Lin Yulan pushed her away, her gaze cold as ice. She carefully wrapped the hairpin and the tassels in her handkerchief, tucked them securely into her bodice, and turned to leave with Xiaoqu.
Lin Yuwei’s legs felt weak beneath her. Clutching her chest, she trembled all over, gritting her teeth with a rapid, violent heartbeat. “What are you acting so arrogant for? Sooner or later, you’ll find out that the one who gets to enjoy a life of blessing in this lifetime is me—it’s me…”
Xiaoqu was so anxious she didn’t know what to do. “Mistress, if the Marquis asks about this and blames you, what shall we do?!”
Now that matters had reached this point, Lin Yulan had instead grown calm.
“Don’t think too much about it.”
She would just take the loss; it was her fault for failing to protect the item properly. If Shao Xun blamed her, she would simply have to accept it.
However he demanded she compensate for it, she would have to compensate for it—what else could she do?
Fortunately, they were essentially a couple in name only from the start, and she had never intended to fawn over him or flatter him anyway. Otherwise, the moment he grew angry, she would be feeling uneasy and racking her brains to find ways to coax him into a good mood.
Lin Yuwei, however, was not finished yet. Somehow, she managed to collude with and persuade Meng Zifang, and the two sisters-in-law stubbornly insisted that Lin Yulan had been parading the hairpin around in front of them with a smug expression, only to clumsily drop and smash it herself. Fearing she would be blamed by the Marquis of Wuwei, Lin Yulan had then attempted to frame and falsely accuse them…
If only Lin Yuwei had made such claims alone, or if Lin Yulan had simply denied it, Lin Daohui might not have believed only one side. But with Meng Zifang also chiming in with eyes red and swollen from aggrieved tears, and Madam Gu sighing with heart-wrenching disappointment as she accused Lin Yulan of always being reckless and unsteady since childhood—only to behave even more egregiously now by trying to shift the blame through false accusations…
“I know you are a Marchioness now, but you cannot just bully your own younger sister and the young lady of your brother-in-law’s family like this! Yulan, you are truly too disappointing!”
Madam Gu lamented and sighed, while Lin Daohui could not help feeling a surge of irritation and began reprimanding Lin Yulan. He was afraid Shao Xun would become angry.
Lin Yulan found herself utterly unable to clear her name.
And there was no point in trying to argue either.
She could never outtalk them.
In her father’s eyes, Madam Gu—her legitimate mother—was a thoroughly competent, virtuous wife and the mistress of the household. Therefore, she and her biological mother had long since grown accustomed to suffering in silence. Suing the legitimate mother in front of the father was something the father would never believe.
Madam Gu always kept up a flawless, immaculate facade, never leaving behind any handles for others to grasp.
Rather than engaging in a futile, fruitless argument with them, it would be much better to turn back and offer an apology to Shao Xun.
Anyway, after today, she wouldn’t even be able to return to her maiden home twice a year. Once they weren’t living under the same roof in the future, there was nothing these people could do to her anyway.
No one expected that just as Lin Daohui and Madam Gu were sternly and harshly lecturing Lin Yulan, and while Lin Yuwei occasionally added smug, provocative fuel to the fire, Shao Xun had already arrived. He stood quietly off to one side outside the door, having no one knew how long.
“The Marquis has arrived? Haha, please, come right in!”
Lin Daohui, Madam Gu, and the others all wore awkward expressions as they hurriedly invited Shao Xun into the room, at the same time sharply scolding the servants for being clueless and failing to announce his arrival.
Shao Xun sat down right beside Lin Yulan and said with an easy smile, “Father-in-law, don’t blame the servants. It was just that I saw Father-in-law was busy teaching someone a lesson and didn’t want to interrupt, so I told the servants not to announce me.”
Lin Daohui felt even more sheepish. “This—it’s a disgrace to our family, truly a disgrace! Yulan is simply too out of line and has caused a massive disaster. We ask the Marquis to please be magnanimous and overlook this.”
“Oh?” Shao Xun raised an eyebrow, speaking in an unhurried, leisurely tone. “I just caught a few fragments outside a moment ago and didn’t hear everything clearly. So, what exactly is this all about?”
Madam Gu was eager to see Lin Yulan fall from grace, so she let out a bitter, self-deprecating sigh and said, “Yulan accidentally smashed the pair of kingfisher-feather hairpins left by the late Marchioness. This child has always been clumsy and rash since childhood, and I’ve reprimanded her plenty of times for it. Who would have thought she’d still be like this after marrying out, actually going ahead and causing a huge disaster. She didn’t do it on purpose, of course—it must have just slipped from her hands. Even if the Marquis wants to punish her, I beg you to show some leniency for the sake of it being an accident…”
Lin Daohui nodded repeatedly in agreement with his wife, “Yes, yes, what Gu says is right! We beg the Marquis to show some leniency!”
Lin Yulan looked toward Shao Xun.
Shao Xun also raised his eyes to look back at her, a faint smile playing on his lips. “My wife, is that how it happened?”
A sudden wave of grievance washed over Lin Yulan’s heart, accompanied by a faint, stinging soreness.
Her father had listened entirely to the words of her stepmother, her sister, and Meng Zifang, condemning her as guilty without even granting her a single chance to explain herself. Yet Shao Xun, no matter what kind of person he was, at least knew to ask her whether that was how it happened.
Lin Yulan shook her head. “No, it isn’t.”
Madam Gu frowned. “Yulan, the Marquis is one of our own family; he won’t severely punish you just over this. Why must you still resort to sophistry and spin falsehoods?”
“Mother-in-law, please calm yourself. My wife hasn’t finished speaking yet.”
Madam Gu choked on her words, glaring fiercely at Lin Yulan.
Lin Yuwei bit down hard on her silver teeth, twisting her handkerchief into a tight knot while her eyes filled with envy and burning hatred.
Shao Xun was actually protecting that bitch Lin Yulan! In her past life, aside from cold disdain and verbal or physical abuse, he had never once defended her!
What she didn’t realize was that while she kept secretly glancing and peeking at Shao Xun, Meng Mingchi had all along been secretly keeping his eyes on her.
Meng Mingchi had already grown suspicious earlier that Lin Yuwei was burning with envy over Lin Yulan’s clothing and accessories, secretly regretting that she hadn’t been the one to marry into the wealthy Marquis of Wuwei’s estate. Naturally, the moment Shao Xun appeared, Meng Mingchi’s attention was subconsciously drawn to him.
With that attention came the discovery that his own wife had actually been keeping a close eye on Shao Xun the entire time, causing a boiling concoction of bitterness, anger, and jealousy to surge in his chest.
And when he looked at this Marquis of Wuwei—of noble status, possessing vast fortunes, with peerless looks and demeanor—he was completely outclassed in every single aspect.
Just looking at him made Meng Mingchi feel deeply ashamed of his own inferiority.
He thought with bitter resentment: So, Yuwei must be regretting it after all…
He did not know—and could never possibly believe—that the reason Lin Yuwei kept staring at Shao Xun wasn’t because of love, but because of hatred and unresigned bitterness.
A warm sensation bloomed in Lin Yulan’s heart. “Younger sister wanted to look at the hairpin, so she took it to admire it together with Miss Meng. Who would have thought that between the two sisters-in-law, one failed to pass it correctly and the other failed to hold it securely, causing it to drop to the ground? When the two of them started shifting the blame and accusing each other of being at fault, physical shoving broke out. Miss Meng gave younger sister a push, and the hairpin—which younger sister had just picked up—was knocked out of her hands again and shattered like that…”
Meng Zifang shrieked in panic, “You’re lying! I didn’t! It wasn’t me, it has nothing to do with me!”
Lin Yuwei’s face was also plastered with hatred. “Elder sister really knows how to weave a story and frame others, washing her hands clean of it entirely!”
Shao Xun chuckled softly. “This is simple enough. Since both sides are sticking to their own stories, let’s just take it to the official yamen.”
“What? Take it to the yamen?!”
“That will never do!”
Madam Gu and Lin Daohui were dumbstruck.
Meng Zifang was also frightened out of her wits. “N-No! You can’t take it to the yamen.”
She had no intention of ever setting foot in a magistrate’s court.
Lin Yuwei panicked inwardly as well, cursing her sister-in-law’s uselessness under her breath. With someone like Meng Zifang, the moment they stepped into a public courtroom, all their lies would instantly unravel.
“Elder sister, for a dignified Marchioness of Wuwei to drag a trivial matter like this all the way to the official yamen—would that not completely disgrace the Marquis’s estate? And what good would it do for elder sister, a Marchioness, to be humiliated like that? Rather than making a public spectacle of ourselves at the yamen, wouldn’t it be better to turn a big problem into a small one and let this matter rest? Elder sister, don’t be so foolish!”
She was gambling on the notion that Lin Yulan cared too much about her face and dignity to dare go to the official yamen.
Losing face behind closed doors was entirely different from losing face out in the public eye.
The dignity of a Marchioness of Wuwei was certainly worth far more than her own face.