Chapter 22: Schemes Everywhere

Cold Maple Pavilion.

Shu Ruohua had fallen asleep, slumped over her desk.

Qian Ning and Eunuch Lin entered the room.

Because she was worried about Qian Ning, Shu Ruohua had been sleeping lightly. As soon as she heard footsteps, she woke up.

“Miss,” Qian Ning ran excitedly to Shu Ruohua’s side.

Still a little drowsy, Shu Ruohua asked, “Why did you come back so late?”

Just as Qian Ning was about to explain, Eunuch Lin had already stepped forward.

He first bowed respectfully to Shu Ruohua and then conveyed the Crown Prince’s verbal message.

Seeing Qian Ning return safely had already eased most of Shu Ruohua’s anxiety, and sleepiness soon followed.

As for what Eunuch Lin was saying, it went in one ear and out the other.

She gave him a half-hearted response, saw him off, and then ran back to bed to sleep.

Qian Ning chattered non-stop beside her, recounting the events of the night.

All Shu Ruohua did was murmur groggily in response, “Mm, mm… ah, ah…”

…

It wasn’t until early the next morning that Qian Ning, holding the vegetable seeds sent by Zhong Zihan, ran into Shu Ruohua’s room.

Only then was Shu Ruohua lured out of bed by the temptation of the seeds.

After the excitement of receiving the seeds wore off, she remembered the events of the previous night.

“Why did you come back so late last night?”

In truth, Shu Ruohua had been suspicious the moment she heard the Crown Prince was injured.

Normally, no palace maids ever passed by outside Cold Maple Pavilion. But strangely, one just so happened to do so yesterday.

At the time, she had felt something was off.

However, she also thought—if there really was a problem, Qian Ning was clever enough to find a way to seek help from the Crown Prince.

The Crown Prince would surely realize that Qian Ning had been set up by someone with ulterior motives.

That being the case, he would definitely help her out of the situation in gratitude for her risking her life to deliver porridge.

So she agreed to let Qian Ning go.

But…

She had waited nearly the entire night for Qian Ning to return. When she didn’t, Shu Ruohua began to worry if things had really unfolded as she feared.

But sitting there staring at the wall was just too boring and made her sleepy. She had accidentally dozed off at her desk.

Qian Ning: “…”

So basically, everything she said last night went unheard.

Feeling helpless, she rubbed her forehead.

Forget it.

After all, she really had returned too late, and it was only natural her mistress had been too tired to hear clearly.

She comforted herself with that thought and began recounting the events of the previous night again—including how the restrictions on Cold Maple Pavilion had been lifted.

After finishing, she didn’t forget to remind Shu Ruohua:

“Miss, both Consort Jing and Consort Yang are cunning and malicious. We must be very careful around them.”

Shu Ruohua furrowed her brow slightly.

No matter how she thought about it, the way Consort Jing had set them up didn’t add up.

Logically speaking, if Consort Jing had truly orchestrated the events of last night, she would’ve taken into account whether the Crown Prince would discover her scheme. She would never have appeared in person to confront Qian Ning.

But she hadn’t anticipated that at all—it was as if she had fallen into someone else’s trap.

And the person behind this… their true target was her.

…

While she was lost in thought, Qian Ning’s voice suddenly called out beside her, “Miss? Miss?!”

Qian Ning had called her several times, but she hadn’t responded.

Only now did she snap out of it. “Ah?!”

She let out a light breath of relief, as if feeling sorry for Consort Jing.

Then she remembered she hadn’t gone on her morning run yet, so she sent Qian Ning off to make breakfast.

Because of her diet the night before, she hadn’t eaten much and was quite hungry.

Shu Ruohua jogged around the courtyard for about half an hour.

She suddenly realized that thanks to her recent morning exercises, her breathing had become noticeably smoother.

After a light breakfast, she dragged Qian Ning out to the back garden.

Thanks to her careful cultivation over the past few days, the potatoes they had planted were now blooming.

It wouldn’t be long before they could harvest them.

…

She glanced around the entire back garden again.

The back garden had about one mu (about 0.16 acres) of land.

In her heart, she decided she wanted to plant vegetables across the whole area.

She was a woman of action.

Because pepper seedlings were hard to store, Shu Ruohua and Qian Ning first planted the pepper seedlings on the empty plot beside the potato patch.

As for the rest of the land, she hadn’t weeded it yet because there were no seeds before.

Now that she had them, she decided to clear the weeds first with Qian Ning and then plant the remaining vegetable seeds.

With a beaming smile, she ran up to Qian Ning. “Qian Ning, my little treasure.”

She looked at her with an overly playful expression. “Do you want to eat other vegetables too?”

Using vegetables as a bribe would surely motivate Qian Ning to work harder.

Qian Ning: “…”

She really wanted to say no—but didn’t dare.

In the end, she could only give in and help Shu Ruohua pull weeds.

By the time they had finished weeding the entire back garden, it was already around 3:45 p.m.

But although they had pulled all the weeds, they were still scattered across the ground—they now had to gather them all up and toss them out.

Shu Ruohua was her mistress, and Qian Ning didn’t want her to overexert herself.

So she asked Shu Ruohua to go rest, then picked up a rake and began gathering the weeds into a pile to throw them away.

But suddenly, a noisy commotion broke out outside the gate.

“Cold Maple Pavilion is no longer restricted. Why won’t you let me in?!”

…

…

(End of Chapter)