“It’s a new era now. Let me see who’s planning to take a concubine. Don’t tell me it’s Xingjie?”
“Oh, my! It’s only the first day of his marriage, and he’s already pulling something like this? Jiang Yuying, your son sure is quite the ladies’ man.”
As Aunt Zhang teased them, more than a dozen neighbors gradually squeezed their way inside.
The small courtyard partitioned off from the east wing was soon packed with people.
Looking at the crowd filling the courtyard, Jiang Yuying felt cold sweat pouring down her back despite the chilly autumn morning.
This was bad. Really bad.
What if these people actually barged into the room?
She wanted to explain, but she didn’t even know who the woman in her son’s room was.
Please, don’t let her be some beggar from God knows where.
Jiang Yuying was so anxious that she gritted her teeth.
Qin Mingzhi’s stepmother, Zhu Caiyan, hurried over.
She had been so excited last night that she’d lain awake all night, ears pricked for any movement from the other side. She had barely slept at all.
Unfortunately, she finally dozed off just before dawn and ended up sleeping in. She had only just woken up.
Seeing the time, she assumed the commotion had only just started and that she had arrived early enough.
But the moment she reached the entrance to the east-wing courtyard, she was stunned.
The entire courtyard was swarming with people, and they were blocking the entrance so completely that she couldn’t even squeeze through.
“Why are there so many people…?”
Zhu Caiyan muttered under her breath before carefully making out what everyone was talking about amid the noisy chatter.
The more she listened, the more something seemed wrong.
Judging by their tone, they sounded like they were here to catch someone in the act.
Zhu Caiyan’s right eyelid began twitching violently.
Oh no. Something must have gone wrong!
She hurriedly pressed down on her twitching eyelid and grabbed a neighbor at random.
“What’s going on? Why is everyone making such a fuss so early in the morning?”
Her eyes darted around twice before she pretended to ask casually, “I heard the bride was violated by some local thug last night?”
Aunt Qian gave her an odd look.
“Who told you that? It’s obviously someone pulled a switch and secretly replaced the bride with another woman so she could spend the wedding night with the groom.”
“Tsk, tsk. It’s already a monogamous society, yet something like this can still happen. How strange! I wonder what kind of shameless woman would go and destroy someone else’s marriage.”
Zhu Caiyan’s face went white.
She instantly panicked.
How had things turned out like this?
According to their original plan, her daughter should have been crying to Xiao Xingjie right now, telling him that Qin Mingzhi had insisted on marrying Xu Yanlin and had forced her into the bride swap.
Everyone should have been condemning Qin Mingzhi!
So how had the situation completely turned around?
If these people really barged in…
Wouldn’t her daughter be torn apart?
Zhu Caiyan was so terrified that her soul nearly left her body.
Before she could come up with a solution, Hu Meixiu, Jiang Yulan, and several other troublemakers could no longer hold themselves back.
“If you’ve got nothing to hide, why won’t you let us go inside and take a look?”
“Exactly! If you refuse, then have Xingjie come out and explain himself. You can’t just let the bride suffer for nothing, can you?”
Hu Meixiu’s eyes flickered.
She slipped around Jiang Yuying and headed straight inside.
Jiang Yuying’s brow furrowed, and she hurried forward to stop her.
But Qin Mingzhi was even faster.
She rushed toward the door first.
Jiang Yuying’s eyes widened.
“Hey! Who said you could barge in? You shameless woman, don’t you have any manners?”
Xiao Hengshan also rushed forward, trying to drag Qin Mingzhi back.
While Hu Meixiu and Jiang Yuying struggled with each other, Hu Meixiu quickly exchanged a meaningful glance with Jiang Yulan and the others.
Jiang Yulan and the others immediately understood.
Several of them wrapped their arms around Jiang Yuying from behind, holding her firmly so she couldn’t move, while the others rushed over and grabbed Xiao Hengshan, clearing the way for Qin Mingzhi.
Seeing Qin Mingzhi getting closer and closer to the door, Jiang Yuying screamed at the top of her lungs.
“You wretched woman, get back here! Come back! If you really dare to open that door today, just see how I’ll deal with you!”
“Don’t you dare open that door! You’re still trying? Believe me, I’ll make sure you can’t stay in the Qin family!”
The racket was so loud that anyone who didn’t know better would have thought someone was slaughtering a pig for New Year’s.
Qin Mingzhi completely ignored her screams and reached out to push the door open.
It wouldn’t budge.
She lowered her head and realized that the door latch had been secured with a padlock.
Qin Mingzhi frowned.
It’s locked from the outside… Could Xiao Hengshan have locked it while no one was paying attention?
She was frowning, trying to figure out how to get the lock open, when the corner of her eye caught sight of someone approaching.
She looked up in surprise.
It was Xiao Wangnian.
The man was still as tall, straight, and dignified as ever. He was even wearing the same clothes she had stripped off him the night before.
Yet somehow, he felt completely different.
He was no longer as cold and stern as usual, as though he had been carved out of ice. His presence wasn’t nearly as intimidating as it had been in her previous life, either.
Instead, there was a hint of laziness and nonchalance about him.
The moment he drew near, that distinctive scent of his drifted toward her.
After spending the entire night tangled up with him, she had practically begun associating that scent with masculine hormones.
The moment she smelled him, those scenes from the night before involuntarily resurfaced in her mind, and her face instantly grew hot.
She quickly blinked several times, desperately trying to drive those uncontrollable images from her mind.
But in the next second, she unexpectedly met Xiao Wangnian’s deep eyes, which held a faint hint of amusement.
He glanced at Qin Mingzhi.
“So even the little bunny has a moment when she bares her fangs?”
Qin Mingzhi paused.
She realized that Xiao Wangnian must have witnessed everything from beginning to end. He knew exactly what she had been plotting, which was why he was teasing her by comparing her to a rabbit.
Qin Mingzhi frowned and replied confidently,
“Even a rabbit will bite when it’s pushed too far!”
In her previous life, she had been deceived so terribly by Xiao Xingjie. And in this life, she had almost fallen into Qin Mengxue’s trap again.
If she didn’t get revenge after all that, she would be letting herself down!
Xiao Wangnian nodded thoughtfully.
“True. The bite marks on my shoulder are still there.”
The scenes from the previous night immediately resurfaced in her mind again.
Heat rapidly spread across Qin Mingzhi’s cheeks, turning them as red as the setting sun.
“You… Could you please act a little more serious?”
Even Qin Mingzhi herself hadn’t expected that one day she would say such words to the usually stern, cold, and frighteningly serious Xiao Wangnian.
Xiao Wangnian smiled faintly and withdrew his gaze before looking at the locked door.
“Need some help?”
Qin Mingzhi looked at him suspiciously.
“You have a key?”
Xiao Wangnian replied, “No.”
“Then you…”
Before she could finish speaking, Xiao Wangnian lifted his leg and brought it down.
Bang!
The door shattered, splitting cleanly down the middle.
Forget the padlock—even the two metal loops holding the lock tore straight out of the door and crashed to the ground, reduced to a pile of useless scrap metal.
A perfectly good door had been turned into firewood in the blink of an eye.
It looked like the aftermath of a full-scale demolition.
Qin Mingzhi stood there in stunned silence for a long moment before finally coming back to her senses.
She turned her head toward Xiao Wangnian in disbelief.