Su Tong lightly tapped the table.

That settled that, then.

Back when she’d first seen Dongli and Nia, the two little maids, she’d sighed over what decadent little bourgeois they were. She’d even fantasized about sending those wicked capitalists off to Siberia to dig potatoes. But now that she’d become one of the bourgeois herself…

It was pretty damn nice.

Sure enough, your position determines your perspective.

At the thought, she kicked off from her desk, chair and all, and rolled backward. Then she hummed a tune as she got to her feet.

She started taking off her clothes.

Facing the mirror, she unbuttoned her shirt from the top down, revealing a little more of her fair skin with each button. Then she unzipped her pleated skirt and slipped both garments off with a light touch.

She folded them neatly and set them by the bed, then turned to face the mirror. Su Tong instinctively stood up straight, chin up and chest out, like she was getting a physical exam, and looked at the girl in the mirror.

She was very pretty.

Slender and light, soft as cotton. She seemed to have a sweet scent, but not an overpowering one—more like the refreshing scent of lemon soda, clean and invigorating.

Past the loli stage, but not quite a young woman.

In short, she was probably the kind of school goddess who’d have been popular in her previous life. The sort who brought back distant, beautiful memories, but was meant to be admired from afar and never touched.

So Su Tong let out a quiet sigh.

The thought of some man getting to have her in the future… Well, she was a little reluctant to let that happen.

But the future was uncertain.

She’d just let things take their course.

The girl changed into comfortable, loose-fitting loungewear, then gathered her ink-black hair and tied it back with a scrunchie.

Just then, someone knocked at the door.

“Miss, the master asked me to call you down for dinner.”

“Mm, I’m coming.”

Su Tong nodded absentmindedly, then pulled a thoroughly gloomy, long-suffering face at her reflection.

Being this pretty… Who knew if it was a blessing or a curse?

◆

Dinner was unusually quiet.

The only sound was Su Tong’s steady crunching as she ate with her head down. The chair beside her was empty—her adopted little sister probably hadn’t come down for dinner.

Lao Su held his chopsticks, his expression shifting between stormy and gloomy for a long while. At last, his face darkened, and he slapped them down on the table.

“Clack!”

The sharp, loud sound rang out like a firecracker.

Su Tong jumped. She lifted her head from the mountain of food piled in front of her and looked at Lao Su innocently.

Lao Su, meanwhile, glowered and asked the little maid beside him, Nia:

“Where’s Zhizi?”

The foolish little maid was timid to begin with. When her usually fierce master barked at her, her legs shook so badly she curled up like a quail. How could she possibly get a word out?

Luckily, Dongli immediately stepped in and saved her foolish older sister.

“Master,” she said respectfully, “Miss Zhizi is still in her room upstairs. When Dongli went to call her just now… Miss said she wasn’t feeling well.”

Whether Su Zhizi was really feeling unwell was something only she could know.

But that wasn’t important.

The little maid could still hear what her young lady had just told her.

“When you go downstairs later, just tell my dad I’m not feeling well. He won’t take it out on you.”

Dongli wasn’t sure that would help. Their master had a habit of losing his temper without bothering to find out what had happened. But since the young lady had told her to do it, Dongli could only obey, her heart in her throat.

Su Jianguo had adopted the two sisters. As maids, one was assigned to look after Su Tong and the other Su Zhizi. And yet both young ladies had inherited their master’s difficult temper. Whether the two little maids obeyed them to the letter was the measure of how good they were at their jobs.

Good little dogs got fed, didn’t they?

At the thought, Dongli lowered her head even further.

But to her surprise, her usually hot-tempered master didn’t make things difficult for her again. He merely gave a cold snort and turned away.

Thank goodness.

The little maid thought to herself.

Then the master suddenly turned back. With a frown, he waved a hand, making her heart jump all over again.

“Go get me another pair of chopsticks. Hurry!”

The little maid finally let out a breath of relief. Then she turned and made her way to the kitchen, doing her best to look natural.

Lao Su sat in his chair, looking disgruntled. With nothing else to do, he could only watch his eldest daughter eat.

But before long, he frowned again.

It wasn’t because Su Tong was wolfing down her food.

On the contrary, the girl ate quite elegantly. She wasn’t following any particular table etiquette, but her movements were natural and effortlessly beautiful. From Lao Su’s seat, watching her was actually rather pleasant.

But…

But—but—but wasn’t his daughter eating a bit too much?

Lao Su sucked in a sharp breath.

This girl was terrifying!

In the short time he’d been watching, Su Tong had already polished off a quarter bowl of rice, half a plate of stir-fried shrimp, and half a slice of cake for dessert. And that didn’t even include the empty plates that had somehow appeared beside her…

Had this girl just escaped from somewhere with no food or water?

Lao Su’s eye twitched.

At last, after watching his daughter finish most of a bowl of rice, polish off all the remaining stir-fried shrimp and another half-plate of shredded tofu, then gulp down a whole glass of warm milk, Lao Su couldn’t hold back his urge to comment any longer. He tapped the table and frowned.

“Why are you so hungry? Were you a starving ghost in your past life or something?”

“Of course not.” Su Tong finally wiped her mouth elegantly, bringing her feast to an end. “But I was pretty close. I was a corporate slave, barely scraping by under the so-called blessings of 996… Wait, was that status even lower than a starving ghost’s?”

“What are you even talking about?”

Lao Su had no idea what 996 meant, and of course he didn’t understand what a corporate slave was. To him, his daughter was just spouting nonsense.

So he frowned even more deeply.

“Your table manners… Aren’t you worried about getting fat, eating that much?”

He’d originally meant to complain about how bad her table manners were. But on second thought, she wasn’t eating rudely or making a mess. With the words already on the tip of his tongue, he had no choice but to improvise.

Su Tong had lived two lives. How could she not understand what her cheap dad was thinking? Still, she didn’t mind. She just smiled.

“Oh, give it a rest. Don’t complain about how much I eat. Your daughter was born gorgeous, and there’s no hiding it. Even if I got fat, I’d still be a beauty like Yang Guifei. I’m not worried about finding a husband.”

Comrade Lao Su was at a loss for words. All he could do was huff and glare in a fit of tsundere pique.

“…Hmph! You sure know how to talk!”

But to his surprise, Su Tong fluttered her big eyes at him, then flashed a sly, little-fox smile.

“Is it so bad to be sweet-talking? Would you rather be like you, caring deep down but too stubborn to say it, until everyone ends up unhappy?”

“You…”

Lao Su was stunned.

But Su Tong had already pushed her chair back and stood up, stretching contentedly. Her gaze wandered, then flicked toward a certain room upstairs.

“Heh… Love kept in your heart, too hard to say out loud—that’s basically tsundere, isn’t it? Cute enough, but what a shame~”

She turned back to Lao Su, a strange light flickering in her eyes.

“What a shame it hurts others and yourself.”

[To be continued]