Chapter 1439 - The New Master
Fortunately—or perhaps unfortunately—her looks did not suit the Chiefs' preferences. Though she excelled in academic subjects, her short stature and the lingering effects of childhood foot-binding crippled her performance in body shaping, dance, and physical education. Her final comprehensive rating was a bottom-tier E.
After graduating from the Maid School, she watched her companions with higher scores get taken away one by one, and anxiety began to tighten its grip.
That anxiety reached its peak when a female Chief arrived accompanying a male Elder.
The Elder selected four girls at once, nodded to his companion, and strode out. The female Chief approached the remaining students with a honeyed smile, but the words she spoke froze Sun Shangxiang to the bone.
"Let's get the unpleasant business out of the way first. My household doesn't practice that 'sisters' nonsense, and the Master won't be taking you as formal concubines. As long as you follow the family rules properly, I will never deliberately mistreat you. If you bear children, I'll let you deliver and raise them in peace. But if anyone harbors thoughts she shouldn't—"
The female Chief slowed her speech, and everyone understood the implication.
When one of the maids began trembling like a sieve, the Chief's gaze lingered on her a moment longer. Then she turned and led the four out.
"Ling'er is probably finished," someone whispered once they had gone. A cluster of girls huddled together. "The First Wife in that household is not someone to cross."
"Forget her—what about Yueru? She actually dreams of her child becoming a Chief..."
I wonder how those girls are faring now? After class, Sun Shangxiang returned to the dormitory, bathed, and changed into clean clothes. The whip marks on her skin burned. She applied medicated oil while tears fell drop by drop.
Was there anything more miserable in the world? She had thought being a concubine was shameful enough. Now she couldn't even become one if she tried.
Several of her dormmates sat in a circle, discussing that eternal topic of the Maid School: How to Fight the First Wife.
Sun Shangxiang glanced at them, then walked to the window and stood gazing out.
The high courtyard walls revealed nothing of the world beyond. Yet the students were often taken on "internships" and "visits"—to witness the glorious greatness of the Council of Elders' rule.
She could not deny that Lingao surpassed every fantasy she had ever harbored about heaven. Setting aside the uncertain future, simply rolling around in bed wrapped in a fluffy cotton quilt was bliss.
But it was precisely this paradise that became the root of their misfortune.
People still trapped in the hell of Shandong, once they set foot on Lingao, would never want to leave. The same great ships would bring more women willing to serve as maids—until the Australian lords themselves had the appetite but not the energy.
The Australian lords had too many choices. She had none.
She had considered buying out her contract, but dismissed the idea after a month of observation. Three meals a day plus occasional nourishing soups and tonics, daily studies and skill courses... she dared not calculate how much silver the Chiefs must have spent on them before graduation.
She had heard of the "Yangzhou Thin Horses"—girls trained from childhood for wealthy men's beds—and knew such products could fetch over a thousand taels.
A thousand taels. Only the Emperor himself could produce such a sum for her. Even when her father was an official, sending a twelve-tael gift to a superior had required months of scrimping.
And even setting aside the impossible ransom, what man—other than an Australian lord—would dare take a redeemed "Australian maid" as his primary wife? Would that not be slapping the Chiefs in the face?
If she had to be a concubine anyway, she might as well be an Australian lord's concubine.
Sighing, Sun Shangxiang joined her roommates and shared a few tales of vicious First Wives from her memory. The group huddled together, strategizing about "fighting the First Wife."
But before they could finish deducing the Thirty-Six Stratagems for Resisting the First Wife, the teaching assistant summoned her.
"Congratulations, Sun Shangxiang!" the assistant said, her tone sour and faintly gloating. "A Chief has chosen you."
In that instant—before she even saw the Chief's face—Sun Shangxiang felt something like relief.
Whether you stretch your neck or shrink it, the knife still falls. No matter how terrible these First Wives might be, at least they weren't beasts in human skin.
She soon learned there was no First Wife to fight: the one who had chosen her was a single female Chief.
She changed into the standard life secretary uniform—a black dress covered by a white-frilled apron, white socks, black cloth shoes. Her hair was tied back with a ribbon. She could not fathom why Chiefs possessing wealth rivaling nations favored such plain, rigid attire. At home, at least during festivals, she had worn nice silks and adorned herself with hairpins and rings.
The rattan suitcase was school-issued, containing her personal clothing—also school-issued. Apart from her body, she owned nothing.
She followed the General Affairs Office clerk through carriage rides and train transfers until they reached Bairen City and entered the heavily guarded Elder residential area.
Checkpoints at every turn. Stop and go. The suitcase grew heavier with each step, her gait beginning to stagger.
Yet the residential area surprised her considerably. Elders live here? In pigeon-coop buildings?
No matter how many questions churned inside her, she kept silent. That was the first rule the Maid School had drilled into them.
She followed the clerk into one of the buildings, climbed a dim stairwell, and stopped before a door. The clerk raised a hand and knocked.
"Who?"
"Report to Chief—the life secretary has arrived."
"Come in."
Sun Shangxiang froze the moment she stepped inside. She had never seen so many books.
Of course, she knew the Chiefs had a place called the "Library," where books supposedly piled from floor to ceiling across entire rooms. Though this room was not quite so extreme, an entire wall was crammed with volumes.
The Chief's desk was a disaster zone—practically a small mountain of books. Several tomes teetered precariously, yet the Chief barely glanced at them, casually tossing the book in her hand on top of the pile before walking to the shelf and pulling out more for quick browsing.
Sun Shangxiang felt numb.
She had been stunned by the washroom tiled in porcelain, but shock gave way to envy. This—this treatment of books—was different. In an era of severe book shortage, where even copying texts required connections, handling books so casually made her hair stand on end.
Those are books. Books!
When the Chief finished and returned to her seat with the remaining volumes, the clerk finally found a chance to speak.
"Chief, your secretary is here."
"Leave her. You may go—thank you for your trouble."
After the clerk departed, Sun Shangxiang nervously clutched her bag, awaiting further instructions.
"Fetch me a bottle of kombucha."
She set down her bag at once, found the small refrigerator in the corner, opened a jar of kombucha, and delivered it to the Chief's hand.
The female Chief did not spare her a second glance. After gulping down two mouthfuls, she resumed writing furiously. Sun Shangxiang retreated two steps and stood waiting, exactly as she had been taught.
The waiting was naturally tedious. But for Sun Shangxiang, the scent of paper was an enchanting perfume.
She did not resist for long. Soon she tiptoed over and began tidying the books scattered by the shelf—judging by the Chief's behavior, she obviously had no immediate need for them.
Picking up a few volumes, Sun Shangxiang noticed that each spine bore a small strip of paper with Arabic numerals. She studied the shelf briefly, then began inserting the scattered books in their proper order.
When she had organized an entire shelf and clapped her hands in satisfaction, she turned around to find the Chief watching her with interest, sipping kombucha, pen set aside.
Sun Shangxiang froze. Her instinct screamed at her to kneel and kowtow in apology, as she would have done in the past.
But the Chiefs didn't like that.
Gritting her teeth, she stammered in non-standard Mandarin: "Chief... please check... might have placed them wrong... please you..."
The female Chief rose, swung her ponytail, and strode over. She bent down and scanned the numbers on the paper strips.
"It would be even better if you sorted the shelf itself next time. What's your name?"
Sun Shangxiang watched the Chief adjust a few book positions, then hurried to answer: "Sun Shangxiang. 'Shang' as in—"
"Not the Maid School name," the Chief interrupted, turning to look her in the eyes. "Your original name."
"I won't ask you to forget everything you learned there. Though I personally have complaints about some of those courses, since you're standing here, those things are already part of you, and I have no right to negate that."
She sighed, leaving Sun Shangxiang utterly bewildered.
"Chief?"
"What I mean is—if your name or surname was changed, and you want to restore the original, just tell me directly. A name is only a form of address, but I dislike those otakus casually stuffing real girls into their fantasies. You can't just assemble a few Ling'ers, Yuerus, and Anus, then cheat your way through the game like playing an RPG. This is the real world."
Sun Shangxiang was quite certain she understood every word the Chief spoke individually, but strung together, they might as well have been scripture from heaven.
Still, the general meaning seemed to be that the Chief did not care for this name.
"Please bestow a name, Chief."
"Sigh, that's not what I mean..."
The female Chief smiled wryly, walked over to the refrigerator herself, and withdrew two bottles of kvass. She pulled the corks with a corkscrew.
"Do you know who Sun Shangxiang was?"
Sun Shangxiang accepted the cold bottle the Chief pressed into her hand, somewhat bewildered, and shook her head.
"She was the younger sister of the Lord of Wu during the Three Kingdoms. She married Lord Xuande as a second wife to seal the alliance between Wu and Shu—but she 'always kept over a hundred maids holding knives to guard her.' I imagine Lord Xuande's expression every time they were alone must have been quite something."