Yang Xiuying raised her eyebrows with interest when she heard the names that fell from the maid’s mouth.
“Miss Ma?”
As for Li Wangfei, she naturally knew her well. But this woman she’d just met for the first time, who had just friendly invited her to stroll and view the gardens—when had she ever had any grievance with her?
“In that case, bring your Miss Ma here. Then take Li Wangfei to the nearest lotus pond, and I’ll have the antidote ready for you there.” Yang Xiuying released her claw-like grip from the slender neck she could snap at any moment, making that maid run away in a panic with her skirt flying over her head, coughing hoarsely all the way out.
Once the guest room was empty of people, Mo Fang’s voice rang out from behind, amid the scent of aphrodisiac incense beginning to spread throughout the room—which had absolutely no effect on the two women from the Nai’er tribe.
“That Ma Xinyi is Chu Huiru’s close friend. There were rumors before that the Ma clan tried to send her to form a marriage alliance with Qin Wang, but Qin Wang refused.”
Yang Xiuying turned in surprise to look at the senior maid her mother had sent.
“How do you know these things?”
“Furen didn’t only send me and Tan Wu. There are also people who infiltrated with the Yi clan’s merchant group. They’re now spread throughout the capital. Whatever we want to know, whatever we should know, we can find out.”
“Oh… my mother is the best!”
“And this human man, what should we do with him?” Mo Fang used her foot to nudge the man in black who’d dared strike the back of her neck earlier.
Yang Xiuying stepped one foot down on the firm butt of the man lying face-down to rest her foot, looking down with contempt.
“Break his arms and legs, then throw him at that Chu woman’s residence in Li Wang’s Manor!”
***
On Chu Huiru’s side, she was encountering a situation similar to what Yang Xiuying had faced earlier. Her clothes were soaked through, so she had to follow a maid until reaching an area completely devoid of people.
Looking left and right and seeing this couldn’t possibly be the way to the guest residence, she turned back intending to scold the guiding maid, only to find she’d disappeared. And when she turned to the other side, her personal maid had vanished as well.
“What is going on?” Chu Huiru felt uneasy and thought to escape this suspicious situation. But before she could take a single step, her butt was struck hard by something solid, sending her lunging forward with arms and legs spread like a frog doing a long jump.
After soaring through the air for a distance, she hit the ground face-first and slid across the grass for several zhang[1].
And because the impact was too great to stop before reaching the lotus pond’s edge, Chu Huiru slid right into the lotus pond with a loud SPLASH!!!
Behind her, Yang Xiuying still stood with one leg raised. She swept her foot out to the side once, then gracefully brought it back to stand straight with legs together and hands clasped behind her back, as if she hadn’t just kicked Li Wangfei flying into the water at all.
“Hmph… mess with me once, and I’ll make you suffer once. I still have plenty of time to keep playing with you—until your bones turn to dust. Hahahaha!”
The guard named Wen Chang, whom Jian Hantian had sent to follow and protect Qin Wangfei, had never encountered such a situation before. He and Tan Wu had followed Qin Wangfei into the banquet in the form of shadow guards concealing themselves secretly, and had witnessed everything that happened without missing a single breath.
Not only could Qin Wangfei handle everything herself with ease, she’d even ordered him to deal with Li Wangfei’s guards to clear the way so she could make her move… uh… make her kick against Li Wangfei conveniently without interference.
Since becoming a guard, he’d never had to pick fights with fellow guards serving other wangs’ manors before. But that Tan Wu had charged out to follow orders without hesitation, and he’d had no choice but to follow along. Plus he had to witness such an event. This counted as work that opened up quite an unusual new experience.
But how should he report this matter back to Qin Wang?
***
When shouts rang out calling for help for someone who’d fallen in the water, all the young masters and young ladies flocked to crowd around the lotus pond on the eastern side of the imperial gardens.
What they saw was Li Wangfei paddling the water to keep herself from sinking. Clearly she knew somewhat how to survive in water, even though her manner was reminiscent of a drowning dog.
By the time a maid went to help her out of the water, Chu Huiru was nearly exhausted. Today she’d been humiliated even worse than the incident at the imperial palace several days ago. Look at those nearly a hundred pairs of eyes staring at her, then turning to whisper gossip amongst themselves!
She wanted to scream so badly!
But thinking that soon someone else would be even more humiliated than her, the fury in her heart eased.
Previously, Li Wang had reprimanded her for making trouble for Yu Zhenzhen in front of everyone, risking Jian Kingdom losing benefits regarding Duanshen ore. He’d even strictly forbidden her from making trouble for that lowly concubine again. Otherwise, even the Emperor himself couldn’t help her.
Those insane trade conditions made her want to curse whoever had agreed to accept them so easily. But even so, she would never allow that lowborn woman to swagger around comfortably, or find ways to take revenge on her with a higher status.
Since she couldn’t use power and influence to destroy her, then let her destroy her own reputation—just like when she was still a concubine in Li Wang’s manor. If that lowly concubine committed adultery herself, who could blame the people of Jian Kingdom!
Before long, an uproar arose from another section of the garden. The gist was about some shameless woman who dared strip off her own clothes and throw herself at a man attending the banquet without any shame.
The whispers spreading made Chu Huiru—wrapped in a cloth covering, her face bruised, skin scraped, nose bleeding, lips swollen, walking bow-legged with her butt sticking out—nearly charge out to witness the final moment of that lowly concubine’s second life.
‘Yu Zhenzhen… the new life you struggled so hard to climb up to—it ends now!’
***
That evening, Yang Xiuying returned to Qin Wang’s manor in a pleasant mood. She hadn’t expected capital banquets would have so many fun things to do.
News of Li Wangfei falling into water for dozens or hundreds to gawk at, and Miss Ma being so lustful she chased and pounced on a man at the banquet—all of it gave the capital’s upper class material to discuss cheerfully over tea for another month.
Unlike those in Li Wang’s manor, who’d not only returned injured and disfigured, but also received terrible news about their friend from the Ma clan who’d once had a bright future and could mutually promote each other to greater prosperity in the future. Now her prospects had been extinguished. Ma Xinyi would never again have the right to set foot in the capital for the rest of her life.
The story didn’t end there. As soon as she was carried back to her residence, Chu Huiru discovered the Chu clan guard she’d borrowed from her father for today’s secret mission—unconscious, limbs twisted out of shape, tied with rope around his waist and suspended from a beam in the middle of her bedroom.
“EEEEEEEEEEEK!” came the scream from that swollen mouth, making the remaining maids rush in to witness a horrifying scene with no idea how it had happened.
Now Chu Huiru was certain that everything that happened today—to herself, to Ma Xinyi, and to her father’s guard—must absolutely be the handiwork of that lowly concubine Yu Zhenzhen.
“Thah lowthee conthubine! Thah foxth! Ah wih kith yooooou!” (That lowly concubine! That fox! I will kill you!)
***
Jian Hantian, who’d just returned from the weapons factory that evening, received Wen Chang’s report without missing a single word.
Though his expression remained impassive and emotionless, inwardly he felt a strange urge to laugh. It seemed this second daughter of the Long Yu Island Lord had many surprising aspects indeed.
His people had investigated and confirmed that she had an older sister. Apparently that sister of hers tended to keep quietly indoors in the manor, rarely seen by anyone. She wasn’t talked about much on Long Yu Island either.
As for what happened after she was caged and drowned in the Liu Li River—whether she lived or died—no one could know, since there’d been no news of a young woman’s corpse floating down the river over the past several months. His people who went down to search for that cage found nothing. He didn’t know if she was truly still alive or not.
But one thing he was becoming more confident about was that Yang Xiuying proposing to marry him using Duanshen ore as a condition this time—it was very likely she did it to take revenge for her sister who’d been bullied and humiliated by the people of Li Wang’s manor to that extent.
After recounting all of Wangfei’s spectacular exploits he’d witnessed today, Wen Chang watched his master tap his fingers thoughtfully on the large desk.
“In that case, help her clean up. Don’t leave any traces that could be traced back to her.”
That answer with a faint smile made Wen Chang stare at his superior blankly, not knowing how to respond.
‘Does Wangye himself approve of Wangfei’s actions too?!’
[1] Zhang (丈) – A traditional Chinese unit of length, approximately 3.33 meters or 10.9 feet.
Author’s Note:
Li Wangfei finally took the plunge. Form? Flawless. Landing? Impeccable. Our girl is standing on the sidelines with a scoreboard, and it’s a row of 10s.
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