“What nonsense are you spouting!” Wu Yuanqing interrupted his wife. “That child died long ago. How could she be causing trouble?”
He then turned to Feng Qingsui and said, “People can look alike. You might have mistaken her for someone else.”
Feng Qingsui sensed his apprehension and smiled. “We are not from the Charity Orphanage. In fact, we have some grievances with Cuique. We came to inquire about her to better understand our opponent. You probably don’t know that she has now become the pillow companion of a marquis’s heir.”
Madam Sun asked urgently, “Which marquis’s heir? Is it the Rongchang Marquis Mansion?”
Feng Qingsui nodded.
“I knew she was behind this!”
Madam Sun slapped the armrest of the bamboo couch heavily.
“Wasn’t it the chief steward of the Rongchang Marquis Mansion who approached us for that deal that ruined us? That little beast is taking revenge on us!”
“Back then, I said we should kill her, but you insisted on sparing her life. Now look—she has climbed to a high branch and can snuff out the lives of our family of three with just a flick of her finger!”
Wu Yuanqing’s face grew increasingly ashen.
He closed his eyes briefly, then opened them and fixed his gaze on Feng Qingsui.
“Do you truly have grievances with her?”
Feng Qingsui countered, “With her temperament, how many people could she not have grievances with?”
Wu Yuanqing smiled bitterly. “That’s true.”
He stared into the emptiness and spoke slowly. “Before, apart from my wife, I had four concubines, but none bore children. A friend advised me to adopt a child from the Charity Orphanage, saying it would bring blessings and that adopting a child would lead to having one of my own.”
“So I adopted the Cuique you mentioned, named her Zhenzhen, and treated her as my own daughter. Not long after, one of my concubines indeed became pregnant.”
“I was overjoyed and even held a banquet to thank my friend.”
“But the very next day, the pregnant concubine slipped on oil spilled on the ground, fell, and lost the child.”
“I was disheartened for a while, but then came a second piece of good news: another concubine was pregnant. This time, I didn’t dare make it public and had her rest well to protect the pregnancy. Unexpectedly, she craved something sour and bought plum sauce from outside to eat. She fell ill and miscarried.”
“Another half a year passed, and my wife also became pregnant. She was extremely cautious, paying close attention to her diet, clothing, and daily routines. The pregnancy was stable.”
“But when she was nearly seven months along, she was resting in a pavilion in the backyard garden when a black cat barged in and swiped at her abdomen. Startled awake, she rolled off the bed, her amniotic fluid broke, and she went into premature labor.”
“She gave birth to a son, but he lived only a few hours.”
“My wife had longed for a child for a long time. Devastated by this blow, she became deeply depressed. One day, she overheard the gatekeeper mention that the young miss hadn’t been going out to feed the cats lately.”
“Only then did she learn that Zhenzhen had been feeding stray cats in the streets and alleys, including that large black cat. Suspicion arose in her mind, and she began to suspect that her premature labor and the miscarriages of the two concubines were all Zhenzhen’s doing.”
“I thought she was overthinking it. Zhenzhen was just a child of a few years old—how could she possibly do such things? But my wife was determined to find evidence.”
“She had one of my concubines pretend to be pregnant and ordered someone to secretly keep a close watch on Zhenzhen. They discovered that Zhenzhen was growing closer to the concubine who had miscarried after eating the plum sauce. Soon, this concubine found an opportunity to intentionally trip the falsely pregnant concubine.”
“My wife interrogated this concubine, who admitted that Zhenzhen had incited her to do it. Zhenzhen denied it, claiming the concubine was falsely accusing her.”
“My wife starved her for a few days, but instead, she threatened us, saying she had sent a letter to an outsider. If she died under mysterious circumstances in our house, that person would tell the Charity Orphanage the truth, and the Charity Orphanage would surely report it to the authorities.”
“The household was thrown into chaos. I wanted to send her back to the Charity Orphanage, but she refused.”
“She was nine years old at the time. According to the law, if an adopted child is eight years or older, returning them to the orphanage requires not only the orphanage’s consent but also the child’s.”
“My wife couldn’t swallow her anger. She sold off the maid who served Zhenzhen, gave her only leftovers every day, confined her to her room, and forbade her from going anywhere, trying to force Zhenzhen to leave on her own.”
“Unexpectedly, when the Charity Orphanage staff came for a follow-up visit, Zhenzhen claimed my wife was jealous of her beauty, twisted the father-daughter bond between us, and deliberately abused her.”
“The Charity Orphanage took her word for it and warned my wife not to repeat such actions, or they would sue.”
“My wife was furious, wishing she could hire a kidnapper to take Zhenzhen away. Not long after, a smallpox rash suddenly broke out in the capital. Many families fled to sparsely populated areas outside the city to avoid the outbreak.”
“I had a manor in the suburbs and moved the entire household there…”
Not long after settling in, they found a venomous snake under the bed.
It was midsummer, and they slept with the windows open at night. The countryside was full of snakes and insects, so it wasn’t surprising for a snake to slither in.
But he had already considered this and sprinkled snake repellent around the house, which he had bought from an old herbalist. He had used it dozens of times, and it had always worked. How could it suddenly fail?
He couldn’t help but think of Zhenzhen.
If he and his wife were bitten to death by the snake, Zhenzhen would be the sole heir to their wealth.
Knowing she had angered them and that staying would bring her no benefit, she still refused to leave. Could it be that she was plotting to kill them and inherit their fortune?
This thought sent chills down his spine.
Afraid of alerting her, he quietly disposed of the snake and had fine mesh screens installed on the windows to prevent any more snakes or insects from entering.
During the Ghost Festival, after paying respects to their ancestors, they held a family feast and drank several jars of wine until everyone was thoroughly drunk. He pretended to be intoxicated as well, letting the servants help him back to his room, as if he had completely forgotten about the fireworks, firecrackers, and incense candles piled in a corner of the hall.
No one knew that as soon as the door closed, he got out of bed, lifted the screen, climbed out the window, circled around, and climbed a large tree outside the wall to watch the courtyard.
After everyone had settled down, a slender figure cautiously opened her door, stepped out of her room, and looked around.
Seeing no one, she walked to the hall, took a rope from her sleeve, tied one end to the fireworks and firecrackers, and stretched the other end to the entrance of the hall.
Then, she took out a fire starter, lit the rope, and immediately ran to the courtyard gate, unbarring it.
Standing outside the gate, she watched calmly as the rope burned shorter and shorter in the hall, a smug smile curling at the corner of her lips.
“You wanted to blow us up?”
He climbed down from the tree and walked toward her, asking calmly.
Zhenzhen whirled around, her face filled with disbelief.
“Unfortunately, you won’t get your wish. There’s no gunpowder in those fireworks and firecrackers.”
Zhenzhen’s expression froze for a moment before she turned and ran. She had only made it a dozen meters when the manor head and others, lying in ambush, caught her.
Tears streamed down her face.
“If Mother hadn’t been jealous of me, falsely accused me of harming Father’s offspring, imprisoned and abused me, how could I have lost my mind like this?”
“When you brought me home, you clearly said you would treat me as your own daughter. How can you only believe Mother and not me?”
“I am your blessing from good deeds. Isn’t it because you adopted me that Mother and Concubine became pregnant?”
Because of the words “blessing from good deeds,” he ultimately did not kill her. Instead, he sold her to southern bandits who trafficked young girls everywhere, and bought the corpse of a girl who had died from smallpox rash to pass off as her, dealing with the authorities and the orphanage.