When the servants came to report that Shen Fuer had hanged herself, Fu Jinshu and Wei Yunchan were eating breakfast.
Wei Yunchan waved his hand, looking poised and calm, “Understood, you may step down first.”
Fu Jinshu naturally knew there was more than met the eye, so Wei Yunchan briefly explained it to him in a few words, hiding only the matter of the Brocade Bureau, and told Fu Jinshu that she was sent to a place where she could be kept safe.
[Why fake her death?]
They clearly could have just sent Shen Fuer back to the Shen family.
Wei Yunchan pinched the tip of his nose, scolding him, “Foolish.”
“If she gets sent back by me, she will truly have no use left in the Shen family. Regardless of whether I touched her or not, in the eyes of others, she is no longer a pure and innocent woman. By then, her father would casually send her off to be bullied and toyed with by those powerful and wealthy families, becoming a tool for the Shen family to conduct their business.”
As Wei Yunchan spoke, he broke off a piece of peach pastry and handed it to Fu Jinshu’s lips to feed him. Seeing that Fu Jinshu obediently ate it, he still unsatisfied, rubbed his bright red lips twice more, and used his thumb to wipe away the pastry crumbs before retracting his hand.
Anyone else enduring this series of actions would feel Wei Yunchan’s suppressed teasing and affection.
Yet Fu Jinshu was a demon.
He understood nothing, his mind entirely consumed by this matter concerning Shen Fuer.
[How can her father be so ruthless!]
Even tigers do not eat their own cubs, but these mortals are truly vicious, opening Fu Jinshu’s eyes to new extremes.
Wei Yunchan poured him another cup of milk and handed it over for him to drink, “People’s hearts are unpredictable. Just remember not to trust others easily, otherwise, with how foolish you are, you would be sold and still have no idea.”
[You are the foolish one.]
[Then this evil consequence will fall upon you, what should we do?]
Wei Yunchan did not care much, “I have carried plenty of infamous reputations, I do not mind adding one more.”
Yet Fu Jinshu refused to accept this, why should Wei Yunchan bear the “consequence” of the “cause” planted by others, especially an “evil consequence”.
[Listen to me on this matter.]
Shen Yuanlin glanced at his collapsed youngest son, cursed “useless” in his heart, and then straightened his clothes, kneeling toward Wei Zhiyin, “It was my daughter who had a sudden hidden illness, causing trouble for Lord City Master. I will take her home now for burial.”
Madam Wen tightly clutched the silk handkerchief in her hand, biting her lower lip, but eventually lowered her head and said nothing, since the person died in her son’s room, and now the Shen family members were weighing the situation and not pursuing it, what could she say? Could she really pin a murder charge on her own son?
Meanwhile, Wei Zhiyin’s expression was also extremely ugly. He did not intend to let this matter pass, nor did he believe that Wei Yunchan would do such a heinous thing.
He slammed his palm onto the rosewood table beside him, sternly interrogating Wei Yunchan, “Xiqin, did you humiliate that person to death?”
Once this question was spoken aloud, it meant he was determined to investigate the rights and wrongs to the end.
Madam Wen also looked nervously at Wei Yunchan.
How could Shuangniang miss such a good opportunity to throw dirt on Wei Yunchan, she gently interjected from the side, “Xiqin, really, if you did not like that girl serving you, you could have sent her to the side courtyard, how could you push a person to that state.”
As soon as she spoke, Wei Zewen immediately chimed in, “Perhaps that servant from two days ago was also Big Brother’s doing. Right now, the only person in the entire manor who likes sleeping with men is Big Brother.”
Before he finished speaking, he collided with Wei Yunchan’s icy gaze looking over, abruptly cutting off the harsh words stuck in his throat, and unwillingly silenced himself.
Wei Yunchan did not care about being cursed at himself, but Wei Zewen’s words also vaguely dragged Fu Jinshu into this, which displeased Wei Yunchan.
“I did not do it.” Wei Yunchan looked at Wei Zhiyin, his tone calm, “I returned to the main courtyard to sleep last night and never touched Miss Shen at all, so where does this talk of humiliation come from?”
Upon hearing this, Fentao felt even more nervous inside, clearly last night she had watched Wei Yunchan close the door and heard Shen Fuer’s groans before she left… yet she could not believe Wei Yunchan capable of such a deed.
Wei Zewen gave a disdainful sneer, “But this morning I heard servants say that last night they clearly heard the sounds of you and Miss Shen making love, yet now you refuse to admit it.”
Kneeling on the ground, Shen Yuanlin finally figured out that he had been dragged into the Wei family’s succession struggle between the legitimate and concubine branches, he wanted to smooth things over, but this concubine-born third young master was unwilling.
Regret flooded his heart, had he known this would happen, he might as well have sent that girl Shen Fuer to official Han’s house the day before… Now that she was dead, having raised such a grown daughter in vain, in the end, he gained nothing and only provoked a scandal.
Shen Yuanlin cursed Shen Fuer several more times in his head, entirely devoid of any sorrowful emotions over his daughter’s death.
Facing Wei Zewen’s accusation, Wei Yunchan unhurriedly asked in return, “Which servant said that? Go ahead and call them out for me to question, did they witness me making love to Miss Shen with their own eyes?”
The servants below all buried their heads even lower, terrified of becoming that pitiful bird that stuck its head out first.
Blocked by his words, Wei Zewen was truly unable to find a single person to testify.
However, after he was left speechless, Wei Yunchan began his counter-offensive.
Wei Yunchan clapped his hands, and the steward walked forward from behind with a hunchback, holding a ledger in his hands. After the steward handed the ledger to Wei Zhiyin, Wei Yunchan explained, “Father, this is our manor’s record book of servant additions and reductions over the past five years.”
“Everything else is normal, except for one point, starting two years ago, the number of maids in Madam Shuangniang’s courtyard increased significantly, and their ages were all between fourteen and eighteen.”
Wei Zhiyin flipped through the ledger, failing to recognize the names of quite a few maids. Looking through them one by one, he finally found a slightly familiar name.
Qiuli.
Wei Zhiyin could still remember the appearance of this little maid because Qiuli had once served Wei Tingyu for a period of time. On one occasion, when Wei Zhiyin went to check on Wei Tingyu’s studies, he discovered that Qiuli was helping Wei Tingyu copy the homework assigned by the tutor.
Wei Zhiyin caught them red-handed on the spot, but was surprised that Qiuli wrote in such a good hand, and after asking her a few questions, he felt quite moved upon learning that Qiuli’s grandfather had been a village tutor during his lifetime.
Thinking back now, this little maid Qiuli had not appeared in the Wei manor for a very long time.
Wei Zhiyin knitted his brows and coldly asked Shuangniang, “Where is that maid Qiuli? Call all the newly added maids in your courtyard to me one by one according to the names on this.”
Shuangniang trembled all over, panicked as she lowered her head and stammered, “There… there are quite a few who were clumsy… this concubine has… has sent them away.”
Wei Yunchan gave a light snort, “If they were sent away, why does the manor still hold their contracts of indenture and have no records of settlement wages leaving the manor? Without a contract of indenture, which new buyer would dare take in servants of unknown origin? And how could the maids leave empty-handed without even taking their earned wages?”
As these questions were tossed out, Shuangniang’s face instantly turned pale as a sheet, collapsing onto the chair unable to provide a coherent answer.
Wei Zhiyin slammed the ledger heavily onto the table, “Speak, what is going on?”
Although Wei Zewen knew nothing, judging from his mother’s expression, he deduced that the disappearance of these maids was related to her.
Although Wei Zewen liked to go against Wei Yunchan on ordinary days, he had never done anything evil, at most possessing a sharp tongue and uttering curses when Wei Yunchan was critically ill. Yet if Wei Zhiyin asked him to find a doctor to treat Wei Yunchan, he would never intentionally delay on the way.
He was not inherently bad in nature, but he never expected that the person he thought of as extremely wicked was not Wei Yunchan, but his own biological mother?
“Mother, what is going on? Where are these maids? Right, you previously asked me for Sangyu from my courtyard, saying you wanted her to serve in your courtyard, why have I never seen her by your side?”
That little maid had just turned fourteen not long ago, clever and sharp, and Wei Zewen treated her like a little sister, often rewarding her with leftover pastries.
Shuangniang remained silent, but Wei Yunchan did not have the time to waste here with her, directly exposing the truth, “All those whose indentures remain in this ledger but are missing from the manor are dead.”
The crowd was shocked and dismayed, and Shuangniang was frightened soft-limbed and ashen-faced by his words.
“Xiqin, do you have evidence?” Wei Zhiyin said in a deep voice, his cold gaze sweeping across Shuangniang, though he clearly already believed Wei Yunchan’s words. However, everything required logic and evidence, otherwise it could not convince the public.
Wei Yunchan nodded, “I already sent people to investigate this morning, the evidence is conclusive.”
He stood up and clapped his hands again, “Come in.”
Several more people walked in through the doorway, looking rough around the edges, mostly street ruffians and scoundrels.
Kneeling on the ground, several of them kowtowed tremblingly, and one of them spilled out everything he had done.
“Madam Shuangniang gave us silver, we were responsible for carrying people out of the courtyard and disposing of the corpses, most of them were thrown near Tile Mountain, where there is a mass grave, there was one, when we were carrying her we happened to run into the Young Master’s severe illness, and the manor was brightly lit, making it inconvenient to carry the body out, so, we tied stones to her and threw her into the lake inside your manor.”
The maid he mentioned who was thrown into the lake was precisely Qiuli.