Li Yao went to the street with He Xiaoya to buy some vegetables and also bought a few new sets of clothes for Little Yanran. By the time they got home, it was noon.
As soon as they entered the front door, they saw Anna and Alice, the two maids, kneeling upright in the yard.
Seeing Li Yao come back, the two rushed over and knocked their heads to the ground.
"Madam Li, we didn't do it. Please don't fire us!"
"Get up," Li Yao said.
The two maids didn't dare move.
Li Yao said, "I've said it many times, we don't kneel in our home. If you don't follow this rule, then you can go work in another family."
The two maids looked at each other and quickly got up from the ground.
They were about to say something more, but Li Yao handed them the vegetables she was holding, "Hurry up and wash these and prepare lunch."
"Madam Li, you're not blaming us?"
"Why would I blame you?"
"Because... because there was something wrong with the chicken soup I cooked," Anna said.
"The provisions and water I prepared for Second Young Master and Young Master Song Zhe were also problematic," said Alice.
"Who told you to do that?" Li Yao asked. "If there really was a problem, could I have kept you here until now?"
The two maids were puzzled. There was no problem?
Then why were the things they prepared all replaced?
"You two stop standing there," He Xiaoya said, "Hurry and wash the vegetables. It's getting late."
"Thank you, Madam," the two maids said as they went to wash vegetables and cook.
Li Yao and He Xiaoya changed clothes and went to the kitchen to prepare dishes.
Everything felt the same as usual. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary.
Soon several dishes were set on the table. Li Yao also heated up the chicken soup from the morning and brought everything out.
She didn't like class differences, so whenever there were no guests, Wu Tong and the three children would eat together at the same table.
Today there were fewer people at home, so there was no need to set up separate tables.
"Everyone sit down," Li Yao said, picking up a large ladle. "The chicken soup tastes quite good. Everyone should drink more. Wu Tong, bring your bowl over and I'll serve you."
"I..." Wu Tong was slightly surprised. "Madam, such good soup should be left for you to drink. I won't have any."
"It's just a bowl of chicken soup, what's so good or bad about it? Hurry and bring your bowl over."
Seeing that he couldn't refuse, Wu Tong reluctantly brought his bowl over.
Li Yao scooped up a full spoonful of chicken and soup and put it in his bowl. She also served a bowl to Anna and Alice, "Hurry up and eat while it's hot."
"Thank you, Madam," Anna and Alice said. With the good soup served to them, the tension they felt finally settled into their stomachs.
The two picked up their bowls and took a small sip.
"Is it tasty?"
"Yes, tasty."
"Then stop drinking."
Anna and Alice: ???
Li Yao didn't bother with their puzzled looks. She turned to Wu Tong, "Wu Tong, you do the most work every day, so you should drink more. Give him your bowls of soup, you two."
"Ah? I... Madam, isn't that improper?"
"What, are you unwilling to drink it?" Li Yao paused, her smiling expression disappearing as her voice became low and solemn. "Or are you afraid to drink it?"
Wu Tong's face changed dramatically. He put down his bowl with a thud and knelt on the ground.
"Please spare me, Madam! Please spare me!"
Anna and Alice were dumbfounded. Wu Tong was perfectly fine just now. Why did he suddenly start begging for his life?
"Tell me, who put you up to this?"
"It was the human trafficker!" Wu Tong cried. "That day, he deliberately made the three of us walk in front of you so that you would buy us. He also told me to put laxatives in this morning's chicken soup."
Li Yao's eyebrows furrowed slightly. She had no enmity with that human trafficker. He certainly wasn't the mastermind behind this.
And there was no way this Wu Tong would know who it actually was.
"Where does that human trafficker live?"
"Right next to the West City Market. I'll take you there!"
"No need," Li Yao said to Da Zhuang. "Da Zhuang, go find your Third Uncle and go take a look with him."
"Yes, Mother."
After Da Zhuang left, Wu Tong still knelt there, not daring to lift his head.
Li Yao was still unsure about how to deal with this boy.
Obviously she couldn't keep him here. Trying such wicked deeds at his young age, who knows what other cruel things he might do when older.
"Take his contract and send him to the prefect office. Let Song Prefect decide his punishment," she said.
When she couldn't resolve a troublesome matter, handing it over to Song Prefect was a truly good idea in Li Yao's opinion.
"I was the one who wanted to buy him, so I'll take him over," said Du Xiao Hui.
After Du Xiao Hui left, only He Xiaoya, Wang Xiao Si, Anna and Alice remained at the table.
Having seen Wu Tong sent straight to the prefect office, the two maids didn't even dare to breathe loudly.
"What are you two afraid of?" Li Yao laughed. "As long as you haven't done anything wrong, I won't do anything to you. Things will continue as they were."
"Yes, Madam," the two replied.
They felt extremely fortunate to have ended up in service to Madam Li's family after their misfortune, where they could live such good lives. From now on, they would definitely not harbor any malice like Wu Tong. They would serve Madam Li and Elder Sister Du Xiao Hui well.
Soon, Da Zhuang returned.
As Li Yao expected, there was no trace left of the human trafficker.
Da Zhuang had asked the neighbors about him. They said the man had left in a hurry this morning, only bringing simple luggage. He left everything in his house including the house itself to his neighbors.
It seemed he also knew things were exposed, so he fled quickly.
"Third Uncle and I also searched his house but didn't find anything useful, only this on the floor," Da Zhuang took out a crumpled piece of paper with nothing written on it. It was just a piece of not very white paper. "I noticed this paper was different from what Wang Er normally used. And that man wasn't educated, so it was suspicious for him to have paper at home. So I brought it back."
Though Da Zhuang usually seemed silly, he was quite clever at critical moments.
Li Yao took the paper and looked at it. It was indeed whiter and more delicate than ordinary paper, much better than even the best paper in Yizhou City.
Not just anyone could afford paper like this.
It seemed the hidden schemer behind this had quite an elevated status and background.
"It's fine now. Everyone be more careful in the future," she said.
The following three days were very peaceful.
At the exam site, although Liu Yun was not the chief examiner and had no authority over the exams, this was an imperial power society. The emperor commanded ultimate power, so imperial princes also had very useful status.
After hearing about the plot to put laxatives in Wang Er's soup, Liu Yun directly used his status. In the name of maintaining order at the exam site, he had Liu Hu lead a thousand provincial troops into the exams.
Nearly every two or three candidates was watched by a soldier.
The chief examiner and other examiners also had bodyguards assigned to them.
The entire process of collecting test papers, marking them with anonymous IDs, transcribing them, and even the upcoming grading all had fully armed soldiers overseeing everything.
This greatly dissatisfied the examiners, but there was nothing they could do. Those with ulterior motives could only give up in the end.
