Chapter 834 A Vision of Eternity
After being provoked by Shao Wanru, Shao Jie’er immediately raised her head and refuted, “Why would I not dare? Let’s go and find her out! What will you do if I find her?” She had always been unwilling to let off Shao Wanru, and she was in full confidence, so she was completely not afraid of Shao Wanru’s verification.
“If you point her out, I’ll consider believing that you have no intention of framing me!” Shao Wanru said with a slight smile. She seemed to be smiling, and seemed to be not.
“That I point your servant girl out means that I don’t intend to set you up? Fifth Sister, you really take advantage of such a statement.” Shao Jie’er said with a sneer. She had decided to listen to Old Madam and tried to avoid arguing with Shao Wanru about this matter. But the more Shao Wanru said, the more Shao Jie’er became annoyed with her.
Holding a strong conviction that she would be sure to win, Shao Jie’er finally decided not to make any compromise anymore.
“What do you mean, Second Sister?” Shao Wanru asked.
“I mean if I cannot find her, I will admit that it’s my fault and then in person kowtow and apologize to you. If I can, Fifth Sister will have to kowtow and apologize to me in front of grandma!” Shao Jie’er said with a sneer.
Shao Jie’er thought in her mind that she would definitely win!
Old Madam showed no intention of stopping her, just sitting high on the main seat with a gloomy face, which abetted Shao Jie’er to be more conceited. She looked at Shao Wanru with an increasingly complacent face.
In a bet where she must be the winner, she wouldn’t let Shao Wanru go so easily. Of course, she didn’t intend to do anything evil to Shao Wanru. All she wanted was to prove that Shao Wanru had sent someone to her, but not to say that she had seen Shao Wanru’s servant set the fire. No one else than Shao Jie’er knew better how the fire broke out.
“Second Sister’s condition sounds fair, but it is not. Can your apology be the same as mine?” Shao Wanru said with a faint smile.
In aristocratic families, the lineal system always had its hierarchy and order. The ident.i.ty of a daughter of the legal wife always overwhelmed that of a concubine’s daughter. Shao Jie’er, as the daughter of a concubine, was inferior to Shao Wanru. If a concubine’s daughter did something wrong to a daughter of the legal wife, the former must apologize to the latter. However, when the opposite happened, the latter did not have to apologize to the former in public.
From this point of view, Shao Jie’er’s conditions were indeed not fair.
Shao Jie’er’s face turned red due to her vexation. As a concubine’s daughter, she was inferior to others in the entire Duke Xing’s Mansion. And Shao Wanru had just emphasized it again in front of so many people, which made Shao Jie’er feel deeply ashamed and her blood rush up to her face. She glared at Shao Wanru with hatred as if Shao Wanru had done something heinous.
“Fifth Sister, what do you mean?” Shao Jie’er gritted her teeth but could not suppress the anger in her heart.
Shao Wanru glanced at Shao Jie’er with a calm att.i.tude, which formed a sharp contrast with Shao Jie’er’s anger and hatred. “I don’t mean anything else but that your method is unfair. If I am wrong, I will apologize to you. But I won’t kowtow to you! If you are wrong, I don’t need your kowtowing to me either.”
Though Shao Jie’er was a concubine’s daughter, she was the elder sister. So only her apology was enough for her mistakes. If she was required to kowtow to Shao Wanru, other people would gossip about it. Moreover, Shao Wanru did not mean to suppress Shao Jie’er. On the contrary, she even intended to create opportunities for Shao Jie’er to promote her status.
“Co-wife? If Uncle Jing had a co-wife, many problems could be separated to deal with.” Shao Wanru thought of Shao Jie’er’s mother as the “co-wife” she needed.
In fact, Shao Jing had several concubines, among whom only Concubine Lu had given birth to a child, Shao Jie’er. It was said that she was once a servant girl of Jiang family, and later she became a concubine of Shao Jing because of her master’s positive recommendation. She had always kept a low profile in the mansion.
She was very respectful to Jiang family and also got along well with other concubines. Although she was very inconspicuous, at least she could safely give birth to Shao Jie’er, who was Shao Jing’s only daughter of a concubine.
It was not bad for an inconspicuous person like her to live such a life in Duke Xing’s Mansion. The fact that she could give birth to a child under the pressure from Jiang family and Shao Jing indicated that she was a scheming person.
Recently, Concubine Lu had been helping the Third Madam manage the household. Shao Wanru had inquired that she was excellent at keeping everything well in order. It was said that she had got the experience from observing Jiang family manage the mansion before when she was still a servant girl of Jiang family.
She had followed Jiang family for a long time and then became a concubine, who was the one giving birth to a child, though the kid was a daughter. That showed Concubine Lu was not a naive woman.
Now it was the right time and there were two right people. But someone’s ambition was needed. Judging from Concubine Lu’s daily behaviors, she cannot be a reckless person, but someone else can be. Shao Jie’er was reckless enough to expose her ambition. However, it was hard to tell if her ambition could convince Concubine Lu.
Of course, she would not let go of such a good opportunity to humiliate Shao Jie’er.
Only by provoking Shao Jie’er could she provoke Concubine Lu.
After hearing Shao Wanru, Shao Jie’er gnashed her teeth secretly, but she had to agree on it. It was just fine to have no Kowtow. As long as Shao Wanru apologized to her, at least in the mansion, from then on Shao Wanru would avoid her whenever they met, which, as she believed, could help her to get the goods on Shao Wanru.
“Okay! Let’s do it!” Shao Jie’er nodded hard, turned to Old Madam and said, “Grandma, since Fifth Sister doesn’t believe what I said, I’ll go to Fifth Sister’s to point that servant girl out! At that time, the result will prove that I am not telling a lie!”
When she was proved to be right, Shao Wanru would be confirmed to be guilty. With her long eyelashes fluttering, Shao Wanru raised her head and looked at Old Madam who was with a gloomy face.
Old Madam did not say a word to stop her, which meant that she had agreed. Wanru’s eyes were full of coldness, without a trace of warmth.
“Wanru, have you really decided to allow Jie’er to identify that person?” Old Madam finally spoke and glanced at Shao Wanru with an unpleasant look.
“Yes, I have. Grandma. Let Second Sister send someone to find the servant. Anyway, I didn’t really ask anyone to talk to Second Sister.” Shao Wanru looked at Old Madam calmly and said.
Then she half closed her eyes with the long eyelashes fluttering down. She seemed to be a little tired and helpless. The uneven shadow cast down from the lamplight made her gorgeous face look as pale as snow, which inexplicably gave out an aura of delicacy. Standing in a corner, she seemed to be an outsider, totally different from the people around her. She was lonely, even many people were standing around.
Wen Xichi’s sight fell on the teacup in front of him. It looked like that he was focusing on the patterns on the teacup. but only he knew that after a glance at that delicate girl, he suffered severe and painful twitches on his heart, as if it was heavily pressed by something. He felt very sad and uncomfortable.
He tried his best to ignore that feeling by staring at the teacup. However, he still saw the delicate young face, the smile and the anger shown on it. They were just like a painting and seemed to have been deeply engraved in his memory. No matter how he looked at the teacup, everything in his mind was still about her.
However, Shao Wanru looked rather sorrowful. Even her smile revealed loneliness, sadness and helplessness. It seemed that she couldn’t rely on anyone even if she wanted to, which was always the sadness shared by women. Everything around her was filled with liveliness and happiness, but they belonged to others. She was alone to enjoy the loneliness…
An uncontrollable feeling for her was quietly coming into being in his deep heart. The glance just now seemed to have taken him to travel through the past a thousand years, and slowly gathered all his previous emotions. First came the indifference, later the suspicion, and finally the antipathy, all of which were mixed up together. That was a vision of eternity.
He had always been smart. He had never thought about things like that before, because he felt it impossible and had never considered developing a relations.h.i.+p with her. Now, all his dormant thoughts and feelings were aroused and became complicated because of that glimpse. His feeling for her became clearer and clearer, and he also started to realize it.
His heart, which had always been calm, lost its usual rhythm and beat at an abnormal pace.
Wen Xichi slowly reached out his hand to hold the teacup and took a sip. With his serene eyes, he raised his head and quietly listened to the conversations in the room. He didn’t look at Shao Wanru anymore.
“If it is so, go and find her out!” Old Madam, who was a little impatient, waved her hand and said.
“Yes, grandma, I’ll go and do it right away!” Shao Jie’er nodded and was about to turn around and leave. But she was stopped by Shao Wanru. “Second Sister, you don’t have to go to my chamber. It’s late. It’s not appropriate for you to go there like this!”
Shao Jie’er stood still and looked at Shao Wanru with a sarcastic smile on her face. “Fifth Sister, are you afraid? It’s fine. You will just need to apologize to me later. I can’t let you kowtow to me, can I?”
She thought that Shao Wanru stopped her because of guilty.
Shao Wanru shook her head with a smile and said, “Second Sister, why do you think I’m afraid? How can it be possible that I am? It’s neither my servant girl nor my calling for her. I’m just worried that you will be tired of going and coming everywhere at night. Why not ask one of your servant girls to do that for you?”
Shao Jie’er didn’t keep up with Shao Wanru’s thoughts. After being stunned for a while, she asked subconsciously, “Whom should I send?”
Shao Wanru glanced at Shao Jie’er and said with a smile, “I recommend your private servant girl Liuxiang. She can go there to find the servant girl out so that you don’t have to do that in person. Liuxiang was also that one always staying with you, so she should have seen her before!”
“…” Shao Jie’er opened her mouth, intending to say something. Her complacent look immediately turned nervous. First, she planned to tell Liuxiang about it, but she hadn’t got a chance to do that, for it happened so suddenly that she and Liuxiang fainted, and they were companied by others as soon as they woke up. There was no chance for them to have a secret conversation. How could Liuxiang know which servant girl she should point out?
Shao Jie’er had been flurried in her heart. They both pa.s.sed out before she told Liuxiang.
However, she had an inspiration and hastened to say, “When your servant girl came to me, Liuxiang had not come back yet. Liuxiang happened to not see her!”
“What about the moment you went out of that house? Did you go out alone before Liuxiang came back? ” Shao Wanru continued to ask.
Seeing that Shao Jie’er was aggressively questioned by Shao Wanru and was frightened in a cold sweat, Old Madam heavily put down the teacup in her hand. When she was about to speak, she was cut in by another clear voice, “Second Miss Shao, when you were in the pavilion, you said that your servant girl also saw her, and she also testified for you. Are you going to withdraw your confession?”