Chapter 89: When the Water Recedes, the True Stone Is Hard to See, Part One

"Wind Singer, you have brought forth a fine pair of children!"

With only those words, the Dowager Lady had already condemned Yun Qi and Yun Xiangrong. Need one say more? Merely corrupting the legitimate bloodline was already an unforgivable crime. What was more, if Yue Wan’s account was true, the two had also plotted to seize the title of heir and even the marquisate of Leaving Faith.

At this point, even if Yun Qi were present, he would scarcely be able to deny it.

Yet Zhaoyan still struggled for one last chance, clinging to life as she said, "No! Dowager Lady! This child in my womb is the Marquis's! The Marquis favored me! I and the Second Master are... are because the Second Master forced me! But the child in my belly is unquestionably the Marquis's own flesh and blood!"

A cold laugh sounded. How could the Dowager Lady still believe her? "If not for this affair today, I might still have given you three parts of belief. But we all saw clearly how the Marquis treated your young lady in life, and how he treated Chuixiu. Would he ever have shown favor to a vile maid like you?"

"If you truly served the Marquis, then answer me this: on the Marquis's right arm there is a cinnabar mole, no larger than a grain of millet. It is inherited through the direct Yun line. Do you know where it lies?" the Dowager Lady asked, then added, "Think carefully before you answer."

"The right arm... the cinnabar mole..." Zhaoyan stammered for a long while before admitting with guilty hesitation, "This maid could not see clearly at night."

The Dowager Lady gave a cold sigh. "Even now, you still cling to a dying struggle!"

At this, Zhaoyan bit her lip until it nearly bled, her face turning deathly pale.

"Dowager Lady, I have a plan." It was then that Shen Yu suddenly spoke, his tone as light as if he were discussing something trivial. "Since Zhaoyan refuses to confess, let her give birth to the child. My teacher, Doctor Qu Fang, is a divine physician of this age, and he is thoroughly versed in the method of testing kinship by blood. You are Wan Zhi's biological mother, bound by blood to him; with only a drop of your blood, you can tell whether this child is truly your grandson."

As he spoke, Shen Yu looked toward Zhaoyan, his gaze sharp yet pitying, as though eager to witness her receive the most miserable end. "If this child is Wan Zhi's flesh and blood, then Dowager Lady, you may give him to Chuixiu to raise, and then have the Second Master and Zhaoyan drowned in a pig basket for adultery. If this child is not Wan Zhi's flesh and blood... then for the crime of corrupting the direct bloodline of the Marquis of Leaving Faith, drowning in a pig basket would be too merciful. They would first have to endure peeling and gnawing torture, so that the two of them are cut by a thousand knives and suffer a fate worse than death!"

A shriek burst forth. Zhaoyan had already clapped her hands over her mouth in terror, as if stunned by the dreadful punishments Shen Yu had described. Head bowed, she vomited in the court hall. Filthy retching followed one after another, and the floor was soon covered with filth, all of it from the breakfast Zhaoyan had eaten that morning in the Hall of Prosperous Splendor.

The Dowager Lady’s face twisted in disgust, regret, and fury; once more, brilliance flashed in the fine lines at the corners of her eyes. "To think Chuixiu even came yesterday to request leave from the Hall of Prosperous Splendor, saying she would bring you here this morning to take breakfast and meet the various branches of the family... Who knew it was nothing but opening the door to invite a wolf in!"

The Dowager Lady gave Shen Yu another glance, then said to Zhaoyan, "We shall proceed as the Young Marquis says. I will spare your life for a few more months. When the child is born, we shall test its blood for kinship, and your crimes will be judged together then. Zhaoyan, you had best think carefully. You are with child; whether this pregnancy is the Marquis's or the Second Master's, the child is still of the Yun bloodline. If you are willing to speak the truth today, I may, for the child's sake, spare your life."

"Mercy, Dowager Lady! Mercy, Dowager Lady!" Zhaoyan was already terrified senseless by Shen Yu's proposal of blood testing. She no longer cared about the filth on the ground. Dropping to her knees, she slid forward a few times and kowtowed repeatedly in confession. "This maid confesses! This maid confesses! I beg the Dowager Lady to spare me for the sake of the child in my womb!"

"You are finally willing to confess." The Dowager Lady sighed coldly. "Then was it also you who harmed Yanan's life?"

Zhaoyan had no strength left to distinguish anything. Weakly, she nodded. "But the matter of Madam Chuixiu's miscarriage today truly had nothing to do with this maid!"

"Do not change the subject. I am asking you about Yanan's life!" the Dowager Lady snapped.

Zhaoyan was already sobbing so hard that tears and mucus ran together. Whether in remorse or despair, no one could tell. She answered truthfully, "At the end of last year, this maid accidentally met the Second Master, and later... we entered into an illicit affair. The Second Master said the Marquis's body was weak and that he would not live long. Better to turn the situation to our advantage: let me conceive the Second Master's child, then actively seduce the Marquis. At that time we would claim the child in my womb was the Marquis's son, and thus he could be raised lawfully within the direct branch. Later we would find a way to make the child heir."

"I thought, since Dowager Lady you enjoyed such splendor, that I too might imagine wildly. If I had the Second Master's help, perhaps my child might truly deceive heaven and earth and become heir, and I could become a proper mistress... Who could have known that the young lady would suddenly fall with child? The Second Master and I were caught off guard, and we intended to scheme to make the young lady miscarry..."

"So you deliberately lured Yanan to a secluded place and pushed her into the water?" the Dowager Lady asked sharply.

By now Zhaoyan was crying so hard she could scarcely breathe. After shaking her head for a long while, she said, "No, no. The original plan was indeed to make the young lady miscarry, but before we could act, she took the initiative to ask the Second Master for a meeting... She knew the Second Master had long coveted Chuixiu, yet had failed several times to get his way, so she made an agreement with him: she would create the opportunity herself, and he would ruin Chuixiu's innocence."

Zhaoyan struggled to catch her breath as she continued in tears. "The young lady hated Chuixiu to the core. She always felt that the Marquis had feelings for her, so she came up with this scheme, intending to let the Second Master take Chuixiu's body, and then accuse Chuixiu by invoking the disaster of brothers competing for a woman, so as to ask the Dowager Lady to punish her..."

"On the day she met the Second Master, the young lady deliberately dismissed the servants and went out with only me. Along the way, on the pretext that she had caught cold, she sent me away to fetch a cloak... But I had long heard the Second Master mention that they had arranged to meet in the Quiet Garden, so I pretended to know nothing and returned to the House of Knowing Righteousness. When I went to find the young lady after fetching the cloak... the Second Master had already pushed her into the water."

"Vile maid! Even now, you still want to lay all the blame on the Second Master! Who knows whether you yourself were the one who harmed your mistress, only to shift the blame onto another!" Flower Dance-king clutched her forehead and accused her furiously, impulsively moving forward as though to strike her.

Zhaoyan looked at Flower Dance-king in fear and wept, "At this point, why would I lie? However wicked I may be, I would never have taken my young lady's life; I only wanted her to be unable to bear children... It was the young lady herself who harbored evil intent. Afraid she might be seen meeting the Second Master, she dressed in plain clothes when she went out, styling herself like Chuixiu, hoping to frame Chuixiu..."

"Later it was the Second Master who told me that the young lady's heart was too vicious. If we only intended to make her barren, then one day, should she discover the truth, the end of me and the Second Master would surely be dreadful. So after speaking with the young lady, the Second Master decided to strike first and strike hard. He seized the dagger she carried for self-defense and stabbed her once, then pushed her into the water."

"And then you stole a second dagger, quietly placed it in Chuixiu's room, and framed her?" the Dowager Lady asked in fury.

Zhaoyan dared not deny it any longer. "The Second Master said someone had to bear the black pot, and Chuixiu was the most suitable one to bear it, both in feeling and in reason. She also had the strongest motive to harm the young lady..."

"So the matron in the washing house, Mother Jing, saying the cloak had already been returned to Chuixiu, was also a lie told at your and the Second Master's behest?" the Dowager Lady pressed on.

This time, Zhaoyan shook her head. "That cloak was taken back by the young lady herself. Mother Jing was old and mistaken, and took the young lady for Chuixiu."

At this point, further details were meaningless. In the end, Xia Yanan had still died by her own cleverness.

The Dowager Lady narrowed her eyes, as if in thought, and let her gaze sweep across the people in the hall one by one: Flower Dance-king, unable to bear the truth; Wen Xian, grieving with pity; Shen Yu, full of indignation; Yun Xiangrong, weeping in remorse; and Yue Wan, fearless...

"Yue Wan, you have rendered meritorious service today. Yet you are a maid of the Second House, and you betrayed your master. Do you know this is a grave taboo in the Yun residence? How do I know that one day you will not be like Zhaoyan, harboring treacherous intent and harming your master in pursuit of favor?" The Dowager Lady suddenly turned her spearpoint upon Yue Wan and questioned her sternly.

Hearing this, Yue Wan no longer concealed anything and could only explain, "Reporting to the Dowager Lady, this maid has an elder sister named Yue Ju, who once served the Second Master and was greatly favored. When the plague ravaged Fang Prefecture last year, the Second Master was ordered to leave the city to search for the Marquis. When he returned, he favored my elder sister... Using precious medicinal ingredients to ward off the illness for several days, he went out of the city and returned unharmed, and she managed to endure it. But my sister was not so fortunate; instead, because of her closeness to the Second Master, she contracted the plague..."

As she spoke, Yue Wan choked on her tears. "Later, my sister was sent by the Second Master to deliver a gift to the Madam, who was then Miss Chuixiu, and in doing so she accidentally passed the plague to her. For Chuixiu's sake, the Marquis did not hesitate to move to a separate residence and personally care for her. But the Second Master feared my sister might infect others, and feared she might reveal that he had given Chuixiu an aphrodisiac... So he wrapped her in a straw mat and threw her outside the city to await death..."

"My sister was only sixteen, in the bloom of youth, and she served the Second Master with all her heart, yet in the end she never even drank a bowl of medicine... The Second Master told others that my sister had sneaked out to see someone and thus caught the plague and died, but in truth she contracted it because of him! He not only stood by and let her die, he also threw her out to die! How could I swallow such a grievance? Today I naturally had to expose the Second Master and seize the chance to seek justice for my sister!"

Still kneeling on the ground, Yue Wan let tears fall drop by drop. Her accusation was so heartfelt that one could not help but believe it true. "Both of us were born servants, yet Miss Chuixiu received the Marquis's deep regard, while my sister did not even have a coffin! The Marquis and the Second Master are clearly brothers, yet their characters are so vastly different..." By the end, Yue Wan was already sobbing uncontrollably.

The Dowager Lady heard this and lowered her gaze in thought for a long while before saying, "A servant is a servant. Since you sold yourself into the Yun residence, your life and death belong to the Yun household. As for how the Second Master will deal with Yue Ju, that shall be his decision. What you have spoken today is understandable, but the matter is of great importance; I must have you detained before deciding your punishment."

There was no anger or indignation on Yue Wan's face, as though she had long foreseen this ending. She knocked her head heavily on the floor and said, "This maid only wished to avenge my wrongly killed sister, and also, seeing the Marquis's benevolence and Madam Chuixiu's pure character, I would not see the direct bloodline corrupted. Now my wish has been fulfilled; I submit myself to the Dowager Lady's disposal."

The Dowager Lady sighed deeply and nodded. "A spirited girl, then. Go sit in prison for a few days first. When this matter is over, we shall speak of how you are to be handled." With that, she looked again to the hall steward, who then escorted Yue Wan away.

From beginning to end, Yue Wan did not say another word.

As the Dowager Lady looked upon Yue Wan's righteous, death-defying bearing, a premonition suddenly rose within her. This drama, orchestrated from behind the curtain by Chuixiu, was likely far from over...