The maid was holding a set of bright green clothes.
Like a flamboyant peacock!
Shen Yunhuai frowned. “Change it. Bring something lighter in color.”
The maid froze for a moment. When she looked up and saw Third Master’s bare body, she quickly lowered her head again in embarrassment. “Yes…”
In Third Master’s wardrobe, the lightest color available was white.
The clothes were patterned with ink-style designs.
Honestly, Shen Yunhuai didn’t like it.
But he still accepted it. “From now on, you don’t need to help me bathe. You may leave.”
He had to find a way to hear more of his sister-in-law’s inner thoughts.
And change his fate!
Meanwhile, Madam Meng was kneeling in the ancestral hall, her anger still burning, with a faint trace of fear.
“Do you think Wen Jiushu saw something? I keep feeling like she’s discovered something…” she muttered.
Her hand gently rested on her lower abdomen.
A faint maternal softness appeared on her face, but she still shot a displeased glance at the person beside her. “It’s all your fault. We already have a son and a daughter, yet you still come to me every day—you truly have no restraint at all!”
Though she sounded like she was scolding him, her tone was actually coquettish.
Steward Lin gently wrapped his arms around her. “Madam has worked hard. After this one, we won’t have any more children. I just can’t help myself when you’re by my side.”
Madam Meng leaned into his embrace like a delicate bird. “This time, what excuse should I use to leave the residence to give birth? If we don’t drive Wen Jiushu out, I won’t give birth to this child! Cousin, I have a feeling Wen Jiushu knows something. Even if not for this child, for our sons and daughters, we cannot let her firmly sit as the Marquis’s wife!”
When she had her first two children, she had already used excuses from the fifth month of pregnancy to leave the estate and give birth.
At that time, the Marquis of Pingnan was at war, and she used the excuse of praying for him, going to a temple to eat a vegetarian diet for half a year.
That was how she gave birth to her eldest outside the estate.
The second time, she used the same method and managed to conceal it again.
But now, if she left the estate again to give birth, it would take at least half a year. How could she remain at ease while Wen Jiushu—carrying an “illegitimate child”—competed with her for the family’s inheritance?
Shen Yunhuai had no idea what madness had possessed him to actually side with Wen Jiushu!
If Wen Jiushu was not driven out, Madam Meng was truly furious enough to want to pound her chest in frustration.
“Madam, don’t worry. Wen Jiushu is carrying an illegitimate child. No matter how foolish Shen Yunhuai is, he would never allow an illegitimate child into the clan registry. The Marquis’s estate will still be in your hands,” Steward Lin said, his tone becoming slightly sticky as he stroked her waist.
Madam Meng pushed him lightly. “We’re still in the ancestral hall. Don’t be improper.”
“Haven’t we done this here before?” Steward Lin looked impatient, his voice heated. “When you’re here, Madam always clings to me especially tightly.”
Perhaps because they had once been intimate in the ancestral hall—under the watch of the Shen family ancestors—she always felt especially nervous here.
“Don’t… the baby…” she protested.
“I’ll be gentle.”
Madam Meng half-resisted, half-relented—and the two of them ended up becoming intimate right there in the ancestral hall.
Steward Lin and Madam Meng were childhood sweethearts; he was her cousin.
Back then, her maternal family had looked down on his humble background and forcibly separated them, marrying her off as a secondary wife to the old Marquis.
But the old Marquis was severely injured in battle and passed away within a few years.
Left alone in widowhood, Madam Meng once again thought of her old lover.
She found a way to bring him into the Marquis’s household as a steward.
Late at night, the two of them embraced again, and desire ultimately overcame restraint, filling the emptiness in Madam Meng’s heart.
And so…
Madam Meng was pressed against the ancestral offering table, directly facing the Shen family ancestors’ memorial tablets above.
She bit her lip, too afraid to look.
Her eyes turned red. “Cousin… don’t press on the baby…”
“Madam, even though you’ve already borne me a son and a daughter, in my heart, you are still as youthful as ever.”
He lifted her face and kissed her fiercely.
Steward Lin’s eyes carried a wild intensity. He raised his head and looked at the ancestral tablets above, revealing a triumphant, indulgent expression.
So what if it was a hereditary marquisate?
So what if it was the old Marquis?
The Marquis’s wife was his woman.
And he was taking her right in front of the Shen family ancestors.
Perhaps from sheer excitement, Steward Lin thought he saw one of the ancestral tablets above tremble slightly.