When Lady Yan returned to the courtyard, Meng Qianqian was earnestly laying out medicinal herbs to dry as per her instructions.
Ever since entering the Thousand Mechanism Pavilion, Lady Yan hadn't allowed Meng Qianqian to do anything else. She wasn't even permitted to wander around and was instead made to dry herbs day in and day out, an unbearably monotonous task.
Meng Qianqian had always known this was deliberate. Even so, she never slacked off, nor did she try to bargain with Lady Yan.
Whatever she was asked to do, she did it.
Such patience and restraint reminded Lady Yan so much of her elder sister-disciple from the past.
Yan Hanshuang's mother passed away early, and her father sold her for ten taels of silver. To which household she was sold, she no longer remembered.
She only knew that she had been sold multiple times, had once been a child bride, had served as a ragged maid, and had even traveled with an opera troupe, performing for a living on the martial road.
