"You also know that our mistress was originally from academia and rarely interacted with other wealthy ladies; she's not as experienced in this as the second and third branches. But since the mistress has taken on the role of household manager, she'll be participating more from now on, and the specific standards and procedures will rely on you—someone who's been rooted in this estate for years—to do more investigating and learning."
"Yes, yes, that's only right." Sun Assistant Manager's lips turned pale, and he seemed on the verge of collapse.
Qiuyun acted as if she didn't see it, continuing to lay it on: "Fourth is administration. Contracts for all personnel in our main branch—assistant managers, aides, bodyguards, drivers, and so on—must be filed with our main branch for backup, as well as the resumes and materials for the young master and young lady's school-related contacts..."
"Fifth, emergency response drills..."
"Sixth..."
By the time she got through items seven, eight, nine, and ten, Sun Assistant Manager's pupils had fully glazed over.
What in the world?
One item after another, airtight and clearly regulated—could a mistress who had never handled mundane affairs really have come up with all this?
Then what about those trivial matters he'd deliberately used to annoy the mistress a few days ago...
Sun Bo shivered in his daze.
No, no, impossible.
If the mistress really were this capable, could she have stayed idle at home for twenty years?
This must all be that woman surnamed Qiu's idea.
That Qiu woman was downright sinister—young as she was, slick, worldly, and old-fashioned in her ways, and she'd even just used leverage to threaten him with the mistress's authority. A proper little schemer!
No more of this—his head was spinning!
Under all this heavy deliberation, Sun Assistant Manager's face turned even paler, his stomach started cramping painfully, and cold sweat broke out on his forehead.
But Qiuyun, as if she hadn't noticed at all, went through the entire schedule again from the top—what Sun Assistant Manager needed to complete in the first week, what in the second week of the past three months—then pulled up the voice recorder on her phone.
"I really was looking out for you when I asked you to record earlier, Sun Assistant Manager. But since you didn't record it, that's fine—I recorded it for you. I'll send it to you in a bit... Sun Assistant Manager! Sun Assistant Manager, what's wrong?!"
The rattan chair was a lounger style, and the two of them had been sitting upright, but before anyone knew it, Sun Assistant Manager's head spun and he collapsed backward into the chair.
Sudden turn of events—Qiuyun quickly had people help Sun Assistant Manager into a car and take him to the hospital. Then she stretched her neck, took the recording with her, and headed back to Moonlight Pavilion to report to the mistress.
Way back when she'd first learned she'd be working alongside Sun Assistant Manager, she'd dug up everything she could find about Sun Bo.
She knew he had a high school education, was from Rong City, and could recall his work history, family situation, hobbies, taste preferences, and so on.
So the night before, she'd contacted Uncle Yu Heng and asked him to switch the work meal in the basement level to chili chicken noodles with chilled sweet rice porridge, and on top of that, she'd had extra glutinous rice zongzi and brown sugar guokui delivered to Sun Assistant Manager under the guise of being a fellow townsman.
Then the next day, she came straight over while he hadn't had breakfast, and after a warm conversation lasting more than half an hour, Sun Assistant Manager indeed couldn't hold out and fainted on the spot.
Qiuyun walked briskly back to Moonlight Pavilion.
This trick, she'd learned it from Concubine Liu in the household.
Concubine Liu would invite the Prince the night before to eat foods made of fine rice and flour, and then the next morning, before the Duke had eaten breakfast, he'd receive news that their young master had gotten into trouble.
The Duke, furious, beat and scolded him, and before long, he actually fainted!
That very day, news spread through every street and alley that the young master had made the Duke faint from anger—not only badly tarnishing his reputation but also leaving a terrible impression with the Duke, and even their own lady was blamed for failing to teach the child properly.
At the time, she'd simply thought it was because the Duke had been too angry and hadn't eaten breakfast.
It wasn't until she came to the modern era and looked it up that she learned: if dinner is high in carbohydrates, it causes blood sugar to spike sharply at night, stimulating the body to release a large amount of insulin.
With excessive insulin, the body's blood sugar gets overly depleted, and if you skip breakfast and then do physical or mentally draining work, it can easily lead to hypoglycemic fainting.
The Duke was hitting his child.
Sun Assistant Manager was exhausting himself with work.
So she'd specifically chosen a position where Sun Assistant Manager could safely faint without being caught on camera as if she'd deliberately ignored him—simply too thoughtful.
"Mistress." Qiuyun looked awkward and handed over the recording. "I originally wanted to borrow your authority and use your name to give him a warning, let him know you're not so easy to fool. But I didn't expect I'd overdone it... and scared him into fainting."
"What?" Yu Xiang was taken aback.
Qiuyun said all of it was improvised on the spot, that she couldn't repeat it, and asked the mistress to listen to the on-site situation herself.
But when the forty-plus-minute recording finished, the mistress wasn't concerned about Sun Assistant Manager at all. She only asked, "Did you think all of this up?"
"Mhm." Qiuyun looked a little embarrassed. "I was just trying to intimidate Sun Assistant Manager. It was all off the top of my head."
The mistress quickly pressed further: "Then what about that app you mentioned?"
"That one's real." Qiuyun pulled it up on her phone. "Earlier at the old master's birthday banquet, when I went to West Wind Pavilion to do Sixth Miss's styling, her assistant Xiao Wei shared this link with me to help me pick out Sixth Miss's outfits."
Phew.
Yu Xiang let out a sigh of relief. That app sounded way too convenient!
What was that Sun guy even doing? How had he never once thought to apply it to managing the main branch after all this time!
"Xiao Qiu." The mistress's expression turned serious. "Write down all those rules and regulations you listed in the recording, and from now on, our main branch will follow what you proposed!"
"Ah!?" Qiuyun covered her mouth in surprise. "But mistress, this, this is all just something I made up!"
"Then we'll refine it and polish it up. Honestly, I think your made-up stuff is far better than the current messy, unstructured system!" Yu Xiang said firmly.
Most importantly, college starts again in half a month and she still had to go to class—surely she couldn't keep being stuck at home all day on these trivial household matters forever!
Qiuyun furrowed her brow slightly, worried. "But Sun Assistant Manager is still in the hospital. He's someone the master has long relied on. If we bypass him and directly implement reforms, wouldn't that be..."
"Don't worry about him."
Even someone as good-natured as Yu Xiang had turned irritable from being tormented by these chores for days on end. "He handed matters over to me himself, so it's fully in my hands. Sun Assistant Manager isn't well—let him rest and recover in the hospital as long as he needs."
Qiuyun immediately looked at the mistress with determination. "Understood. I'll draft the new rules right away."
"Good."
With such a capable assistant by her side, Yu Xiang felt the heavy burden on her shoulders finally lighten a little. "Thank you for your hard work. Once the new rules are officially established, I'll give you a big red envelope as a reward."
Qiuyun's face broke into a grin. "With the mistress saying that, I've got all the motivation in the world!"
"Go on then." A relieved smile spread across Yu Xiang's face.
"Yes, I'll get it done!"
Back in her room, Qiuyun picked up the map of the imperial palace she'd been drawing halfway through the night before and continued.
