The next morning, at Bai Mansion.
Xin Yi got off the carriage in front of the mansion gate. This residence was in a remote location; if the carriage had gone just a bit farther, it would have reached the Capital Suburbs.
She looked up at the somewhat shabby door lintel in front of her, finally gaining a real sense of the Bai family’s status in the original plot.
It was indeed a low-status household. Bai father held the rank of a seventh-grade Court Earl in the court, and for their family, their daughter being fortunate enough to marry into the general’s mansion was like flying up a branch to become a phoenix.
She knocked on the door and went in. Along the way, she saw the maids whispering about her, their gazes neither mocking nor respectful.
Instead, they carried a bit of sympathy and sigh, as if lamenting that her luck was somewhat poor.
Xin Yi roughly understood why Bai mother had urgently summoned her over.
It seemed that the matter of her being repudiated by her husband’s family could not be kept under wraps forever; no matter how tightly it was hidden, the news was bound to leak out.
This time, calling her over was not for a warm mother-daughter chat, but to reprimand and question her.
Thus, the little maids in the mansion had received instructions beforehand. They did not even serve her a cup of tea and directly led her to the ancestral hall.
Bai mother was already waiting there. When she saw her enter with a graceful figure, her embroidered shoes peeking from under her ruqun skirt, her expression turned slightly stern.
Her brows furrowed unpleasantly, as if she was holding back her anger.
Bai mother was actually quite beautiful; among women of her age, she stood out, and the original host’s looks mostly took after her.
However, Xin Yi saw no trace of deep maternal love on her face. Instead, she saw reprimand and coldness. Bai mother said gravely, “Kneel down and admit your wrongs to the ancestors!”
Xin Yi looked up at the plaques on the offering table. The names written on them were all unfamiliar to her, having nothing to do with her.
So she not only did not kneel, but smiled and asked in return, “Why? Did I commit murder and arson, or rape and plunder?”
“You wretch! Still trying to deceive your father and mother?”
Bai mother was so angry that she stood up, gripping the table. The look in her eyes toward her was full of loathing and disappointment. “Useless fool! Before marriage, you seduced your own brother, leading Mo-er astray. Finally flying up a branch, yet you couldn’t even hold onto your husband’s heart. Did you think the matter of you being repudiated for jealousy could be hidden from us forever?”
Xin Yi looked at Bai mother’s stern, scolding face, and a sour ache suddenly welled up in her heart that was hard to describe.
But she knew that sour ache did not belong to her, but to the original host.
In the original plot, Bai Xinyi had jinxed her own full brother to death shortly after birth, and the entire family saw her as an ill omen.
Later, Bai mother finally nursed her body back to health and became pregnant again, only for the male fetus in her womb to slip away unexpectedly. In despair, she poured all her hatred onto the original host.
Thus, over the past dozen years of the original host’s growth, Bai mother had been cold as ice toward her, making the biological mother and daughter seem like enemies.
She was even kinder to the son born of a concubine than to her own daughter.
Even several years ago, when brother Bai Mo lost control after drinking and tried to take advantage of her, Bai mother had blamed it on the original host.
The ancestral hall fell quiet for a moment, with only falling petals in the courtyard breaking the silence.
After a long wait with no response from her, Bai mother grew even angrier. Just as she was about to demand an answer, she was drawn to the swelling on her forehead and frowned. “What’s wrong with your forehead? Did you do something vicious again and provoke Xiao Cheng Ce into hitting you?”
Bai mother knew this daughter’s character like the back of her hand. If she had really been hit, it could only be her own fault.
She must have erred first and angered Xiao Cheng Ce.
Hearing her ask this, Xin Yi subconsciously touched her forehead, and soon a slight stinging pain came from there.
Her expression then became indescribable, and she couldn’t help recalling the debauched scene from last night.
Xie Shuo was like he had some problem, using a red silk hair ribbon to tie her wrists to the bedpost. He barely did any foreplay before thrusting in.
During the process, her forehead bumped against the bed canopy from time to time. Although he always cushioned her head with his hand, there were a few times it hit too hard, and he couldn’t control the force.
Moreover, at the time, other parts of Xin Yi were even harder to endure, her legs going soft at the core, so she couldn’t pay attention to this bit of pain.
It was only this morning while dressing and looking in the bronze mirror that she noticed.
“Are you even listening to me?” Bai mother said displeased and gravely.
Seeing her gaze turn over, she continued, “It doesn’t look like a serious injury, so don’t hold a grudge in your heart. After all, husband and wife quarrel at the head of the bed and make up at the foot. A family like the Xiao’s is something you climbed high to marry into; enduring a little grievance is only right.”
“I advise you to get pregnant quickly before being chased out of the general’s mansion. Your brother’s official career will still need Xiao Cheng Ce to pave the way in the future!”
Xin Yi: “……”
She had never seen someone so good at daydreaming; she didn’t know how her brain worked.
This was her first time at the Bai family, and likely her last.
With that thought, her gaze swept over the spirit tablets and incense in the ancestral hall, then returned to Bai mother’s face. “Does Mother really want me to have a big belly? If I really get pregnant, the child in my belly would be my lover’s seed.”
Bai mother trembled abruptly, staring in disbelief with wide eyes.
She even seemed unsteady, gripping the armrest of the taishi chair beside her and retreating two steps. “You, you dare to…”
Xin Yi then smiled faintly, gently shattering her illusions. The words from her lips stabbed like knives. “If you must blame someone, blame Xiao Cheng Ce for being heartless and fickle. He can find new joys, so why can’t your daughter?”
“So Mother, forget about paving the way for brother. For the sake of our blood ties, your daughter advises you as well: stay away from Xiao Cheng Ce in the future, lest he gets cuckolded and takes it out on you.”
After returning from Bai Mansion, Xiang Lan could tell she was in a bad mood.
So she prepared her favorite water chestnut powder cake. After watching her finish eating it, she brought a storybook from the curio shelf for her to read.
Perhaps from the fatigue of the carriage ride, or maybe from being tossed too hard last night.
After finishing the cake and clear tea, Xin Yi flipped only a few pages of the storybook in her hand before falling asleep on the table.
Soothe-the-mind incense wafted gently from the beast-footed bronze censer. If undisturbed, she might have slept until evening.
Then she was woken by the Melodramatic Transmigration System jumping anxiously in her mind. “Host, wake up quick! Xie Shuo was force-fed poison!!”
A gentle breeze blew, bamboo shadows swayed.
On the bluestone path that carried a strange, heavy silence, only that woman in the embroidered ruqun hurried along.
The news came too suddenly; Xin Yi panicked so much that she didn’t even properly fasten her outer robe, wrapping it haphazardly before rushing out.
As she walked, she gritted her teeth and asked, “Why wasn’t such an important plot point announced in advance? It happens just like that, leaving me with no preparation at all!”
The system felt wronged and was utterly baffled. “Who knows? By rights, it should have been five days from now. I don’t know what Chu Chu was thinking, actually making a move on Xie Shuo ahead of schedule.”
But thinking of the subsequent plot development, it comforted her. “Don’t panic, host. The villain won’t be poisoned to death! And you’ve stayed in the general’s mansion this whole time for this last plot point, right? It happening early is good too. Xie Shuo breaks with A Jie today, perfect timing for him to fall into your arms!”
It was said that way, but Xin Yi still felt a faint unease in her heart, as if it wouldn’t be as simple as the system said.
In the original plot, Xie Shuo completely blackened after this, slaughtering everyone in the general’s mansion in an extremely cruel manner.
Could such intense vengefulness and hatred really be resolved by her?
But no matter from which angle, she couldn’t just watch Xie Shuo go mad and lose his reason.
With these thoughts, Xin Yi’s expression grew even more grave. She even couldn’t help exhaling, and started running.
The hairpins on her head jingled, smacking her cheeks and neck painfully, but Xin Yi ignored it all, inwardly cursing how huge the general’s mansion was—the distance between the two courtyards was enough for a full fitness test.
But even rushing as fast as she could, by the time she panted and pushed open the door to Goose Water Courtyard, it was already too late.
The wine laced with poison had been spilled. Several servants in the courtyard and rooms lay dead with hideous faces, their skin like overly cracked soil, filthy blood from their seven orifices slowly pooling on the ground. Chu Chu had also lost fingers and fainted in terror.
Xin Yi’s scalp went numb as she clenched her teeth, unable to stop herself from retreating. Then, with a somewhat trembling voice, she asked, “Where… is Xie Shuo now?”
“He should have gone back to his courtyard.”
She nodded, supported herself on the doorframe to walk out, but after just two steps, she instinctively wanted to vomit.
A chill seeped down her spine. Even after wretchedly dry-heaving for a while with nothing coming up, cold sweat still slightly dampened her clothes.
“Host, are you okay?” the system asked with rare concern.
Xin Yi took a good while to calm down before shaking her head. “I’m fine. Finding Xie Shuo is most important now. We can’t leave him alone.”
He had no idea what state he was in now, but he definitely wasn’t normal.
Thick clouds gathered in the sky, and the stifling wind cooled.
By the time she reached Xie Shuo’s courtyard, it was already drizzling. Xin Yi stood under the corridor panting, her chest heaving violently from the earlier sprint, even accidentally swallowing a bit of rainwater.
After a moment, she crossed the covered walkway and arrived before that tightly shut vermilion lattice door.
Her mood was inexplicably complex. Just this morning, she had woken on the bed inside, gritting her teeth and sulking coldly at Xie Shuo while glaring at the soaked red silk ribbon beside the pillow. Who knew that pushing it open again now would require a bit of courage.
With a “creak,” the door was finally pushed open.
But before she could call out “A Shuo,” she was harshly pinned against the wall beside it, icy finger bones gripping her neck.
Xin Yi’s breath hitched. In the dim light, she crashed into the youth’s pitch-black eyes filled with vicious hatred.
She was first stunned, then incredulous.
Before she could speak, the system sound chimed in her ear. “Ding-dong! Detected Xie Shuo’s current favorability at 20%, and it remains unstable! Host, be careful!!”
“Ding-dong! Villain memory fragment dropped. Host, please receive!!”
As the system’s words fell, a white light flashed fiercely before Xin Yi’s eyes, as if she had entered another world.
She looked up to see a scene completely different from the Prosperous Capital’s central plains. Though also a courtyard, it was filled with wooden stakes, hung with bizarre insect-face masks, and some silver bells engraved with foreign scripts.
Maid-like girls moved in and out around her, but they ignored her completely, as if she were invisible.
Xin Yi thus followed the maids’ footsteps, crossing the courtyard into a sealed tent, where she saw a scene she would never forget in her life…
A huge copper pot in the tent boiled with scalding water. At the edge of the copper pot protruded mottled ink-green snake tails, and a limp, pale wrist dangling outside, still stained with vermilion dan kou.
It was a woman, a Snake Clan woman soaked in boiling water.
Xin Yi’s face turned deathly pale as she vomited to the side.
Moments later, as she pallidly gripped a pillar and looked up, she saw a tender young boy standing silently outside the tent, expressionless.
The boy was clear and handsome, with quiet black eyes, and silver bells tied into his black hair with red cord.
Even though he was just a little boy, Xin Yi still recognized him as the young Xie Shuo.
No one knew who spotted him first and cried out in alarm.
Then the middle-aged man standing with hands behind his back by the copper pot turned his head. Surprise flashed across his handsome face, followed by clear displeasure. “Didn’t I tell you to watch the young master? How did he get here!”
The maids outside rushed in to carry him away, incessantly apologizing to the man.
From start to finish, the young Xie Shuo did not struggle at all, his black eyes still quietly fixed on the snake tail of the woman outside the copper pot.
Even if Xin Yi was foolish, she could guess that was probably his mother.
In the tent, a beautiful lady beside the middle-aged man furrowed her fine brows and asked, “The body of Snake Clan bloodline has always been a rare treasure in the world. Treating Yu Niang like this, and letting this little thing see it—won’t he resent you, his father, later?”
The man waved it off, unconcerned. “He’s still young; there are plenty of ways to keep him in hand. No need to fear.”
Seeing him like that, the beautiful woman said no more, only quietly instructing the maid at her side to prepare a bowl of mute drug to force down the young master.
Before Xin Yi could chase after them out of the tent, another white flash appeared before her eyes.
When she opened them, she saw a Xie Shuo who was still childish but noticeably taller, quietly and obediently kneeling by the woman’s bed, feeding her medicine.
Xin Yi looked closely; that beautiful lady seemed to be the same one from before.
She finished drinking the medicine, but her face still bore a worried expression. “How could A-Lang suddenly disappear? He had only gone out with Chu Chu to buy pastries. Chu Chu is fine, so how did he vanish without a trace?”
The youth lowered his innocent and harmless brows and eyes without speaking.
Instead, he handed a bowl of meat broth soup to the woman on the sickbed, then watched her drink it down with a faint smile.
Xin Yi inexplicably broke out in goosebumps. She even formed an extremely wild and terrifying guess.
That was, this beautiful woman would probably never wait for her A-Lang again.
White light surged once more, but this time, there was no scene change.
When Xin Yi opened her eyes again, she saw the youth with cold, pitch-black eyes right in front of her. The dim light reflected off his handsome jawline, and his finger bones still gripped her neck.
As if he was hesitating between snapping it with force or relenting and letting go.
Xin Yi did not struggle. Her nose suddenly soured and reddened, and she shed tears grievously with lowered lashes.
Teardrops fell one by one, splashing onto the youth’s icy hand.
This made his entire body stiffen abruptly.
Then, one second, two seconds, three seconds…
The fingers gripping her neck finally loosened their strength.
They dropped down coldly and silently once more.