Traveling through time and space to become a lady of a noble family, but she only wants to escape

"Got my order?"

"Yes, Mrs. Xu said that you can let Chuqi bring anything from the Marquis' Mansion to your home in the future. Then, this will be regarded as firewood that Chuqi brings home and then uses. Isn't this an endless supply?"

Ah, Bai Zhi remembered that she did say such words.

What a great Xu Xiangqiu! She really does things to her heart's content.

"Miss, come and eat."

"I'm here." Bai Zhi quickly washed herself with the water in the basin, grabbed the clothes on the bedside, and sat down at the dining table. Just as she was about to pick up the chopsticks, Qiaoqiao moved the bowl, chopsticks and spoon in front of her, scooped up a spoonful of porridge, blew away the heat, and brought it to Bai Zhi's mouth: "Come on, ah——"

Bai Zhi blinked her eyes: "Qiaoqiao, it's not like I don't have arms."

Qiaoqiao: "Don't try to hold it in. The Third Master told me this morning that you injured your hand while practicing yesterday and asked me to take good care of you."

Bai Zhi was shocked - Chu Yunchuan, you told Qiaoqiao about this too! You just patted your butt and left. Qiaoqiao will cry and I will have to comfort her!

"Qiaoqiao." Bai Zhi swallowed the porridge in her mouth and patted her right hand twice, as if she was dissatisfied with her for making a fuss. "Look, it's okay, I just bumped into it, the injury is not serious, I can still hold chopsticks."

Qiaoqiao said expressionlessly: "It turns out that a broken bone is not a serious injury."

Bai Zhi: "..."

"I know you didn't tell me because you were afraid I would worry." Qiaoqiao didn't cry as Baizhi imagined. Instead, she peeled the shrimp in a very calm mood. "Look, I'm not crying or making a fuss now. If you get hurt, I'll take care of you. If you have any problems, I'll help you find a solution. So you don't have to hide anything from me."

"You...Qiaoqiao, are you really okay?" Bai Zhi turned Qiaoqiao's face towards her, "You're not just pretending, are you?"

"...Miss, you are so annoying." Qiaoqiao put the peeled shrimp into Baizhi's mouth, then lowered her head to peel the shrimp skin. "I don't want to be a burden to you at all. I will never cry again."

Bai Zhi almost immediately refuted her: "Qiaoqiao, you are not a burden to me, even when you cry and make a fuss."

Qiaoqiao stared at Baizhi in a daze. Her calm appearance broke. Tears seemed to well up in her big eyes again. She closed her eyes tightly and said, "I don't believe it. You didn't even tell me that your hand was broken!"

Bai Zhi hugged Qiaoqiao into her arms and gently rubbed the back of her neck: "I'm afraid you'll worry about me. If it were someone else, I would have told them, and none of them would care. But you're different. I didn't tell them because I was afraid you'd be upset. It's not because I think you're a burden. I swear."

Qiaoqiao buried her head in Baizhi's shoulder and said in a muffled voice: "Then why did you tell the Third Master? He is not an outsider."

"…What did the Third Master tell you?"

"He said you were injured while practicing."

"Didn't you say anything else?"

"No, anything else?"

Bai Zhi sighed - Chu Yunchuan, you are really good, and you only pass on half of the message. She smiled helplessly and said, "I was injured when I was practicing with him. How could he not know?"

"Practice together?" Qiaoqiao jumped up, "Did the Third Master hurt you?"

Seeing Qiaoqiao's eyes about to spit fire, Bai Zhi quickly corrected her, "No, I broke his bones when I beat him."

Qiaoqiao: “Really?”

Bai Zhi: “Really.”

"...Then the Third Master must have deliberately not let you go, otherwise how could he hit him and end up hurting himself instead?"

"Alright, alright, you're still thinking too much." Bai Zhi pointed at her mouth, "Hurry up and feed me, Miss is starving."

Qiaoqiao picked up a siomai and held it near Baizhi's mouth: "You said that you must tell me if you get hurt in the future."

Bai Zhi repeated very obediently: "If you get hurt next time, you must tell Qiaoqiao."

Qiaoqiao curved her big eyes and smiled softly, then put the whole steamed dumpling into Baizhi's mouth.

Gu Yan took Fu Yao with him when he left Beijing this time. There was no one to play with Qiaoqiao and Lin Chuqi. Only Bai Zhi was left, carrying books with her every day. The two children found it boring, but because Bai Zhi had an injured hand, she was very sensible and did not mention wanting to go out. When Bai Zhi asked them, they just said that it was too cold and they didn't want to go out, and that they were fine in Yishuiyuan.

Bai Zhi did not like going out when she was a child, but she had seen many children of the same age who loved to play. As long as they wanted to go out to play, they would go out regardless of rain or shine. Not to mention the cold weather, even if the sky fell down, they would run wildly in the gaps between the tall buildings that held up the roof.

How could a child of fourteen or fifteen years old not want to go out and play?

However, Bai Zhi's hand injury seemed to be very difficult to heal this time, and she could barely move after nearly a month of rest. In the letters that Gu Yan wrote to her, she dictated them and Changfeng wrote the replies. She only used her left hand to hold the thinnest pen to write a few crooked words at the end of the letter, sometimes "I am very well", sometimes "It is snowing again", and sometimes "I slept until the sun was high in the sky and the curtains were leaking light". As she wrote, Bai Zhi simply practiced holding the pen with her left hand in her free time. After a month, she could slowly write a page of beautiful small regular script with her left hand. So in the next letter, Bai Zhi finished her long-winded family talk and wrote eight big words on the back of the letter paper: Left-hand acupuncture, just around the corner.

On the first day when Bai Zhi finally felt no pain when she clenched her right fist, she pulled Qiaoqiao and Lin Chuqi out of bed early, picked out beautiful clothes for them, and took them out for a stroll on the street.

There have been constant small battles on the Beidi border over the past month, and there have been a lot more refugees on the streets. Most of them are only wearing thin clothes in the coldest days of winter. Families huddle together in the corners of the streets, begging for some leftovers and tattered cotton clothes from the wealthy to get enough food and clothing.

A few days ago, some refugees came to the Xuanping Marquis's mansion to beg for food. When Bai Zhi went to see Mrs. Gu's condition as instructed in Gu Yan's letter, she met Gu Laoer on the way and heard him say that he only gave some cold porridge and cold steamed buns every time, so there wouldn't be too many refugees coming to the Xuanping Marquis's mansion to beg for food. Despite this, there was still a man who threw the basket on the spot after receiving the cold steamed buns, and cursed the Xuanping Marquis's mansion for being a rich family and not knowing the suffering of the people.

Ordinary people could not say such words, so Gu Laoer concluded that he was a scholar and threatened him that if he made trouble again, he would be forced to leave his official career forever. This was indeed effective, and the man never came to the Marquis's mansion again.

Gu Lao Er didn't have the ability to make him leave his official career forever, but how could he know? In the eyes of ordinary people, wealth is heaven, nobility is heaven, and any one of them can decide their life or death. They can't tell who can make them starve to death or who can make them unable to be an official. They just remember not to offend any of them.

With such a precedent in mind, Bai Zhi deliberately took her two children and only walked along the most prosperous section of Wanjia Street, where there were few refugees and it was safer.