“Speak. Who exactly administered the drug?”
First Madam slammed her hand heavily onto the table, hard enough that even the teacup on it jumped.
Hu Xiaoyue was kneeling in the middle of the hall with her hair disheveled and her clothes in disarray. There was another woman beside her. She looked fairly young and had her head lowered, so Lin Zhijin could not see her face clearly.
“First Madam, I really don’t know. A young maid came and told me Master wanted me to go over. Since Master wanted me, of course I went immediately. Who knew that as soon as I entered the room, Master dragged me onto the bed? I thought Master had been ill for so long and had been holding himself back, so I went along with him. I really didn’t know Master had been drugged!”
Hu Xiaoyue cried out her grievances, her face full of indignation.
The woman beside her did not shout or make a scene. She merely sobbed with an innocent expression and shook her head.
“First Madam, I truly don’t know why that medicine was found in my room. Master hasn’t summoned me for a long time, and I had already given up those thoughts. My family was even preparing to beg you to release me from the residence so I could marry. How could I possibly drug Master?”
“Hmph. Who knows whether that’s true or false? Li Xiangyun, was it you? You hate me for stealing Master’s favor, so you deliberately schemed against me?” Hu Xiaoyue glared hatefully at Li Xiangyun.
“It wasn’t me.”
Li Xiangyun shot Hu Xiaoyue an angry look, took a deep breath, then turned toward First Madam.
“First Madam, someone must be framing me. Have someone investigate who bought the medicine. I haven’t left the residence at all recently. Where would I even get such shameless medicine?”
Only then did Lin Zhijin clearly see Li Xiangyun’s appearance.
She had almond-shaped eyes, peach-blossom cheeks, willow brows, and cherry lips. She was very beautiful.
More importantly, it was her temperament.
She was alluring and captivating, and every movement of her eyes carried a naturally flirtatious charm that was especially seductive.
Old Geezer Chen had really eaten well in this lifetime.
Although First Madam was already old, it was still obvious that she had not been ugly when she was young.
The Second, Third, and Fourth Concubines were also no longer young, but their foundations were there. They must definitely have been beauties in their youth.
The Fifth and Sixth Concubines still retained their mature charm, while the Seventh Concubine was graceful and elegant.
As for the Eighth Concubine…
Lin Zhijin secretly turned her head and sneaked a glance.
An icy beauty.
She did not look very old either, probably around twenty-seven or twenty-eight.
Among the bedchamber maids, she had currently met Hu Xiaoyue, Wang Xiuzhu, and Li Xiangyun.
Hu Xiaoyue was coquettish, Wang Xiuzhu was delicate and elegant, while Li Xiangyun was alluring.
Tsk, tsk.
That old geezer’s life had really been worthwhile.
At that moment, the Fifth Concubine yawned and lazily said, “In my opinion, Xiaoyue was the one who administered the drug.”
“Fifth Concubine, I’ve never had any grudges with you, past or present. Why are you trying to harm me? First Madam, it really wasn’t me. I… I haven’t left the residence recently either. Where would I go to buy medicine?”
Hu Xiaoyue suddenly pointed at Lin Zhijin.
“It must be the Ninth Concubine. She left the residence. She hates me for stopping her from seeing Master, so she drugged him to frame me.”
Lin Zhijin had not expected that merely watching the excitement would somehow involve her.
Suppressing the urge to roll her eyes, she shook her head fearfully.
“First Madam, it wasn’t me. Without Xiaohong leading the way, I don’t even know how to get to Master’s courtyard.”
No one suspected Lin Zhijin.
How many days had she even been in the Chen residence?
She had not even met all the people in the household yet. How could she possibly have the ability to drug Master?
Madam Chen Lishi slammed the table again.
“Madam Hu, don’t randomly drag others into this. The Ninth Concubine follows the rules and is obedient and well-behaved. She absolutely could not have drugged Master. You had better confess honestly. Otherwise, once I uncover the truth, your punishment will be even heavier.”
Madam Chen Lishi waved for Lin Zhijin to sit down.
Old Woman Zhang was her person, so she trusted that Lin Zhijin was not the one who had administered the drug.
“Thank you, First Madam.”
Lin Zhijin looked gratefully at Madam Chen Lishi.
This Hu Xiaoyue really was a mad dog.
She bit whoever she could get her teeth into.
Sure enough, Hu Xiaoyue began biting at someone else.
“It was Wang Xiuzhu. It was her. Yes, it must have been her! She came to see me a few days ago and asked if I wanted a child. I said I did, and then she gave me a fertility prescription. But she had a condition. She said that after everything succeeded, I had to promise her one thing. It must have been her!”
As soon as she finished speaking, Wang Xiuzhu walked out from the back and knelt in the middle of the hall.
She looked disappointedly at Hu Xiaoyue.
“Younger Sister Xiaoyue, how can you repay kindness with enmity? First Madam, it wasn’t me.”
“If it wasn’t you, then why did you give Hu Xiaoyue a fertility prescription? Didn’t you know Master’s body couldn’t withstand intercourse? Wang Xiuzhu, you have some nerve. You gave Master such a powerful drug. Do you know that Master’s health had almost recovered, but because of this medicine, he may… he may…”
As she spoke, the Sixth Concubine covered her face and burst into tears.
Once she started crying, the others also revealed sorrowful expressions.
Lin Zhijin lowered her head and glanced left and right, then immediately put on an expression as though her father had died.
Oh my god.
Were all these women award-winning actresses?
How could they change expressions so quickly?
Especially those tears.
They came whenever they wanted them to.
“Sixth Concubine, how could it possibly be me? I spend every day eating vegetarian food and chanting Buddhist scriptures. If I hadn’t remembered that Younger Sister Xiaoyue once helped me, I wouldn’t even have given her the fertility prescription.”
Wang Xiuzhu looked sorrowfully at Hu Xiaoyue.
“When I gave you the prescription, didn’t I tell you to wait until Master recovered before using it? As for the favor I wanted you to do for me, there’s nothing shameful about saying it. I was once pregnant with two children, but unfortunately, my fortune was too thin and I couldn’t keep either of them. I can’t have children anymore either. I simply wanted to help Younger Sister Xiaoyue conceive so that I could raise the child together with her. Then when I grew old, I would have someone to rely on.”
She spoke so pitifully that quite a few people present began to sympathize with her.
They even felt that Hu Xiaoyue was being unreasonable and accusing people indiscriminately.
“First Madam, it was her. It must have been her. Believe me. Wang Xiuzhu never said that day that I had to wait until Master recovered before using the medicine. It wasn’t me. It really wasn’t me.”
Hu Xiaoyue spoke incoherently.
Lin Zhijin frowned.
From the looks of it, it really did not seem to be Hu Xiaoyue.
At that moment, Mama Sun escorted a young maid inside.
Lin Zhijin thought she looked somewhat familiar, but could not remember her name.
“Who is that?” Lin Zhijin quietly asked Xiaohong.
“That’s the maid who serves Madam Hu.”
A cold voice sounded beside her.
Lin Zhijin froze for a moment and turned toward the Eighth Concubine.
Had the Eighth Concubine just spoken?
The Eighth Concubine glanced at her disdainfully.
So stupid.
No wonder someone had targeted her.
But fools had fool’s luck. She had not fallen for the trap and had actually escaped disaster.
Lin Zhijin gave her a friendly smile.
“Thank you for explaining, Eighth Sister.”
The Eighth Concubine froze for a moment, then glared at her and turned her head away, refusing to acknowledge her again.
Lin Zhijin was confused.
What was wrong?
When she encountered the Second, Third, Fourth, and Fifth Concubines, they had told her to call them Second Sister, Third Sister, and so on.
The Eighth Concubine ranked eighth.
Calling her Eighth Sister wasn’t wrong, was it?
Lin Zhijin had only been distracted for a moment, yet the situation had already taken a major turn.
Hu Xiaoyue’s maid admitted that Hu Xiaoyue had ordered her to drug Master Chen.
“Ah!”
Hu Xiaoyue screamed and grabbed her personal maid by the collar.
“Wang Juhua, I’ve treated you well! How could you slander me? Who bought you off? Tell me! First Madam, it really wasn’t me.”
“Your personal maid has already confessed, yet you still dare claim innocence? Hu Xiaoyue, oh Hu Xiaoyue. Master doted on you so much, yet you actually drugged him. If anything happens to Master, I will never spare you.”
The Third Concubine, who had remained silent until now, suddenly spoke sharply.
“First Madam, it really wasn’t me.”
Hu Xiaoyue collapsed onto the floor, looking utterly miserable.
Unfortunately for her, Shiqing happened to uncover some things at that moment as well.
The evidence also pointed toward Hu Xiaoyue.
“That’s enough. Lock Madam Hu and Wang Juhua in the woodshed for now. Everyone else, return to your own rooms and stay there. If nothing concerns you, don’t come out and cause trouble.”
First Madam made the final decision.
The Third Concubine curled her lips, stood up, and left while supporting herself on her maid’s hand.
The other concubines also rose to leave.
Lin Zhijin noticed that the Second Concubine remained seated, so she probably still had something to discuss with First Madam.
She waited until the Eighth Concubine stood up, then hurriedly followed behind her.
Once she left the main courtyard, Lin Zhijin let out a long breath.
The drugging plotline should be over now, right?
When she returned to Wenzhu Courtyard, Old Woman Zhang was not there.
She did not know what she had gone to do.
Lin Zhijin pulled Xiaohong aside.
“Did they find the maid who gave me the false message yesterday?”
“Not yet. Ninth Concubine, don’t worry. First Madam sees everything clearly and would never falsely accuse you. Besides, you stay in your courtyard every day. You don’t even recognize all the servants in Master’s courtyard. How could you possibly have the ability to drug him?”
Xiaohong analyzed the situation seriously.
Although she was being looked down on for being incapable, Lin Zhijin thought this was excellent.
Exactly.
She was timid, cowardly, and incapable.
How could someone like her possibly drug Master Chen?
She had already slept once earlier and could not fall asleep now.
Lying on the bed, Lin Zhijin continuously wondered who had actually administered the drug.
That’s right.
She doubted that Hu Xiaoyue was responsible.
Or rather, had Hu Xiaoyue really done everything involving Master Chen’s drugging all by herself?
Early the next morning, everyone was once again summoned to the main courtyard.
Lin Zhijin swept her gaze over the others.
Everyone had dark circles beneath their eyes.
Presumably, none of them had slept well after returning last night.
Some might not have slept at all.
“The drug Master took was an extremely potent aphrodisiac. The doctor said his body has been depleted too severely. He may… he may not make it to next month.”
First Madam spoke while crying.
“Master!”
The Third Concubine let out a grief-stricken cry. Her eyes rolled back, and she fainted.
“Third Concubine? Third Concubine?”
The Third Concubine’s personal maid caught her and called out nervously.
Then Lin Zhijin watched as the servants, clearly well-trained in handling such situations, carried the Third Concubine back to her own room.
“The Third Concubine has poor health. She can’t withstand shocks, otherwise she’ll faint,” Xiaohong explained quietly.
Lin Zhijin was skeptical.
Could someone really faint whenever they wanted just like that?
“First Madam, this is all that Madam Hu’s fault. If it weren’t for her, Master’s health would already have greatly improved. You absolutely must punish her severely,” the Fourth Concubine said through gritted teeth.
“Since she dared drug Master, naturally we cannot let her off lightly. However, Madam Hu slept with Master. If she truly became pregnant, the child might be Master’s last child. This concerns the Chen family bloodline, so we cannot allow the slightest mishap. We’ll wait for a while before deciding.”
First Madam spoke with a benevolent expression.
Lin Zhijin was curious too.
The original owner had gotten pregnant after a single time.
She wondered whether Hu Xiaoyue could do the same.
Then again, who exactly had been plotting against the original owner?
Compared with this entire room full of experts in inner-household scheming, Lin Zhijin felt that her brain simply was not enough.
As the saying went, never use your amateur skills to challenge someone else’s profession.
And she didn’t even count as an amateur.
They rambled on for more than half an hour before Mama Sun escorted two young maids into the room.
Lin Zhijin recognized one of them as the young maid who had delivered the false message to her.
“First Madam, these are the two maids who delivered the messages yesterday,” Mama Sun said coldly.
“First Madam, I really don’t know anything. Someone gave me two silver dollars and told me to pass a message to the Ninth Concubine. I truly don’t know anything else.”
The round-faced young maid dropped to her knees with a thud and looked fearfully at First Madam.
The long-faced maid beside her was so frightened that she kept crying.
After quite a while, she finally gave the same account as the round-faced maid.
“First Madam, I’ve already investigated. These two maids are telling the truth,” Mama Sun whispered into Madam Chen Lishi’s ear.
“Then what Hu Xiaoyue said was true. She didn’t drug Master. So who did?” the Seventh Concubine asked, looking puzzled.
The Third, Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Concubines glanced at her.
Idiot.
If her belly had not been capable, and if their own children were not already grown with grandchildren of their own, making them unwilling to create more bloodshed, did she really think someone like her could have safely given birth and become a concubine?
“All right. It’s getting late. You can all go back.”
First Madam directly dismissed everyone.
“First Madam, Master’s condition has worsened. Shouldn’t we take turns caring for him? One person per day or something like that? Is there an arrangement?” the Third Concubine suddenly asked.
Madam Chen Lishi gave her a sidelong glance.
Originally, she had not planned to make the concubines take shifts.
But since someone had brought it up, refusing now would make her seem unreasonable.
“You’re all getting on in years, and you’ve lived comfortably for so many years. Having you care for Master for an entire day would probably be too much. Let’s do half a day each, beginning with the Second Concubine.”
Madam Chen Lishi lifted her teacup to dismiss them.
Everyone left one after another.
At the courtyard entrance, the Seventh Concubine called out to Lin Zhijin.
“Ninth Sister, ever since entering the household, you haven’t visited anyone else’s courtyard. When you have time, come sit at my place.”
Lin Zhijin quietly said yes, then hurried away with Xiaohong.
“Why did the Seventh Concubine invite you to visit her courtyard?” Xiaohong asked in confusion.
Lin Zhijin shook her head.
“I don’t know either.”
How would she know?
In any case, none of these concubines were simple.
She did not want to provoke a single one of them.
That afternoon, Old Woman Zhang returned and brought back some news.
The medicine had indeed been administered by Wang Juhua, and the person who instructed her to do so really had been Hu Xiaoyue.
However, the medicine they administered was not the potent aphrodisiac.
It was a fertility-enhancing drug.
“Someone else drugged him too?”
Lin Zhijin’s eyes widened.
“Most likely.”
Seeing Lin Zhijin looking frightened, Old Woman Zhang smiled.
“Ninth Concubine, you don’t need to be afraid. As the old saying goes, if you’ve done nothing wrong, you needn’t fear ghosts knocking at your door. You didn’t do anything, so what are you afraid of?”
She had not done anything.
The original owner had not done anything either.
Yet hadn’t she still been schemed against?
In this deep, sprawling residence, everyone had eight hundred schemes in their heads.
Of course a complete newcomer like her was afraid.
“How could I possibly have that kind of ability? Let’s stop talking about this. Just hearing it makes my scalp tingle. I’m hungry. Is there anything to eat?”
Lin Zhijin covered her stomach.
By the following afternoon, the situation took another turn.
The person who administered the drug was neither Li Xiangyun nor Wang Xiuzhu.
It was another inconspicuous bedchamber maid who had always kept a low profile.
“Why did she drug Master? Did she want to have a child to rely on?” Lin Zhijin could not resist asking curiously on the way to the main courtyard.
“I don’t know.”
Xiaohong shook her head.
Once again, everyone gathered in First Madam’s courtyard.
Lin Zhijin saw a thin, pale-faced woman kneeling on the floor.
Although she looked somewhat disheveled, her beauty was still difficult to conceal.
“I called you all here this time because I wanted to tell you that the culprit who drugged Master has already been caught. It was the elder Madam Wang. She resented Master for neglecting her, so she drugged him. Madam Wang, both witnesses and physical evidence are present. Do you confess?”
First Madam asked with a dark expression.
The elder Madam Wang sneered.
“Neglect me? He’s just a rotten old man who’s about to die. I never cared for his favor in the first place. He’s a beast. If he hadn’t forcibly seized me and brought me into this residence, my parents wouldn’t have died. Why? He was clearly about to die, yet just because of that chongxi marriage, he started recovering again? I don’t have much time left. Before I go, I have to see him die with my own eyes before I can rest content.”
“You were the one who drugged him? I really never would have expected it.”
The Seventh Concubine cried out in surprise.
The moment she finished speaking, the elder Madam Wang spat out a mouthful of blood.
And then she spat out more and more.
Very soon, she collapsed onto the floor, her fate unknown.
“Ah~”
“Ah~”
Screams rang out one after another throughout the room.
Lin Zhijin also screamed once, then hurriedly shut her eyes, not daring to look at the elder Madam Wang’s miserable state.
First Madam had not expected the elder Madam Wang to do something like this either.
She hurriedly dismissed everyone and had a doctor prescribe calming medicine for them.
Lin Zhijin drank a bowl as well.
This time, she really had been frightened.
She had lived for thirty years in her previous life, yet this was the first time she had ever seen someone die from such close range.
Immediately afterward, Hu Xiaoyue and the others were released.
Wang Juhua was dealt with.
As for exactly how she was dealt with, neither Old Woman Zhang nor Xiaohong told Lin Zhijin.
Lin Zhijin did not want to ask either.
In this era, human lives were not worth much.
Time passed quickly.
Soon, it was Lin Zhijin’s turn to care for Master Chen.
Her shift was the first half of the night, so she went over after dinner.
By the time she arrived, Master Chen had already taken his medicine and fallen asleep.
Looking at his sunken eye sockets and cheeks, with practically nothing left but a layer of skin over his bones, it seemed he truly would not make it to next month.
During the night, Master Chen woke once.
He glanced at Lin Zhijin before falling unconscious again.
On the twenty-seventh day of the second lunar month, Master Chen suddenly became full of energy.
Everyone in the Chen residence, including Master Chen himself, knew that this was the final rally before death.
“Shiqing, go summon the madams and the children. While I still have some energy, I’ll make arrangements for what happens after my death.”
When death truly approached, Master Chen instead became very open-minded about it.
AUTHOR’S NOTE:
I continued writing it. There’ll be another update tonight, but it’ll be a little late. Babies, just read it tomorrow morning. Muah muah (づ￣3￣)づ╭??～