Gu Jinghuai took a step closer, his gaze as cold as ice.
“What happened with Fengyun Tower wasn’t enough for you? Now you’re meddling in the shop accounts, too?
Can’t you stand Yuyan that much? Do you have to make me hate you?”
Watching his self-righteous expression, Yun Shuyao could only think how foolish she had been in her previous life. Why had she clung to the Three Obediences and Four Virtues?
The Marquis’s Residence had taken her dowry and spent her money, yet they still had the nerve to act as if she were the one behaving badly.
Yun Shuyao lifted her head and met his gaze, speaking each word distinctly.
“Gu Jinghuai, everything I’ve done is only right and proper.
“And as for marrying you?”
She smiled, but there was a bone-deep chill in it.
“Don’t even think about it!”
Gu Jinghuai’s face instantly flushed a liverish red. He pointed at Yun Shuyao, too furious to speak.
“You… You…”
He ground his teeth and stammered for a long while before finally forcing out a sentence.
“You must apologize to Mother!”
Yun Shuyao ignored him and turned toward the residence.
Behind her, Gu Jinghuai roared, “Yun Shuyao, you’d better not regret this!”
She didn’t break her stride.
Regret?
Regret was the one thing she had in abundance.
Gu Jinghuai’s fury was left behind as he watched Yun Shuyao walk away.
An ominous premonition stirred faintly in his heart.
It was as though something had veered completely off course and was heading toward an unknowable future.
Duke Zhenguo’s Residence
“Miss, I finally found them!”
Fu’an, a young servant, rushed in, drenched in sweat. He clutched a heavy wooden box to his chest, dust clinging to the hems of his trousers.
He had traveled through three prefectures to find two top-grade, precious medicinal ingredients. The soles of his feet were rubbed raw, blistered and bleeding.
Yun Shuyao was facing her dressing mirror, arranging her hair. At his words, she turned around.
When the box was opened, a wild ginseng root, its whiskers intact and its color a dull yellow, lay on the red silk. It was worth two thousand taels of silver.
Beside it was a small piece of ox bezoar, an even rarer substance. They said a butcher might slaughter cattle for four generations and still only have a chance of finding one piece.
These were the principal medicines for treating the Marchioness’s heart condition. They couldn’t be bought on the open market; the only way to obtain them was to send people out to search and ask around.
In her previous life, she would have carefully wrapped the ingredients herself, prepared two bolts of brocade, and delivered them to the Marquis’s Residence in person, afraid her mother-in-law might think she had been slighted.
But now?
Her fingertips brushed the ginseng root. She had to make that old poisonous woman vomit up every last dose she had taken.
“Chuntao.”
Yun Shuyao called out.
Her personal maid, Chuntao, hurried in.
“Miss, are we going to the Marquis’s Residence?”
“No!”
Yun Shuyao smiled coldly.
“Wrap these two medicinal ingredients. Come with me to Jishi Hall. We’ll sell them for cash.”
Yun Shuyao casually grabbed a handful of gold melon seeds and gave them to Fu’an.
“Your reward. Go get some rest.”
Fu’an stared at her.
“Miss, aren’t we taking the medicine to the Marquis’s Residence?”
“We’re not.”
Yun Shuyao had already risen, the corner of her mouth curling faintly.
“We won’t be taking them there ever again.”
Though Chuntao didn’t understand, she swiftly wrapped the medicine.
Yun Shuyao looked at her reflection. How good it felt to be twenty, her face full of life.
A trace of chill passed through her eyes.
In this life, she would never again run around or wear herself out for anyone in the Marquis’s Residence.
Not one of them deserved it!
The clearing in front of Jishi Hall had once again been set up with a congee shed.
As the steaming white congee simmered, the poor families and beggars from the neighborhood gathered around.
The clink of rough pottery bowls mingled with the children’s laughter and chatter, making the scene more festive than New Year’s.
Yun Shuyao stood on the steps of the clinic, watching Divine Physician Mu, his hair gray at the temples, take the pulse of a ragged old man.
When he saw her looking over, Divine Physician Mu stroked his beard and smiled.
“Shuyao, my clinic has been fortunate to have your support all these years. On behalf of the poor folk, let me thank you.”
“No need to thank me, Uncle Mu. Once we’ve turned the two medicinal ingredients I just gave you into silver, we can use it all for congee and medicine…”
She had not finished speaking when a harsh shout cut her off.
“Everyone, get out of my way! Don’t you know you’re blocking the road?”
The crowd was shoved aside. Gu Jinghuai, dressed in a moon-white brocade robe, held his chin slightly raised, looking utterly out of place among the dust-covered commoners.
The servant at his side was still pushing people around. A little girl holding a bowl of congee spilled it all over the ground and immediately burst into tears.
“Yun Shuyao!”
Gu Jinghuai spotted her on the steps at once and hurried over, his brows knotted.
“Why did you interfere and make Divine Physician Mu stop seeing patients? What exactly are you trying to pull?”
His voice was cold and hard, as if he were scolding an unruly servant.
The people around them stopped what they were doing and watched him timidly.
Everyone knew he was the heir of Yong’an Marquis’s Residence—and the fiancé of their benefactress.
Yun Shuyao merely lifted her eyelids a little and asked coolly, “Has Heir Gu come to collect the medicine for the Marchioness?”
“Of course.”
Gu Jinghuai stepped closer. His brocade boots nearly landed in a patch of spilled congee, and he immediately turned aside in disgust.
“Mother’s heart condition flared up last night. That was when I learned what you’d done.
“Whatever grievance you have, you shouldn’t take it out on an elder’s life. If you’re so heedless, how can you be worthy of becoming my fiancée?”
“If you think I’m not worthy of you, then hurry up and break off the engagement, Heir Gu!”
Yun Shuyao’s gaze was calm, but sharp.
“But before you accuse me, shouldn’t you first find out who’s been supplying your mother’s medicine for the past five years?”
Gu Jinghuai froze, then frowned as he replied, “Naturally, the Marquis’s Residence…”
“The Marquis’s Residence?”
Yun Shuyao turned to Divine Physician Mu, her tone respectful.
“Uncle Mu, please tell Heir Gu: in the past five years, has the Marquis’s Residence paid even a single tael for the Marchioness’s consultations or medicine?”
Divine Physician Mu withdrew his hand from the old man’s wrist and looked at Gu Jinghuai, his eyes sharpening.
“Heir Gu, I’ve treated the Marchioness for five years. The consultation fees—and even the medicinal ingredients—have all been provided by Shuyao. Last month, when her heart condition grew especially severe, it was Shuyao who arranged to have that dendrobium shipped from Jiangnan. The round-trip travel expenses alone came to fifty taels.”
Gu Jinghuai’s face flushed red.
“Lies! My mother is the matriarch of the dignified Marquis’s household. How could she possibly—”
“Could she not?”
Yun Shuyao cut him off, her voice clear.
“Whenever you asked, didn’t she simply say that someone was helping manage things? Yet she never told you where the precious medicinal ingredients she took came from, did she?”
One look at Gu Jinghuai’s reaction told Yun Shuyao she had guessed correctly.
It had been the same in her previous life: the Marchioness had often deliberately concealed Yun Shuyao’s contributions.
Even when Su Yuyan bought so much as a needle for her aunt, the Marchioness would make sure everyone knew about it.
Yun Shuyao took a step forward, her voice carrying down the entire alley.
“Gu Jinghuai, your mother has taken my medicine and relied on my connections to get Divine Physician Mu to treat her.
“For five whole years! Now that I don’t want to keep paying for it, you come here to question me? Has your Marquis’s household gotten so used to taking advantage of me that you can’t stop?”
The crowd erupted.
“My word, the Marquis’s household makes its future daughter-in-law pay for the medicine, too?”
“That heir looks so respectable, but how can he be so shameless?”
“Hey, look at how self-righteous he is! Anyone who didn’t know the truth would think their benefactress owed him something!”
Gu Jinghuai’s face turned by turns pale and red under the insults. He pointed at Yun Shuyao, his hand trembling.
“You… You did it to curry favor with me! You threw yourself at us!
“We are the dignified Yong’an Marquis’s household, a family with a hundred years of history. Do you think we couldn’t afford a little money for medical care?”
“Threw myself at you?”
Yun Shuyao smiled. Faced with such ungrateful words, she was not surprised in the least.
“Fine. Since Heir Gu says I threw myself at you, then have the Marquis’s Residence repay me every tael I spent on the medicine and consultations over the years.”
“Then we’ll repay you!”
Gu Jinghuai blurted out, then gave a cold scoff.
“It’s only a little money. My household doesn’t even notice an amount like that!”
Divine Physician Mu had listened long enough. Anger crept into his expression as well.
He turned and brought out a blue-cloth ledger from the clinic, opening it before everyone.
Then he addressed the people around them and read aloud.
“The Marchioness has congenital heart disease. Just the basic medicines needed to keep her stable cost six to seven hundred taels of silver a month.
“Over five years, that comes to a little over forty thousand taels.
“And because the Marchioness is frail, we also have to gather precious ingredients to nourish her. In the first year, her condition often relapsed, so we added fritillaria and bird’s-nest soup, costing another one hundred and twenty taels a month.
“In the third year, her condition improved, but she was still weak and often ill, so we began adding velvet antler and angelica root, at an additional three hundred taels a month.
“After her relapse last winter, her condition took a sudden turn for the worse, so wild ginseng and ox bezoar were added to the prescriptions.
“Those two ingredients alone cost five thousand taels…”
Divine Physician Mu read out each item, his voice not loud, but every word clear.
The longer the people listened, the more astonished they became. Someone couldn’t help exclaiming.
“Good heavens! That’s a whole mountain of gold over five years!”
“What illness does the Marchioness have? This isn’t taking medicine; it’s eating silver!”
Divine Physician Mu closed the ledger and looked at Gu Jinghuai.
“The medicine over five years, together with my consultation fees, comes to seventy-two thousand taels in all. Heir Gu, please settle the account.”
Gu Jinghuai’s face went completely pale.
More than seventy thousand taels? His monthly allowance at the Marquis’s Residence was only fifteen taels. How could he ever pay it back?