Qiu Xiaoya woke early on Saturday to prepare. She purchased the materials she needed as early as yesterday. She had money to do things easily. Moreover, it was not her money. Naturally, she could spend it well——whether it was freshly picked fruit or vegetables, the freshest fish or meat, or even the top olive oil… with just a phone call, a special worker would pack the materials carefully and deliver them directly to customers' homes.
She just needed to stay at home, wait for the delivery, count the things and sign after ensuring she received them correctly.
Han Yinglei had first returned to his parent’s house yesterday, and only at noon would he bring his parents back to his current residence. So now, she could do things according to her planned schedule.
After breakfast, she put on her apron and dug into the kitchen to take out all the materials she needed one by one. She had reviewed the decided menus two days ago in her mind. First, she would prepare dishes with a longer cooking time. After she dealt with that first, she would continue with other dishes.
After her kitchen preparations were complete, she took off her apron and spread out a simple but elegant, sky-blue tablecloth on the dining table, with each of its corners hung with tassels of gradient colours. While the fresh flowers that she arranged on the tablecloth were the President's wife's favourite moth orchids.
According to Xiao Wen's information, the one truly in charge of the Han family was the President's wife. For the President's wife's preference, Qiu Xiaoya also specially invited the elegant Kiyo Izumi from Japan to visit Taiwan. She used other flower materials and utensils to match the moth orchids that Kiyo Izumi had arranged a pot of flowers called 'Happiness' for her.
Originally, she didn't have much confidence in inviting Kiyo Izumi to Taiwan just to arrange a pot of flowers, but who knew that when she had only told Han Yinglei, the matter had become like a bamboo split when it met the knife's edge1. Only then did she understand how powerful the Hanying Group was!
"It's almost time." After looking down at the seats surrounding the dining table, she glanced at the time. It was already ten past eleven. It was about an hour before Han Yinglei and the others returned. She returned to the kitchen and spent half an hour serving all the five dishes and one soup she had prepared.
For the remaining half hour, she used it to freshen herself up, change her clothes and put on light makeup in response to Han Yinglei's previous request: for her to be bright and beautiful when she came out to 'receive the guests'.
After all preparations were complete, the front door opened, and the sound of people talking transmitted inwards into the house, letting her know that the members who would join today's lunch arrangement had finally arrived.
"President, Madam, Boss, Miss, please come in." Qiu Xiaoya immediately stood at the doorway, with indoor slippers already being prepared nearby, as she politely invited everyone to enter the house.
Only then did she realise that this beautiful young lady was the fifth person Han Yinglei was talking about!
"This young lady is?" When Cheng Meiyi entered the house, she saw a beautiful lady greet them with a smile. Feeling curious, she asked her son who was walking in front of her.
"She is my housekeeper, Qiu Xiaoya." Han Yinglei glanced at Qiu Xiaoya and found that she abided by his words by dressing herself beautifully. This put him in a good mood, and a smile appeared on the corners of his lips.
"Oh, Miss Qiu is the housekeeper that Ah Lei had been looking for," Han Zaiyuan couldn't help looking at Qiu Xiaoya a bit more when he noticed his son's smiling face.
In his impression, Ah Lei seldom showed a happy smile to a specific woman, and he was more likely to put up an ugly-looking face for other young ladies to see…
"Well, she is skilful. She cleaned up the whole house. Even today's lunch was arranged by her. Mom and Dad, come eat!" When facing his parents, he seemed more intimate when speaking. He limited this kind of attitude only to his parents. However, he wouldn't even give a second look at the beautiful lady who was last to follow him entering the house.
Qiu Xiaoya didn't know the beautiful lady's relationship with the Han family, but she only knew one thing: her Boss truly disliked this beautiful lady. However, as she noticed the beautiful lady’s loving gaze towards Han Yinglei, together with the strange looks and praises her Boss gave her (Qiu Xiaoya) from time to time, she felt an abrupt premonition of unease deepened in her heart.
The Boss was praising her in front of his family? Oh, my God! This is scary! Was he digging some kind of trap and just waiting for her to jump in?
"Oh really?" Few young ladies are willing to cook these days… huh? "Isn't this potted flower the work of Master Kiyo Izumi?!" Cheng Meiyi walked over to the dining table and was immediately attracted by the flowers.
"That's right. Since you will come here for lunch, Xiaoya knows that Mom likes moth orchids, and she also knows that you like Kiyo Izumi's elegant flower arrangement, so she specially asked the master to arrange these flowers for you." Clearly, he had demanded her to satisfy his old parents, but when Han Yinglei said this, there was a little bit of ambiguous meaning.
"Really?" Upon hearing this, Cheng Meiyi's eyes looked at Qiu Xiaoya with a little more affection. When she looked away from Kiyo Izumi's flower arrangement, she noticed the ingenious arrangement of the entire table, as well as the delicious dishes that Qiu Xiaoya placed on it, and her opinion of Qiu Xiaoya increased again.
A beautiful woman was common, but a beautiful woman who was good at housework and had more ingenuity was rare. Even Yuer was not so capable. Perhaps their purpose today… would not be able to achieve.
Xiao...Xiaoya? Qiu Xiaoya, who stood respectfully on one side and was being well-behaved while listening to them talking, suddenly felt her hair stand on end2 when she heard Han Yinglei address her name intimately.
There was something wrong! There truly was something wrong with her Boss today!
She regretted it! She shouldn't have stayed here today. Both the Boss' strange eyes and the jealous eyes of the beautiful lady behind him made her unable to sit or stand still3!
"Dad, mom, come, sit down and eat!"
Hearing Han Yinglei's words, Qiu Xiaoya reluctantly suppressed the strange feeling that surfaced in her heart and skillfully helped everyone add rice and scooped some soup.
"Xiaoya, you should also sit down and eat together with us." Han Yinglei spoke again when he saw her stand aside and was waiting to serve them.
"Boss, thank you for your kindness, but now is the time for Boss to have lunch with your family. I am just a little housekeeper. It's not good for me to disturb." Although they usually sat together during dinner, today’s situation was too strange, so Qiu Xiaoya's first thought was to refuse.
If possible, she even thought of hiding in the kitchen and not coming out. Still, she was a housekeeper, and it was her job to serve everyone, so she could only maintain the appearance of respect and respond politely.
"There is already a woman who does not belong to our Han family at the table. How can you say you disturb us when you only sit and eat with us?" Han Yinglei sneered arrogantly, as he meant to point at someone else.
"Ah Lei." Han Zaiyuan took one look at the devastated Lin Yuer and whispered a warning.
"Xiaoya, there's nothing to disturb. Just sit down and eat with us!" Cheng Meiyi smoothed things over with a kind smile.
"Yes, Madam." Since she couldn't avoid it, Qiu Xiaoya had no choice but to accept it.
A noob translator, きつね, translated this noob translation. Please read this chapter at xin-shou.site. If you read this in another location other than the site stated, it has been taken without the translator's permission. Please don't support this kind of act.
The meal would have been quite enjoyable, and Qiu Xiaoya would have thanked God even more if her Boss hadn't kept asking her how she cooked the dishes on the table and then he keenly talked about how she envisioned her parents, as she had to face the increasingly softened expression in his parents' eyes together with the increasingly jealous, resentful gaze from the beautiful lady.
Only Heaven knew that her thoughtfulness in her preparations was not only because of his orders but also because of her perfectionist personality. So it was far from what he said that she was showing her filial respect and currying favour with the President and his wife.
After finishing her meal, she immediately escaped into the kitchen to wash the dishes, totally ignoring the Han family and Lin Yuer, who had moved from the dining table to the living room to chat, presumably that since she was out of sight, she would be out of their minds. However, this matter was not over yet. Even though she wasn't there, she still couldn't escape it because of a certain person's deliberate action.
"Ah Lei, Mom knows that Xiaoya is a good housekeeper, but Yuer is also a good girl..." Although she knew that her son had no affection for Lin Yuer, and there was also Qiu Xiaoya, who was better than Yuer, when Cheng Meiyi looked at Lin Yuer's pleading little face, she still opened her mouth to sound him out.
"Mom, I already have Xiaoya. So I don't need second-class products."
"Lei Gege4..." Lin Yu'er lifted her timid and pitiful charming face, trying to raise Han Yinglei's compassionate heart, but unfortunately, it didn't work on him.
"Miss Lin, I don't know you that well, do I?" Although the two families used to be neighbours, according to the adults, he used to play with this woman in front of him every day until he was five years old, but that was eight hundred years5 ago. Now, they hadn't seen each other for more than twenty years; she still called him this intimately, which caused goosebumps to pop up all over his body.
"Please call me Mr Han." He raised his chin and looked scornfully at her. If he wanted a woman, he could find her by himself, and he most disdained those hypocritical women who relied on connections and insisted on getting close to him.
"Lei Gege4…"
"Miss Lin, don't you understand human language?!" If it weren’t for the fact that she was brought here by his parents, he would have already exploded and kicked her out the door. He wouldn't even let her scream!
"Ah Lei, be polite to girls." It was not that Han Zaiyuan couldn't understand the disgust written on his son's face, but there was no need for him to be so rude to a delicate girl, right?
"Right! Yuer is your uncle's precious daughter. Do you want to frighten her by speaking this atrocious?" Cheng Meiyi resentfully scolded him as she reached out and embraced the already red-eyed Lin Yuer in her arms while she softly comforted her. "That's going to scare her?" Han Yinglei snorted coldly, and the corner of his eye suddenly caught a glimpse of Qiu Xiaoya, who had just come out of the kitchen, and a smirk crawled over his mouth.
"Xiaoya, come here."
"Yes, Boss." Hearing his summons, Qiu Xiaoya, who originally wanted to sneak away, secretly cursed, but the expression on her face was still respectful.
"Dad, Mom, I'm here to declare that the wife I'm going to marry in the future must be better than Xiaoya. If you can't find someone better than Xiaoya, don't play the trick of asking me to have a meal together but secretly using cheap tricks to stuff a woman to me." His patience was running out, and he was no longer polite, though he was seldom polite.
"Lei Gege4, I can learn, and I will be better than your housekeeper!" Han Zaiyuan and Cheng Meiyi had not yet recovered from the embarrassment of their son's words that he had said to their faces. On the contrary, after Lin Yuer, who was originally in Cheng Meiyi's arms, heard his announcement, it ignited a roaring spark of challenge in her instead.
God, who did she provoke? Qiu Xiaoya couldn't help wailing in her heart when she felt Lin Yuer's challenging gaze mixed with jealousy and resentment at her.
She knew something was wrong with her Boss today. Since more than a week ago, when he had asked her to make sure his parents were satisfied at lunch today, that was already a set-up. She was the one who was stupid enough to step into it, and now she was stuck in the mud and couldn't get out of it...
Footnotes Full List
- Chinese idiom: easily solved
- Chinese idiom: absolutely terrified
- Chinese idiom: restless
- elder brother
- long time
Noob Translator's Musing
Tags:
My Housekeeper