Feng Yulei turned his head sideways to take a cold look at You Yue’e, and succeeded in calming down the infuriated woman. She lowered her head slightly. They should not provoke the people at this time.
Taking two steps forward, Feng Yulei walked up to Auntie Qing and looked up at her proudly. After a while, he lightly asked, “You are the concubine of the Mo Manor, Second Consort Mo’s mother, aren’t you?”
“Yes, Your Highness.” Auntie Qing looked at Feng Yulei’s chilly eyes and gave a little shudder. But she knew immediately that she could not hold back at this moment. Remembering what Mo Huawen had told her before her departure, she had to go out due to the current interests. With red eyes and a handkerchief over her mouth, she whimpered, “Your Highness, Qiong’er has died a strange death. Shouldn’t you say something? Qiong’er treated her sisters kindly at home. How could she do something to set up her sister and drag the whole Mo Manor down when she had only been in your manor for several days? As a Second Consort, how could she be so adept in trickery and do such a big deal? Is Your Highness’s back yard so loose that any man can enter at will?”
She didn’t start with Mo Xueqiong having an affair with another man, but with Mo Xueqiong framing Mo Xuetong. Even though she was crying, she was justified in what she said, and immediately won the cheers of the crowd.
Feng Yulei’s eyes hardened and his aura got cold. He did not expect that an ordinary concubine of the Mo Manor stood out and was so eloquent. Instead of starting with Mo Xueqiong’s biggest crime of adultery, she did the opposite. It seemed that she had been prepared for this. If he explained it in this way, things would be even more confusing, and eventually, he would get caught up in it and not be able to get rid of it.
Any man could enter his manor’s back yard at will? That sounded like a slap in Feng Yulei’s face.
“Madam, how could a man be allowed to enter my manor’s back yard? Consort Yan has done a good job in managing the back yard, but your daughter herself is too shameless. Unable to get in touch with other men, she hooked up with a manservant. I still don’t understand why she eloped with someone else when I fed her so well.”
He especially emphasized the word “eloped”, and put the emphasis on it.
Sure enough, Auntie Qing was shocked and a little flustered.
“Can’t there be any other men in the back yard besides the manservant?” asked another woman, sobbing heavily.
Only then did Feng Yulei get a glimpse of the elderly female servant. He turned to the woman whose face and nose were red and swollen due to crying and said, “How can anyone be allowed to come to my back yard at will?”
“So how did a manservant seduce Fourth Miss? How did Fourth Miss have an affair with him? Besides, Your Highness, the manservants who can walk in and out of the back yard should be young, right? And shouldn’t all your personal servants be eunuchs? How did they do this?” The elderly female servant called out angrily. Then she took two steps forward and knelt down in front of Feng Yulei, supporting Auntie Qing who was leaning on the wall and sobbing. She opened her eyes wide and did not flinch.
She was a courageous servant, who seemed loyal to her master. She cried even more sadly than Mo Xueqiong’s own mother. Feng Yulei looked at the woman in front of him carefully.
Feng Yulei thought the woman in front of him was just a slouch servant who looked the boldest but didn’t have rich experience.
“Of course I have eunuchs to serve me, but it’s normal to have some more manservants. The manservants who could come in and out of the back yard are very young, but the manservant in the study is older than them. Usually, he can’t walk in the back yard often, but he occasionally helps me to pay the people in the back yard. I didn’t mistreat Mo Xueqiong, but I didn’t realize that she was so promiscuous that she picked up my manservant at the slightest opportunity. Shouldn’t I kill the manservant? As for Mo Xueqiong, she knew she was too ashamed to face people and ended her life with a rope; and she deserved it,”
Feng Yulei said in a steady voice with a cool aura.
Some large families were generally like this—the manservant who grew up around the male master would only serve him in the study of the outer yard after growing up, and occasionally would send messages and rewards to concubines of each yard for the male master, because he had served the male master by his side before and knew the situation of each yard and could handle affairs with ease.
As for the eunuchs, although there were eunuchs in the prince’s manor, most of them were given by the Emperor, so there were not a lot of them. The prince had a lot of things to deal with, and it was normal to have a few more manservants.
Feng Yulei had a point. He not only explained why the manservant hooked up with Mo Xueqiong, but he also blamed it on her. If it wasn’t for her lewd nature, how could she hook up with a manservant who occasionally appeared in the back yard and even eloped with him?
Of course, he wouldn’t say that Mo Xueqiong and the manservant really had anything. On the one hand, the royal son’s dignity prevented him from becoming a cuckold; on the other hand, it was because of the man’s dignity. It didn’t matter what the rumor was out there. If he did admit it, he would be a cuckold.
As long as Mo Xueqiong committed the crime of elopement, she was unwomanly. She was a runaway concubine, and she would die. Feng Yulei didn’t have to humiliate himself anymore. He had been disgraced by such a thing, but if he had dug deeper, he would have lost his manly dignity.
“Your Highness, you mean that Fourth Miss actually took advantage of the chance to meet the manservant occasionally and hook up with him. As your second consort, wasn’t she afraid of your wrath and death?” cried the female servant.
“Who knows what was wrong with her? Or the daughters of the Mo Manor have been…” said Feng Yulei slowly. As he found that Auntie Qing was just crying and could not speak, his voice immediately turned cold and he was ready to blame it all on Mo Xueqiong. The Mo Manor’s daughter Mo Xuemin had a bad reputation, and then plus Mo Xueqiong, people would certainly doubt whether there was a problem with the Mo Manor’s family education, and, of course, would suspect Consort Xuan Mo Xuetong as well.
“Fourth Miss and the manservant only met a few times before they had an affair. What about my daughter, Your Highness? Why is it that my daughter was pregnant and the baby was killed by Consort Yan and you ignored it? Who was the father of the baby in my daughter’s belly? Didn’t you say other men couldn’t get to the back yard at all?” the female servant cried even louder, cutting Feng Yulei off.
If there was no other guy in the back yard, it was Feng Yulei who got the maidservant pregnant. If he really crossed his own second consort, hooked up her maidservant, then the prince was really cheap enough.
“Yes, Your Highness, you may say that Qiong’er had an affair with the manservant, but what about the baby in Mo Yan’s belly? When so many people watched her lose the baby in the Puguang Temple, why did no one help her? You were there, and so was Consort Yan, right? Is it possible that Mo Yan’s baby was conceived because she had an affair with the manservant?”
Auntie Qing also cried and questioned.
Whose back yard was not strictly regulated? When a second consort’s maidservant was pregnant, this must be related to the male master. Otherwise it was impossible to happen quietly. Just now Feng Yulei admitted that Mo Xueqiong had run off with the manservant, implying that they were having an affair, but they didn’t have time to do anything.
When the manservant had no time to do anything with the second consort, how could he have time to do anything with a maidservant? Besides, she was only a maidservant. Was she so powerful in the back yard?
Her words were so sharp, and she used what Feng Yulei had just said himself, that it was like a slap in his face. The calm on Feng Yulei’s face froze. He did not expect a female servant’s words to be sharper than the concubine’s, which struck at his unprepared weakness.
About Mo Yan, King Yan’s Manor adopted a vague approach to blur the matter in the sight of the public. Anyway, there was something about Mo Xueqiong that got in the way. It was only about Mo Xueqiong that everyone disputed. A second consort whose marriage was bestowed by the Emperor eloped with a manservant. It was something that had never happened before, and it attracted everyone’s attention.
When Feng Yulei and You Yuecheng were setting Mo Xuetong up, they were worried about the failure of their plan. Therefore, they had already taken into account both the manservant who was guilty of the crime and the incident when he entered Mo Xueqiong’s yard, which was seen by many people. It indicated that the manservant did have contact with Mo Xueqiong before. More than one person in King Yan’s Manor saw it; even if someone wanted to investigate, it was impossible to find anything.
All they could do was to prove that Mo Xueqiong had eloped with the manservant because King Yan had given her the cold shoulder and she didn’t want to be lonely. As for the ledger and documents in Mo Xueqiong’s hand, it could be explained that the manservant thought they were worth a lot of money, so he stole them and brought them out to Mo Xueqiong for money.
Of course, it was used when Mo Xueqiong failed to frame Mo Xuetong.
But the reality had changed. No one thought that Mo Yan was pregnant, and Mo Xueqiong pushed her, which caused her to miscarry on the spot. Most importantly, the doctor came to verify that Mo Yan had been pushed into miscarriage. The lady who brought the doctor to the Puguang Temple for incense was no ordinary, and there were so many ladies and young ladies present. There was no denying it.
Such a sudden incident caught Feng Yulei off guard, so he made the scene so that Mo Xueqiong seemed to be hanging out. At the same time, he gave Mo Yan a bowl of poison and arranged it into a scene of massive bleeding. Then he made Mo Jiao look like she’d been killed by herself in front of Mo Xueqiong’s coffin. It was a sure thing in a hurry. The two maidservants were used to testify against Mo Xueqiong. They didn’t have to die.
But with such an accident, Feng Yulei just wanted to destroy all the evidence, so of course the three of them had to die together.
So what happened to Mo Yan was a complete accident. All Feng Yulei could do was keep it as vague as possible. No matter how big the matter about Mo Xueqiong became, even if the Emperor sent someone to investigate him, he was not afraid. Things had already been decided, and the prince’s manor was full of hints that Mo Xueqiong was in cahoots with the manservant.
When Feng Yulei was punished by Emperor Zongwen, Emperor Zongwen didn’t ask him much about this, but asked him why he wanted to hurt his brother. He didn’t even give him a chance to refute, so he just drove him back to King Yan’s Manor with angry words. After that, the imperial guards sealed King Yan’s Manor’s gate and banned all access inside and outside the manor. Feng Yulei could not even defend himself.
The plan he had devised for Mo Xueqiong had not been carried out. He now hoped that the Emperor would send someone to investigate the matter. As soon as the investigator arrived at the manor, everything would be directed to Mo Xueqiong. At most, he was guilty of marrying a lewd and vicious second consort, and had nothing to do with the crimes the prince had hurt his brother.
