“You have never minced your words. Speak straightly,” Qin Yunuan looked steadily forward without glancing at other sides.
Maner cringed, “I don’t understand. Now that Doctor Sun has said Third Young Madam is having a fake pregnancy, why don’t you blame Grand Young Master, Guo Shidong, for the responsibility when you are facing the emperor? Third Young Madam, now your pulse condition implies your pregnancy which is not real. What will happen to you after ten months?”
“Are you worrying that if I miss the best opportunity to speak out the truth, more discussion will be aroused when it is revealed later?” Qin Yunuan hit the nail on the head.
Maner nodded. Qin Yunuan sighed deeply, “It’s because I know that the one who drugged me with agrimony is not Qin Linfeng at all.” It’s an easy conclusion to draw with careful thinking. Since Qin Linfeng worked for Prince Ray, his aim must be to remove obstacles for Prince Ray to be the crown price like the Grand Prince and the Seventh Prince. How would he involve someone without influence like Qin Yunuan? Besides, it was obvious that Sima Ray felt well-disposed toward her, looking forward to her renunciation of Prince Ning’s Mansion and Leng Changxi. How could he contradict himself by making Qin Yunuan have fake pregnancy?
Therefore, Qin Yunuan could assert that there was someone else who drugged her with agrimony.
In a palace in the east, when Qin Yunzhuang’s serving ladies were packing up for her before leaving, Sima Ray suddenly stormed in. He looked like an angry lion with red, aggressive eyes.
“Go! Get out of here!” Sima Ray drove away all the imperial maidservants, leaving only him and Qin Yunzhuang whose eyes were still red and swollen. “Are you satisfied now?” Sima Ray whipped the tea ware on the small rosewood bedside tea table to the ground, “I’ve almost lost everything because of your foolishness. Why are you safe and intact now? Liu Bao is much more useful than you, but he is killed instead of you.”
“I…” Qin Yunzhuang clung to the edge of her bed, trembling, “I didn’t mean it. I was just worried about my brother. He treated me so well and so carefully.”
“Of course, he did,” Sima Ray smiled in an extremely cold and horrifying way, “You’re his favorite woman. Maybe you still don’t know, his love for you is beyond sibling affection. Dirty things all come out of your Qin Family! Fornication between brother and sister! I’m telling you if you are disturbing me again, I don’t mind let you die together with your good brother.” Finishing his words, Sima Ray kicked the bedside, making the curtain on the bedstead shake several times before leaving.
“Brother, I…” Qin Yunzhuang was stunned. She hadn’t come back to earth for a long time, murmuring Qin Linfeng continuously. Dead. He was totally dead. Why would she bear such pain for twice? Qin Yunuan, it was all your fault.
Back to Prince Ning’s Mansion, nurse Liao had prepared water for washing feet for Leng Changxi and Qin Yunuan to wash away their exhaustion.
In the candlelight, Qin Yunuan looked at the basin of glistening water for washing feet within petals, lost in thought.
“What happened to Liu Bao?” Qin Yunuan suddenly asked Leng Changxi, who was opposite her with the same solemn look.
Leng Changxi didn’t speak but shrugged his shoulders. Immediately, Qin Yunuan understood him, “Dead?”
Leng Changxi nodded, “I knew he wouldn’t survive in the first place. However, his body is more useful to me. I studied his wound later, finding that the strength and way of attacking were the same as the ones when Jie Chen got a dislocated jaw in Wan’an Temple. I doubted that Prince Ray and Hui An that time shared one teacher.”
“You’re so careful,” Qin Yunuan nodded, “Others won’t have such discrete observation and memory like you do.”
“That’s true,” all of a sudden, Leng Changxi smiled mischievously and pinched Qin Yunuan’s face which had become more and more round recently, with his eyes glancing her from head to toe, “My observation and memory are always good. For example, I often remember that there is a butterfly-shaped birthmark on your left button, a fingernail-sized scar on the right side of your back, and…” Leng Changxi moved his eyes to Qin Yunuan’s full breasts and said in a low, satisfied voice, “and there is my bite mark.”
Qin Yunuan’s face flushed slightly. She thumped Leng Changxi softly with her hand clenched to a fist, “All joking!”
With a cheeky smile, Leng Changxi couldn’t help kissing Qin Yunuan on her cheek. Counting the days, he hadn’t touched his “Little Hedgehog” for several days. A wave of heat attacked him as he pulled Qin Yunuan into his arms and held her across his chest with his big hands, walking directly towards the bed.
After the lingering, Qin Yunuan panted slightly on Leng Changxi’s chest. Face flushed, she drew circles slowly with her finger on Leng Changxi’s chest when Maner knocked the door outside, “Third Young Madam, your medicine is ready.”
Each time after sex, a decoction of medicine nurturing the body was offered to Qin Yunuan according to the tradition. This happened as soon as the second day after Qin Yunuan’s marriage. It was made up of good materials in order to increase her chances of getting pregnant.
“Come in,” Qin Yunuan got up with a piece of clothes draped over her shoulders casually. Maner brought in the black, thick decoction and exchanged a look quickly with Qin Yunuan.
“It’s a little hot. Put it here. I’ll drink it later,” Qin Yunuan raised her pitch on purpose.
“But the doctor has said that the hotter the decoction is, the more useful it will be. Third Young Madam, you’d better drink it while it is still hot,” Maner chimed in. However, she poured it into a half-a-human-tall blue and white porcelain bottle behind the door while she was speaking. She waited for a while before she curtseyed and left with the empty bowl.
At this time, Leng Changxi draped a shirt over his shoulders and came from behind the folding screen. He held Qin Yunuan, whispering, “Are you really going to let Sun Miaoyang live in the yard?”
Qin Yunuan nodded, “It’s good to keep Doctor Sun here. Without his warning, it will never occur to me that such kind of herb-like agrimony is added to the decoction that is used to nurture my body. But Doctor Sun also said that despite the false pregnancy it may cause, it is excellent to maintain the beauty and keep youth. So I’ll take it as someone helped nourish me.”
‘“How generous you are,” Leng Changxi bit Qin Yunuan’s small earlobe gently. He really liked Qin Yunuan’s confidence. How could his woman be out of mind and weep and wail endlessly when facing things?
“How good will it be if I’m not generous?” Qin Yunuan selected a big round litchi from the fruit tray. She stripped off the crimson rind, squeezed out the pulp, and put it to Leng Changxi’s mouth. Seeing he eat it with a smile, she also smiled, “It’s enough for me to have you. But it seems that there are two groups of people wanting to harm me. How ridiculous they are! One tries hard to put musk in my house to prevent me from getting pregnant. The other goes to great length to put agrimony in my decoction to cause my fake pregnancy. It’s obvious that they are at two different levels. Fighting with the latter is more interesting and exciting.”
“You are crazy,” Leng Changxi kissed the corner of Qin Yunuan’s mouth, whispering, “but I like those who are crazy.”
Early the next morning, Leng Changxi went out for his work. After Maner and Ting Xue helped Qin Yunuan clean up, Leng Shuang came to report.
“To Consort Cao’s yard?” Qin Yunuan tied a flower-patterned fringe carefully to her waist. She had done many such fringes recently. Those servant girls and nannies all thought them pretty and asked for wearing. Almost everyone has one.
“Yes,” Leng Shuang curtseyed. After the conversation between Maner and Qin Yunuan, Leng Shuang lay on the roof to watch the yard carefully. Before long, she found a little servant girl sneaked out of the yard at midnight. In the moonlight, she went to Consort Cao’s yard in the west and talked to a nanny for a long time, looking flattering. She left after the time to burn out an incense.
The consort of Prince Ning, Cao Shuxin, was born in a prominent family with three generations of ancestors as officials. She was very kind. Prince Ning loved her demureness much. She had a son named Leng Changxuan, who was going to marry the second daughter of the Qin Family, Qin Yuzhao, as his second wife. In the mansion, servants all kept silent about the death of the first wife of Second Master of Prince Ning’s Mansion as if it were a big secret. But it happened several years ago, so nobody cared about it.
In the two months after Qin Yunuan’s marriage, she never saw Consort Cao in the front. This was because Consort Cao had been worshipping the Buddha and abstaining from meat recently. She seldom went out and even rejected the invitation of the royal feast. However, her absence didn’t mean that she didn’t care about what happened in the mansion. Obviously, if the little servant girl belonged to Consort Cao, it implied that Consort Cao had been concerning about Qin Yunuan since her marriage.
At this time, there was a strange servant girl coming to pass on a message. She said that Consort Cao had finished her fasting period. Now she invited all women in the mansion to her yard to appreciate the Begonia in autumn. So Consort Cao sent the servant girl to ask whether Third Young Madam would be present.
It was really like “talk to the devil.”
Qin Yunuan raised her lips and answered in a passionate and sweet voice, “I will go immediately.”
“Third Young Madam,” Leng Shuang scrupled.
“What are you worrying about? Do I worry that she will eat me?” Qin Yunuan ordered Maner and Ting Xue to select a more suitable piece of clothes for her. Wearing the clothes with the pattern of roses and Begonia, her black hair was put into an upside-down bun. There was also a ruby and peony heart pendant on her ear, glittering and shining.
The moment she reached Consort Cao’s Qiu Ju Courtyard, she happened to meet Ruan Ruyi, who also came to appreciate the Begonia.
“Third Sister-in-law, you look really beautiful today,” Ruan Ruyi hadn’t greeted Qin Yunuan for a long time since the thing last time. Her enthusiasm must be the result of Leng Chang’an’s order.
“Thank you,” Qin Yunuan nodded, smiled and said suddenly, “Sister-in-law, you smelled so sweet. What perfume is that? Musk?”
Clearly, when Ruan Ruyi heard the word “musk,” she trembled.
