She is Jianxiu

Chapter 1444 Evil Intentions Arise from All Sides

The next day, at the Sique Mansion.

It was just past dawn, and the servants who had been sweeping and cleaning were resting. They returned to their rooms in small groups to brew tea together. This tea was hardly considered a delicacy by the master; it was mostly leftovers from the general storeroom, which had been sold to the servants for personal gain. One person in the house could eat this for a while. While brewing the tea, they would also bake a few cakes, which they would then stuff into their bellies while hot—this was their breakfast.

The cakes coated with powdered sugar had a sweet aroma, and Liu'an couldn't help but swallow, his eyes constantly glancing at the copper kettle boiling tea.

The Sique clan looked down on these inferior goods, but others were different.

Scholars enjoyed brewing tea for pleasure, partly to cultivate their tastes and pride themselves on their refined character, and partly for the tea itself. Liu'an's master's household was a branch of the Sique clan in the four towns of Fujian. Every tea season, the household would work day and night to select the best tea from those collected from all directions. The finest tea was offered to the Sique clan, while only the lesser quality tea was kept for Liu'an's master. Even so, Liu'an, a servant who drove carriages and horses, never had a chance to enjoy it.

The master once said that these spiritual teas, when sent to the main family in Mianzhou City, should be brewed with the purest spring water. After taking a sip, one's mind will be clear and one's mood will be cheerful. One can learn to read and write with twice the efficiency. Outside, they are worth one or two thousand gold pieces and are priceless.

But here, even the janitors can slip a little food from the steward's hands. Just from this one place, you can understand why everyone in Mianzhou City says they'd rather be a servant of a noble family than a commoner.

Liu An muttered a few complaints to himself, picked up the things and stuffed them into his arms. After avoiding everyone's gaze, he took a few steps out the door and left the Sique Mansion through the side gate.

Since they had just arrived in a foreign land with their master's family, and were unfamiliar with the streets and people, they had to wander around several times and ask around before finally finding a pawnshop.

He swallowed slightly and looked at the plaque on the door over and over again. Unfortunately, he couldn't read a single character and had no knowledge of literature, so he couldn't understand the mystery on the plaque at all. He could only bite the bullet and step inside, tilting his chin and looking around.

There were indeed quite a few people in the shop, with a dozen or twenty counters on display. A staircase in the center led up to the second floor. However, most of the people coming and going were dressed in high hats and wide belts, exuding wealth. Liu An glanced at them and dared not look again. He simply clutched the item in his arms and approached a woman with a full face and a mole on her chin, asking, "Miss, I have a family heirloom to sell. I wonder if you would buy it?"

The woman, who had taken her master's surname, called herself Suo San Niang. She glanced down at him and, not thinking the middle-aged man could produce anything of value, casually said, "I'll take it, but I'll have to see what it has to offer first. Please show it to me!"

Seeing her disdainful tone, Liu'an couldn't help but feel a little resentful. However, fearing that what he had picked up was truly ordinary, he decided to play hard to get. So, he lowered his voice, reached into his robes, and only revealed half of the small stove, saying, "Look, miss, this is a family heirloom, it's been around for seven or eight hundred years. If we weren't in a tight spot, who would put it out to sell?"

Suo Sanniang, however, was not fooled. She chuckled in a high-pitched voice, then stretched out her palm in front of Liu An and said, "Even if you pick up those pebbles from the roadside and take them home, you can still say they're family heirlooms after decades. Whether something is valuable or not isn't determined by that. Bring it here, and my Qianqiu Hall has people who can distinguish the real from the fake."

Liu'an gritted his teeth, knowing he couldn't fool the person in front of him. He had no choice but to reach in and take the whole small stove out of his bosom, pretending to be reluctant to part with it, and handed it to Suo Sanniang. He said with heartache, "Then I'll trouble you to take a good look at it, Miss. It's an heirloom. I'd rather keep it myself than sell it cheaply."

"Wait here!" Suo Sanniang raised an eyebrow, took the things and went to the back. Ignoring Liu An's anxiety, she waited for almost half an hour before lifting the curtain and coming out. This time, her expression was completely different from before. She smiled and said, "Your things are quite powerful. My master is on the second floor. Come up with me."

Logically, Liu'an picked up this item hoping for a windfall, but upon hearing that this palm-sized stove was actually something precious, he suddenly felt a little scared.

If it weren't so valuable, the owner might let it go after a while if they lost it and couldn't find it. But if it were worth a fortune, they might cling to it relentlessly and not give up until it was found.

Liu An sensed something was wrong, but things had come to this point. With Suo San Niang holding him back, and so many people in Qianqiu Hall, and his belongings already taken, escape was impossible. He might as well harden his heart, sell the goods for a large sum of money, and then leave. Once he was out of Sichuan, who would recognize him?
They went up to the second floor, and Suo San Niang pushed open a hidden door. There they saw a white-haired man, about forty years old, thin, holding a small stove in his hands and playing with it with great interest.

Upon seeing Liu An enter, the man didn't stop to rest. Instead, he pressed the small stove into his palm and asked curiously, "Where did you get this?"

Liu An rolled his eyes, knowing the other party had taken a liking to the item, so he straightened up, intending to raise the price, and said, "This is a family heirloom, truly invaluable. My ancestors used it to refine many powerful medicines, it is truly—"

He was getting into his story and was now wishing that the small furnace he had picked up was some kind of great medicine furnace, something that would make the man in front of him pay a high price for. But before he could finish speaking, the white-haired man gave a mocking smile and sneered, "Great medicine? Hmph, this thing is not some kind of medicine furnace. You don't even know that, so you are obviously not the true owner of this thing."

Having said that, he actually raised the small stove to his face and gently stroked its uneven surface. Suddenly, an idea came to him, and he said, "Do you know that this is the heirloom of my Suotu family that has been lost to the outside world? Today, you have returned it to its rightful owner. How can you make false accusations against it!"

Liu An's face turned pale. Seeing that the man was speaking so confidently and that he was trying to seize the stove by force, Liu An, in a moment of panic, actually lunged forward to snatch the small stove back into his hands.

Upon seeing this, the white-haired man immediately sneered and said, "You ignorant fool."

Then he extended two fingers and slashed them up and down, shouting the word "kill." Liu An suddenly collapsed to the ground, his eyes rolling back, and he fell silent. Seeing this, Suo San Niang showed no surprise, only repeatedly congratulating the white-haired man: "Congratulations, sir, on finding the treasure."

This clearly shows that such acts of forceful plundering were not the first time in Qianqiu Hall.

However, Suo Sanniang was very perceptive. She had already seen at a glance that Liu'an was not from a noble family, which was why Suo Tu Hong directly killed him to steal his treasure. But if it were a descendant of a small family, they also had ways to conduct a forced sale. This was not for any other reason than that the Suo Tu family, which stood behind Qianqiu Hall, had become the head of all the noble families in Mianzhou City after their ancestor was hired by the Gushe Academy to study in Lijing. Even if they were to bully him, who would dare to say anything?
However, Suo Tu Hong's face did not show the smugness Suo San Niang had expected. Now that he had the treasure in his hand, he even frowned and said in a low voice, "It's a bit early to congratulate your master now..."

This small furnace was rather strange. The restrictions inside the furnace were layered upon layer, so much so that even he, a fifth-rank scholar, could not see through them. On the outside of the furnace, the patterns carved on it showed signs of weathering. Suo Tu Hong tried to examine it closely, but after only a few breaths, he felt dizzy and disoriented.

He thought that he had probably encountered an ancient artifact, and the carvings on it were probably a scroll of sacred scriptures, but his cultivation was not yet sufficient to decipher its meaning.

So when the middle-aged man kept saying that the small stove was a family heirloom, he didn't believe a word of it, knowing that the man must have obtained it by accident and knew nothing about its origin.

What I'm most worried about now is that the owner of the small stove will come looking for me...

Thinking of this, Suotu Hong closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, his eyes revealed a fierce light. He thought to himself, "No matter who you are, if you want to take something from my Suotu clan, you should first see if you have the ability."

……

Zhao Chun sat in the courtyard, holding a travelogue in her hands, turning the pages at a leisurely pace, as if she were reading and pondering at the same time.

Si Queyi started school today, and her maid Huaying is her tutor. Yuezhu and her sister Luzhu stayed behind, but they were quite impatient. The two of them kept talking and pacing back and forth in the middle of the courtyard, occasionally putting their hands on their hips. Not daring to disturb Zhao Chun, they could only whisper, "I heard that everyone in our clan is aloof and has been attending the clan school since they were young. As a newcomer, Miss, I'm afraid you'll have to study hard day and night to catch up, and sometimes you'll even be bullied. What should we do?"

"What should we do?" Dewdrop glanced at her and said irritably, "They're bullying a girl like this, are we just going to sit idly by?"

Upon seeing Lu Zhu's sharp words and stern expression, Yue Zhu deflated and stammered, "That won't do. The manor has said that if we encounter someone from our own family, we must always be tolerant."

"Then why did you ask me!"

Seeing that the two sisters were about to start arguing again, Zhao Chun turned the page of her book, having already figured out a plan.

Such conflicts between collateral branches and the main family are actually quite common even within aristocratic families.

The Sique clan's clan school was located within the main family compound. Direct descendants were required to attend the school from the age of six. Even if they failed to inspire any literary talent, the clan school would reserve a seat for them as auditors, though they would receive a discount on external resources and would not be as well-received as true scholars. For descendants of collateral branches, two conditions had to be met to gain admission to the clan school.

First, he opened up a literary tradition; second, he reached the eighth rank before the age of thirty. People referred to him as a "reference scholar."

Si Queyi is twenty-three years old this year. He broke through the eighth rank last year and was able to enter his family's academy this year.

There are more than 30 students like her who come to study this year alone, but that's not the highest number in recent years.

The main family only invests resources in exceptionally talented juniors from collateral branches, so an examination is held every three years, and those who fail are all sent back. In addition, if one does not reach the seventh rank before the age of fifty, one is also sent back.

The requirements were quite stringent, and they were only applied to members of the collateral branches. It's no wonder that the main branch and collateral branches of the Sique clan have always been clearly separated over the years.

Zhao Chun seemed to understand something. It wasn't hard to tell that the Sique clan was deliberately stirring things up behind the scenes, all for the sake of competition between the two factions, so as to weed out the genius.

The cultivation level of Si Queyi has been modified to approximately Condensation Yuan, which aligns with the background setting.

Wishing everyone a Happy New Year and all the best.