Chapter 13 Chapter Thirteen

Seaman sat at the clean dining table in the hall, chewing tender beef and cheese without mold, laughing softly. Sal looked up. "Can you share something funny?" "Spend a day in bed with a woman!" he said. "Even I don't believe that Lowe can do it, but it seems that I underestimated our big brother." He showed a proud look. "That woman must be unable to walk. I think she will have to rest for a few days before recovering." "Maybe Lowe needs a break!" "Ha!" Seaman snorted. "You don't know our elder brother at all. He'll settle that woman. She won't care about the castle anymore. She'll just stay in the room and sew her clothes. There won't be any more here." It doesn't have to be cleaned so often—"

"Cooking." Thrall interjected. "I'm very happy with what I'm doing now, especially the food." Seaman picked up the knife and pointed it at Sal. "Comfort is the beginning of a person's downfall, and no one knows this better than our eldest brother. Lowe—" "I lost the bet. The woman found the thief, but you spent several months without seeing a single one." "That's her luck!" Seaman twisted his chin. "She just came at the right time." "Yeah." Sal said. "Of course!" "I don't like your tone." Seaman said.

"I don't like your stupid head either. That woman has done a lot for us, and I think she deserves credit. And I think Lowe's already in love with her." "Hey!" Seaman roared anxiously. "Lowe has had thousands of women and he'll never be weak enough to love them. He won't, he's very sensible." "He doesn't seem very rational to Huo Taoli!" "What do you know!" Seaman's face gradually turned purple. "You were a kid when she was here! Her tricks killed Tim and Shanya." He calmed down a little. "Anyway, Lowe is very principled with women, and once he's slept with them, they're of no use. After yesterday's day, he must be very tired of that woman. Maybe he'll send her away." Go to Barman Castle, then things will be back to normal here."

"Normal means bones two inches deep on the floor and stinking corpses in the moat? Do you know what's wrong with you, Seaman? You're jealous! You don't want Lowe to take his attention away from you somewhere else, you don't want to—" "Jealous! Let me tell you where my problem is: I'm afraid that women will change Lowe and make him forget the Huo family's blood feud. He will lose his vigilance, but the Huo family will appear from behind at any time. You should understand. " "I understand," Thrall said softly. "But what if Lowe really...really likes her?"

"He won't, don't worry, I know him better than himself. He can't even remember her name! Don't say he likes her. " Sal opened his mouth to say something, but there was a sound from the stairs.The two brothers turned their heads at the same time. Lowe and Annie walked into the room.Both were dressed in silk, and Lowe's hair was damp as if it had just been washed.Aini held his arm, and he held her hand tightly. Even more unusual than that was the look on Lowe's face, which was almost, if not a smile. "Perhaps!" said Lowe, as he approached, addressing his wife.

"Aren't you afraid that I will make you look ugly in front of the peasants?" Aini asked. "Shameful?" he asked. "This kind of thing will make those farmers think you really..." He paused. "Tame me." Annie smiled.When the two came to the dining table, they didn't notice Heman and Sal with their mouths wide open. "Good morning." Ai Ni said briskly. "Not sure if the food is still to your liking? If you don't like waiting for me to come back from court, I'll tell the chef." "That's right," Lowe said, pretending to be serious. "I see. If I don't let you go to court, what will you have us for dinner?"

Ai Ni smiled sweetly at him. "Sandy bread, moldy old beef, and water from the moat." Lowe looked at Seaman with twinkling happy eyes. "This woman actually blackmailed me. If I don't let her help with the trial, she will starve us to death." Seaman was too frightened by his brother's actions to speak.He got up suddenly, the chair fell back on the ground, and walked out of the hall angrily. Lowe is used to his capricious brother, but not Ani.She turned to Sal. "What's up with him?" Sal shrugged. "He's just not used to guessing wrong. Lowe, it looks like you had a good night last night."

Lowe started to talk about the fair, but then thought it best not to let anyone know where he was going. "Yes," he said. "It's very good." Saar saw Luo Wei looking at Ai Ni with love on his face.Now Lowe would remember the woman's name, Sal thought, would he really fall in love with her? What would he be like when he talked about love? Sal sat quietly watching the two of them.Lowe is becoming less and less like the Europeans.Maybe Seaman is right, how can such a big brother lead an army to attack the Huo family? Lowe glanced greedily at Ai Ni after eating. "Come to me, beauty," he said.Ai Ni burst out laughing.

At this moment, Sal really agreed with Seaman.This wasn't their big brother, Lowe, who was always mad and snarling and full of hatred. Sal left the restaurant quietly, but Luo Wei and Ai Ni didn't pay attention. Seaman had been burning with anger all day.He was at the training ground with his men in the afternoon, but Lowe didn't show up. "Probably go back to bed with that smelly woman!" He muttered to himself. "My lord?" asked the knight who sparred with him. Seaman vented all his anger on the knight, and he resorted to cruel methods rarely seen on the battlefield.

"Enough!" Lowe shouted behind Seaman. "Do you want to kill him?" Seaman turned around, and he saw a person very similar to him standing beside Lowe. "What is our father's bastard son doing here?" Seaman growled. "He came to train with us. I'll put him in your team and you'll be responsible for training him." Lowe turned to leave, but Seaman put his hand on his shoulder and turned him around. "The hell is to train this bastard. If you want to keep him, you can train him yourself, or ask your wife to train it. Now that the owner of the Ou family seems to have changed. Is this her idea?"

Seaman's guess was too close, and Lowe snatched a stick from the knight's hand and approached Seaman. "You better take those words back!" he said. Seaman also took a stick, and the two brothers fought ferociously.The knights nearby watched silently.The fight this time was very different from the small quarrels in the past, and they could see it from the eyes of the two adults. But Lowe wasn't mad with anger like Seaman, in fact, he hadn't been this calm for a long time.So he only stopped at resisting, and didn't really attack. When Lowe's foot tripped and fell to the ground, everyone was startled.Lowe tried to get up, but Seaman's stick was right at his throat. "That's what that woman did to you!" Seaman said. "She's already tied the rope around your neck." This sentence is almost the same as what those peasants said in the play.Lowe threw the stick aside and jumped to his feet, his rage ablaze.He rushed towards Seaman empty-handed. The six knights hurriedly held down Lowe, and the four grabbed Heman. "You're a no-brainer with women," Seaman yelled. "Your last wife cost us two brothers, and I think your wife is much more important than us now." Lowe froze. "Let me go!" he said to his captors, who backed away.They should not interfere, Lowe is the master, he has the right to do anything. Lowe approached his brother, Seaman still held by the four knights. "I entrust this brother to your training," he said calmly. "I hope you can manage it." He turned and walked into the castle. Hours later, a sweaty Seaman walked up to the room above the kitchen.There was all the splendor and gold and jewels here, but the most beautiful thing in the room was Randy.Her beauty often makes people forget how to speak. When Randy saw the anger on Seaman's face, she dismissed the three maids, filled the golden wine glass with fine wine, and handed it to Seaman.He drank it up as soon as he raised his head, and she poured another glass. "Tell me," she said softly. "It's all that bastard woman," Seaman said. Randy has heard him say a lot of bad things about "this woman" these days. "What did she do today?" Randy looked at him thoughtfully. "She didn't know how to convince Lowe that he brought back one of my father's illegitimate sons, and he told me to train that bastard! He's a wool seller!" Seaman said the last sentence with disbelief frightened. "Then what's with the bag on your head?" Seaman averted his eyes. "The guy had a little luck fighting with a stick. No matter what the woman said, he'd never be a knight. I heard she sat next to Lowe in court today! What's next? Will she allow it?" Randy looked at Seaman and saw his jealousy.She wondered: what kind of woman is Lowe's wife?For the past few weeks, she and her maids had watched the castle come out of filth and newness (Randy couldn't even go down the stairs herself), and heard the kitchen maids telling stories about Lady Flame.Randy especially likes the one where Lady Flame sets Lowe's bed on fire.She once said: "It's long overdue to burn." She turned to look at Seaman. "Then he likes her?" "I don't know. He seems to be possessed. Today he was defeated by me." "Do you think it's because he's not as angry as you are?" Before she came, Lowe was always angry.Now he actually... actually smiled! Randy couldn't help smiling too.She did everything possible to avoid talking about the Ojo family feud.In fact, she only cared about Seaman, but she didn't tell him that she loved him.She had guessed long ago that when it came to love he would run away, and now her guess was confirmed.Seaman is angry that his brother likes a woman. Randy couldn't understand how Ai Ni attracted Lowe's attention.Naturally, it couldn't be beauty, because she had seen women who were as beautiful as heaven being courteous to Luo Wei in every possible way, but he didn't even look at them.She also heard from the servant that the mistress was pretty, but not beautiful.No, definitely not because of her beauty, otherwise Seaman would have fallen in love with her long ago. "What does this woman look like?" "It's flat, I just don't understand what Lowe likes about her." So did Randy, but she was determined to find out. "I'm going to dinner in the hall tomorrow night," she announced. Seaman was stunned for a while.He knew that Randy didn't like Lowe, and he didn't like the castle either. "All right," he said at last. "Maybe you can teach that woman to be a good woman. Invite her to spend more time with you and keep her away from my brother. Maybe you can teach this woman to mind her own business and the castle will return to normal. " Or she could teach me how to be a woman, Randy thought, but didn't say it. Aini came to the window to look again. She had visited countless times.After Lowe returned from training yesterday, his good mood was all gone, sullen and irritable.He had been amiable since the day of the market, but yesterday afternoon and night he shut himself up in his contemplation room and refused to let her in. When he came back into the room late that night, she approached sleepily, expecting him to push her away, but instead he hugged him and made love to her violently without a word .Ai Ni almost complained loudly about his roughness, but instinct taught her not to speak out, he needed her. After the incident, he hugged her tightly. "Tell me what happened," she said softly. She thought he'd tell her, but he turned his back on her and fell asleep.In the morning he left her again without a word. Now she's waiting for Lowe to return from training for dinner.She deliberately dressed up, and when she was with a man, she couldn't go wrong with looking good. When she entered the hall, the atmosphere was eerily silent.Sal, Seaman and Lowe had already sat down and started eating.Ai Ni guessed that Lowe's depression had something to do with his brother, but she didn't know the reason.She could have asked Sal, but he wanted Lowe to tell her himself. She took the seat to Lowe's left and couldn't resist eating when the food was served. "Is Cooper here today?" She tried to find something to talk about. The quiet atmosphere became more dignified.Seeing that the two elder brothers didn't say a word, Sal spoke. "He's not bad. But then again, when did my father ever have a bad seed?" "He's not our brother," Seaman said. Sal's eyes sparkled. "He's as much a brother to me as you are." "I'll teach you how to identify the Ou family!" Seaman said. The three brothers stood up at the same time, Seaman stretched out his hand to beat Sal, and Loman wanted to beat Seaman. But the scene is frozen by the arrival of a woman.Aini looked over from under Ximan's hand, her mouth opened wide in surprise.Standing on the porch was the most beautiful woman she had ever seen in her life.No, beauty is not enough to describe, she shone like a golden light in the night. "Nothing seems to have changed to me," said the woman.Her voice immediately calmed the atmosphere in the room.She walked forward with the light steps of an angel. "Heman!" she said, looking at him with eyes like a mother scolding a child. Ximan immediately put down his hands, looking a little timid, and then pulled out the chair for her.After she sat down, she looked at the three stunned Ou family brothers. "You may sit down now," she said, as if the Queen had ordered it. Ai Ni couldn't take her eyes away.The appearance of this woman is the perfect model that all women dream of. She is beautiful, lovely, noble, and elegant—and what is even more enviable is that all men have to be fascinated by her. "Randy, you're flattering us," Lowe said. "why?" There was a palpable hostility in Lowe's voice.Aini turned her head to look at him, and there was almost a hint of contempt on his mouth.This makes Ai Ni very useful. "I wanted to see your wife," Randy said. I?Aini almost screamed, but she bit her lip quickly.If Lowe couldn't name her in the presence of this pretty woman, she would immediately find a hole to slip in. "Irene, Randy." After Lowe introduced, he continued to eat. It's almost there, Ernie thought, maybe she should find a blacksmith to engrave her name on the iron plate and brand it on Lowe's hand, so that he won't forget it. "Okay," said Annie.What should she say? "Did you buy your clothes in London?" "France, my husband is French." The meal hasn't gotten much better since.Lowe didn't speak, and Seaman didn't speak either. Sal, like Aini, seemed to be petrified by this woman.Only Randy seemed to be enjoying himself.She didn't say a word, just looked curiously at the people around - especially Ai Ni.Aini's hand that drank the soup trembled slightly. Finally, Randy got up and left.Aini felt as if a heavy burden had been lifted from her shoulders. "She's very beautiful," she said to Seaman. "Won't her husband care that she lives with you?" Seaman glared at her with resentful eyes. "This is my business, please don't interfere." Aini was taken aback by his hostility.She looked at Lowe, who was still eating nonchalantly. "I have no intention of provoking you," Aine said. "I don't mean to interfere, I just want to—" "You don't want to interfere!" Seaman sarcastically said. "You've been meddling since you came here. The castle, the farm, and my brother. I'm telling you, woman, you'd better stay out of my business and mess with Randy, I don't want her to be corrupted by you gone." Shocked by his words, Aini leaned back in her chair.She looked at Lowe again, why didn't he defend her?Instead, he looked at her like watching a show.Suddenly it dawned on her: he was testing her.Although she married him and became an Ou family, she had to prove that she was really an Ou family by her actions. "Okay!" she said to Seaman. "You can restore everything that was before I came," she said, and went to the fireplace, took a large ladle, and scooped a large ladle of ashes from the embers.She walked up to Seaman, and in full view, she dumped ashes on his clothes and plates. "Okay," she said. "Now you're dirty enough and have ashes in your food. I'll take care of getting you 'rehabilitated' from now on." Ximan's face was livid, he brushed the dust off his face and clothes, and stood up.He clenched his fist and waved towards Ai Ni. Ai Ni took a step back with a pale face. Seaman missed her, because Lowe looked up at this moment, chewing the meat, and stuck out his leg to trip Seaman. Seaman yelled loudly after standing up. "You'd better keep an eye on that woman," he said. Lowe wiped his mouth with his sleeve. "I think she's taking care of herself quite well." Aini has never been so proud.She passed! "But I don't like it if you put her on her head!" Lowe went on. Ximan patted his clothes, then glared at Aini again. "Stay away from Randy." He said and left the room. Ai Ni was simply ecstatic.Although the behavior of the Ou family was so unconventional, she gradually began to understand them.Even better, Lowe actually steps up to protect her! With a smile on her heart and face, she takes a seat at the table. "How about some more beans, Sal?" she asked. "Clean beans?" Sal asked with feigned horror. "A clean bean like I like clean clothes, clean floors?" Annie laughed.She looked at her husband, and the dear man winked at her. That night, Lowe took her in his arms and kissed her, making love to her intimately.What bothered him seemed to have disappeared of its own accord.He didn't push her away afterward, he hugged her tightly and gradually fell asleep. "Randy is not that lady." She said sleepily. "What madam?" he murmured. "The lady on the top floor of the sunroom. She's not Randy, so who is she?" "Nobody lives above the sunroom, at least not until you come" "but--" "Stop talking and go to sleep, or I'll throw you to Seaman." Lowe said. "Oh?" She pretended to be interested. "He's very handsome, maybe—" "I'm going to tell Randy what you said." "I'm asleep." Aini said quickly.She would rather deal with Seaman than face that amazing Randy again. She gradually fell asleep, but still kept thinking: Who is that old lady?