to make one length of three meters.
And she was supposed to scrub someone with it? What a monstrous waste of treasure!
Yu Mian lifted the length of fabric intended as a certain snake's bathcloth. It felt smooth as smoke, cleaned itself, crumpled easily into a ball, and absorbed water beautifully…
It really was rather suitable for scrubbing someone.
It wasn't her treasure, so why should she feel sorry? Yu Mian seized it with both hands, soaked and wrung it out, and began working as dutifully as an old farm ox.
The tail beneath her hands was already perfectly clean. Each scale glimmered with a deep-emerald luster and had a special light-refracting structure like the scales on butterfly wings, producing iridescent ripples as it moved.
It was as though the finest dark jade had been painstakingly carved, polished, and assembled scale by scale. It was beautiful enough to be a work of art.
Yu Mian became fascinated and couldn't help lightly touching one scale with a fingertip. The muscle underneath seemed to tickle and contracted, and the enormous tail began to move.
Coming to her senses, she suddenly grew bold. She pressed down the wriggling tail and scrubbed ferociously with the Sunset-Weave Brocade in her other hand.
Hey! Stop wriggling. I'm almost finished!
If she rubbed a human leg that hard, she'd scrape off a layer of skin. Unfortunately, to Sheng Qing it wouldn't even count as scratching an itch.
The beautiful eyes of the woman reclining by the pool, watching Yu Mian work, had lost their earlier teasing amusement. There was no light in them now; they were dark as the sky before a thunderstorm.
She uncorked a flask of Hundred-Flower Brew. Its aroma was so strong that a single breath might intoxicate someone to death. Bringing the mouth of the flask to her lips, she sipped slowly.
Yu Mian caught the faint scent of alcohol and turned to find that the woman was even drinking wine now. She ground her teeth resentfully and scrubbed still harder.
When the cloth reached the last fifth of the tail, however, her hands went weak with fright. This section looked as though it had been burned. A long scar the size of a basin marred its surface.
Calling it a scar wasn't quite right. Exposed red flesh bulged from the wound; scales were missing, and thin threads of blood were trying to seep into the pool.
It was clearly a fresh injury.
The flesh had turned pale around the edges from soaking in water. Yu Mian sniffed, unsure whether she was imagining the smell of roast meat.
There was meat and there was wine here…
Pah!
She looked toward the rotten woman by the pool. Sheng Qing's gaze had long since wandered away from her, and she seemed rather drunk and dazed.
Yu Mian gritted her teeth. The woman was so horrible and so wicked. Why not simply let her die? Then Yu Mian could inherit this enormous Floating Jade Palace!
She lifted the end of the tail, now only as thick as a small basin, and carried it like a log to the pool's edge. While standing in the water, she pushed the injured section up onto the bank until it was fully exposed to the air.
Then she wrung the water from her scrubbing cloth, carefully dried the wound, and went back to cleaning the remaining tail.
Across the pool, Sheng Qing lowered the wine flask. Her hazy eyes followed the clumsy movements of the little disciple she'd snatched, and a faintly inscrutable expression crossed her face.
Her tail tip curled through the water, then found itself seized by a hand.
At the sight of this final short length, Yu Mian's face lit up with the joy of imminent freedom. She pinned it beneath the water, wrapped the cloth around her other hand, and scrubbed with all her might.
She didn't see her master a short distance behind her, whose cheeks were gradually flushing crimson with wine.
She hadn't even finished when the previously unresponsive tail suddenly struck. It wrapped around her waist and dragged her directly in front of Sheng Qing.
After tossing Yu Mian into her arms, the enormous coils disappeared, lowering the pool's water level by more than ten centimeters. A pair of long, strong legs appeared beneath Yu Mian.
Sheng Qing's improper, teasing laugh sounded beside her ear. “Mian'er has served me very well. Your master is delighted.”
Sheng Qing wrapped both arms around Yu Mian's slender waist and slid her hands up along the spine and shoulders beneath the old white inner robe the girl had just put on.
Cold. Smooth and soft. Those were Yu Mian's first impressions.
This woman!
Was this how she repaid a kindness—with cruelty?!
