Lady Xiang narrowed her eyes slightly, grabbed a handful of copper coins, and scattered them on the ground.
The children scrambled to pick up the coins from the ground, then grabbed their bamboo cages and ran out of the courtyard to catch rats.
The Wei Clan Leader walked out from inside, his hands clasped behind his back, and said, “Won’t this cause trouble?”
“Master, Zhu Changsheng is the Celestial Lone Baleful Star. Wherever she goes, death follows. Now that she has married into the Wei Mansion, with her ill-omened presence overseeing the funeral affairs, even the ancestors cannot bear it. They have transformed into rats to protest. Alternatively, as an ill-fated person, she has attracted ill-omened pests. Swarms of rats gnaw at the coffin, crawl inside, and bite the corpse within. Such an outrage is condemned by both gods and men. Only by pushing the situation to a point where she can no longer handle it can we rightfully take over the Wei family and teach the new bride a lesson.”
As Lady Xiang spoke, her eyes gleamed with sinister calculation.
The Wei Clan Leader grunted in agreement. “Make sure those children keep their mouths shut.”
“These beggars are children I brought back from the slums. Give them a steamed bun, and they’ll wag their tails like dogs. If they dare speak out of turn, I have plenty of ways to make them wish they were dead.”
Lady Xiang spoke coldly, her face stern.
At that moment, the sound of a flowerpot shattering echoed from outside.
Lady Xiang and the Wei Clan Leader turned to look toward the courtyard.
They saw a small child crouching outside the hall door, cautiously watching them.
Lady Xiang strode over, grabbed the child’s ear forcefully, and demanded angrily, “What are you doing here?”
“L-Lady Xiang, I-I came to collect my copper coins. The older brothers said we get coins for catching rats.” The child was Wei Jiangbai, seven years old.
Lady Xiang pushed the child away disdainfully, not wanting to give him even a single coin. She shoved him out of the hall and said coldly, “Get out of here!”
“Yes, I’ll catch many big rats to honor you, Madam,” the child said as he ran away.
Lady Xiang’s expression darkened further. These fools!
But soon, Lady Xiang regained her composure.
Once she took control of the Wei Mansion, she would still need these children to earn her military merits, serve as their mother, and collect their bodies.
Each of them would become a part of her glory.
Thinking of this, Lady Xiang took out the note sent from Prince Jing’s Mansion. It was a message Zhu Yuanshu had someone deliver to her.
She glanced at it twice, her red lips curling into a confident smile.
These two sisters from the Zhu family were truly interesting!
The crescent moon hung like a hook, and the stars were sparse.
Wei Mansion.
“Young Madam, I am Nanny Liao, the stewardess of the Wei Mansion, a servant who guarded the courtyard for Old Madam Wei.”
“Young Madam, I am Bi Rui, the head maid of the Wei Mansion’s mistress.”
“Young Madam, I am Su Ji, the steward of the storeroom.”
“Young Madam, I am Tao Xin, a third-rank maid who served Concubine Liu in her lifetime.”
“Young Madam, I am Ling Su, the guard of the eldest young master.”
“Young Madam…”
The maids, nannies, stewards, and other servants of the Wei Mansion knelt outside the side room, introducing themselves to the person inside.
These were all people Fu Xin had tracked down from slave traders and redeemed, following the list Zhu Changsheng had provided.
Most of them were born into servitude, with entire families serving the Wei masters. They were loyal to the Wei family and formed the backbone of the Wei Mansion’s servants.
For Zhu Changsheng to manage the vast Wei Mansion, she could not do without the support of these key figures.
Inside the side room.
“Nanny Liao was Old Madam’s dowry maid, loyal and unmarried.””Bi Rui was a maid my mother picked up; Mother always treated her as her own daughter.”
“Su Ji manages the finances of Wei Mansion and is most familiar with the family estates, shops, and other properties.”
“Tao Xin was originally a third-tier maid for my concubine-mother, but when my concubine-mother accompanied Father to Linshui Pass, she was promoted to first-tier maid.”
“Ling Su has decent martial arts skills. I have twenty-three guards in total. If we can retrieve them all, they can offer you some protection.”
Wei Yuan was helping Zhu Changsheng sort out the relationships among the servants in Wei Mansion, as well as the relationship between his birth mother and his legal mother.
“My birth mother is Lady Liu. She is the younger sister from the concubine line of my legal mother’s maternal family. After my legal mother married into Wei Mansion and failed to conceive for three years, she arranged for my concubine-mother to enter the mansion to continue the Wei family line. After my concubine-mother gave birth to me, my legal mother treated me as her own, raising me together with my concubine-mother. And Lady Xiang is the biological sister of my concubine-mother.”
At this point, Zhu Changsheng looked up at Wei Yuan.
In her hand, she held a strangely shaped lump.
Wei Yuan dared not meet Zhu Changsheng’s gaze, so he shifted his eyes away. His gaze happened to fall on the lump in Zhu Changsheng’s palm. When he saw its shape clearly, an unnatural expression flickered across his face.
“This…”
“Just one final step left.” Zhu Changsheng stared at the perfect work before her.
She had restored Wei Yuan’s shattered corpse to resemble a sleeping handsome man, but the handsome man was still missing one thing.
Zhu Changsheng attached the lump in her hand to Wei Yuan’s crotch.
Wei Yuan turned away in embarrassment.
Seeing his reaction, Zhu Changsheng was momentarily taken aback, then chuckled. “What are you afraid of? This is your body, not mine.”
“I, I, I…”
“You’re not telling me that a grown man like you died without ever having tasted the pleasures of the flesh?”
“I…” Wei Yuan lowered his head, gripping the wedding robe on his body tightly.
Zhu Changsheng could tell. She raised an eyebrow and said, “Zhu Yuanshu has already married Prince Jing. There’s no need for you to remain chaste for her anymore. How about this—I’ll make a paper effigy later and burn it for you, so she can go down and serve you.”
“No need.” Wei Yuan instinctively turned around to decline Zhu Changsheng’s offer.
The moment he turned, he happened to see Zhu Changsheng’s small hands kneading and shaping that part of his body.
At first, he was extremely embarrassed, but seeing that Zhu Changsheng’s grasp of the proportions was off, he couldn’t help but correct her: “It… wasn’t that short…”
“Then a bit longer.”
“Too, too thin!”
“Got it.”
Zhu Changsheng shaped a size that satisfied Wei Yuan and said, “Once the body sets, we can dress it. Shall we go take care of another matter now?”
“Not… not covering it?” Wei Yuan stared at his naked corpse. Even though he was already dead, he still felt a sense of shame.
Zhu Changsheng stood at Wei Yuan’s feet, admiring her masterpiece with satisfaction. “Not for now.”
With that, just to be safe, she took out a large bottle of insect and rodent repellent powder from her medicine chest and sprinkled it around the area.
“That should do it. Let’s go.” She opened the Red Umbrella and held it over Wei Yuan’s soul.
Wei Yuan’s soul flew into the umbrella.
Zhu Changsheng closed the umbrella and walked out of the chamber with the Red Umbrella in hand. Looking at the less than a hundred servants of Wei Mansion gathered in the courtyard, she said, “Hello, everyone. I am your eldest young mistress.”
Nanny Liao looked up and realized their eldest young mistress was not Zhu Yuanshu. Instinctively, she pointed at Zhu Changsheng and stammered, “You… you are…””You must be Nanny Liao,” Zhu Changsheng said, stepping down from the stairs to personally help Nanny Liao to her feet. “When Young General Wei was alive, he once mentioned you to me. You were the personal maid who accompanied the old madam when she married into the family, never married in your lifetime, and remained deeply loyal to the old madam. The old madam, considering your age and frail health, could not bear to take you to Linshui Pass, so she left you behind at Wei Mansion to watch over the home.”
Nanny Liao choked up, nodding as she replied, “That is indeed the case, but this servant has never met you before. The one the Emperor decreed to marry into this family is the eldest daughter of the Zhu family. May I ask, who are you?”
She had seen Zhu Yuanshu before, so she knew the person before her was not Zhu Yuanshu.
Zhu Changsheng had no intention of hiding her identity too much—sincerity was the ultimate weapon.
What she wanted was to win these people over, to make them her own, and to quickly establish her footing in Wei Mansion…