Chapter 67 Wait and See Who Will Be Ruined
Back to her own courtyard, Qiu Yelan unfolded the paper ball and scanned it, and showed an expression of “as expected”, “It’s just a show by Qiu Hongzhi and Qiu Yinzhi, probably under the guidance of Princess Yang.”
“How could they be so shameless!” Su He’s face was red with anger. “Sixth Commandery Princess and Young Master Qiu Yinzhi put a damper on Empress’s recent praise to Your Grace, and Your Grace told them that they were used as p.a.w.ns. But they turned to work with Young Master Qiu Hongzhi to go against Your Grace!”
Qiu Yelan touched her little head smilingly, “It’s not the first time that they have been so shameless. You need to get used to it.”
“What should we do now?” Su He didn’t want to refute and became upset. “Now that they are on the same side now, their servants will follow them. Especially the servants we just beat….”
“Then we can beat them again!” Qiu Yelan ordered slowly. “I remember there is a colored gla.s.s hairpin in the rewards of Empress. Give it to me.”
Chunran got it quickly. Qiu Yelan gave an idle look at it when taking it and put it in her sleeve, “Okay. Tell Cousin Hongzhi to search the Mansion!”
“What?” Chunran and others were stunned.
“Especially those servants who were punished just now!” Qiu Yelan lifted her hand to raked her fingers through her hair on the temple and said casually. “Just tell him that a piece of Empress’s rewards to me was missing after Qiu Jinzhu and Qiu Yinzhi came!”
Qiu Hongzhi strode into his cousin’s courtyard with a sulky face. When he saw Qiu Yelan was sitting leisurely on the swing under the pear tree and was watching him coming in with a strange half-smile, somehow anger welled up within him!
He shouted angrily, “What’s your problem? Jinzhu and Yinzhi came after the palace servants had left. You should have put the rewards away by then! You should search your own servants when your things are missing, but you want to search the Mansion! Don’t you know your uncle and aunt are not well now?”
Qiu Yelan said unhurriedly, “Why are you so angry? Of course I didn’t give my order for no reason. They basically never come to me, but they did come after Empress had sent the rewards to me. I certainly suspect them! Qiu Jinzhu came and made rude remarks to me! Although she never showed enough respect to me, she shouldn’t have scolded me once she met me!”
Speaking of it, she curved up the corner of her mouth, “When someone acts abnormally, there must be some designs! Now I know why she scolded me. It was a distraction of my attention for her to steal the hairpin….”
Qiu Hongzhi interrupted her with an angry expression, “Do you have evidence when you say it was them who stole it rather than your own servants? Have you searched them?”
“There’s no need,” Qiu Yelan said sincerely. “Look, this is the missing hairpin. So how could they steal it?”
Seeing the colored gla.s.s hairpin she took out from her sleeve, Qiu Hongzhi almost fainted with rage, “You… you slandered them!”
“They brought this on themselves!” Qiu Yelan sneered. “I beat them for their rude remarks, but I didn’t mention you! They could tell you it was me who incited them to go against you, so why couldn’t I ask them to return the hairpin?”
Qiu Hongzhi shouted loudly, “We are families! Why do you have to make a trivial thing complex when you can clear up the misunderstanding by a brief explanation?”
“You should say that to them!” Qiu Yelan also raised her voice. “Why do I have to give in? Because they are your brother and sister while I am just your cousin? Do you think it’s easy to bully me as my father and mother died?”
“You are the elder cousin. What’s wrong to give in to your younger cousins?”
“Then since you are the eldest cousin, you should give in to me! But why are you acting so aggressive?”
Their quarrel was so loud that it could be heard outside the deep courtyard. A while later, the servants peeped carefully and found Qiu Hongzhi left with an angry face.
“Commandery Princess Ningyi is getting tougher and tougher….” the whole servants of the Prince’s Mansion thought of the suffering that Qiu Yelan and Princess Ruan went through and were all scared. “Even Xiuyan, the confidential major maid of Princess was beaten. From now on, except for the masters, will there be any servant that she doesn’t dare to beat?”
Almost at the same time, Xiuyan knelt down with her injured body in front of Princess Yang and said in tears, “I think I never offended Commandery Princess Ningyi. Last time she was almost beaten to death by Lady Yuqing, and it was Your Grace who saved her and sent me to inquire after her health. Now she changed so fast! I never saw a person so ungrateful!”
Princess Yang was also angry. Everyone knew that Xiuyan was her faithful and capable servant, but Qiu Yelan beat Xiuyan together with those old maidservants who did simple heavy work. It was an obvious rebellious act against her!
However, Princess Yang thought for a while and finally only said, “The Empress supports her and we have no way. The good thing is that she’s now 13. When she is out of the mourning period of her mother and becomes 15, we will marry her into the Deng Family and let her be an actual widow!”
Xiuyan didn’t expect that Princess Yang would let it go easily and she felt sad, “But…”
“But the Empress won’t support that son of the b**ch!” Princess Yang glanced at Qiu Hongzhi’s courtyard with her face darkening and whispered, “Call that b*st*rd here tomorrow and I will ask him how he can be so useless as the master of this Mansion!”
Xiuyan realized that Princess Yang was not so scared of Qiu Yelan that she would not speak for her confidential major maid who was beaten openly. She wanted to take the chance to handle Qiu Hongzhi.
She reminded, “Just now Young Master Qiu Hongzhi has come to her.”
“It’s just a token gesture,” Princess Yang sneered and said. “That b*st*rd was taught by the old b**ch and was extremely deep! It’s very possible that on the surface, he had a big fight with that little b*tch but in private, he said nice things to her and put all the things on us!”
Xiuyan bit her lip and said, “In that way…”
“The two in the west courtyard, what are they doing these days?” Princess Yang asked seriously while rolling her jade bracelet.
“I heard that Lady Yuqing was not well either and never went out. Lady Lizhang often met Young Master Qiu Hongzhi… Oh, after Commandery Princess Ningyi saw off Young Lady He, Lady Lizhang came to her but was pushed away by her. Commandery Princess Ningyi ignored Lady Lizhang.”
Princess Yang sneered, “It’s no longer the time when that old b*tch was the Madame! That little b*tch Qiu Yelan is so vicious now that she even prevented that b*st*rd from burying the old b*tch himself. How silly that Kang Lizhang still wanted to cop an att.i.tude as a Lady in front of her!”
Xiuyan understood and said, “Kang Family are only common people, just wealthy among the crowd. The daughter of such families can at most be called ‘Miss’. She is not qualified to be called Lady.” She lowered her voice and suggested, “How about seizing this opportunity where Young Master Qiu Hongzhi is the master of the Mansion now…”
“That old b*tch just died.” Princess Yang hated the two from the Kang Family so much that she hoped they would be tortured to death as soon as possible. But she thought for a moment and sighed, shaking her head, “Prince is heart-broken for her death and is still ill in bed. He even doesn’t want to see anyone… If we deal with them now, Prince will be angry.”
Qiu Mengmin was not so silly as not to know the conflict between Princess Yang and Qiu Yuqing, Kang Lizhang and Qiu Hongzhi. If something happened to Qiu Yuqing and Kang Lizhang, the first one he would suspect would be Princess Yang, let alone Qiu Mengmin’s beloved eldest son!
“Yet, how deep the relations will be between the siblings who have both started their own family?” Princess Yang repressed her hatred and sneered. “Especially Qiu Yuqing has an annoying character! I highly doubt that without that old b*tch and after Prince recovers from the sorrow, she still can coax him into backing her!”
Xiuyan thought for a moment and said, “Lady… Miss Kang knows how to coax people.”
“If she could see anyone now!” Princess Yang said with disdain. “Wasn’t her face hurt? How should she run here and there? You tell her tomorrow that I’m concerned for her and want her to rest in her courtyard all day long! Prince has been sad these days. She is his niece but keeps coming to him, more often than Mingzhu and Jinzhu. Is she afraid that Prince will forget that old b*tch?”
Speaking of it, suddenly she thought of something, “I remember Fan, Qiu Yuqing’s servant, went before you to that little b*tch… Was she punished this time?”
Xiuyan gave a wan smile, “Her legs were broken.” Pausing for a moment, she continued, “No one dares to call a doctor for her and she is just left there!”
Princess Yang frowned slightly, “Was she punished in that little b*tch’s yard?”
“Exactly.”
“And Qiu Yuqing stayed quiet for her?” Princess Yang felt it unbelievable. “She’s not a clever woman!”
After thinking it twice she understood, “But she has a good daughter!” She must have been stopped by Kang Lizhang.
“It’s good for them that Kang Jinzhang died in the avalanche!” thinking of her niece’s skill, Princess Yang said with her face darkening, “Or else… Huh! They have done so many bad things and it’s a judgment on them!”
“This is a judgment on them!” in a courtyard where the pear tree was blooming, Qiu Yelan said leisurely to Su He. “Their own grandmother died but as grandsons, it’s okay that they don’t cry or wear mourning for her because they don’t want to be convicted by disrespecting their official grandmother. But now they don’t even have a sad expression. Instead, they fight against each other for the t.i.tle… Well, well, well!”
Su He was holding the little Persian cat in her arms and said angrily, “They deserve it!”
“Right,” Qiu Yelan said smilingly. “But if they don’t fight like this, my uncle and aunt won’t ‘recover’ soon. If they don’t recover, even if the list of the dowries is taken here, other people will think I’m not merciful! I don’t care about it, but my granduncle may care…. Especially my cousin just pa.s.sed the exam, and his fame shouldn’t be ruined by me!”
Su He brooded for a moment, “But now both Young Master Qiu Hongzhi and Young Master Qiu Yinzhi are making plans against you.”
“They are just pretending,” Qiu Yelan said with a slight smile. “Qiu Yinzhi is still too young and he listens to his mother. Qiu Hongzhi is not a fool. Last time I forced him to go with me to visit the graves of my parents and let him know clearly that my aunt wanted to ruin his life! Although I want to harm him, I can’t reach him immediately as we live far away. But my aunt is his official mother. It’s convenient for her to deal with him! So who do you think he wants to handle first?”
She moved the swing slowly and sighed, “It seems that it’s me who leaves the people in the Mansion in panic, but actually I’m not!”
I’m just pushing it ahead behind the scenes, she added in her mind.