Didn't Know General Was Female Chapter 7

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When the mother-child duo took their leave from Old Mrs. Duke Jingguo's home, it was still early in the day. Where Grandpa was fooling around at, they didn't know, and the sons of the house are all at clan studies.

With the trip to her grandmother's house today involving gratuitous s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g about with her sisters, Rong Jiahui is a little tired. She fell down on the bed as soon as she entered her room, beginning to close her eyes to rest. She has to say, this thing made out of jade, even if it's a summer mat that's warm and glossy and not cold at all, is superbly comfy. Comfyyy. She was originally only wanting to take a nap, but she wasn't careful and fell into a real sleep.

When she opened her eyes again, the moon had long ago replaced the sun.

She's never been fond of others being in her room, so after the maids saw she was sleeping, they retired to keep watch at the door.

“Bai Lu, Shuang Jiang, Han Lu, Gu Yu.”

She shouted out the names of her personal maids, thinking that whoever's outside would do to come wait upon her.

The door was soon pushed open with a creak. Bai Lu and Shuang Jiang went to her beside to help her up and prepared to change her clothes. At the same time, Gu Yu was again running in a big display, pointing outside and saying, “Young Mistress, I heard from sister Li Chun who was at the Young Master's side that… that he… seems to have gotten hit by Young Master Zhongli again! They say that it's because someone stuck a tortoise note onto Young Master Zhongli's back.”

Following Jiahui's blank expression and flat ‘oh', she said, “If Ah-ze's going to keep running around recklessly offending him, then it serves him right.”

Gu Yu shook her head. “Nonono, I heard sister Li Chun say that it really wasn't the Young Master's doing this time, he swore it in front of several of our sisters.”

Jiahui smiled. “I say, when did you all start believing his words so much? That kid has a stomach full of crafty plans, and he doesn't usually deal with Brother Zhongli much. Listen to me and don't believe him. I can't be acting as his weapon for him anymore.”

Gu Yu spoke again, “But I heard Dong Zhi from the Young Master's side say that he had cried all day until his voice was hoa.r.s.e and he sounded like a duck, his speech all clumsy.”

Until his voice was hoa.r.s.e? Jiahui startled. Seems things are a bit more serious than she thought. What a coincidence that dinner should be going on at this moment – anything she needs to ask can be done at the table. After all, apart from breakfast, the Rong family typically eats together at it. When Jiahui arrived, the old man and woman hadn't yet come. Zhongli Luo and Rong Jiaze are sitting on opposite sides of the table, neither of their faces looking very pretty.

Under the candlelight, Rong Jiaze's eyes and tip of his nose are still red. Seems he really did have a dreadful cry, Rong Jiahui's big sister heart clenching up in a flash.

She sat next to her younger brother and asked him, “Ah-ze, what's wrong with you now? I didn't even see you cry this hard when dad's parents pa.s.sed on.”

Jiaze breathed in through his nose, then turned his head away. “You don't need to care about it. We're already not best friends.”

Jiahui resisted the urge to roll her eyes, poking his face. “Who's your friend? I'm your big sister. Come, talk to me. What mischief have you been up to now?”

Jiaze's lips pulled, and he pointed at Zhongli Luo with grievance. “He threw me down! For no reason! And I didn't put the note on him, I still hadn't done anything yet!”

“Oh.” Rong Jiahui said placidly. “You were going to do something?”

Jiaze immediately quivered upon realizing that he'd let something slip. He quickly covered his own mouth. “No.”

Helpless, Jiahui strokes his head and smiles at Zhongli Luo. “He's a naughty kid, but his heart isn't bad. Please forgive him.”

Seeing how she looked when she smiled, Zhongli Luo's expression also softened by a lot. “It was wrong of me to make Young Master fall. He's young, and children aren't careful with their words. I should not have cared so much about it then.”

Jiahui smiled. “Who's a Young Master? You can just straight-up call him Jiaze, or he'll take himself too seriously. Right, right, what did he say that made you mad?”

Without waiting for Zhongli Luo to answer, Jiaze b.u.t.ts in. “I only called him an idiot. Who made him not realize that someone stuck a tortoise note to his back? What kind of dimwit wouldn't know that others are laughing at him because of how he looks? If that's not an idiot, then – ow!”

He didn't get to finish what he was saying because he suffered a slap to the forehead from Jiahui.

Though Jiahui thinks that this a is a little stupid and cute, this att.i.tude still needs to be corrected. Randomly calling other people idiots is really cramping their Rong family's style.

Jiahui pinches Jiaze's ear while speaking to Zhongli Luo, “If this kid makes you angry again in the future, come tell me straightaway. I'll beat him up for you.”

This is to protect her little brother, Zhongli Luo thus thinks, but even so, hearing Rong Jiahui say that makes one's heart feel secure.

“Alright.” Zhongli Luo agrees.

Him having said that, Jiahui turned her lips up into a smile and sighed in relief. Being a peacekeeper in these times isn't easy.

However, a similar rotten event clearly stated that this wasn't over. When Zhong Liluo entered for clan studies the next morning, she saw many huge spiders that were posed as if they were alive, but were actually long dead, all over her desk. They were about a cun wide, entirely ink-black, and covered all over with black hair – a scary spectacle.

Looking at the scared, flimsy 13-15 year old bookflippers surrounding her, Zhongli Luo's heart isn't the least bit stirred. It's just a bunch of dead bugs. What's even there to be afraid of.

She pinched one of the spider's legs and hoisted it up, asking them, “Who put these here?”

As she spoke, she drew closer with the big spider to several of her cla.s.smates. The student closest to her immediately gulped in fright, and he quickly pointed at the constantly-smiling, round-faced fatty, stuttering out, “It wasn't me! It was Rong An's little brother, Rong Ping! I've told you, so please be generous and take that away now! I… I…”

Seeing that he's about to cry, Zhong Liluo nods, and after expressing that she understands, walks step by step in front of the shuddering Rong An.

Rong An looked at the spider whose circ.u.mference was a bit bigger than that of a copper coin, and the ordinarily fearsome boy can't help but be fearful. His voice trembles, “Great Master Zhongli, can I apologize on behalf of my brother? I'll go back and whap him on the ears a few times with a branch until his head looks like a pig's, until mom and dad can't recognize him, until he's so messed up in the head that he can't recognize them either — so, just- can you take it away?”

Walking around while carrying a spider like this is something he couldn't understand and wouldn't dare to do even if he was four years old. This Zhongli is worthy of being a Southern barbarian, he's fierce enough! Ayiyi, what can he do? His legs have gone soft.

Zhongli Luo gave him a profound look, then threw the spider right on top of his head. “I don't like this present very much. You can give it back to your brother.”

It's a shame that Rong An didn't hear what she said. As soon as he saw the spider flying at him, his eyes went dark, followed by the sound of a boom as the big burly Rong An fainted and fell to the ground. That lone dead spider flutter down and landed on his face, covering one of his eyes.

Zhongli Luo shot him an indifferent glance, thinking to herself that that was for sticking ‘tortoise' to her back. A n.o.ble's revenge is never a day late.

She wiped her hands, then looked at Rong An's tightly closed eyes. “When he wakes, let him warn his little brother, or next time I'll stuff up his mouth.”

As everyone is truly afraid of this warrior who touched a spider with his bare hands, they gulped and nodded like they were trying to break garlic.

Since then, Zhongli Luo's reputation spread all around. Only, that big, dead black spider is transmitted through spoken word, so it became as big as an adult's fist, alive, multicolored, and able to spit silk. Ah, the silk was also multicolored. And extremely poisonous. What was originally only a self-righteous prank by Rong Ping, a mere ten-year-old child, made on behalf of Rong Jiaze to mess with someone, ended up evolving into an elite battle spider. Zhongli Luo doesn't know whether to laugh or cry about this.

That day, after Zhongli Luo returned from school, a few graceful and delicate girls could be seen feeding the fish as they stood on a bridge. They looked at the pretty koi scrambling to the food and trembled with beautiful laughter.

Just then, they also discovered her. After one of the girls saw her, she smiled and waved as she held a bag of fish food. “Brother Zhongli!”

Zhongli Luo smiled softly. It's Rong Jiahui.

She's quite fond of how Jiahui looks when she smiles. Though the girl is very young, she loves to act mature, giving the appearance of a tiny adult. It's a stark contrast to her brother who's a little less than two years younger than her and is a child through and through, though unfortunately, she still can't hide away her naivete.

She's an only daughter, and always has been, with no brothers or sisters. Her parents had her when they were nearly forty years old, and, probably feeling that fate wouldn't allow them more children, her father raised her as a son; ge taught her how to read books and study martial arts, and even hoped that she could serve the Imperial Court, as if she really was one. She's been faking it for so very long, she'd probably feel like she was disguising herself as a woman if she put on women's clothes, having forgotten that she is, in fact, a daughter.

She felt the round topknot on her head, and for the first time envied that delicate coil of hair that she didn't know the name of on top of Rong Jiahui's head.

Seeing her stare, Jiahui reached out her hand and waved it in front of her eyes. “What is it? Are you thinking of something? You're s.p.a.cing out.”

Zhongli Luo shook her head. “I'm not. Are you feeding fish?”

Jiahui smiled joyfully and nodded. “Yep. I don't know how the pretty koi taste. What do you say we come back some other day and fish some up to try?”

After that, she didn't wait for whatever response Zhongli Luo had before she stuffed a few bags of fish food into her hands. “Together.”

After staring at the fish food in her hands, Zhongli Luo again looked at Rong Jiahui to see her looking at her with both eyes sparkling like the moon.

As she once again went off on a mental journey, Jiahui couldn't help but jab her with an elbow and seized the hand with the food, hinting at her to feed them, starting up her chatter again afterwards. “Here, this yellow and black one. I've seen it always getting robbed by the other fish. Feed it a bit more so it's not going hungry. There's also that red one. It's so small, it should be fed a lot more, so it can get big…”

Zhongli Luo looked at her being absorbed with watching the fish, and the corners of her mouth bent up into a nice-looking arc, obediently allowing her to order her about.

The meng is already getting pulled out… rip ZLL you're absolutely doomed

The author's notes for this one said that she plans on ending the slice-of-life stuff before chapter 10. How exciting! (Every chapter has author notes, but I don't bother with them because they usually… don't really say anything.)