There were already a few plates of sunflower seeds, some preserved fruit and tea being prepared in the pavilion. The windows on both sides were closed. With a burning stove in the center, this was surely a perfect place for chatting. What was more, the pavilion faced the lake and was situated on the rockery, which made it a fairly tranquil place. People who didn’t live in the manor wouldn’t even find such a secluded place.
Right now, there were only Concubine Ma and a maid in the room.
Concubine Ma was feeling like sitting on pin and needles. She walked to the door from time to time, then she stopped out of fidget. She had already made a thorough plan. However, she just felt restless for no reason while having a bad feeling for what was about to happen.
Suddenly, she heard someone talking on the outside. However, the expression on her face was not joyful but scared.
“Mistress, you need to drink the tea now. Or the effect won’t be shown in a short while.” The maid who stood by the table pushed the tea on the table toward Concubine Ma and said that.
“I…” Concubine Ma hesitated a bit.
“Concubine Ma, do you want the marquis to know that you are not pregnant at all?” The maid looked at Concubine Ma with a cold expression in her eyes.
Concubine Ma was frightened by the maid’s eye sight. Then with her teeth gritted, she walked over and drank off the tea in the cup.
Then she started to cough because she had drunk too fast.
Right at this moment, someone knocked on the door lightly with hesitation. And Concubine Ma finally stopped coughing. She used her towel to cover her mouth.
Meanwhile the maid took a few steps back and stood in the shadow of the corner of the pavilion.
“Come in!” Having sat down on her seat, Concubine Ma cleared her throat and said that. She gritted her teeth secretly and thought, “Since I’ve already drunk the drug in the tea, I shouldn’t think anything else now. After all, I have drugged Ning Xueyan. And that thing has to come to a close. Fifth Young Lady was not an easy one to handle too.”
Concubine Ma was regretting right now. She shouldn’t have married to Lord Protector. All the high position and great wealth she had expected to have were at the cost of being other’s puppet. Now she had no way to back down. Since she had already agreed that she would help set up Ning Xueyan in order to curry favor with First Madam, she had to play along with this false pregnancy thing!
After ten months of pregnancy, she wouldn’t give birth to anything because she was not pregnant at now. By then she would definitely be punished severely!
So she had to abort the baby who she had never had. And the ‘baby’ had to die because of Ning Xueyan. She had drugged Ning Xueyan before, so people might find it reasonable for Ning Xueyan to drug her and kill her baby!
It was the scheme which was plotted by First Madam and Concubine Ma. Now Concubine Ma had already drunk the tea with the drug in it. The drug only had one effect, which was to bring forward the date of her period. However, Concubine Ma suddenly had a sense of foreboding when she saw the door open slightly.
Until now, everything went so smoothly, even too smoothly.
But Concubine Ma still felt perturbed now! And her forehead was covered with sweats.
Would A girl who was able to make First Madam scared walk into the trap so easily?
“Caiyun!” A cheerful voice came through from the door. The familiar voice drew Concubine Ma back to the earth. She stood up abruptly, showing a frightened rather than delighted look on her face. She pointed at the fair-skinned man in front of her with terror, saying,
“You, you… what are you doing here?” She couldn’t even stand still due to her panic while still feeling vague pain from her belly as if it was drooping.
“What? You didn’t call me over here? Caiyun, how are you doing… Have you missed me?” The young man was stunned at first. Then with a sad look on his face, he didn’t go out. Instead, he closed the door and looked at Concubine Ma while asking that.
“I’m fine. How can I not be? You should go now, now!” The pain from her belly kept welling up, which made Concubine Ma hardly able to utter a word. Cold sweats were covering her forehead right now. She bore the pain very reluctantly and walked toward the man to push him out of the room.
The person who came here was not Ning Xueyan. It was the man from the opera troupe, also her past lover, whom she had tried so hard to cover up. And now he just stood right in front of her. No wonder Concubine Ma would be overspread with cold sweats and nearly faint.
“What happened to you? Are you sick… What’s wrong?” However, that man has already born Concubine Ma in his mind. When he saw Concubine Ma turned her face pale and stood unsteadily with sweats on her forehead, he really thought that she was ill.
Then he stepped forward and supported Concubine Ma who seemed groggy.
“Stay away.” Before he stood still, someone pushed him violently from the side of him. The man who was holding Concubine Ma’s hand tightly didn’t pay attention to other people, so he backed up while falling down to the ground along with Concubine Ma.
They both rolled on the ground and neither could stand up at the moment.
“Go away!” The maid got into a flap, knowing that something must be wrong. So she dragged Concubine Ma in a hurry and tried to pull Concubine Ma out of that man’s arms. However, that man wouldn’t let go of his hands. And Concubine Ma was back to the ground due to his powerful tug.
As the three of them were in a complete tangle, the door was opened suddenly. Ning Xueyan along with a few maids and older female servants stood at the door, watching what was happening in the room in a shock.
Concubine Ma was holding hands with a man on the ground. What was the story?
Deadly silence filled in the space inside and outside the door.
“Blood, blood, Concubine Ma is bleeding?” A sharp-eyed maid shouted that while pointing at the bottom of Concubine Ma’s dress, from where red blood was flowing out.
Concubine Ma almost pushed away the man beside her subconsciously in no time. Then she started to hold her belly and shouted miserably, with cold sweats on her forehead.
“My belly, my belly!”
“Go find a doctor. Tell him there’s something wrong with Concubine Ma.” Ning Xueyan ordered that to Qingyu.
“Sure. I’ll go right away.” Having nodded, Qingyu ran away from there in a flash.
At the same time, Ning Xueyan told the maid to hold Concubine Ma up while sending someone to inform Madam Dowager and First Madam. Now the pavilion became a scene of chaos. No one paid attention to that man who had run away secretly under the hint of Concubine Ma except Ning Xueyan.
The maids and older female servants who had guided Ning Xueyan there were startled by the accidents.
Madam Dowager and Madam Ling came here fast. Lanning was the one who had invited Madam Ling and they came a bit later than Madam Dowager. So Madam Ling thought that everything went as she had planned. When she entered the room, she saw Madam Dowager sitting there with a sullen face. Meanwhile, Concubine Ma was lying on the bed, holding her belly and rolling back and forth due to the pain. And Ning Xueyan was standing there with her head lowered and the expression on her face unable to see.
“Ning Xueyan falls into the trap,” Madam Ling thought.
“Mom, what happened?” Though Madam Ling was complacent about herself secretly, she didn’t show any sign of it. Instead, she asked with concern.
“Mom, don’t ask first. We should call a doctor to check on Concubine Ma at once.” Ning Xueyan raised her head with terror in her eyes. It seemed that she was shocked by what had happened.
“What do you mean by telling me no to ask? How can I keep silent now? Xueyan, what are you doing here? Don’t tell me you are the one who has hurt Concubine Ma!” Madam Ling looked at Ning Xueyan with a doubtful look.
“Mother, I, I didn’t!”
Hearing that, Madam Ling found Ning Xueyan’s explanation quite feeble. And she saw Madam Dowager remaining silent with a gloomy face. Then Madam Ling was even more certain that her plan had worked out.
Come to think about it, when Madam Dowager found that her granddaughter had killed her grandson, she must have been heart-broken. Nevertheless, she couldn’t tell others about this. Otherwise, she would only bring embarrassment to the Lord Protector’s Manor.
But Madam Ling had no intention to let Ning Xueyan get away with this. She wanted to blow up the affair. The more significant this matter became, the better Madam Ling felt. By then, even Madam Dowager was not able to protect Ning Xueyan.
Then Madam Ling raised her voice as if she got a huge fright. “Oh my gosh, my Fifth Young Lady, you are… Even if Concubine Ma has misunderstood you and drugged you, you are completely fine now. How can you murder the child in her belly! That is your brother!”
Madam Ling put on a deep grieved look on her face while scolding Ning Xueyan.
Madam Ling was standing at the door right now, and she had raised her voice on purpose because she wanted to draw people’s attention. As expected, there were several madams who just passed by this place looking up to this place and finding Madam Ling who was standing at the door. They all stopped and looked over, wanting to know what had happened!
“Mother, it’s not like that…” With her face turning pale, Ning Xueyan explained hastily. However, she paused a bit when she had tried to explain. And Madam Ling caught the chance and continued.
“Not like that. Are there any other possibilities? “That was a little human being. However, how can you be so ruthless to a child as his sister? That is my son whom you have just killed. Xueyan… how can you be so malicious at such a young age!”
Madam Ling said that loudly with righteous words as if she really wanted to uphold justice for Concubine Ma.
And she just kept claiming that Ning Xueyan was the one who killed Concubine Ma’s child on purpose.
In the meantime, Concubine Ma who was lying on the bed kept winking at Madam Ling regardless of the terrible pain from her belly. However, Ning Xueyan stepped forward and block Concubine Ma’s eyesight along with the maid which had been in the room with Concubine Ma.
“Mother, how can you be so sure that it is me who has done that?” Ning Xueyan, having wiped off her scared look, said that calmly.
“It… isn’t it obvious? You are the only person who was here. That makes you the most possible one to have done that… Xueyan, have you forgotten what I had told you before? Why are you becoming so vicious now?” Madam Ling still pestered Ning Xueyan in a loud voice.
Those madams who were at the bottom of the rockery could hear clearly of Madam Ling’s words because the rockery was not high even if they didn’t come up. They looked at each other with their eyes flickered. According to the voice they had heard, the people who were on the rockery now were First Madam and Fifth Young Lady of the Lord Protector’s Manor. And they concluded from the conversation that Fifth Young Lady was a malicious girl who had just killed someone. Then they all got a bit curious.
So they simply decided to stand at the bottom of the rockery, waiting for the follow-up of what was happening above.
“Mother, you call me a malicious person only because I am standing here. What if my Eldest Sister or my Second Sister is in my place right now. Will you still charge them straightly without even asking?” Ning Xueyan refuted Madam Ling with a sneer on the corner of her mouth.
“I, I… Your sister would never do something like this.” Madam Ling was startled by Ning Xueyan’s words, but she retorted reflexively at once.
“My sisters wouldn’t do something like this, and I would? Mother, am I really that vicious in your eyes that I would kill someone without blinking? Or maybe you have already known what would happen in the beginning?”
As she was saying this, Ning Xueyan smiled and approached Madam Ling who was already speechless due to Ning Xueyan’s words.
Madam Dowager looked at Madam Ling with a sullen look, with a spooky smile on the corner of her mouth, saying, “Madam Ling, aren’t you the one who’s gonna benefit the most if Concubine Ma lost her child? Why are you blaming Xueyan right now? She was just trying to help Concubine Ma. Why are you calling her a malicious girl? What if she hasn’t done the thing you just said?”
Hot steam was rising in the pavilion. Ning Xueyan had opened the window deliberately in order to let Concubine Ma have some fresh air just now. So what Madam Dowager had said reached to the ears of those madams from the window.
“It’s, it’s not Xueyan who did this?” Madam Ling was completely confused right now. Then she blinked her eyes and asked that.
