There’re Always Paranoid Thoughts to Monopolize Me - Extra 10

After Huo Zhonglou came back, the wedding plans were finally put back on the agenda.

Unlike the perfunctory manner in which Huo Zhonglou and Qin Yan’s wedding was previously decided, this time the entire Huo family mansion became busy. The main building and side wings were thoroughly renovated and redecorated according to Huo Zhonglou’s requirements, preparing the ceremonial hall.

Everyone in the Huo household, from top to bottom, was so busy they could barely touch the ground. Huo Zhonglou personally oversaw every detail of the wedding, leaving nothing out, big or small—he wanted to handle everything himself. This made things even more difficult for Huo Jingyan and the Huo family servants. Their already heavy workload was multiplied many times over due to his pickiness and near-obsessive pursuit of perfection.

As a result, it seemed Qin Ke was the only one left idle.

She had previously reached an agreement with Huo Zhonglou regarding her work freedom—Huo Zhonglou had finally suppressed his possessive tendencies and agreed to let her continue working in the industry after marriage.

But there was a condition: before the wedding officially ended, Qin Ke had to stay obediently at home. With few options, Qin Ke could only agree to this more acceptable arrangement.

Although efforts were made to control the noise during the main building’s renovation, there were still many more footsteps and low-decibel noises compared to the usual quietness.

Qin Ke couldn’t stand staying indoors, so she slipped out through the back door between the main building and the side wing.

Unfortunately, she couldn’t even go to the Huo family’s back garden alone—perhaps fearing that Qin Ke might try to sneak out in the next few days, Huo Zhonglou had specially arranged for Huo Jingyan to assign a maid. The maid’s sole responsibility was to follow Qin Ke around at all times, making it convenient to report her whereabouts.

“Miss Qin Ke, please don’t run off… slow down a bit. If I lose sight of you, Young Master Huo will surely scold me,” the maid said tearfully as she followed behind Qin Ke, taking small, hurried steps.

“I can’t slow down. Huo Zhonglou has been at home these past few days, not letting me out at all. I’m going crazy from being cooped up,” Qin Ke replied.

Qin Ke walked along the winding gravel path, her steps light and her mood excellent. She looked up at the sunlight filtered through layer upon layer of green leaves, with scattered beams of light falling through the gaps, dotting her path ahead with specks of light and shadow.

“I never knew there was such a place in the Huo family’s old mansion,” she said.

The maid, walking behind her, looked around curiously as well. “This is my first time here too.”

“Hm?” Qin Ke turned back, puzzled. “You’ve never seen this place before either?”

The maid nodded. “This area behind the mansion is maintained by dedicated staff. I’m responsible for the front courtyard. We each have our own duties, and according to the rules, we can’t leave our designated work areas or go to other parts of the employer’s house at will.”

“I see,” Qin Ke said.

Her eyes curved into a smile, and she winked, even raising her hand to beckon the maid—

“Then let me take you on a jungle adventure.”

“…”

The maid didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

She realized that the Young Master’s fiancée must have really been feeling cooped up these past few days, otherwise she wouldn’t be playing at jungle exploration in her own backyard.

Qin Ke was true to her word, leading the maid behind her on a tour of this back garden of unknown size.

At first, they still encountered quite a few gardeners or other servants, but as they went further, the frequency of meeting people on the gravel path decreased.

At one point, the maid finally couldn’t hold back and reached out to stop Qin Ke. “Miss Qin Ke, I think we should go back. It’s getting late, and if we delay any longer, what if Young Master Huo gets impatient waiting…?”

Qin Ke laughed and said, “That’s all the more reason not to go back now. We’ve finally had the chance to come this far, it wouldn’t be worth it if we didn’t explore a bit more.”

The maid: “…”

After all, she was only here to follow, not to supervise, so the maid had no choice but to continue following Qin Ke.

Then she heard Qin Ke, who had walked ahead and turned a corner, ask in surprise.

“Oh, what’s this place?”

The maid was stunned for a moment, then quickened her pace to catch up.

She saw that beyond the cluster of shrubs and the tall zelkova tree in the center, a two-story villa emerged in an area shaded by dense foliage. From the exterior, it appeared to be in a late 20th-century European style, beautiful but somewhat dated, with traces of peeling paint visible in the corners. However, nestled in this grove, it looked both proper and serene.

The maid scratched her head and hesitantly said, “It might be the living quarters for the servants who work in the back garden. We who work in the front yard have dedicated two-story servant quarters in the east and west wings. Those who work in the back garden probably live here.”

Just as the maid finished speaking, the door on the first floor opened, and two boys who looked barely knee-high to Qin Ke ran out. One chased after the other, shouting, “Slow down, wait for me!”

Qin Ke turned back to the maid in surprise and asked, “How come there are children here?”

“Miss Qin Ke, this is quite common. Young Master Huo and Butler Huo are very generous in this regard. They allow the servants to bring their children into the old mansion. I’ve heard that as long as they don’t run to the front and disturb the young masters, misses, or guests, it’s fine. So there are often children playing in the back garden.”

“I see,” Qin Ke nodded.

Since it was the servants’ quarters, she didn’t want to intrude and disturb them, so she prepared to head back the way they came.

However, just as Qin Ke turned around, she suddenly heard some voices coming from behind the house, tinged with childish malice—

“He must have stolen it!”

“Yes, it must be him!”

“Beat him! Beat him until he confesses!”

“…”

Qin Ke’s half-turned body suddenly stopped. She frowned and exchanged a glance with the equally stunned maid, then looked in the direction of the voices.

It was coming from the southwest corner of the villa, in a blind spot from their current position. Without a second thought, Qin Ke walked quickly towards it.

The maid behind her hurried to keep up.

As they rounded the corner of the building, Qin Ke was stunned by what she saw.

In a patch of grass next to the building, a dirty child was curled up on his side among the weeds. Seven or eight boys stood around him in a circle, their young faces fierce as they took turns kicking the boy on the ground.

The boy on the ground was covering his head, his back to Qin Ke, not making a sound. His silence was unsettling.

“What are you doing!” Qin Ke snapped back to her senses, angered. She quickly walked forward.

Startled by an adult’s voice, the boys stopped. Some of them shrank back in fear, while two or three looked up at Qin Ke.

Apparently deciding that Qin Ke didn’t look very threatening, the tallest one among them lifted his chin.

“Who are you? This is none of your business—Ah!”

Before he could finish, the boy on the ground, who had been as quiet as if he’d passed out, suddenly sprang up. Before Qin Ke could react, he had pinned the tallest boy to the ground and was punching him hard several times.

Even though his back was to Qin Ke, from the silent, pummeling figure, she could see the desperate ferocity of this child who looked only seven or eight years old. The other children standing nearby were frozen in shock, and two of the less brave ones even burst into tears.

Qin Ke didn’t rush forward to pull them apart.

Earlier, she had been worried that seven or eight children beating one might accidentally kill him. But now that the tables had turned, with one beating another…

These little brats, it might do them good to suffer a bit and learn a lesson.

So, to the shock of the maid behind her, their Miss Qin Ke just stood there watching the commotion.

Crying among children is highly contagious.

In less than a minute, half of these seven or eight children started crying, including the one being beaten on the ground, who began to cry and hide.

The child sitting on top of him seemed to have finished beating and silently got up.

At this point, Qin Ke carefully observed his back. The child was wearing clothes that looked like a small shirt and long pants. The reason for saying “looked like” was because these clothes were either rolled in the bushes or originally dirty, full of wrinkles and dust, making it difficult to discern their original shape. The person wearing the clothes also looked like they had been dug out of a mud pile, completely covered in dirt.

It wasn’t until he stood up that Qin Ke suddenly noticed his hair was a bit long, also stained with mud and tangled, but still visibly black, loosely hanging behind him.

“What a strange child,” Qin Ke couldn’t help but think.

Just then, the side door of the villa opened. Apparently, an adult had heard the children’s crying and quickly ran out.

As soon as the middle-aged woman came down, one of the children who was crying halfway threw himself at her—

“Mom! Quickly beat this little thief to death! He stole things! And he hit people!”

The middle-aged woman was about to get angry, but then she noticed Qin Ke standing next to the children. She was stunned for two seconds, then suddenly realized.

“Miss Qin Ke?? How did you come here?”

No one noticed that when she just called out, the dirty little boy with his back to Qin Ke suddenly shuddered and jerked his head up.

But in the next second, his obsidian eyes, which had just brightened, were once again covered with a bewildered expression.

Qin Ke nodded to the middle-aged woman in response, then asked, “I was taking a walk around here, and as soon as I came over, I saw these children surrounding this little boy, punching and kicking him. What’s going on?”

“Because he stole our things!”

The child hiding behind the middle-aged woman poked his head out bravely and glared at Qin Ke. Obviously, he was a bit resentful towards Qin Ke for her previous intervention that allowed the little boy to “turn defeat into victory.”

“Let’s not talk about whether he stole or not,” Qin Ke frowned, her gaze sweeping around, “I just heard you shouting about beating him to death?”

“He deserves to be beaten to death! Who knows where this idiot came from! He’s a mute, a little beggar!”

Another child waved his fist at the little boy who had his back to Qin Ke, but as soon as he met those pitch-black eyes, the child who had spoken shrank his neck in fear and cowered back.

“Don’t talk nonsense in front of Miss Qin Ke!”

The middle-aged woman’s face hardened, frightening the children into silence. Then she turned to Qin Ke with an apologetic smile and said,

“Miss Qin Ke, we don’t know where this child came from. He’s been here since yesterday. I thought he might be someone’s child who was brought in, so I didn’t pay much attention. Now it seems that might not be the case. Please don’t be angry—I’ll call security to take him away right now.”

As she spoke, the middle-aged woman reached out to grab the child, but the boy was alert and nimbly sidestepped, avoiding her grasp.

Qin Ke, however, was stunned.