Escorted by the prince’s guards, the carriage from Jing Prince’s residence arrived in grand procession and stopped in front of the Jiang Residence.
On both sides of the long street, the townspeople who had been whispering and gossiping about Jing Prince’s Princess Consort craned their necks to watch, their faces filled with curiosity and awe.
Inside the Jiang Residence.
Madam Wang, the wife of the Jiang family’s head, sat in the main hall with a faint sneer on her lips, waiting to put Jiang Zhaoxue in her place.
According to the rules she had laid down, although Jiang Zhaoxue was now the Princess Consort, she was still considered a guest of the Jiang family since she had returned to visit her family and see the supposedly ill old madam.
She intended to make Jiang Zhaoxue suffer humiliation, crushing the arrogance that the wild girl had developed after entering Jing Prince’s residence.
She also wanted everyone in Shengjing to see that no matter how high Jiang Zhaoxue had risen, she still had to lower her head and behave meekly before the Jiang family.
“Madam! Madam, something terrible has happened!”
The gatekeeper stumbled into the courtyard, crawling and scrambling in panic. His face was so pale that it looked as though he had seen a ghost.
“The\… the people from Jing Prince’s residence\… have arrived!”
“What are you panicking for? Useless fool!”
Madam Wang set her teacup down heavily on the table and shouted,
“She wouldn’t dare force her way in, would she? Go! Shut the front gate tightly! Just say the old madam is gravely ill and cannot be exposed to the wind—“
Before Madam Wang could finish speaking, the gates of the Jiang Residence were smashed apart by more than a dozen guards using sheer brute force.
As dust billowed into the air, Jiang Zhaoxue strolled in leisurely with her hands clasped behind her back. The pink tassels hanging from her hairpin swayed with each step, making her look both graceful and boldly flamboyant.
“I heard Grandmother misses me so much that she’s practically dying?”
Jiang Zhaoxue’s fair, delicate face carried three parts mockery and seven parts arrogance.
Madam Wang shot to her feet in shock, but before she could speak, Jiang Zhaoxue continued,
“I’ve even come personally to attend the funeral. So why hasn’t anyone opened the gates to welcome me?”
Madam Wang trembled with anger at Jiang Zhaoxue’s outrageous words. Pointing at her nose, she shouted,
“How dare you! Jiang Zhaoxue, have you no sense of propriety? Your grandmother is only gravely ill, yet you dare curse her to death!”
“You even brought these guards to force your way into the inner residence. Are you trying to rebel?”
“How dare you, Madam Jiang. Please mind your words. You are not qualified to lecture our Princess Consort about propriety.”
Granny Cui rebuked her with a stern expression.
Jiang Zhaoxue casually took a seat, raised an eyebrow at Granny Cui, and gave her a thumbs-up.
Madam Wang was so furious that her vision blurred. The old maidservants behind her hurried to support her.
She had never expected Jiang Zhaoxue to become such a shameless rogue who simply refused to play by the rules.
“Lead the way.”
Jiang Zhaoxue looked at Madam Wang with a half-smile.
“If we delay any longer, I’m afraid Grandmother really will breathe her last. Then my crime would be a serious one.”
Madam Wang gritted her teeth but did not dare provoke her any further. With an ashen face, she could only walk ahead.
Inside Songhe Hall.
Old Madam Jiang had a forehead band wrapped around her head and was weakly leaning against the headboard.
The room was filled with the women of the Jiang family. Each of them held a handkerchief and wiped away tears, creating a scene of utter sorrow.
Hearing footsteps, Old Madam Jiang spoke weakly,
“Is\… is Third Girl back?”
The women in the room immediately stepped aside to make a path, all waiting to see Jiang Zhaoxue kneel on the ground, cry bitterly, and kowtow to admit her mistakes.
Especially Jiang Wan and Jiang Rou—now that they saw her, they wished they could strangle her on the spot.
Jiang Zhaoxue acted as though she saw none of them. She walked to the bedside, looked down at Old Madam Jiang from above, neither crying nor kneeling, and her very first words struck like a thunderbolt:
“So you’re not dead yet.”
Old Madam Jiang’s sob caught in her throat.
The entire room fell silent as everyone stared at Jiang Zhaoxue, stunned by her shocking words.
Granny Cui rubbed her forehead in exasperation.
“Princess Consort, if you have nothing nice to say, you really don’t have to say anything…”
“Xue\… Xue’er, you’ve finally come back?”
Old Madam Jiang hurriedly tried to smooth things over.
But it was obvious Jiang Zhaoxue had no intention of playing along.
She suddenly reached out, grabbed Old Madam Jiang’s wrist suspended in midair, and pressed her fingers against her pulse.
“Third Miss! What are you doing? You’re hurting the Old Madam!”
Madam Wang screamed from behind.
Old Madam Jiang was also startled. She instinctively tried to pull her hand back but found that she could not break free no matter how hard she struggled.
Jiang Zhaoxue narrowed her eyes. After checking her pulse for no more than three breaths, she suddenly grinned.
“Your heartbeat is steady, your pulse is strong, and your vital energy is more vigorous than the stone lion outside the gate. Grandmother, this isn’t a serious illness. You could probably beat a bull to death with your bare hands.”
Jiang Zhaoxue abruptly released Old Madam Jiang’s wrist, her voice suddenly rising.
“However…”
She changed the subject, her eyes fixed on the center of Old Madam Jiang’s forehead.
“You may not be sick, but you’ve certainly done plenty of guilty deeds!”
The room instantly erupted in an uproar.
“Jiang Zhaoxue! Have you gone insane? How dare you speak such nonsense at Grandmother’s bedside!”
Jiang Wan could no longer hold back and jumped out to accuse her.
“Isn’t it perfectly normal for me to be crazy? Haven’t you seen it before?”
Jiang Zhaoxue turned to look at Jiang Wan, her tone innocent.
Jiang Wan immediately understood the meaning behind her words—it was a blatant threat. Remembering how Jiang Zhaoxue had beaten her at the prince’s residence a few days ago, she instantly fell silent.
Jiang Zhaoxue put on a thoughtful expression.
“Speaking of madness, I think it’s the Jiang family that’s gone mad! Do you really think I can’t see it? Over the past three years, Eldest Uncle has been demoted twice in the Ministry of Personnel and now holds nothing more than an insignificant post. Second Uncle’s salt and tea business in Jiangnan has lost everything, and you’re probably about to mortgage the ancestral residence, aren’t you?”
“And you, Jiang Wan. You’ve been engaged three times, and all three of your fiancés died before the wedding. Do you really think that’s just bad luck?”
The faces of everyone in the Jiang family instantly turned deathly pale.
These were all disgraceful family secrets that the Jiang family had desperately tried to keep hidden.
How could a wild girl who had been abandoned in a deserted temple for more than a decade know all of this so clearly?
Looking at the shocked expressions filling the room, Jiang Zhaoxue was extremely satisfied and decided to add fuel to the fire.
“That’s because the Jiang family’s fate is nearly at an end! You leeches who have fed on the flesh and blood of others have long since exhausted every bit of the virtue your ancestors accumulated!”
“You\… you wretched girl! Cough\… cough\…”
Old Madam Jiang had been struck where it hurt the most. She stopped pretending to be weak, trembling with rage as she pointed at Jiang Zhaoxue and cursed loudly.
“Shut up!”
Jiang Zhaoxue no longer had any interest in exchanging empty pleasantries with this family and shouted sharply.
She turned around and stepped toward the deathly pale Madam Wang.
“You’ve always wondered, haven’t you? How the Third Girl you abandoned at the charity burial ground to die somehow survived against all odds?”
Forced back step by step, Madam Wang struggled to maintain her composure.
“Y-you were born with an evil fate! You brought death to your own mother. The fortune-teller said so! You were born a disaster!”
Jiang Zhaoxue suddenly laughed softly.
“When my mother was pregnant with me, the physician clearly said the pregnancy was stable and that she was carrying a boy. But you…”
She took another step closer.
“You were jealous that my mother was favored. Even more, you feared she would give birth to a son and threaten the inheritance of your precious eldest legitimate son.”
“So you secretly bribed the midwife and switched my mother’s miscarriage-prevention medicine. You replaced it with a powerful labor-inducing drug, causing her to go into labor prematurely. She suffered a difficult childbirth and bled to death when I was born.”
Madam Wang’s pupils contracted violently, and her legs gave way.
“Y-you’re slandering me! You’re talking nonsense!”
Jiang Zhaoxue continued advancing, her voice as cold as ice.
“And that wasn’t all. To cover up your crime and protect your precious son’s future, you hired a demonic sorcerer. At the very moment I was born, using my birth date and time, you cast an unimaginably vicious bloodline curse on me.”
As she spoke, Jiang Zhaoxue turned around and met Old Madam Jiang’s eyes, which were already filled with terror.
“Grandmother\… you silently approved of it too, didn’t you?”