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

"Cooperation." Helian Jing opened his mouth and uttered two words, raising his eyebrows.

"Your Highness, keep an eye on the Empress for me," Xi Yueli said, her hands clasped in front of her again, her posture slightly more relaxed than before. "I'll retrieve that fragment."

Xi Yueli looked up at him. The candlelight flickered in the air between them. She opened her mouth to say "thank you," but the words were too light and stuck in her throat.

Helian Jing pushed a new dossier in front of Xi Yueli: "Take this list of spies. The people in the Dark Pavilion have their own path, and the Heavenly Pivot Division has its own path. Go your separate ways, and come together after the deed is done."

When Xi Yueli took the file, her fingertips touched his fingers. She lowered her eyes, put the file away, and took a half step back, creating distance as she always did when drawing a line between them.

This time, however, Helian Jing did not make her retreat. He took half a step forward, looked down into her eyes, which shone like two cold stars tempered by water in the candlelight, so bright that no one could hide from them.

"Xi Yueli," he said, "this is the fourth time you owe me. I'll remember it. You can pay me back slowly once this matter is settled."

He stepped back, reverting to his lazy and aloof demeanor, and tilted his head towards the door.

"Come on, I'll take you back, so you don't run into someone on the way and have to pretend to faint again."

……

In Jinxian Courtyard, Xi Yueli rubbed her hair in front of the bronze mirror, then bit her lips twice to make them turn white. Pale, haggard, with dark circles under her eyes and chapped lips, she didn't even bother with makeup. She pushed open the door and strode out.

Qingdai chased after her from under the eaves, carrying a bowl of hot porridge. "Miss! Where are you going—"

Xi Yueli didn't turn around. She staggered for a moment, then straightened up, like a lost bird rushing around aimlessly, startling the cleaning maid who took a step back.

The servants in the manor had just gotten up early in the morning when they saw the eldest young lady rushing towards Madam Fang's courtyard with disheveled hair and clothes. They were all stunned.

Is this a relapse? In the past, when she had a relapse, she would just space out and talk nonsense, but this time she ran straight outside?

"Young lady! Young lady, you can't go—" An old woman chased after her to stop her, but she shook off her hand. The old woman stumbled and bumped into a pillar in the corridor, crying out "Ouch!" and squatting down while clutching her waist.

Xi Yueli had already rushed to the front of the Fang family's courtyard and raised her hand to smash it.

The maids and servants in the courtyard were so startled by the commotion that they dropped their teacups and rushed over to open the door. As soon as the latch was pulled open a crack, Xi Yueli burst inside.

Madam Fang was drawing her eyebrows in front of the dressing table in the main room. Half of her well-maintained face was reflected in the bronze mirror. Her eyebrows were lightly drawn, her lips were lightly rouged, and a gold hairpin was just inserted into her temple.

When she heard the banging at the courtyard gate, she didn't stop drawing her eyebrow pencil. But when Xi Yueli rushed in, her hand suddenly paused at the end of her eyebrow, and she drew a crooked line.

"Hold her down!" Fang turned around abruptly, her face filled with annoyance at being interrupted.

Two burly old women rushed over from under the eaves, and Xi Yueli had already pounced on the door of the main room.

She braced herself against the door frame with both hands, staggered forward a step, and her hair fell down, covering half of her face, but the eyes hidden behind the hair shone brightly.

Xi Yueli staggered into the main room, her gaze passing over Fang Shi's astonished face and landing precisely on the dressing table.

With a "crash," she swept all the rouge and face powder off the table, shattering porcelain boxes, powder jars, eyebrow pencils, and lipsticks into pieces. The fine white powder rose up, making people cough.

The most expensive box of South Sea pearl powder belonging to the Fang family was smashed to pieces on the ground, with pearl powder scattered all over the floor.

Xi Yueli stepped on the broken porcelain and powder, leaned over the dressing table, and snatched the red-gold hairpin that Fang Shi had just put in her hair. She squeezed it in her hand for a couple of moments, then turned around and threw the hairpin out the window. The gold hairpin flew out the window and landed on the bluestone slab in the courtyard, breaking into two pieces.

Fang's face turned completely black. That red gold hairpin inlaid with rubies was a gift from the Empress herself in the palace. It was the only one of its kind in the entire capital, and it was taken from her own temple by the Empress on the day she entered the palace.

"Lily soup! You put Coptis chinensis in the lily soup!" Xi Yueli shouted at her.

Fang's face turned pale in that instant. Apart from herself and the person in the kitchen whose mouth she had bribed to keep quiet, no one else knew about this. How did this madman know?

"The account books! You had Zhang Mama tamper with the account books! There was a shortfall of sixty taels for the garden repairs in August! Two hundred taels were embezzled for the sacrificial ceremony in July! Another one hundred and twenty taels were embezzled for the purchases in September! You had Zhang Mama record every single transaction she handled."

"You wrote it down in the lining of an old almanac! You were afraid you'd forget! You were afraid Granny Zhang would steal your share! Every night when you checked the accounts, you'd take the almanac out, look at it, and then stuff it back under your pillow!"

Fang's face turned from white to green. That old almanac was her most secret possession, hidden for three years. Even Zhang Mama didn't know she had kept a record of the money. Every night before going to bed, she would take it out and check the day's money inflows and outflows, then put it back in the secret compartment under her pillow.

No one knew about this except her.

"Hold her down!" Fang's voice was shrill, like a chicken being strangled. She yelled at the two stunned old women, "Tie her up! Gag her! Tie her up now!"

Two old women rushed up and grabbed Xi Yueli's arms, one on each side.

"You send someone to deliver the iron plaque into the alley! You send Granny Zhang to knock on that wooden door without a nameplate in the south alley! You said three days! You said to be discreet and get rid of her!"

Xi Yueli suddenly turned around, her unfocused eyes suddenly focused for a moment, staring straight at Fang's face, and her voice suddenly lowered.

"Mother, Granny Zhang did the math for you and said three hundred taels was too expensive. You told her, 'I want her dead, so it doesn't matter if it's expensive.' You said those words yourself, do you remember?"

A chill ran down Fang's spine. The hatred in her heart was burning fiercely at that moment, and the words that had slipped out were only said to Zhang Mama. Zhang Mama would never betray her, so how could she have said such a thing to Xi Yueli?

The servants at the courtyard gate had huddled together, not daring to breathe.

Fang stood in the main room, her well-maintained face smudged with makeup, her lips trembling, and her whole body shaking.

Looking at Xi Yueli's eyes hidden behind her disheveled hair, she suddenly felt that they were not human eyes, but ghost eyes.

She is a stepdaughter whom she has schemed against for three years, poisoned, and had assassins sent to kill. She has finally crawled out from underground to seek revenge.

"Gag her! Send her to the estate! Send her now!" Fang's voice was squeezed out through clenched teeth, sharp as if she were being choked.

When Qingdai caught up with her at the courtyard gate, she saw her young mistress being pinned to the ground by two old women, her mouth stuffed with a handkerchief, and a rope wrapped around her wrist.

She completely lost it, rushed in, and shoved one of the old women: "Let go of the girl! Who gave you permission to tie up this young lady! You—"

One of Fang's personal maids came up to stop her, but Qingdai slapped her across the face.