379 Spending Time With the Artist’s Sister

"They've been fighting, you know," Yang Xiaoyi informed as she braided Yujia's hair.

The two of them sat indoors, by an open window so that the winter sunlight could filter into the room. Snow had stopped drifting from the skies, but when birds fluttered from one branch to the next, the branches would shuffle, the snow dust delicately resting there cascading down.

"Madam and the Old Master?" Yujia asked, glancing out the window.

The day she officially renounced that she was cutting off ties with her family, Yujia had invited Xiaoyi to visit Lingxin frequently. And indeed Xiaoyi did, coming by once in a while—or at least whenever the household wasn't watching her too carefully. It seemed like after Yujia declared that the Fourth Miss status held no ties to her, the family had become careful of the Fifth Miss. They feared that Xiaoyi, too, would take encouragement from the Second and Fourth Miss, and run away.