Su Xiaohan’s delicate and radiant face was filled with disbelief upon hearing that her doting mother was punishing her by making her kneel in the ancestral hall and copy scriptures.
“Mother, you! Don’t you also dislike Su Yunfu? When she was brought back to the ministerial residence, you immediately placed her in Wanchun Garden—such a remote courtyard—isn’t that because you look down on her? How can you now help…”
“Enough! Xiaoxiao, I usually indulge you because I don’t want you to lose your innocence trapped in this deep mansion, not so you can confuse right and wrong, make wild assumptions, and bully your own sister. Is this how I taught you? Wet Nurse Qi, take the young lady to the ancestral hall and supervise her copying. She is not to leave until she has finished copying one hundred times!”
The usually gentle and soft-spoken ministerial wife now wore a stern expression, imposing such a severe punishment on her usually beloved youngest daughter.
Su Xiaohan’s eyes instantly reddened, and she ran out of the room crying.
Wet Nurse Qi watched the young lady run off, glanced at the frosty-faced madam inside the room, sighed, and hurried after her.
Qin Shulan shed her cold demeanor, leaving only a face full of helplessness and exhaustion.
When she first learned from Su Chengyi that he intended to bring Zhu Qinghan’s daughter down from the mountain, she was very surprised. She had thought that after all these years, Su Chengyi had long forgotten about this daughter.
By chance, she discovered that the Zhu Family of Nanling had gained the favor of the current emperor, who specially created a new position exclusively for the Zhu family’s descendants.
This was meant to facilitate smoother trade routes between the Zhu Family and the imperial court.
Though the position was not particularly high-ranking, it was enough to show the emperor’s intention to win over the Zhu Family.
This was why Su Chengyi remembered to bring back the daughter who had been raised on the mountain for over a decade.
Indeed, this man had not changed one bit from the past.
Back then, when Zhu Qinghan fell out with the Zhu Family, Master Zhu, in a fit of anger, declared harshly that the Zhu Family no longer had such a daughter.
However, when Zhu Qinghan married Su Chengyi, the dowry the Zhu Family provided for their daughter was no small sum.
Moreover, after Zhu Qinghan’s death from illness, the Zhu Family, while appearing indifferent, had secretly been inquiring about the daughter she left behind.
The second branch of the Zhu Family, Zhu Qinghan’s own brother and Yun Fu’s maternal uncle, was already on their way to Jing An Cheng. By the count of days, they would arrive soon.
Qin Shulan walked to the bedside, looked at the unconscious girl lying there, and sighed.
Perhaps because she was also a mother with a daughter of her own, Qin Shulan felt a bit more pity for the child on the bed.
When Su Chengyi had someone bring this child back, as the lady of the ministerial residence, it was naturally her responsibility to arrange the child’s daily life.
With that touch of pity in her heart, she deliberately placed the child in the relatively remote Wanchun Garden, hoping to minimize her encounters with Su Chengyi.
The fewer meetings, the less exploitation.
Though remote, Wanchun Garden’s layout and scenery were no less impressive than her own daughter’s Hanhe Courtyard.
She never expected her daughter to arrange for someone to push this child into the pond. The pond was indeed as shallow as her daughter claimed, but pushing her into the water was truly Xiaoxiao’s fault. What was even more unexpected was that Yun Fu had remained unconscious since falling into the water.
“Someone, deliver a letter to my father for me.”
Qin Shulan personally wrote a letter, asking her father to help find a reliable physician. Her father, a veteran of three dynasties, knew many capable individuals from the martial world. She hoped he could find one to treat this child’s strange illness.
After Qin Shulan left the room, a crimson figure appeared in the chamber.
The newcomer was none other than Yun Fu’s eldest senior sister, Yun Shu.
Yun Shu had been hiding on the beam of her junior sister’s bedchamber since early morning, concealing her presence.
Naturally, she had heard and seen every word and action of that woman.
She had initially thought this woman was a black-hearted stepmother, but unexpectedly, she turned out to be somewhat reasonable. As for this woman’s daughter, copying Buddhist scriptures was hardly a punishment—just wait…
She then hurriedly sat by the bedside, gazing at her unconscious junior sister and checking her pulse.
Yun Shu was skilled in using poisons. Although medicine and poison were two sides of the same coin, she excelled more in concocting toxins, and her medical skills were far inferior to those of her master and the slumbering junior sister before her.
Their master had once said that their junior sister’s talent for medicine far surpassed her own, making her a truly deserving genius in the art of healing.
Yun Shu hadn’t believed it at first, but later, when the poisons she developed were almost all neutralized by her junior sister—even those she thought were incurable—Fufu would soon devise an antidote. That was when she truly became convinced.
Now, as Yun Shu checked her junior sister’s pulse, it was indeed as the wretched old man had said earlier: very steady, even robust, not at all like someone unconscious, but more like one merely asleep.
Yet, overall, she was indeed in a coma.
Yun Shu couldn’t resist lifting her hand to pinch her junior sister’s plump, soft cheeks. “Fufu!!! Stop sleeping already! Your senior sister is here to see you. At your age, how can you sleep so soundly!”
However, the figure on the bed remained motionless, her pale, snow-like cheeks gaining a faint blush from Yun Shu’s pinching.
The soft, slightly cool texture under her fingers felt pleasant, but it couldn’t compare to the sensation when her junior sister was awake—soft, warm, and doughy, like a steamed bun.
For now, only their master could handle this situation, but the problem was that the old master had gone wandering, with no fixed return date, and it was unclear when she would be back.
She had considered abducting her junior sister and taking her back to Lingxi Peak, where the siblings could brainstorm solutions. But she realized that among them, aside from their junior sister, only she had a slight grasp of medicine.
Yun Jiao was more skilled in crafting mechanisms, and their junior brother Yun Shan excelled in swordsmanship—neither could be of much help.
In the end, Yun Shu decided to leave her junior sister here. At least there were people to attend to and care for her, and Fufu’s stepmother didn’t seem to have a bad heart. She could also sneak in to visit from time to time.
Having made her decision, Yun Shu gave her junior sister’s cheeks two final pinches before silently vanishing from the room.
Meanwhile, Yun Fu had been sleeping more comfortably on the perch, exposing her belly, her tail dangling and swaying in the air.
Unexpectedly, the next moment, she was scooped up and bundled into the man’s arms.
From Wei Rong’s perspective, he had been sitting at his desk writing when he glanced up and saw A Fu revealing her fluffy belly.
Letting out a deep breath, Wei Rong stood up, walked over to the perch, and embraced the little cat who seemed to be tempting him.
“Were you trying to seduce me just now?”
Yun Fu, who had been sleeping soundly, was suddenly grabbed. Hearing these words, her small head tilted with great confusion.
“Meow?” she expressed her puzzlement and raised a paw in refusal.
How had she been seducing him? She was just sleeping peacefully.
Wei Rong casually caught the raised pink paw and kissed it.
He remarked, “Quite the skillful tactics.”
Yun Fu, her paw kissed, felt heat spread from her pad to her ears. Hearing Wei Rong’s words, she could bear it no longer and swatted a paw at him.
The result was being ravaged by the man once again.