“With all that sour bile in your stomach, what’s the point of drinking tonic soup? The more you nourish, the worse it gets.”
He tilted his head back and drank down the entire bowl of soup.
Shen Chu…
That was her contraceptive decoction.
“Ugh.”
Pei Yuan swallowed with a furrowed brow, his face full of disgust. “What is this stuff? It’s awful.”
Shen Chu…
If she weren’t afraid of exposing her identity, she would really have liked to ask him how his contraceptive decoction tasted.
A knock sounded at the door. “Is Young Zhuangyuan Shen here? Our superior would like to ask a few questions.”
“Oh? His Sixth Highness is here too. Our superior said he’ll pay a visit to His Highness later.”
It was people from Jingzhao Prefecture.
Shen Chu instinctively looked up at Pei Yuan, her heart rising into her throat.
Was this guy going to expose her to Jingzhao Prefecture?
Pei Yuan tucked his jade-bone fan back at his waist, gave her a faint sidelong glance, and left with his hands behind his back.
That single glance from him left Shen Chu terrified.
The Sixth Prince Pei Yuan was frivolous and unrestrained in temperament, capricious, and acted only on his own likes and dislikes. Who knew what he intended to do with the leverage he held over her?
After dealing with the questioning from the Jingzhao Prefecture prefect, Shen Chu spent half the day in anxious suspense, only to receive notice that everyone could go home.
As she breathed a sigh of relief, a shadow of unease settled over her heart.
Pei Yuan hadn’t exposed her this time—he must have some other scheme.
On the way back, she was somewhat distracted.
Concubine Qiao whispered, “Chunxing only made a few extra trips to your father’s study, and Madam Chen handed her over to Zhao Er to be killed. Madam Chen is getting more and more ruthless. Who knows what tricks she’ll pull once we’re back at the residence. You need to be careful.”
“Mm. You should be careful too, Auntie.”
Concubine Qiao was unconcerned. “She and I have been fighting for over a decade. With the Marquis protecting me, she wouldn’t dare touch me.”
Shen Chu frowned slightly. That was how it used to be, but now that she had returned to the capital and become Zhuangyuan, she had already upset the balance between Madam Chen and Concubine Qiao.
She wanted to say a few more words of caution, but seeing the confident look on Concubine Qiao’s face—certain that her husband would protect her—she ultimately said nothing.
Sometimes reality is more sobering than any advice.
The moment the carriage entered the Marquis’s residence, a maid from Old Madame’s household blocked their path, requesting that she and Concubine Qiao come over at once.
In Songshou Tang, where Old Madame resided, someone sat boldly and imperiously in the seat of honor, wearing a pale green brocade robe that was quite eye-catching.
Shen Chu’s eyelids twitched involuntarily. What was this guy doing at her home?
Old Madame said with a genial smile, “His Sixth Highness has been sleeping poorly these days and came to ask whether our residence has any good calming remedies. Who among you has a good calming prescription? A ready-made prepared medicine would be even better—bring it immediately for His Highness.”
So he was just asking for a calming remedy.
Shen Chu quietly breathed a sigh of relief—then the next moment, it hit her.
Wait. The pouch she carried on her person contained calming medicine.
Where was her pouch?
She reached a hand to her collar but couldn’t find the cord holding the pouch. Her heart tightened.
Her pouch was gone!
The pouch contained not only the calming medicine, but also something vital that concerned her very life.
If someone found it, the consequences would be endless.
“Young Zhuangyuan Shen looks a bit pale. What are you thinking about?”
Shen Chu came back to herself and saw Pei Yuan staring at her, his gaze carrying a probing, unreadable quality that put her on edge.
She forced a smile at the corners of her mouth. “I was thinking of a calming prescription for Your Highness.”
“Speaking of calming prescriptions, I happen to have one—and by coincidence, I have the medicine ready-made as well.” Madam Chen cut in with a cheerful smile, interrupting Shen Chu, and ordered servants to bring out two pouches.
Pei Yuan took the pouch without so much as a glance, thanked her, and left.
Shen Chu was immediately puzzled. Had she guessed wrong?
Had her pouch not been picked up by Pei Yuan?
Wasn’t he trying to investigate the identity of last night’s woman through the calming medicine prescription inside it?
“Wretched girl, kneel!” Old Madame suddenly barked coldly at Shen Chu, hurling a teacup straight at her.
Shen Chu tilted to the left, easily dodging the teacup, and knelt on the ground.
Old Madame Shen was quite satisfied with her kneeling attitude and was about to scold her a few words when she looked up and saw that Shen Chu had already stood up as if no one else were around.
“Wretched girl, who told you to get up?”
Shen Chu looked utterly innocent. “Grandmother only said to kneel. She never said I couldn’t get up.”
“You—!”
Old Madame Shen was so furious she nearly had a heart attack.
The wretched girl was always like this—wearing a bright smile on her face while saying things that made people die of anger.
“Your mother kindly took you to worship the Buddha, hoping the Buddha would purify the Shaqi on your body. Who knew it would end in a death? It’s all your fault.”
Shen Chu slightly raised an eyebrow.
Back when she was born, Madam Chen had brought in a master, who said her fate was cursed with Tiansha Guxing—the Lone Star of Calamity—that she clashed with and opposed her own kin.
When she was born, Old Madame first inexplicably knocked out a tooth, then broke her leg, and after that, accidents big and small kept happening in the household.
Greatly alarmed, Old Madame Shen promptly ordered Changning Hou to send her to a Daoist temple in the old family home in Huzhou, and forbade anyone from visiting her, claiming they feared being contaminated by her Shaqi.
For seventeen years, only Concubine Qiao had periodically sent people to deliver clothes and money to the temple. Not a single person in the marquis’s residence had ever cared about her.
Clearly, they were now linking the Jingguosi incident to her Shaqi as well.
Madam Chen wept behind her sleeve. “I was interrogated by the Jingzhao Prefecture people for half a day—they nearly suspected our Hou residence of abusing and murdering loyal servants. Fortunately, in the end, Jingzhao Prefecture got to the truth: Chunxing could no longer endure Zhao Er’s abuse and stabbed him, and in his rage, Zhao Er killed Chunxing. All of this was just sordid business among the servants. Surely no one will drag our Hou residence into it.”
Old Madame Shen snorted coldly. “Nonsense. Chunxing and Zhao Er had both served you for years. Why did nothing happen sooner or later, only at this exact moment? At the root of it, it’s the Shaqi on this wretched girl’s body clashing with everything. I knew it—the moment he came back, the whole Hou residence would suffer calamity.”
Shen Chu feigned great shock. “So that’s how it is. Then I beg Grandmother to quickly give me a document of family division. I will take my concubine-mother and leave the marquis’s residence at once.”
Old Madame Shen choked. “Unfilial thing… Why bring up dividing the family out of nowhere? While parents live, the family does not divide—let alone while I, your grandmother, am still here.”
A flash of mockery passed through Shen Chu’s eyes.
The son born of the legitimate mother was accomplished in neither letters nor martial arts, and Changning Hou was counting on her, the Zhuangyuanlang, to bring glory to the family name—how could he possibly bear to cast her out?
Not to mention, the entire Hou residence was sustained by Concubine Qiao’s business.
“You are, after all, a descendant of the Shen family. You may be unfilial, but I, your grandmother, cannot fail in kindness.” Old Madame Shen snorted coldly. “Mama Zhang, bring it in.”
An old servant woman carried in a bowl of blackish soup.
“This is the talisman decoction to expel evil spirits that your mother begged from the abbot master of Jingguosi. The master said that if you drink this bowl of soup and then kneel in the ancestral hall for a full three days, the Shaqi on your body will be expelled. If you have any filial devotion, any regard for your family, drink the soup quickly and go kneel in the ancestral hall.”
Shen Chu took the soup bowl and looked up at Old Madame Shen with a smile.
“The talisman decoction is useless against the Shaqi on my body. Let’s just split the family.”
She tilted her wrist slightly, and the whole bowl of soup spilled, splashing onto the large red woven carpet beneath her feet.
“How dare you defy your elders!”
Shen Chu smiled faintly. “I wouldn’t dare.”
“Unfilial thing! You say you wouldn’t dare, yet you poured out the talisman decoction.”
“Oh, I couldn’t hold it steady. It spilled.”
“You!” Old Madame Shen was so furious her face turned livid.
Madam Chen pulled two more yellowed talisman papers from her robes. “Fortunately, the presiding master, out of regard for my sincerity, obtained a few extra ones.”
“Mama Zhang, go brew another bowl.”
In no time, another bowl of black soup was set before Shen Chu.
Old Madame Shen’s face darkened. “Mama Zhang, feed it to the eldest young master yourself, so his hands don’t tremble and spill it again.”
“Yes.”
“And if I refuse to drink?”
Old Madame Shen sneered. “For the sake of the entire marquis household, you have no choice.”
Shen Chu stood still, a hint of coldness creeping into her smile.
“Grandmother, you had best think this through. I have been allergic to talisman water since childhood—even a single sip could leave me bedridden for days. And if I kneel in the ancestral hall for three full days, this little life of mine might very well be finished. In ten days, I am to be appointed to office. I wonder how His Majesty would view the marquis household if word got out that the new Zhuangyuan was force-fed talisman water by his grandmother and lay unconscious at home, unable to report to the palace?”
Old Madame Shen’s expression shifted slightly; she hesitated, wary of harming what she sought to protect.
After all, this wretch was the Zhuangyuan personally appointed by His Majesty, and would normally enter the Hanlin Academy, whose scholars must be ready to enter the palace at any moment.
A flicker of venomous malice passed through Madam Chen’s eyes, and she whispered a few words into Old Madame Shen’s ear.
Old Madame Shen looked at Shen Chu and suddenly broke into an eerie smile.