Typer’s room: Hello guys. Sorry for the delay, but here is the chapter!

If it wasn’t obvious enough, I’m irresponsible. I either become too lazy or end up forgetting to post the chapter every single time… This can’t go on. As such, I decided to put up the poll above asking you guys to set a day of which I will always make the update. AT THE VERY LEAST, UNTIL MY STOCKED CHAPTERS RUN OUT. After that, it will be once I write the chapters. This DO NOT mean that I will stop writing the chapters I have saved in advance, but at least leave me with a defined day to keep up the updates. If I end up writing more than two chapters within a week, I may upload it as an extra.

TL;DR: Choose a day to have guaranteed releases. Bonus releases may still happen.

As I said before, this is VASTLY a work in progress, and wasn’t made to be posted initially, so there might be some inconsistencies. If so, please do tell me, as I want to make it an enjoyable read ^^

May your reading be enjoyable.

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After my talk with Tian’s mother, the rest of the day was a lot calmer with me mostly walking around searching for things to do. However, the following days became a lot more hectic than before, doing spiritualist training during the morning, where I would slowly train my spiritual endurance, as master Roshi called it.

I would do exactly the same thing I did back on the first time, but instead of simply trying to go all the way until I was exhausted, I would slowly make my work on compressing my spirit into a small ball and keep it like that for as long as I could.

“I’m not exactly sure if your idea will work, so all I’m doing is giving you the chance of trying it.” He told me. “I have no way of guarantee if this will work or not.”

I took his warning to heart, as I could see that he was worried about me. Basically, my training was more to make sure that I wouldn’t exhaust myself than an actual technique training.

What he told me was that manipulating too much inner spirit at once without having an actual qi inside you can be extremely taxing, that’s why spiritualist either carry around some qi within their bodies, or resort to small vortexes before actually making a sizeable one to gather worldly spirit in mass.

Since I didn’t have any drop of qi within my body due to obvious reason, forming the sphere was a lot more taxing than the expected, so I simply went around training my resistance to exhaustion by forming the sphere myself and trying to last as long as I can without falling exhausted. However, the moment I stopped, Roshi had me train a breathing method that helped me recover from spiritual fatigue.

It wasn’t as effective as sleeping, but since sleeping would leave me groggy after waking up, this seemed to be a better idea.

Meanwhile, Tian had received a passing grade in spirit sensing from Roshi and recently began training in manipulating her own spirit. But she was clearly having a lot more difficulty with manipulating it than me, even when she probably did not have anything wrong with her. It was only when I saw this that I finally started to understand how cheaty I was.

Paraphrasing Tian’s mother, that girl is a genius.

And I was having an easier time than her.

Besides that, my own training was having results, although not exactly apparent ones, seeing how at most I managed to increase the time I could keep the sphere up from ten minutes to a good thirty three minutes. I decided to only try to form the vortexes once again once I reached one and a half hour, so this meant that I didn’t really have much of an advance as a spiritualist in these days.

But if my spiritualist training was a bit boring and bland, my aide training was spartan.

The following day from having recovered, Ping came up and took me right when the training with master Roshi finished and dragged me to the bath without waiting for Tian.

After feeling my dignity flying away from my body, she finally said that it was enough and quickly helped me get dressed before taking me towards the elderly woman who was in charge of teaching Tian and I etiquette.

From there started a crash course on how to act respectfully to all sorts of people in a party, as well as how to mingle with the servants from other households so that I could gather information, spread rumors and so on. They even went and taught me methods of lying and had me try to keep up a straight face while lying.

They also left very clear that I should never lie to them.

But seriously you two, who the hell teaches a kid to lie? Shouldn’t it be the opposite? Is the life of an aide this difficult?

Well, they did start to give me a few interesting pointers, like mixing a small truth with the rumors I want to start or denying bad rumors with similarly bad rumors, but of lesser impact.

For example, if there is a rumor going around about Tian saying that she kicks cats around for fun, I should reply by saying that what she actually do is say that she hates cats, but mostly avoid them. This would make more sense, because even the people who tell these rumors knows that they are exaggerated, so slowly decreasing the rumor is a lot more believable and doable than downright denying it, because after noticing that it was exaggerated, it will slowly start to drift towards being a neutral, then maybe even a positive rumor.

So yeah, as an aide I had to learn all of these kinds of things about rumors and the such.

Believe me when I say that it’s a lot more difficult than what it seems. Different types of aides were more susceptible to different types of ways to spread rumors. Young and inexperienced aides were more likely to believe info they get from gossips, so it was easier to spread the rumor to them.

But they are also the least likely to be believed by others.

On the other hand, more experienced aides will flat out ignore gossips and start to seek the meaning between the words say. Taking the whole “Tian hates cat” thingy, if I said that I’m tired of cleaning her robes from cat fur is more likely to make them think: “Oh, so Tian keeps in contact with cats”, and later on dropping tips like “There’s fur on the whole house” or “feeding the pets is a bother”.

The more experienced aides would take these information and deduce: Tian is always in contact with cats, but since the house is full of them, it must mean that she actually shouldn’t hate cats as much as other people say.

Of course, this also means that they are a lot harder to trick since I can’t drop obvious tips and must take care with literally all words, as I may end up dropping something that would be better not be revealed.

As you can see, this was extremely more difficult than one might actually think. In exchange, Ping completely stopped teaching me things unrelated to the party Tian was going to, like cooking, cleaning and so on, leaving all my training time to things related to serving her during the party.

This pretty much meant that I had to cram in, besides the whole rumor spreading/stopping thing, a lot of info like when I should stay by her side and when I should leave her alone, when I should stand up for her and when I should stay quiet.

On the bright side, however, I did stop receiving complaints about keeping an upright posture so I guess you could say that at least I got something right.

With this training, time flew past, and right before the party, Yulan, Xin and Master Mo Lu left the mansion as the master left out to look for some specific scrolls so that he could investigate more of my conditions.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

The following day, a carriage came to pick us.

…

“Muu… I’m not sure about this...” I murmured while crossing my arms.

“What is it, young aide?” Tian’s mother said while hugging me from behind, as she had me sit on her lap while we took the road.

“Well… Wouldn’t it be better to send Ping to the party?” I asked. “She is more experienced than me on this.”

“Ping said that you are more than enough to follow my daughter.” Bo said while looking away through the window. “Sincerely? I learned to trust her a long time ago.”

“Hmm… If she said so...” I said with a still uncertain face. I couldn’t bring myself but feel that it would be better to send someone who had more experience to an important party like this, but if Ping herself said that I was good enough…

Muuu… I’m still not sure.

But it’s not like I have much choice right now. Ping stayed behind at the mansion since she decided that it was a good time to make a complete cleaning of the house, so the only other aides that came with us were the personal aides from the master and the madam, who were both coming on the smaller carriage that followed us.

In fact, I was also supposed to come on the other carriage with them, but Tian and her mother both insisted that I came with them on the main carriage, saying that it wasn’t a problem since I was a child.

Well, although they aren’t technically wrong, it’s not like I felt any better about this, but whatever. There isn’t much I can do about it, anyway.

Sighing deeply within my heart, I took a look at the others who were at the carriage.

Tian had her hair neatly combed and stuck some part of them with a beautiful and intricate hair-pin and wore a long lustrous purple robe that flowed easily on her body, leaving her right shoulder bare but going all the way to her ankles. She also had eyeliners around her eyes, giving her a slightly more mature and predatory look that somehow fit her nicely. Above all else, she wore a small fur coat to hold herself on this slightly chilly night.

Her mother had a similar attire, but instead she let her long hair free and wore a black robe instead, as well as having a silk-like scarf that passed behind her neck and then supported itself on her arms.

Master Bo put a fancy looking purple robe with golden dragon embroideries all over it, his naturally large build giving him an even more imposing look than the usual.

Meanwhile I was wearing my usual black expensive silk robe and had my hair tied in a couple of buns besides my head, but still leaving enough for it to cover most of my back. The only difference was that Ping drew something that looked like a flower using some kind of black ink on my cheek.

From what they told me, it was a way of marking me as a servant of which household, so that I couldn’t fake to who I belonged in case of a trouble. I felt that it was a bit excessive, but it’s not like I couldn’t understand their meaning.

Still, for some reason Tian, her mother and Ping all looked at me with a slightly scary look, which somehow told me that I probably looked surprisingly good with this marking.

Ping even complained on how I seemed to fit anything that they tried to put me into and said that she was jealous.

But that isn’t something of great matter.

Even after we took a carriage, it still took us a long time to reach the house where the party was happening, seeing as it was in a nearby city. From what Ping told me, they were a house with only slightly more power than Tian’s and they had a rivalry with the Lon-Ying household for a good few years, and the reason for the invite was to show them how their daughter was a genius of her own.

Thus, it was mine and Tian’s job to counter it by showing our dignified posture.

Or something like that.

But I couldn’t help but feel that I was far too inexperienced for this. I mean, I do have some of my memories from the past to help me, but I sincerely have no idea if I am good enough for the job.

While thinking so, I saw as the carriage passed through a pair of large gates and soon we found ourselves within a large garden. Seeing that I wouldn’t have much longer to calm myself, I quickly closed my eyes and took a couple of deep breaths while focusing myself.

As soon as I felt the carriage stopping completely, I knew that we had reached the end, so I quickly jumped from Tian’s mother’s lap to the ground and walked to open the door.

Just as I pushed the door open, I made sure to put on a serious and emotionless face just how Ping and Jia, the elderly lady, had drilled into my head, as this helped me to keep up a dignified appearance.

Immediately after leaving, I found myself in front of a huge oriental stone mansion that easily grew bigger than what my vision could encompass. After looking at it for a moment I silently thanked the remainders of my memory that showed me buildings that easily outclassed this one, or else I would have my mouth hanging open in shock.

Quickly giving a look to the sides, I saw as the many aide lined themselves on each side of the stairway as if pointing us the path and to welcome us. I paid them heed for no more than a few seconds before turning back to the carriage and waiting.

The first one to come down was Bo, who stepped out triumphantly and soon covered the whole area with his imposing aura. The servants all widened their eyes for a moment while watching the huge man coming out. He was soon followed by Tian’s mother, who stepped out of the carriage and followed him right behind.

Lastly was Tian, whom I offered my hand to help her and she gladly took it before coming down the carriage. She gave me a discreet nod as thanks before walking away. I followed her suit while keeping a fair distance of two meters between us.

The carriage with the other aides opened a few seconds later and soon came the two personal aides from Tian’s parents, who quickly surpassed us without looking all that hurried.

I don’t think I could walk at that speed while keeping up that appearance. They quickly passed us and walked ahead, soon reaching the couple and standing at a similar distance that I kept from Tian.

Milady didn’t even spare a glance at the aides and walked ahead with only a slightly proud smile in her face. We quickly climbed the staircase and entered through the large doors of the mansion that separated the outside with the inside.

The moment that this happened, I could feel as dozens of stares redirected themselves to Tian and I, and they all had a slightly surprised or shocked look. Discreetly I looked around while taking in the scene.

Many different nobles were here, almost all of them looking like they were of a higher standing than us, but even I could say that not many could boast the same aura that this family held, so not many looked down on us.

In fact, the brief moments my eyes crossed with one of the onlookers, they all looked shocked for a moment before putting on back their masks. I doubted even a single one of them let out their facade for more than that brief moment, but even then I could feel that some of them felt really impressed with milady and I.

Seeing that my training was at least working for now, I gave a quick glance at Tian, who made a discreet nod ahead before she started walking.

I followed her suit while unable to help but feel that I had just entered into some kind of battlefield.