maidservant

Chapter 153 The Pharmacy is Sealed Off and Yunshan is Suppressed
The head constable picked up the money bag and shook it; the crisp sound of the brass lock was particularly jarring in the silence. "Manager Song knows what's good for him."

He grinned, revealing yellow teeth, and his boots rolled over the dregs of medicine on the ground. The two of them, pockets full of money, swaggered away.

The female doctor, Liao, rushed out from the back room, grabbed her pestle, and was about to charge forward when Yun Shan stopped her, her voice as cold as ice water: "Forget it."

Two days later, just as half of the doors had been removed and the staff were cleaning the lobby, the doors of the clinic were kicked so hard they made a deafening noise.

Mei Renxing stepped across the threshold, waving his gilded folding fan. His official boots rolled over the newly paved blue bricks, leaving long mud trails on the ground. "Miss Song, you have quite the generosity!"

He deliberately emphasized the word "girl" in an ambiguous way, using his folding fan to lift Yun Shan's chin. "But the medicine tax is the medicine tax, and the protection fee is the protection fee—"

"Does Your Excellency intend to drink human blood?" Doctor Liao suddenly stepped forward, pulling Yun Shan behind her. Her movements were swift, and her sleeve swept the medicine jar off the table.

Amidst the sound of shattering porcelain, she straightened her back and stared directly at the greasy, fat face: "I just paid the medicine tax the day before yesterday, and today you want protection money again? May I ask, sir, is this protection money meant to keep the clinic safe, or is it to protect your insatiable greed?"

Mei Renxing's smile instantly froze as he glared at Doctor Liao.

Seeing that she didn't seem to be from Kyoto, but was just a female doctor practicing medicine, he snapped his folding fan shut and poked her on the shoulder: "What a sharp-tongued bitch!" Seeing the action, his subordinates stepped forward and pressed down on Doctor Liao and Yun Shan.

Yun Shan felt her head was heavy. She shook her shoulders, pulled out both hands, and cupped them to Lord Mei, saying, "Our shop's profits are meager, please forgive us, sir."

"Other shops can pay, why can't you?"

"Our master has powerful connections. Even if you have some connections with Lord Li Mao, you're just a seventh-rank official. Do you dare to go against our master?"

Yunshan was dressed in a plain white outfit, with her glossy black hair styled in a bun, and her two fair wrists were visible when she clasped her hands together.

Mei Renxing, overcome with lust, suddenly grabbed Yun Shan's wrist. Yun Shan's eyes widened, and she immediately understood his intention. She frowned and quickly pulled her hand away.

"Guards! Seal this clinic off!" The constables outside immediately brandished iron chains, the clanging sound startling everyone on the street into retreating inside.

Yunshan found them funny, and the whole world was funny.

If the shop were really shut down, it would cause a huge commotion. Xiaoyue would definitely be worried then, Yunshan thought to herself, "Let's avoid trouble! Let's avoid trouble as much as possible!"

She seemed depressed and didn't have the energy to argue with them, so she gave them another sum of money.

Unexpectedly, a few days later, the corrupt official came again.

When Mei Renxing lifted the carved window curtain with the tip of his folding fan, Yun Shan was staring blankly at the raindrops outside the clinic.

She saw Mei Renxing approaching from afar, his belly protruding. The extortion of the past few days weighed heavily on her, like a damp cotton ball, making even breathing painful. But she was powerless to shake off this pain.

"Miss Song, what refined taste you have! You even enjoy appreciating this rain!" A greasy voice, reeking of alcohol, wafted in as Mei Renxing strode into the consultation room, swirling a gilded wine pot. "My chronic chest pains still require Miss Song's personal treatment."

Yunshan gripped the silver needle in her sleeve, her fingertips trembling in the scent of medicine.

She should have known that these people wouldn't let it go from the moment the clinic was first vandalized.

Seeing that she didn't move, Mei Renxing sat down next to her.

"Why hasn't your lover been with you these past few days? Did he go somewhere to mourn at his master's grave?"

Yun Shan glared at him angrily, but to the corrupt official, her expression was even more amusing than a beautiful woman's angry outburst.

When Mei Renxing's thick hand suddenly grabbed her waist, the silver needle had already pierced his "Neiguan" acupoint on his wrist with lightning speed. The corrupt official screamed and staggered backward, the overturned wine pot spreading dark red on the blue bricks, looking just like a pool of congealed blood.

"Take him back to the government office and beat him to death!" Mei Renxing roared furiously, clutching his bleeding wrist.

The staff couldn't stop them at all; Doctor Feng and Doctor Liao had gone on a house call. They were frantic, begging the corrupt official to let their manager off the hook.

Xiao Tao took out her two taels of silver to offer to Mei Renxing, but Mei Renxing frowned, glanced at it, and pursed his lips, looking down on it. His subordinates, however, quickly accepted it.

But Mei Renxing was not one to be soft-hearted; he took the money and the man with him.

The bailiffs rained down water and fire sticks, and Yunshan curled up among the dregs of medicine, her plain white dress soaked in blood.

Mei Renxing wanted to test her temper so she would willingly serve him; he never intended to actually cripple or kill her.

Yun Shan had been unable to eat or sleep well for days, and her health was already deteriorating. She seemed to hear Mei Renxing saying something, but the voice sounded like it was coming from behind a thick blanket, getting farther and farther away, and more and more indistinct.

"Master, he's fainted!" The subordinate noticed something was wrong and immediately stopped what he was doing.

As the dungeon's iron door slammed shut, a stench of decay and dampness mixed with the smell of rust assaulted her senses. The dragging pain brought Yun Shan back to her senses. Two constables were supporting her, dragging her bleeding right leg, leaving winding trails of blood on the moldy walls.

The oil lamp overhead cast her shadow in a fragmented way, like torn butterfly wings.

"I have to live, Song Yunshan." She gently banged her head against the wall in the cell, trying to clear her mind, but her head was still a mess, as if it couldn't function.

Unexpectedly, after less than half a day in jail, that corrupt official asked her to leave again.

Mei Renxing, with bruised and swollen eyes and wine stains on his robe, bowed low like a groveling lapdog: "Miss Song, you've been frightened! This humble official was blind to your greatness."

Before he finished speaking, his men had already unlocked the chains of the cell, and two maids followed closely behind, carefully helping Yun Shan out of the prison.

Yun Shan thought to herself that a benefactor had intervened. She was destined to survive, but she didn't know who had rescued her.

Outside the prison, the sunlight was blinding. The corrupt official bowed and scraped as he had a maid help Yunshan to a side hall to wash up.

"No need! Her Highness is in a hurry to see Manager Song." A deep, middle-aged woman's voice, authoritative without being angry, said. Yun Shan followed the direction of the voice and looked up with difficulty. It was the old woman beside the Princess.

When the curtain of the golden sedan chair was lifted, the gilded hairpins swayed so violently that it was hard to open one's eyes. The nanny helped Yunshan into the sedan chair. Yunshan bowed her head to the princess with difficulty, then slumped straight down on the bench.

"Lord Mei, what a grand display of power!" The Princess tapped the sedan chair pole lightly with her fan, the clinking of pearls startling the birds roosting under the eaves. "This female physician who saved my life is now a prisoner in your jail?"

Mei Renxing knelt down with a thud, his forehead hitting the blue bricks heavily, making a dull thud: "This humble official is unaware of the connection between Miss Song and the Princess, I beg Your Highness for mercy!"

Yun Shan glanced out the window. As she watched Mei Renxing kowtow repeatedly, she suddenly found the scene absurd and laughable—the vicious dog that had been so domineering just the day before was now tugging at its tail and begging for mercy.

The princess reached out and straightened her crooked hairpin, her cool fingertips brushing against the bruises on her cheek: "Come, I'll take you home."

As dusk fell, the sedan curtains billowed and fell in the wind. Mei Renxing's kneeling figure gradually shrank into a black dot, while Yun Shan gazed at the street scene flashing past outside the sedan, suddenly remembering the dying wormwood sprouting from a crack in the dungeon wall—

She is lucky.

But with corrupt officials in power, the lives of ordinary people depend on the mercy of those in authority. How many people like her can truly be pitied?