One after another, almost everyone left the room. Shouwu and Danggui had been standing in front of her bed and appeared as if there was something they wanted to say, but after a glance at the toddy kitten, they also hurriedly left the room too.
There seemed to be officers outside of the room that were examining a corpse. Gancao and Dengxin knelt down by her bed. Crying as they kowtowed and said, “It’s all our fault for not taking good care of master. We failed at watching over you!”
Ji Man blankly touched the toddy kitten. The little kitten stuck its tongue out and licked her finger.
“Tell me… what happened?”
Choked with sobs, Gancao said, “After we were sent to the kitchen to boil water and came back, we didn’t hear any noise from master’s room. When the marquis anxiously rushed over, everyone was still sleeping in the outer room. In the inner room, there was only master and a toddy kitten. The midwife… the midwife committed suicide by master’s bed.”
Frightened, Ji Man trembled. Turning her head to look, it was only now that she noticed there were traces of blood at the end of her bed.
After dry retching a few times, Ji Man laughed until tears almost came out of her eyes. “I thought I would be lucky enough to give Nie Sangyu a child, but that insidious hand had never stopped, not even for a moment!”
Gancao and Dengxin were both crying and didn’t notice there was something off about her words. They just continued to blame themselves. “We should have stayed outside master’s room and kept watch! We shouldn’t have left!”
Ji Man felt exhausted. She didn’t have much strength to begin with and had just gone through a horrendous shock. The space in front of her suddenly turned black.
—
A monster had appeared in Marquis Moyu’s estate. His wife had give birth to toddy kitten in September.
This news quickly spread. Soon, even the people in the palace heard about this. The imperial noble consort’s face turned deathly pale, and she became sick for several days because of this. The emperor thought this matter was very unlucky and sent many people to the marquis’s estate to do purification rituals.
Old Madame had been seriously ill to begin with. She had been clinging onto her last breath to wait for Sangyu to give birth. But, the result had been completely out of her expectations. Even if Sangyu had given birth to a girl, she would have still felt less worried about Sangyu’s future. How could she accept that Sangyu had given birth to a toddy kitten?
Before this incident, Old Madame had still been able to eat two bowls of congee every day. Afterwards, she wasn’t even able to eat that. Day and night, she would have nightmare after nightmare, and her health rapidly deteriorated. No matter how many doctors Marquis Moyu called over or how much medicine was used; Old Madame didn’t show any sign of recovery from her illness.
—
People from Nie Clan finally rushed over to Marquis Moyu’s estate. According to the customs, as Nie Sangyu’s mother by marriage, Chen-shi should have rushed over here when Nie Sangyu had started labor and kept her company the entire time. But, Chen-shi had claimed that she was sick and wouldn’t allow Errong to come here either. Errong had already been discontent with Chen-shi. Now that something had happened to Sangyu, she hated Chen-shi to death.
Unfortunately with Qingyun between them, she couldn’t start a fight with his mother. She could only hurry to Sangyu’s side as fast as possible.
Ji Man had been unconscious for two days.
Looking at his younger sister’s deathly pale face, Nie Qingyun clenched his fist and asked Dengxin, “Where’s the marquis?”
Dengxin rubbed the tears from her eyes and answered, “The marquis is busy dealing with follow-up matters. He hasn’t closed his eyes in last few days too.”
The midwife had committed suicide. People from the local authority division had come over to examine her corpse.
As for the toddy kitten, it had been confined in the backyard. They didn’t dare to kill it or let it go. They were waiting for Marquis Moyu to make a decision.
The crown prince kept offering to introduce venerated senior monks to Ning Yuxuan, so that they could check if Nie Sangyu was a transformed toddy cat demoness. Ning Yuxuan rejected his offers.
Outside of the estate, everyone was discussing this incident. If this matter wasn’t properly resolved, it could have an enormous impact.
But, Ji Man still hadn’t woken up.
The doctor had said her energy consumption had been too great, and she wouldn’t wake up until her energy had recovered.
And yet, standing on the side, Chen-shi sneered and said, “She’s even capable of giving birth to a toddy kitten. Who knows if she’s a human or a demoness? Why are you all so worried about her?”
Nie Qingyun finally showed his anger. “Mother! Sangyu is already like this. Why can’t you say something nice?”
Errong couldn’t control her fury and angrily said, “Madam, are you hoping that Sangyu will die so that you can send your own daughter into the marquis’s estate?”
Chen-shi indignantly rebuked Ning Errong, “Impudent! When did it become your turn to talk? Have you forgotten your status?”
“My status?” It had really been too much of a torment to tolerate this mother-in-law. Right now, Sangyu had encountered a great catastrophe, but Chen-shi was still making these cynical remarks. How could she possibly continue to endure this?
“I’m Marquis Jingwen’s legitimate daughter with a noble title of my own. Madam, tell me, what do you think my status is? If it wasn’t because of Qingyun, I wouldn’t have tolerated you for so long!”
Clutching one hand to her chest, Chen-shi grabbed Nie Qingyun with her other hand and said, “Look at this good wife that Nie Sangyu had chosen for you. As I had expected, she would rather be loyal to an outsider than her own family. She actually dared to speak to your mother like this. A wife that acts this way, do you still want her?
Nie Qingyun frowned. “Mother, Sangyu is going through something horrible right now. Can you please stop acting this way for a little bit?”
“I should stop?” Chen-shi widened her eyes and pointed her finger at Ning Errong and said, “If she hadn’t been so bad-mannered and talked back to me, would I be making a fuss?”
Ning Errong clutched Ji Man’s hand with a death grip, pressed her lips together, and stayed silent.
In a low tone, Nie Qingyun said, “Mother, if you didn’t want to come here, feel free to leave. You don’t need to put on this act for father. Sangyu still needs to rest and can’t stand so much noise.”
Chen-shi took a deep breath. “Fine, fine.”
She moved a stool next to Nie Sangyu’s bed and sat down. “I’ll wait for her to wake up. I won’t cause a fuss. I’ll just wait here to see if she’ll wake up as a human or demoness!”
