Ink Burns

Chapter 93 Curled Up Mist

The blood on his face was cooled by the wind and solidified into a blood scab with a fishy smell.

The tip of Shanyue's nose was tightly surrounded by the strong smell of blood.

Mrs. Wen looked at Madam Zhu in disbelief, without a trace of politeness or respect in her words: "You said that if I kill the maid, I can marry into the Xue family!"

Madam Zhu blew away the teacup slowly and calmly, her words were clear and her voice was soft: "What I said is, I need a gentle and obedient daughter-in-law to marry into the Xue family——"

The little maidservant on the ground had stopped twitching, her shoulders were soaked with blood, her clothes were sticking to her skin, and the blood that was about to dry looked like bright red plum blossoms.

Only the barely visible rise and fall of her chest proved that she was still struggling between life and death.

Madam Zhu was as soft as a jade onion. Her long, shiny nails touched the air and landed on the little maid's head. "Look, you've killed someone, can you still be called gentle? You are obedient, but not gentle, and you don't meet my standards for choosing a daughter-in-law—"

Wen still held the dagger in her hand and stood up with a bang: "You, you, you!"

Madam Zhu's eyes turned cold, and the old woman immediately rushed forward and grabbed Wen's shoulders with quick movements on the left and right!

With a "click", the dagger fell to the ground!
Wen’s shoulders are about to dislocate!
The excitement and momentum that he had just used to stab the man had long since faded, and his brain felt like it was filled with a jar of paste!

There is only one thought in my mind——

She was played!

Got tricked!
Suddenly I remembered the two coffins in the backyard!
Now one is filled with Gu, and the other is still empty!

Wen felt a little scared despite her courage: Will they kill her?
Probably not, right?
After all, her father was a juren. The wife of the prefect of Jiaxing Prefecture said that the other three girls had faked their identities, and she was the only one with a clean family background!
She has someone to support her!
They didn't dare to kill her easily!
"My uncle is the magistrate of Songyang County." Wen's hands were shackled behind her back. She leaned forward and stiffened her neck and said, "You are not allowed to touch me without permission!"

Mrs. Zhu burst out laughing.

"I thought he was such a high-ranking official!"

Madam Zhu turned her head and joked with He Wuma: "A small official like a grain of rice is not worthy of settling accounts with our family - we still have to go to the capital. If we stay in a small place for too long, our vision will become narrow. When we look up, the sky is so small that we can hardly imagine that there is a golden dragon ascending from the sky."

He Wuma nodded repeatedly.

Madam Zhu turned around, smiling as before, and stretched out her hand. She raised Wen's chin with her fingertips and took a closer look. "She looks good, but she has a fierce temperament. She is not suitable for my Xue family, but for another place where people are eaten."

Mrs. Zhu pointed her finger downwards, and He Wuma immediately bent over and presented a tray with both hands. On it was a small stack of papers densely written with words, and an ink pad with a slight slit opened.

Mrs. Zhu picked up the teacup again, but was not in a hurry to drink it, as if her hobby was not drinking tea, but disturbing the peaceful tea time.

"Sign it."

Mrs. Zhu's smile finally faded, and she took a sip of tea: "If you sign the confession, repentance, and confession, I will send you to a place richer than the Xue family."

"What. Where?" Wen stuttered.

Madam Zhu looked up and stared at her with a smile: "In the palace." Shan Yue, who was leaning over the ground, did not move, but his ears captured all the information accurately.

Wait, two coffins!
Shan Yue seemed to have his Ren and Du meridians opened up - why were there only two coffins prepared! It was not because Madam Zhu did not dare to kill Wen, the only one with a clean record!
But it’s because, in this election, two people are being chosen!

Anyone who is afraid to take action under heavy pressure is truly cowardly.

However, the girl who dared to kill someone in such a hurry and under such heavy pressure must be a ruthless person who is scheming and unscrupulous!

It is most appropriate for this kind of person to enter the palace to compete for favor!

At the beginning, what we wanted was two candidates!
Among the four "Qing Feng", two are chosen, and the two who are alive, one will go into the palace to fight, and the other will marry into the Xue family!
The two who were abandoned, no matter who they were, would lie in the two prepared coffins!
Shan Yue lowered her eyes, her long eyelashes blocking all her expressions. She caught a glimpse of a thin stack of documents on the tray that urgently needed Wen Qingwan's signature and seal, and she suddenly understood: once the people sent to the palace climbed to a high position, driven by their temperament and status, they would most likely break free from control and turn against the government!
The first prerequisite for Madam Zhu to use Wen is to get hold of her weakness!
It just so happened that Wen's family background was clean, unlike Gu, Lan and her, who were born with dirty backgrounds and had a tail.

If Madam Zhu wanted to keep a tight grip on Wen, what better evidence could there be than her confession in which she admitted to massacring decent girls?

Kill two birds with one stone, kill two birds with one stone, think carefully.
"Qing Feng." "Qing Feng" was smarter and more brutal than she had imagined!
Shanyue didn't dare to look up easily, and tried his best to maintain the collapsed, fragile, helpless and confused Liu Shanyue.

"Enter the palace?"

It was as if Wen was looking for a ray of light in a desperate situation: "Enter the palace? You want to send me to the palace?"

"pat-"

He Wuma raised her hand and slapped Wen: "Madam, I want to talk to you!" Then she bowed to Madam Zhu and explained: "You are not a proper maid of Qingfeng, so you lack etiquette."

Madam Zhu smiled nonchalantly, "No problem. Gentle girls are favored by nobles, and girls with hot tempers are also favored by nobles. Isn't the saint sitting on the dragon throne also of humble origin? He doesn't even care whether the tea he drinks is cold or warm, so how could he care about your details?"

When Mrs. Zhu said the last part, she covered her mouth with a handkerchief, with a blatantly mocking smile on her face.

He Wuma bowed again: "Yes."

Madam Zhu raised her eyes to look at Wen again: "Emperor Shengzu of the Great Wei Dynasty issued an edict that the selection of women in the Ye Ting cannot only be from wealthy families, and half of the women in the Ye Ting must be from good families born in the common people. Next year, it will be the fifth year of our saint's ascension to the throne. He is used to pretending, and he has never taken concubines since he ascended the throne. No matter how good the reputation of filial piety is, it has been earned by him."

Mrs. Wen ignored the humiliation of being slapped and stared at Mrs. Zhu with sharp eyes, as if she was waiting for some great news.

Madam Zhu was very satisfied with Wen's reaction: "I heard from the Ministry of Internal Affairs that next year the Imperial Court will select 30 good girls from the common people to serve in the harem. With your appearance and personality, I think it won't be difficult for you to make a name for yourself."

Shan Yue always restrains herself like a ball of mist that no one cares about, curling up quietly in the corner.

The tentacles of the mist spread and stretched, and she seemed to see Wen's hands curled up in her sleeves, and unconsciously she clenched them into fists.

".Where do I sign and seal?"

After a long time, Wen finally spoke. Her voice was light, like willow catkins floating in the sky, and heavy, like a weight falling into the sea.

(End of this chapter)