Who said the eldest daughter is crazy? She's clearly a woman of high rank and influence in the

The news of the annulment spread faster than the wind. In just one afternoon, everyone in the mansion knew that Miss Xi had publicly exposed the affair between Shen Yanzhi and the second young lady with a handkerchief.

The servants exchanged glances that held something different about them.

I used to see her as "that madwoman," but now, there's an unfathomable sense of apprehension in my eyes.

Xi Yuefu cried all day, and was taken back to her own courtyard by Fang Shi in the evening.

Fang was the stepmother, and she usually acted dignified and virtuous, but Xi Yueli knew that the scales in her heart had long been tilted.

She was stripped of her power over the household affairs, her father turned a blind eye, and her elderly grandmother was no longer involved in any matters. Behind every arrangement made against her in this family was the shadow of Fang Shi.

Early the next morning, Qingdai rushed in and said that the second young lady had gone to the old lady's courtyard to cry.

The stepmother, Madam Fang, also went and said that the eldest daughter had embarrassed the young master of the Shen family in public yesterday, and the Shen family had already sent word that "the Xi family's daughter has quite the airs, could it be that she has someone backing her up?"

The phrase "someone has someone backing you up" was cleverly conveyed.

Who will support a madwoman who is so sick she can't even remember yesterday? On the surface, this is expressing the Shen family's dissatisfaction, but in reality, it's accusing Xi Yueli of "not being a virtuous woman and having affairs outside the home."

Xi Yueli sat motionless by the window, flipping through the account book that Shen Yanzhi had already looked through.

There was a crease on the corner of the third page of the ledger, where he had stopped the longest. She turned to the third page to take a closer look, but it was just a few ordinary purchase records, and she couldn't see anything strange about it.

But Shen Yanzhi, an outsider, came all the way to look through her courtyard's account books; there must be something going on here.

"Miss, the old lady sent someone to tell you to come over now." Qingdai's voice trembled. "She said... that you were being disrespectful yesterday when you publicly revealed the second young lady's private affairs during the annulment of the engagement."

Xi Yueli closed the ledger: "Understood."

She changed into a simple dress and went to Xici Temple.

As soon as I entered the courtyard, I sensed something was wrong. The entire courtyard was quiet, and even the usually chattering maids were standing hunched over under the eaves.

She walked into the main hall. Madam Fang sat in the seat below the old lady, slowly stirring the tea foam in her teacup. Xi Yuefu knelt in the hall, her shoulders shaking as she cried. Xi Mingyuan sat to the side, his face ashen.

The old lady looked up as she entered, her gaze filled with a complex mix of emotions.

The granddaughter's public questioning when she broke off the engagement the day before yesterday was clear and incisive, unlike what someone with dissociative identity disorder would say. However, the message Fang delivered this morning has made her doubts again.

"Li-jie, kneel down."

Xi Yueli knelt down.

The old lady placed the teacup on the table. "I didn't want to bring up the matter of the annulment yesterday, but your mother said this morning that the Shen family sent someone to deliver a message last night, saying that when you questioned Young Master Deng in public with a handkerchief, you were 'aggressive and showed no manners of a lady'."

"Although the Shen family has broken off the engagement, if word gets out, others will only say that my Xi family has failed to raise our daughter properly."

Madam Fang sighed at the opportune moment, "Grandma, I'm only thinking of Li'er. Her illness is unpredictable; when she's well, she speaks fluently, but when she's not, she doesn't even recognize people."

"The way she looked when she broke off the engagement yesterday... it seemed like her illness had relapsed, and she was acting recklessly."

With a casual remark, "The illness has relapsed again," Xi Yueli dismissed all her sensible explanations as "madness."

Xi Yuefu knelt on the ground, crying until her throat was hoarse. "Grandmother, my sister publicly slandered me with a handkerchief... I really didn't have an affair with Brother Deng... That handkerchief must have been deliberately placed in my room by my sister..."

Three women make a drama: Fang plays the bad cop, Xi Yuefu plays the good cop, and the old lady sits on the stage clapping along.

Xi Mingyuan remained silent from beginning to end, but his knuckles were white as he gripped the teacup, a sign that he was about to lose his temper.

The old lady looked at Xi Mingyuan: "Mingyuan, what do you suggest we do?"

Xi Mingyuan slammed his teacup on the table, the sound so loud that the whole room fell silent for a moment, even Xi Yuefu's sobs stopped.

He stood up and pointed at Xi Yueli, who was kneeling on the ground: "What do we do? A month ago, she didn't come home at night and we couldn't find her anywhere in the mansion. The day before yesterday, she was caught talking to a strange man in an alley! What kind of behavior is this!"

Xi Yueli knelt on the ground, her back ramrod straight. She didn't defend herself. What could she say? That she had dissociative identity disorder and wandered around aimlessly?

Fang added softly, "My lord, please don't be angry. I just asked Granny Zhang, who guards the backyard, and she said that the lock on the west gate was indeed tampered with the night before last."

"When Li-jie has an episode, she doesn't even know what she's doing. What if she runs out and causes some trouble..."

"Send her to the estate," Xi Mingyuan interrupted her. "Send her today. The North Estate is quiet; let her go there to recuperate."

"Tie him up, so he won't have another attack and run away halfway through."

Two burly women came in from outside the door. Xi Yueli did not struggle when she was pulled up from the ground. She lowered her head and let the hemp rope dig into her wrist bone. She gritted her teeth in pain, her mind racing.

She was pushed and shoved through the side gate into the back alley. Qingdai chased after her from behind, crying and shouting, but was slapped across the face by Fang's personal nanny.

Xi Yueli turned around and saw Qingdai squatting next to the pillar in the passageway, covering her face and tears streaming down her face.

The mule cart in the back alley was parked outside the side gate. The cart was rough, with a thin layer of straw mat. The old woman pushed her onto the cart, but she tripped as she stepped onto the shaft, and her knee hit the cart with a dull thud.

She didn't cry out in pain. She settled herself on the carriage shaft, then suddenly turned her head and said something to the old woman driving the carriage. Her voice wasn't loud, but every word was clear.

"When Granny Zhang was repairing the garden in August, she got a 200-tael invoice from Yongchang Trading Company, but the goods were only worth 140 taels."

The old woman driving the cart was taken aback, then turned around and glared at her.

"The purchase in September cost two hundred taels in the account, but only eighty taels were actually spent," Xi Yueli continued, the hemp rope on her wrist making her fingers numb, but her voice was as steady as if she were reading a book.

"The sacrificial ceremony in July cost 300 taels of silver in the account, but only 100 taels were actually allocated. For three months, the same person handled all of it. The money that was transferred all went into the lady's courtyard."

The old woman's face turned pale instantly.

"Go tell Father," Xi Yueli raised her head, sunlight falling on her face, her eyes appearing slightly transparent in the backlight.

"I made a copy of the contents of the account book and hid it outside the mansion. If I am sent out of the city, that copy will be sent to the Ministry of Revenue tomorrow."

She didn't actually copy the book, but she was betting that the old woman wouldn't dare to gamble.

There was the sound of horses' hooves at the alley entrance.

A jet-black horse had just turned the corner. The rider was dressed in a dark blue robe, his hair tied up with a silver hairpin, and his brows were high and prominent. He had only been riding by, but his gaze suddenly stopped when he passed the alleyway.

He saw the mule cart parked at the alley entrance, and the girl with her hands tied behind her back, pinned to the cart shaft. She was so thin, so thin that her old clothes clung to her bones in the wind, as if she could be crushed with a single hand.

Then he saw her eyes.

Those eyes were slightly translucent in the sunlight, and within the light brown pupils was a cluster of extremely dark flames that shot up for a moment when a gust of wind blew, only to be suppressed again.

Helian Jing tightened his grip on the reins.

Four years ago, on the northern border, heavy snow blocked the mountains. He dragged a knife wound that ran across his chest and abdomen into a dilapidated temple. The temple door was pushed open, and a person walked in, wearing a black robe and with half of his face covered by a veil, only his eyes were visible.

Those eyes looked down at him, clear and cold like black jade. She focused intently on stitching his wound, her fingers steady as if she were doing something ordinary.

The last thing he saw before he lost consciousness was those eyes.