Against the Current Episode 4

Becoming a third class maid

Ms Zhao definitely did not want them there but because a gift from his mother Lin Jin Qi told the head mistress to take them to quarters and give them jobs. Ji’Er continues to be boldest openly, she is to obviously too opportunistic for her own good. She wants to lord it over Lan Xiang but our girl refuses to take the bait. She gains nothing being antagonistic towards Ji’Er who has appointed herself head of the room. The maids in place know who’s really getting the work done, but Lan Xiang covers for Ji’Er I’m guessing she’s going with better with the devil you know theory. As the girls get acquainted with their chores Ji’Er takes the most rests and opportunities. What is fun is that she got the most bedrest but froze, Lan Xiang was stuck with the tea kettles, but she had the nice warm location. While taking a shortcut because of rain, they run into a maid that doesn’t want to deliver a scripture book. She drafts Ji’Er who only volunteered when she found out it was going to the young master. 😝 She is annoying making herself look better with Lan Xiang’s efforts but even she is getting tired of no negative responses to her harassment. Unfortunately Ms Zhao’s personal maid was in a rush as well and she too had a book. These got swapped and almost caused irreparable change in circumstance for the two level 3’s. This book was a disguised accounting book showing Ms Zhao’s expenditures. Jin Qi is on to her because he interrogates the first shopkeeper. I don’t feel sorry for him because he’s been full of himself while the master was away to lord it over everybody he considers beneath him. This backfires when he realizes the master knows the books aren’t true and agrees to keep the exchange between them private. Ms Zhao is all ready to sell off the two when she realized the girl couldn’t read and no intent was made to reveal her secret. Ji’Er is completely clueless about the trouble she could have been in and simply pouting that the Lady was too over protective of her husband. Her ignorance and dumb luck has saved her a harsh change of station. Lan Xiang is much more aware of just how close they were to real trouble. She tries to urge caution with Ji’Er reminding her that if Master knows her name, lady does too. Ji’Er goes with as long as the master finds no fault I am safe. Here LanXiang gets more descriptive as she mentioned First Lady had a maid killed. That at least shut up Ji’Er for a minute to ponder. I liked how the motto for the Xu family has become live well. They encourage each other to continue for their daughter, as she will continue to live well no matter what within the house. Lan Xiang has every reason to be fearful of the whims of those with power. She’d experienced it first hand with the annihilation of her family. She appears fearful to the higher ups, and she is, but not for the reasons they think. She is just determined to survive and from personal experience that is when she is unnoticed by the powers that be. Her best offense and defense is anonymity. If she doesn’t exist to them, no harm will come to her. The battle of the Lin couple is quite entertaining. As she sat there in her wall of silver, I have to wonder what her family had on them to make their way out a link to the Lin family via marriage alliance. Maybe it is to hide the fact she is barren. Or does she just want to appear that way? She lashes out defensively, but I think she is just as trapped as JinQi in a situation she hates as much as he does. For now things remain status quo and everybody wants it to stay that way. The last thing that worked out to Ji’Er’s favor, the maid had disguised the cover as a scripture book so had to admit to fooling herself with it when the book mix up happened. The four have survived their first round of tasks and hopefully things will continue to go well. I don’t find the story lagging or slow paced. We are getting the birdseye view that we need to see of the first couple and the dynamics between them and the household. Everything is progressing at a natural pace and the characters interact well.

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