“Clang!” With a deafening crash, the doors of the Begonia Courtyard were kicked open. The gate-guarding maid saw that it was the Fourth Master who had arrived and rushed inside to report, only to be kicked down by Steward Ye, who was walking ahead and clearing the path for the Fourth Master. The pageboys stepped forward and dragged this young maid off to a corner.
Lu Huiyi was startled out of her wits, and even the flame in the oil lamp violently leaped.
Chuntao, who was sitting down and working on shoe soles, threw down her tools and jumped up, lifting the curtain to look outside.
“Miss, it is the Master leading people here.”
Lu Huiyi knew in her heart that this was on account of Lu Zhenyi.
Just as she walked out and before she could even utter a word, the Fourth Master raised the long ruler in his hand and viciously slashed it toward Lu Huiyi.
At this critical juncture, Lu Huiyi failed to conceal the resentment in her eyes, and her vengeful gaze fell directly into the Fourth Master’s line of sight.
What kind of look was that? How dare she harbor resentment against her own father?
The ruler struck her body blow after blow. She did not fight back, nor could she fight back.
Lu Huiyi collapsed to the ground, gritting her teeth to keep from making a sound.
In both her past and present lives, her father was determined to subject her to such fatal violence. Very well, if worst came to worst, she would sever the father-daughter relationship once again.
Qingzhu cried as she lunged forward, trying to take the punishment in Lu Huiyi’s stead. The Fourth Master roared in anger, ordering the pageboys to pull Qingzhu away.
Chuntao knelt on the ground, banging her head against the floor with loud thuds: “Master, what did our young lady do wrong? I beg the Master to point out a clear path for us.”
The Fourth Master flung the ruler aside and put his hands behind his back. In Lu Huiyi’s hazy vision, she could barely make out his chest heaving heavily from extreme rage.
“Unfilial daughter, unfilial daughter! Indecent, glib-tongued, bullying the younger with the elder beast! How did I ever come to have a daughter like you?”
After cursing her for a while, the Fourth Master still did not feel vent enough. Looking at Lu Huiyi, who was lying flat on the ground like a dead fish, he flicked his sleeve and ordered the Begonia Courtyard to be locked up, forcing her to reflect on herself behind closed doors.
Qingzhu and Chuntao were crying out of breath, one rummaging through chests and cabinets to find medicine while the other tried to help her up.
“Ouch, ouch, ouch. Do not move me yet, wait for Chuntao to bring the medicine.”
Lu Huiyi felt a shooting pain all over her body the moment she moved. She instructed Qingzhu to smear the blood from her wounds onto her face.
“Make it look as miserable as possible.”
“Miss, you already look miserable enough like this. How could the Master bear to treat you this way?”
“There is nothing he cannot bear. After today, he will no longer be able to touch me.”
Looking at Qingzhu and Chuntao’s disheveled hair and the fresh blood staining their clothes, Lu Huiyi gritted her teeth, forced herself to stand up, and instructed: “Do not wipe away the bloodstains on your hands and clothes. We will need to show them to Grandpa and Grandma later.”
Afterward, she had Qingzhu sneak out through the window and run to Old Lady Kou’s courtyard to cry and plead for help.
On her side, she and Chuntao slipped out through the window and ran toward the pond.
Lu Huiyi looked back at the locked gates of the Begonia Courtyard, the guards stationed outside, and the unguarded windows.
She said with disdain, “Fools.”
Chuntao stood guard by the roadside. Seeing a vast sea of torches in the distance and someone leading a huge crowd over without knowing who it was, she couldn’t care less and wailed at the top of her lungs: “Miss! Miss, please do not do anything foolish!”
Chuntao’s cries were accompanied by the sound of a splash in the water. By the time she ran over, she could only see layers of ripples disturbing the lake, and Lu Huiyi’s figure was gone.
Recalling the grievances of this day, Chuntao burst into loud, genuine tears.
The person who arrived was indeed Old Lady Kou. By the firelight, she spotted the disheveled maid covered in blood stains standing by the edge of Clear Wind Lake.
She recognized that person as Chuntao, the maid by Lu Huiyi’s side.
“Chuntao, what has happened to Hui-niang?”
“Old Madam, I beg the Old Madam to save our young lady! Our young lady was driven to jump into the lake by the Fourth Master.”
“Quickly, go into the water and save her!” Hearing this, Old Lady Kou nearly jumped up. The moment her voice fell, several strong-bodied matrons beside her leaped into the water one after another to fish Lu Huiyi out.
Qingzhu, who had run off to fetch Old Lady Kou for help, dropped to her knees beside Chuntao with a loud thud and joined Chuntao in wailing mournfully toward Clear Wind Lake.
The commotion lasted the entire night, yet the members of the Lu family all pretended not to hear and dared not step outside to inquire, until the next morning when the Old Master summoned everyone to gather.
Physician Wang arrived yawning. She had just fallen asleep when she was yanked awake to treat the twelfth young lady. The Lu family’s autumn this year was one endless disaster after another, and if this kept going, she was going to lose years off her life.
Physician Wang tended to Lu Huiyi’s external injuries while silently shaking her head in her heart. A father could actually beat his own biological daughter to this extent; the Lu family truly was not a good place to stay.
After simply applying medicine to treat the external wounds and supplementing it with bowl after bowl of medicinal decoction, the hustle and bustle finally lasted until dawn, at which point she waited for Lu Huiyi to wake up.
“Miss,” Chuntao hurried over and whispered, “you are truly as wise as a god. We are now in the side rooms of the Nourishing Heart Studio. The Old Madam said you will be living here from now on and do not need to return to the Fourth Courtyard.”
The Nourishing Heart Studio was Old Lady Kou’s residence, situated at the very center of the Lu family estate. It was the first courtyard upon entering the inner compound from the outer courtyard, containing multiple structures such as a gate hall, main rooms, side courtyards, and wing rooms. Its layout was orderly and grand, far surpassing the scattered individual buildings constructed around the lake where the masters of the other four branches lived.
The moment Lu Huiyi showed a look of joy, it pulled at her wounds, making her grimace in pain.
“What is happening outside right now? Has anything happened?”
Early this morning, the Old Master had summoned all the masters of the Fourth Branch who were in the capital to go to the ancestral hall, and they still hadn’t come out. The servants had no way of inquiring about what was happening inside just yet.
Hearing this, Lu Huiyi struggled and wanted to get up to head to the ancestral hall.
Qingzhu lunged forward to pin her down and said, “Hey, hey, hey, Miss, you absolutely must not get up. Physician Wang said your injuries are too severe and you need to recuperate properly; you cannot even get out of bed for the near future. The Old Madam’s people are all here watching you, so you won’t be able to walk out of the Nourishing Heart Studio right now.”
Lu Huiyi could only let out a long sigh. Her entire body ached terribly, and as she was made to lie back down under watch, only her eyes continued to roll around.
“Fine then. If there is any news from the ancestral hall, call me immediately. I am going back to catch up on some sleep.”
In the afternoon, Lu Huiyi had little appetite and only ate some liquid nourishment before picking up a book to read.
Before the fall of the Lu family in her past life, she had nothing to do and read seven or eight out of every ten books stored in the family library. Unfortunately, after the Lu family fell apart, those books went who knows where. Reborn into a second life, it actually gave her such an opportunity to make up for what she had missed.
The injury inflicted upon her by the Fourth Master was on her left shoulder, so she could only use her right hand to turn the pages, and she needed either Qingzhu or Chuntao to stand by her side and assist at any moment, which was extremely inconvenient.
She had only read a few pages when someone outside announced that Old Lady Kou had arrived.
“Hui-niang, your body is unwell, do not get up.” Old Lady Kou pushed her back onto the bed and chattered on, “Poor child, your father was truly too ruthless. From now on, you can rest easy and live here with old me.”
“Grandmother, there was a little maid named Caihe in the Begonia Courtyard yesterday who was kicked. How are her injuries? Is there any damage to her heart meridians?”
Lu Huiyi did not remember who the maids in the Begonia Courtyard were other than Qingzhu and Chuntao. In her memory, after next year, the servants throughout the Lu family were either transferred and sold off or redeemed themselves, and even Qingzhu and Chuntao had to pool their silver together with her to redeem their slave contracts and become commoners before they could follow Lu Huiyi to the countryside in Tancheng.
It was Chuntao who told her that the unfortunate soul who was kicked over by the Fourth Master yesterday was a sweeping maid who had newly entered the household this year, named Caihe, only ten years of age.
“Physician Wang has already examined her. Caihe’s ribs sustained some damage and she just needs quiet recuperation. She has already been given silver, granted special leave, and told to return to the estate in the twelfth lunar month.”
Lu Huiyi let out a sigh of relief. She had no enmity with Caihe and did not wish to see any loss of life.
After Old Lady Kou offered her a few words of comfort, mentioning that she had severely punished the Fourth Master and Lu Zhenyi, she departed.
About half the time it takes to burn half an incense stick later, the gatekeeper reported that the sixth brother and sixth sister-in-law had come to visit.
Chuntao bustled about wanting to give Lu Huiyi a slight grooming: “Miss, you look far too haggard.”
Lu Huiyi looked at herself in the mirror, her complexion was pale, her temples disheveled, and her figure emaciated. She only permitted Chuntao to smooth out her hair and let it hang loosely behind her back, looking utterly desolate, and then casually placed the book by the bedside.
When Lu Qizheng and Madam Shu entered, the weak young lady they saw was hunched over coughing, her hair gently drooping down and her face as pale as paper.
Lu Qizheng was already aware of Lu Huiyi’s ordeal, and seeing her in this tortured state felt like his heart was being twisted.
Madam Shu had never seen such a scene either, and inwardly blamed herself: If she hadn’t tried to smooth things over yesterday, if she had called Lu Qizheng along to the Begonia Courtyard yesterday, would the twelfth miss have been spared this torment?
Before Madam Shu spoke, her eyes turned half red. She walked over quickly, sat by the edge of the couch, and said with sorrow, “My poor sister, how is your body now? Has the physician checked on you?”
“Thank you, elder brother and sister-in-law, for your concern. I am fine, the physician said quiet recuperation is all that is needed. What about Father and younger sister? I heard Grandfather severely punished them, are they doing well?”
Madam Shu turned back to look at Lu Qizheng, who was standing at a distance and unable to draw close. The two of them sighed in unison.
Madam Shu found it inconvenient to criticize her husband’s family, so Lu Qizheng spoke up: “This matter was handled too harshly by Father, and we also blame Yuan-niang and Zhen-niang for stirring up trouble and spreading falsehoods. Grandfather invoked family law and gave them a few board strikes as a minor punishment to teach them a lesson. Rest assured, it neither harmed the physical bodies of Father, the concubine, nor younger sister, yet it made them remember the lesson.”
“Moreover, Grandfather has asked me to take charge of the Fourth Branch’s affairs. From now on, no matter what happens, Hui-niang will never be wronged again.”
Lu Huiyi had not received this level of genuine care in a very long time. In her previous life, it was only after she latched onto the Prince of Xing and married out that she gradually grew close to her sixth brother and sixth sister-in-law. In her eyes, her sixth brother’s care for her stemmed entirely from the fact that she was a person of the Prince of Xing’s estate and held real power in her hands.
She did not understand why she had clearly done nothing this time around, yet her sixth brother and sister-in-law were showing her such concern, so she simply nodded in a daze.
With matters on her mind, she lowered her head and said in a muffled voice, “Thank you, elder brother and sister-in-law, for your concern. Hui-niang does not feel wronged.”
Madam Shu stroked Lu Huiyi’s wrist, which was reduced to mere skin and bones, and said with heartache, “Look at you, not an ounce of flesh can be found anywhere on your body. You must eat more to nourish yourself.”
Outside Jingren Palace, Prince Yu and Prince Jing arrived together. Seeing them approach, Eunuch Feng beamed with smiles and welcomed them into the hall.
“Your Highnesses, the Noble Consort and Consort Li have been waiting in the hall for some time.”
“I heard that the Seventh Highness had a most pleasant conversation with Grand Academician Lu’s granddaughter at the banquet?” Consort Li, who had always been close to Noble Consort Wei, smiled flatteringly.
Hearing Eunuch Feng’s announcement, Noble Consort Wei did not even lift her head as she slowly spoke, “You certainly are well-informed. I saw it that day as well.”
“Qilang, I wonder if the rumor is true or false?”
Prince Jing glanced at Consort Li who had asked the question, then looked up at Noble Consort Wei seated high above, and bowed in greeting to the two imperial consorts alongside Prince Yu.
Under their three gazes, his cheeks flushed with an eerie red glow.
“Noble Consort Wei, Consort Li, this son has fallen in love at first sight with the Lu family’s twelfth miss.”