Besides the actual cooking, the Kitchen had a pile of miscellaneous tasks every day.

Carrying water, chopping firewood, preparing vegetables, slaughtering chickens and gutting fish, cleaning offal and internal organs, washing pots and dishes, and dumping slop—these manual chores all fell to the ten odd-job servants.

Carrying water alone was exhausting enough; the Kitchen used over a dozen vats of water each day, all of which relied on two young servants carrying it back from the well, load by load, from morning until night.

Then there was the management of ingredients.

Zhou Ming had originally thought the Kitchen Steward was responsible for purchasing supplies, but after asking, he learned that the Kitchen had no say in purchasing matters at all.

That was a matter personally managed by Chunlan.

The ingredients needed by the Kitchen every day, whether it was rice, flour, oil, salt, or poultry, fish, and meat, were all listed out a day in advance.

After being reviewed by Liu Sandao, the list was handed to Zhou Ming for approval. Once Zhou Ming signed to confirm, it was sent to Chunlan, who would then arrange for people to allocate supplies from the storeroom or go out to purchase them.

Early the next morning, the Kitchen would send someone with the list to collect the supplies from the storeroom.

The task of collecting supplies was personally handled by Zhou Ming.

In other words, the Kitchen only handled the cooking, not the buying.

In Zhou Ming's view, this system had both advantages and disadvantages:

The advantage was that it prevented the Kitchen Steward from skimming off the top.

The disadvantage was that he, as the Kitchen Steward, had to get Chunlan's approval even to buy a scallion.

However, he was not dissatisfied with the current situation; after all, he was a newly appointed official and was still unfamiliar with many things. Being able to stay safely in the Marquis's estate was what mattered most.

Since his Transmigration, Zhou Ming had only been eating two meals a day—one at noon and one in the evening.

Every morning when he woke up, Zhou Ming had to drink several ladles of water; otherwise, his stomach would be completely empty, and he wouldn't be able to hold out until noon.

But there was nothing to be done about it; this was a rule established in the Marquis's estate for decades, not something a lowly servant like him could change.

However, while others didn't eat breakfast, Empress Su Mingyue, as the mistress, certainly had to have it.

Usually, Liu Sandao would handle it personally, preparing a few refreshing side dishes and a bowl of porridge.

After wandering around the Kitchen, finishing his questions, and getting to know most of the people he needed to,

Zhou Ming looked up at the sky; the sun had fully risen.

The morning light slanted in through the half-open window of the Kitchen, illuminating the stove top brightly.

He took a deep breath, set the Kitchen matters aside for the moment, and braced himself as he walked toward the east side of Begonia Court.

There were two Martial Arts Training Grounds in Begonia Court.

One was used by the guards for their daily training. It was spacious, with racks of blades, spears, swords, and halberds arranged neatly. There were no obstructions around it, so anyone passing by could get a look.

Zhou Ming went there first. He looked around the edge of the field twice, but apart from a few guards practicing with blades, he didn't see any sign of Dongmei.

His heart sank; he knew he couldn't escape it.

The other Martial Arts Training Ground was more secluded. It was located in the northeast corner of Begonia Court, tucked between a rockery and a bamboo grove. Ordinarily, aside from Empress Su Mingyue and her four head maids, others were not easily allowed to set foot there.

In all the years Zhou Ming had been at the Marquis's estate, he had only been there once when he accompanied Empress Su Mingyue to practice swordsmanship as a child.

He walked inward along the path through the bamboo grove. The gravel road under his feet crunched, and the further he walked, the quieter it became.

Just as he stepped onto the edge of the Martial Arts Training Ground, Zhou Ming saw Dongmei.

She was standing in the very center of the field, holding a short sword. The blade glinted with a cold, sharp light in the morning sun.

Her movements were extremely fast. The short sword flew up and down in her hands, sometimes thrusting straight with a forward grip, and sometimes slashing horizontally with a reverse grip.

Her footwork changed positions constantly to match the sword's momentum; she looked like a shadow wrapped in sword light.

Zhou Ming made his footsteps as light as possible, tucked his neck into his collar, and kept his hands obediently at his sides, trying his best to minimize his presence.

He even deliberately slowed his breathing, silently chanting in his heart: "Can't see me, can't see me, you can't see me."

However, with him standing there as a full-grown person, how could Dongmei, with her sharp eyes, possibly miss him?

After only a short moment, Dongmei withdrew her sword stance.

She flipped her wrist, spun the short sword in her palm in a beautiful flourish, and steadily sheathed it back at her waist.

She turned around and raised her hand to beckon Zhou Ming, her movement as casual as if she were calling an disobedient cat.

"Come here."

Zhou Ming walked over obediently.

"Sister Dongmei."

Dongmei looked him up and down, her gaze sweeping from the top of his head to his toes and back up again, as if she were weighing a cut of pork.

The corners of her mouth curled slightly into a smile that wasn't quite a smile: "Take off your outer garment."

Zhou Ming hesitated for a moment, then took off his outer garment, folded it, and placed it on the stone stool nearby.

"Stand over there, feet apart, shoulder-width. Bend your knees, sink your waist."

Zhou Ming did as he was told.

In the memories of his predecessor, he had also practiced the Horse Stance, even though his predecessor had only been a second-class servant.

However, according to the rules of the Marquis's estate, when servants entered, they were first trained according to the standards of the guards.

Only if they could not reach the guards' standards would they be made into servants.

Zhou Ming thought that since his predecessor had practiced it, he assumed it wouldn't be anything difficult.

But just after squatting down for a short moment, he knew he was terribly wrong.

Dongmei walked behind him and tapped his lower back lightly with her scabbard: "Straighten your back! Why are you slumping? Are you using an outhouse or practicing the Horse Stance?"

Zhou Ming straightened his back abruptly.

The scabbard tapped his arched back again: "Keep your back flat, don't hunch your shoulders. Drop your shoulders."

Zhou Ming pressed his shoulders down. The scabbard slapped his protruding knees: "Don't let your knees go past your toes, pull them back."

Dongmei circled him, tapping a part of his body with her scabbard with every step.

Shoulder blades, lower back, thighs, calves—every tap was as precise as if measured with a ruler.

She kept making minor adjustments to Zhou Ming's posture until he formed a standard right angle from the side. Only then did she stop, walk around to his front, and nod with satisfaction.

"Like this, don't move. Hold it for a quarter of an hour."

"A quarter of an hour?" Zhou Ming couldn't help but blurt out.

"Think it's too little? Then add another quarter of an hour."

Zhou Ming immediately shut his mouth.

A quarter of an hour; he would squat. He could squat.

After about half a cup of tea's time, Zhou Ming's legs began to tremble.

It wasn't the kind of slight trembling, but rather the muscles in his thighs and calves simultaneously starting to spasm violently and uncontrollably.

He gritted his teeth, and fine beads of sweat began to seep from his forehead.

Then it was his lower back.

The muscles on both sides of his lumbar spine felt as sore as if they had been filled with lead—heavy and painful, as if someone were sawing back and forth on his lower back with a dull blade.

Dongmei had brought over a small stool from somewhere and sat down three steps in front of him, unhurriedly wiping her short sword with a piece of velvet cloth.

She wiped it extremely carefully, not missing a single inch from the crossguard to the tip.

After wiping it once, she held the sword up to the light to inspect it. Seeming dissatisfied, she wiped it again from the beginning.

The trembling in Zhou Ming's legs became more and more violent, and his knees began to rise involuntarily.

Dongmei didn't even lift her head, just let out a "Hmm?" from her throat.

The sound was very soft, with the tail end slightly raised, carrying a lazy warning.

Zhou Ming gritted his teeth and forced his knees back down.

"Sister Dongmei," he squeezed a few words through his teeth, "how much longer until a quarter of an hour?"

"It's still early," Dongmei still didn't look up, focusing on wiping a nearly invisible smudge on the blade.

"It's barely been a tenth of the time."

"A tenth?"

Zhou Ming's voice cracked.

He felt like an hour had already passed.

Dongmei finally looked up and glanced at him, a faint smile hanging on the corners of her lips. The smile looked gloating no matter how one saw it:

"What, do you think it's too long? If you think it's too long, just say so, I can add something else for you?"

"No need, no need, this squatting is just fine." Zhou Ming hurriedly shook his head like a rattle-drum.

Dongmei snorted and lowered her head to continue wiping the sword.

Zhou Ming just squatted there, his legs shaking like a winnowing sieve, sweat rolling down from his forehead and dripping onto the ground along the tip of his nose.

He deeply felt that Empress Su Mingyue having Dongmei train him wasn't just to give him the ability to protect himself.

It was clearly an outright punishment.

Punishing him for the way he had huddled at the cave entrance holding a broken wooden board yesterday, losing face for the Marquis's estate.

Empress Su Mingyue didn't bother to punish him herself, so she had Dongmei do it.

The most fatal thing was that Dongmei herself seemed to take pleasure in this task.

His legs no longer felt like his own.

After the muscle soreness reached its peak, it was replaced by a strange numbness.

His thighs and calves felt as if they had been filled with hot vinegar—sore, swollen, and burning.

Zhou Ming felt he might fall on his butt at any moment.

But he braced himself and did not collapse.

It wasn't because his willpower was so tenacious, but because Dongmei was sitting right in front of him.

The short sword in her hand, capable of splitting a long blade, was glinting with a beautiful, cold light in the morning sun.