Listening to her daughter's heartfelt words, the pregnant Lady Hou went on a killing spree.

"The son of the Marquis of Anshun, who was kept outside the palace, was born to a concubine and was falsely claimed to be of royal blood."

The Emperor has decreed that Marquis Anshun be punished by being paraded through the streets for a day as a form of retribution!

As soon as the yamen runner finished shouting, almost all the people on the street looked towards the Marquis of Anshun in the center.

Everyone had the same thought at the same time: Marquis Anshun was really too unlucky.

Whether it's true or not, the fact that someone witnessed the affair at the restaurant means it happened.

Unexpectedly, not long after, he started having an affair with a mistress who was impersonating a member of the royal family.

I wonder whose mistress she is; she's really got some nerve.

The common people all knew very well that if Marquis Anshun hadn't been Princess Zhaoyang's biological father, he would probably have been stripped of his title and imprisoned long ago. How could he have been merely paraded through the streets?

The common people felt that parading him through the streets was the lightest punishment for Marquis Anshun, but in Marquis Anshun's mind, being paraded through the streets was worse than being killed.

Remember how he used to be the foremost of the four great talents in the capital, someone who was revered wherever he went?

Now, he sees contempt, disdain, and ridicule in the way others look at him.

Various gazes intertwined and mingled together, forming pairs of eyes that spun rapidly in his mind.

Marquis Anshun covered his head, his legs numb as he followed the yamen runners.

The constables behind him would push him forward if they saw that he wasn't walking fast enough, and he just numbly wandered around the streets with them all day.

From a nearby shop, Ji Chunjiao took in the entire scene on the street, cursing Anshun Hou as a good-for-nothing countless times in her heart.

She had no idea that Marquis Anshun, besides the women in his household and her, actually dared to keep a mistress outside.

Okay, that's really great.

Since he is heartless, she shouldn't blame her for being unjust; he was the one who wronged her first.

"Honey, what are you looking at?"

An old man's voice came from behind her, and Ji Chunjiao turned around and gave him a sweet smile.

"It's quite interesting to see the Marquis of Anshun being paraded through the streets."

Ning Wang glanced down at the scene.

"What's so interesting about someone who's just a piece of trash?"

Ji Chunjiao laughed out loud.

"Your Highness is right, he's just a good-for-nothing, there's really nothing to see here."

"Well, have you thought it over? As long as you marry me as my second wife, you'll be in charge of everything in the mansion."

Prince Ning was a man who didn't discriminate between meat and vegetables, so he naturally didn't care what others said. Even if Ji Chunjiao had married his nephew, he didn't care.

"I am naturally willing to marry the prince, but the prince also knows that my health has always been poor."

"My dowry has been mostly spent over the years, and now my stepmother controls the household. If I were to marry a prince again, I certainly wouldn't have much of a dowry left. Outsiders would laugh at me to death, and I won't allow that."

"Then what do you want?"

When Prince Ning was young, he was considered a dashing figure in the capital. Now, in his fifties, he has long lost his former charm.

Ji Chunjiao's looks were exactly what he wanted. Two years ago, his wife passed away due to illness, and he didn't mind marrying her so he could look at her every day.

Ji Chunjiao laughed freely, knowing that Prince Ning liked her to laugh like that the most.

"Your Highness, if you help me obtain the dowry of the Marquis of Anshun, I will marry you with her dowry."

As she spoke, Ji Chunjiao lightly tapped Ning Wang's chest with her index finger, her face full of seductive charm.

"From now on, my dowry and everything else will belong to you, Your Highness."

"Hmm, that's a good idea. You wait and I'll think of a solution."

The imperial court is ruthless; this is something Prince Ning has known since childhood.

He didn't believe that the Emperor and Empress favored Princess Zhaoyang because they liked her; they must have some ulterior motive.

He didn't know what the Emperor and Empress were after, but he knew that their current attitude wouldn't last.

By the time the two of them grew tired of each other, Marquis Anshun would already be infamous and a mere figurehead.

At that time, Lady Anshun and Princess Zhaoyang, one a married woman and the other a baby, would be at the mercy of others.

Thinking about the entire capital city now, it's probably impossible to find another woman with a dowry as generous as that of the Lady of Anshun.

Who in the world doesn't love money? Prince Ning was no exception.

Without money, what would he use to squander?

For Prince Ning, gaining both a beautiful woman and wealth was a win-win situation.

Ji Chunjiao leaned against Prince Ning's chest, but her thoughts had already drifted far away.

As long as she can persuade Prince Ning to deal with Ji Yueru and her bastard child, she can simply sit back and reap the benefits.

The obvious benefit of the fact that the lady returned to the Marquis's residence last night is that the meals in the mansion's main dining hall no longer need to be prepared at fixed times and in fixed quantities.

Looking at the white steamed buns that the main kitchen had prepared early in the morning for the servants, the old man in the Marquis's mansion almost wept with joy.

Steamed buns.

Since the lady left the mansion, they haven't eaten any other fine grains since the food they had prepared was used up. Now they can finally eat them again.

The servant took a big bite, startling the guard who had come back with him the night before.

"No, are you exaggerating that much? It's like you haven't eaten in centuries."

"you do not know."

The servants ate while crying.

"We have had a very difficult time while Madam was away."

The guard loosened his belt.

"Don't even mention it, since I started following you, my belt has loosened up quite a few times. If this keeps up, my belly will start to show."

When the servants looked at the guard's belly, it really did look like that of a woman who was four or five months pregnant.

Looking down at myself again, the contrast between my clothes hanging on me like a clothes hanger and the rest of me is too obvious.

Two groups of servants were eating in the main kitchen; one group looked like servants from a wealthy family, while the other looked like starving farmhands from a landlord's household.

Waaah... The servants of the Marquis's mansion felt more and more aggrieved as they watched, and they ate even more voraciously.

The mother and daughter were a bit tired yesterday, so they got up later than usual today.

By the time they got up, Marquis Anshun had already been taken out by the yamen runners for a parade through the streets.

Zhiyi excitedly entered the room to help his wife with her makeup, telling her excitedly about what happened that morning.

"Madam, you didn't see it, the Marquis left with the yamen runners from the capital city government with a sour face."

The servant secretly followed him out for a while. The Marquis lowered his head so much that when you looked from behind, you could only see his neck, which was completely missing. Anyone who saw him would find it funny.

If he didn't walk, the constables behind him would push him along, and the people around him would all point and whisper about him. He probably wouldn't be able to show his face again after today.

An'an, who was having her diaper changed, kicked her legs excitedly as she listened; the sadder An Shunhou was, the happier she became.

Thinking back to how he treated his mother in his previous life, she was so angry that she almost went mad and fell into the demonic path several times. If she didn't avenge this, she would be unworthy of being human.

[Mother, I want to see the miserable state of Marquis Anshun.]

"Okay, Mommy will take you out later. Anyway, he'll be parading around all day, so we can make it in time."

After tidying up and having breakfast at the manor, the master and servants went out.

Mo Wen had already asked where Marquis Anshun was going, and his servants took a shortcut in a carriage to get ahead of him. They booked a private room on the second floor of a restaurant with a view of the street.

Just as the master and servants sat down, a woman's voice came from the private room across the street.