Following the route from the original host’s memory, Xie Yuantang deliberately led Si Tu Yan around the firewood room, returning to the main hall through the garden.
“Father, Eunuch Qu, my husband and I are back!”
Xie Yuantang bounced in cheerfully, the wind blowing aside half her bangs to reveal several whip scars on her forehead. Her large, dark eyes sparkled with life, like the most dazzling black gems.
Seeing both return unharmed, Eunuch Qu sighed in relief. “It’s good you’re back. It’s getting late, we should return—”
“Where’s Yumo?”
Before he could finish, Xie Zhaoqing suddenly spoke up, while Wei Lian beside him tensely watched Xie Yuantang.
“Weren’t you supposed to be with Yumo? Why didn’t she return with you?”
“Huh?”
Xie Yuantang feigned appropriate surprise, tilting her head at Xie Zhaoqing. “She hasn’t returned? Earlier, younger sister locked my husband and me in the firewood room and left. We barely managed to escape and thought she’d already returned.”
“What?”
Qu Pei immediately furrowed his brow. “Xie Yumo locked you in the firewood room?”
“Yes, she’s very mean—she tricked us inside,” Si Tu Yan added with a firm nod.
Qu Pei’s face darkened instantly. “Chancellor Xie, you must provide an explanation for this matter, or I will surely report it to His Majesty.”
“Please calm your anger, Eunuch. I will certainly investigate this thoroughly, but for now, finding Yumo is the priority.”
Just as Xie Zhaoqing finished speaking, Wei Lian’s face suddenly paled.
“The firewood room, the firewood room… Oh heavens! My Yumo!”
She sprinted toward the firewood room. Watching her panicked state, Xie Zhaoqing’s eyes darkened as he followed.
“This…” Qu Pei frowned, but Xie Yuantang urged him cheerfully, “Eunuch, Eunuch, let’s go see what’s happening too.”
Qu Pei glanced at the composed Xie Yuantang and the oddly behaved Si Tu Yan, then nodded after a moment’s thought. “Very well, let’s go.”
He was somewhat curious about what they had done this time.
By the time Xie Zhaoqing and the others reached the firewood room entrance, they found Xie Yumo sitting on the ground inside, screaming incessantly. Toads crawled all over her body and legs, a disgusting sight!
“Yumo!” Xie Zhaoqing was stunned.
At his call, Xie Yumo turned her head, revealing a face covered in blood. Her forehead and eyebrows were gashed in several places, blood streaming down her nose bridge—eerily reminiscent of the bloody tear the original host had once shed.
“Father, Father, save me!”
Xie Yumo tried to scramble out, sobbing, but as she stood, she slipped on a toad and fell back.
Xie Yuantang promptly reminded her, “Oh! Younger sister, what’s that in your hand?”
In her hand?
Xie Yumo instinctively looked down and grabbed the object she was holding—a terrifying, blood-stained skull that made a “crack” sound as it moved in her palm.
With just one glance, Xie Yumo’s pupils nearly dilated in horror.
“Ahhhhhhh!!!”
“Ghost! A ghost!!!”
Xie Yumo shrieked at the top of her lungs, frantically throwing Number Zero away and scrambling out of the firewood room on all fours.
“Father, save me! Father, there’s a ghost!”
“Yumo, Yumo, what happened to you?”
Wei Lian rushed over heartbrokenly to embrace Xie Yumo. “How did your face end up like this? Someone, quickly fetch the wound medicine!”
“What exactly happened here?”
Xie Zhaoqing glared angrily at Xie Yuantang. “Weren’t you together? How could this have happened?”
“How should I know?”
Xie Yuantang spread her hands, the swaying tassels on her head sparkling playfully in the sunlight: “Father, this place was brought to me by my sister, and I left long ago~”
Xie Yumo, however, possessed remarkable mental fortitude. Despite being tormented to such a state, she stubbornly refused to faint.
Hearing the conversation between Xie Zhaoqing and Xie Yuantang, she actually regained her senses and pointed at Xie Yuantang with a ferocious expression, cursing: “It’s you! You little bitch, it’s you who harmed me!”
Xie Yuantang’s eyes darkened as she coldly asked: “Who are you calling names?”
“You! Bitch! Just like your mother…”
Slap! Slap!
Before Xie Yumo could finish, Xie Yuantang picked up a tree branch beside her and whipped it across her face.
Clean and sharp, breaking the skin and drawing blood!
“Ah!”
Xie Yumo cried out in pain, covering her face as she glared at Xie Yuantang: “How dare you hit me?”
“Ridiculous. As the esteemed Imperial Consort, why wouldn’t I be able to strike an adopted daughter of the Xie residence?”
Xie Yuantang snorted coldly, throwing away the branch: “Dare to utter half another word, and I’ll tear your mouth apart!”
“You… you…”
Xie Yumo wanted to curse further, but when Xie Yuantang’s frosty cold gaze swept over her, she instinctively fell silent.
“Imperial Consort, this humble one knows your status is noble, but even you cannot treat Yumo like this!”
Wei Lian’s opening words were classic green tea behavior.
Her face was tear-streaked like pear blossoms in the rain, yet she still remembered to tilt her head at a perfect 45-degree angle to show her most innocent and flawless profile: “Yumo only prepared gifts with great effort because she wanted to befriend you. How could you deceive her into entering the firewood room and use such things to frighten her?”
“She’s still young. What if she gets terrified beyond recovery? Could you take responsibility? How… how could your heart be so cruel!”
Xie Yuantang almost felt like applauding upon hearing this.
Such skill in distorting the truth—no wonder she became the only concubine by Xie Zhaoqing’s side.
Xie Zhaoqing’s face darkened: “Yuantang, do you admit your guilt?”
This time, before Xie Yuantang could retort, Qu Pei spoke up: “Chancellor Xie, without even clarifying the matter, you’ve already decided it’s the Imperial Consort’s fault?”
“You should know it was Xie Yumo who insisted on bringing the Imperial Consort out. Moreover, we didn’t carry those things in the room with us when we arrived.”
“The return gifts were specially ordered by His Majesty to be generously prepared. Could it be that the Chancellor also suspects the Emperor intentionally placed toads in the return gifts?”
Xie Zhaoqing’s expression shifted slightly, and he quickly said: “This official naturally wouldn’t dare doubt His Majesty, it’s just that this matter…”
“It was her who brought us here.”
Si Tu Yan, who had remained silent until now, suddenly pointed at Xie Yumo, then at several servants in the crowd: “They all saw it too. You can ask them.”
Qu Pei immediately looked at those people: “You heard what His Highness said? Speak the truth. If you conceal anything, the crime is equivalent to deceiving the Emperor!”
“This humble servant wouldn’t dare…”
Upon hearing this, the servants immediately knelt on the ground with a thud.
“It… it was Second Young Lady who brought the Imperial Consort and His Highness here.”
“She also had us hide the toads in the room beforehand, wanting to scare the Imperial Consort…”
“Later when she opened the door and went in, the Imperial Consort truly wasn’t inside…”
The servants didn’t dare deceive the Emperor and hurriedly blurted out the truth in a clamor.
Wei Lian shouted “Silence!” several times, but no one paid her any attention. Enraged, she grabbed a Black Pottery Jar nearby and threw it at the servants: “All of you, shut up!”
Crack!
The Black Pottery Jar cracked open in midair, and an earthworm the length of a finger crawled out, “whooshing” straight into Wei Lian’s wide-open throat!
“Ugh! Cough, cough, cough…”
Wei Lian clutched her throat, trying to dig the earthworm out, but it was too slippery and slid right down her esophagus.
Instantly, Wei Lian’s face turned deathly pale.
“Hel… help…”
She opened her mouth, but no sound came out.
Everyone was startled.
Wei Lian had gone mute!