Provoke her?
Jiang Ning laughed in disbelief, unable to help asking in return, “Why do you always assume I would do her harm? Is it simply because she was also kidnapped? Do you think I’m the one who harmed her?”
Faced with Jiang Ning’s pressing question, Gu Jianshen fell silent.
The answer in Jiang Ning’s heart became even more certain. She said, “Lord Gu, whose eyes and ears reach everywhere, you solve corruption and bribery cases in officialdom with absolute precision, and your information sources are so prompt and accurate. As long as you wish to investigate, not a single trace escapes your notice. Then, you should surely know the background of how I came to be an informant, shouldn’t you?”
“Enough.”
Gu Jianshen interrupted Jiang Ning, unwilling to listen any further. “Go back and rest to recover your strength.”
Jiang Ning, however, felt she hadn’t said enough. A rush of frustration stuck in her throat, demanding to be let out; she refused to hold it in any longer. She blurted out, “Jiang Yuan was raised eating the rice of my household! My father would rather have wronged our own brother and sister than ever shortchanged her by even a fraction! Yet what did she do to me? She sold me to a human trafficker! That was the root cause and catalyst for the later kidnapping—it all started with her!”
Gu Jianshen clenched his fists beneath the table and retorted, “I investigated it thoroughly. You wandered off and got separated before you were abducted…”
“Hahaha—”
Jiang Ning burst into loud laughter, laughing until tears welled up in her eyes.
Coldly, Gu Jianshen asked, “What are you laughing at?”
Laughing, Jiang Ning replied, “What am I laughing at? Lord Gu, you are playing dumb while knowing the truth! I laugh at lovers who find beauties in the eyes of the beholder, and I laugh at how such a transparently obvious matter could actually manage to hoodwink the brilliant and mighty Lord Gu!”
Chuntao hurried over to pull Jiang Ning back. “Concubine Jiang, please don’t say any more.”
Jiang Ning used her hand to cover Chuntao’s mouth. “I have bottled this up for three days. If I don’t vent it now, I’m going to go crazy! Why is she hiding from me? She has a guilty conscience!”
“Enough.”
Gu Jianshen rebuked Jiang Ning once more. “She has lost her memory and remembers nothing! What more do you want!”
“Lost her memory?”
Wobbling unsteadily, Jiang Ning forced herself to her feet. Her complexion was stark white, and as she laughed, tears fell from her eyes once again. “Having forgotten everything, carrying no psychological burden, and having someone to shield her—how effortless and relaxing indeed.”
Jiang Ning turned and began to walk away, supported hurriedly by Chuntao.
Jiang Ning muttered, “I must be out of my mind, talking madly to a block of stone. This stone will only crush me to death. Let’s go back, let’s go back. I still need to keep my little life to reunite with my family…”
“Oh right—I almost forgot, the original Jiang Ning is already dead.”
“Hahaha—why is this family’s fate so bitter, hahaha—”
Chuntao’s eyes turned red with anxiety. As she supported Jiang Ning walking outward, she comforted her, “It will be fine. Everything will get better.”
The study returned to quiet, but Gu Jianshen’s face was as gloomy as an impending storm. The knuckles of his tightly clenched fists beneath the table turned pale as he reined in his temper.
The fairy in his mind was pure and flawless, and he had even briefly suspected whether he had found the wrong person—the fairy in reality shouldn’t be so wretched. However—
Gu Jianshen relaxed his fist, reached out, and pulled a piece of paper from the drawer.
—Save Jiang the Fourth’s family.
This was the piece of paper swept out from under his bed by a maidservant during cleaning.
The paper was pristine white, moderate in stiffness, and of premium quality—not a paper produced in the Great Lan Dynasty. Furthermore, the handwriting did not belong to the Great Lan Dynasty, nor did it match any surrounding nations.
It must have been left for him by the fairy, though he didn’t know when it had slipped under the bed.
After exploring and feeling it over, Gu Jianshen had managed to decipher its meaning.
Jiang Yuan was married, had suffered a tragic fate, and bore a cinnabar mole on her shoulder, while the note appealed for the rescue of Jiang the Fourth’s family. All these signs relentlessly reminded him that Jiang Yuan was the person he had been searching for.
Gu Jianshen even felt a twinge of self-reproach for acting as vulgar as ordinary men, hesitating because of her tragic experiences, and merely arranging for Jiang Yuan’s livelihood while not daring to see her again.
Night fell.
Jiang Yuan霜 knocked on the study door and asked in a cautious, timid voice, “Lord Gu, will you still be sleeping in the study tonight?”
Gu Jianshen was reviewing case files when he heard her voice and immediately looked up. Without opening the door, he replied, “Your health has not yet fully recovered. If I return to sleep there, I’m afraid it might disturb your rest…”
“Ah! A snake!”
Jiang Yuan suddenly shrieked in alarm.
Dropping the case files, Gu Jianshen rushed out in a panic.
The moment he opened the door, Jiang Yuan霜 flung herself into Gu Jianshen’s arms, wrapping her arms tightly around his neck with lingering fear.
Gu Jianshen supported her body with both hands while his gaze swept back and forth across the ground.
The guards also poured into the courtyard and began searching for traces of the snake, but found nothing at all.
Resting her head on Gu Jianshen’s shoulder with her plump chest pressed tightly against him, Jiang Yuan whimpered pitifully, “I just wanted to see you~”
With the beauty in his arms, that delicate fragrance washed into Gu Jianshen’s nasal passages, acting like a brush plucking at his heartstrings.
This soft, clingy, and pitiful appearance tugged at Gu Jianshen’s heartstrings once more, causing him to involuntarily reflect on whether he had acted too harshly, which was why Jiang Yuan lacked a sense of security to the point of lying just to attract his attention?
Taking a deep breath, Gu Jianshen picked Jiang Yuan up and carried her back toward the bedchamber.
A flash of shrewd brilliance flickered within Jiang Yuan’s lowered eyes as she felt immensely pleased with herself.
She had purposely sprayed honey-clear fragrance on her body; no man could resist this temptation. Once they entered the room and hit the mattress, with her skills, she would definitely make Gu Jianshen linger and forget to leave.
Finally, the suffering she had endured these past few days had not been in vain. She had encountered a wealthy, powerful, and handsome man—her good days were finally about to begin!
That day, Jiang Yuan had heard villagers say that Jiang Ning had made it big and had sent people to bring Jiang the Fourth’s family to the capital to enjoy life.
That was the capital city everyone yearned for.
If that foolish girl Jiang Ning could encounter such good fortune even after being sold, then if it were her, she would definitely achieve even greater things.
She had hurried back, coaxed Jiang the Fourth, and agreed to follow them to the capital together.
Yet who would have thought that this trip would turn out to be boarding a pirate ship, leading to her being defiled instead.
Had she not been clever, possessing a good grasp of swimming, and jumped ship to run away while the men were completely intoxicated, she never would have managed to escape.
As for Jiang the Fourth and the others, she was powerless to help them; she had struggled enough just escaping on her own and had no intention of dragging any dead-weight burdens along. If they wanted to blame someone, they should blame Jiang Ning.
Thinking that once she left the village she would never return, she decided to try her luck in the capital on her own. Along the way, she encountered the human trafficker who had sold Jiang Ning, kidnapped a few other women to serve as her travel expenses, and hitched a ride on their carriage to the capital.
The trafficker hadn’t lied to her after all, introducing her to a powerful noble in the capital—the Minister of Rites.
And then she had encountered this current gullible fool.
“Get some rest.”
Placing Jiang Yuan down on the bed, Gu Jianshen turned and prepared to leave.
How could Jiang Yuan let him go? She lunged forward, hugging Gu Jianshen from behind, squeezed out a few tears, and said with a crying lilt, “My Lord, do you despise me?”
Gu Jianshen’s breathing began to grow chaotic. This feeling was all too familiar—it was just like when Wenya had previously drugged him.
There was something wrong with the fragrance on Jiang Yuan’s body.
Yet listening to her voice, his heart inevitably softened. He explained, “I do not.”
Jiang Yuan’s hands slid like clever little snakes from Gu Jianshen’s lower abdomen downward. “My memory is a complete blank; I’ve even forgotten who I am, and I have no one to rely on. Now I depend entirely on you, My Lord. Please let me repay you.”