Chapter 785 Counterattack Begins
“Sister, I have to go back to my place to attend to some business, so I’m leaving now.” As Madame Jingrou said, she proudly left unscathed in a both elegant and poised manner under the gaze of the others struck dumb with astonishment.
Not to mention the Empress and the others, even Lin Mengya was taken aback by this.
A docile sheep suddenly turned into a tough tigress, which was quite a sudden change.
Coming out of the Linqiu Pavilion, Madame Jingrou seemed to be relieved.
After glancing at Lin Mengya with a bitter smile, she went limp.
“Madame!” Lin Mengya and Ningqiu cried in low voices and immediately went forward to help Madame Jingrou up.
It was only then that Lin Mengya realized that Madame Jingrou’s palms had been sweaty.
“It’s alright. After all these years, I’ve truly forgotten about what happened before,” Madame Jingrou said with a smile.
Lin Mengya thought that she should take a fresh look at Madame Jingrou.
She had considered Madame as a gentle, honest, placid and reserved woman. Unexpectedly, Madame Jingrou was also sharp in what she said and aggressive.
They hurried back to the Fengyu Court. Lin Mengya and Ningqiu immediately helped Madame Jingrou change into casual clothes.
In the chamber, the scent of the burning incense, which produced curling up smoke, was no longer as strong as before.
“Madame, what you did today was so impressive that even I was shocked. Did you see Her Grace’s expression? Her face turned livid with rage! Madame, you should have shown some severity earlier. In that case, we would not have been treated harshly before,” Ningqiu said joyfully.
She had suffered a lot over the years when she worked for Madame Jingrou.
Now seeing that Madame Jingrou had toughened up, she felt delighted as if she had avenged her grievances.
“Stop saying that. Given the Empress’s disposition, she won’t let me off easily for what I did today. I don’t mind this, but I’m afraid she’ll pick on you. Helan, Ningqiu, as my personal maids, you should both be careful and don’t act recklessly,” Madame Jingrou said.
She was certainly aware of the consequences of what she did today.
But the current situation gave her no chance to regret it.
Ningqiu nodded and went to make tea for Madame Jingrou with a smile, leaving Lin Mengya and Madame Jingrou in the room.
Madame Jingrou turned to look at Lin Mengya, who remained puzzled, and waved at her with a smile as a hint for her to come over.
Then Madame Jingrou asked, “Do you think that I did that abruptly?”
Lin Mengya had advised Madame Jingrou to toughen up before.
But haunted by what had happened back then, Madame Jingrou kept putting up with the Empress.
Now after meeting Xin Luan once, Madame Jingrou became as fierce as a volcano and enraged the Empress with only a few words, which was unbelievable.
“Yes, a little, but what you did was also very cathartic. The Empress has stirred up trouble for such a long time. It’s time for you to teach her a lesson,” Lin Mengya said with a smile.
She had never been a person who allowed others to tread on her neck.
Back in the Jin State, whoever messed with her, be it the Emperor or the Empress, she fought back.
That was the reason why she was worried that Madame Jingrou, who was over tolerant, would get used to taking insults lying down.
Unexpectedly, she finally saw Madame Jingrou’s means no less drastic than hers.
“In the past, I made a coc.o.o.n to shut myself in and kept putting up with Hui’er because I felt sorry for her. But what did I get from that? I almost lost my only son and suffered all these hardships because of her. I’ve paid what I owed her long ago,” Madame Jingrou said.
It made sense, but Lin Mengya had an intuition that Madame Jingrou did not seem to have told her the whole thing.
But she knew that she could only wait quietly for Madame Jingrou to tell her the rest rather than ask Madame Jingrou about it.
“You are smart. I believe you will understand what I’m going to say. Also, I hope that we could keep my words between the two of us.” Madame Jingrou gazed at Lin Mengya with a severe look in her beautiful eyes and said.
“Madame, please go ahead,” Lin Mengya said.
If she wanted to know the secret, she must keep it properly.
She was not curious. It was just that she was in the same boat with Madame Jingrou and Xiaoyu now, so she wanted to know more about them so that she could come up with more countermeasures.
“When I tried to leave the Xin Family for marrying His Majesty, Xin Luan helped us. He is a very smart man, and even my Eldest Brother and Xin Li are no match for him. Before I left the Xin Family, he said to me that we would only meet again at a critical moment where my husband’s and son’s lives were in serious danger. The last time he came, I went to meet him, but he refused to meet me euphemistically. But today, he met me,” Madame Jingrou said with a grave look.
Lin Mengya finally realized why the two of them showed strange looks in their eyes the moment they met.
Their conversation was completely aimless, as their meeting sent a signal of danger.
That explained why Xin Luan paid another visit to the imperial palace and Madame Jingrou underwent a thorough change after meeting him.
It turned out that these were the signs of danger.
The meeting between Madame Jingrou and Xin Luan indicated that they were at the most critical moment, and their first priority at present was to make the Empress, the Eldest Prince and their force loss their cool.
The situation outside was out of Madame Jingrou’s reach, but she could try her best to change the situation in the imperial palace.
That was the reason why Madame Jingrou went to the Linqiu Pavilion to completely enrage the Empress, and it was a direct method, as someone like the Empress could not stand this kind of humiliation.
“Madame, you made a correct decision. But considering the Empress’s power and influence in the imperial palace, we’ve stirred up a hornet’s nest,” Lin Mengya said with a smile.
In fact, she didn’t take the Empress’s threat seriously.
The truly terrifying person was the one she was going to face tonight.
“That’s true. The Empress, from a n.o.ble family, will certainly seek help from her elder brother who decides and acts arbitrarily and dotes on his only sister. After that, he will certainly make a scene in front of His Majesty, which will offer His Majesty a reason to demote him. Once he falls from power, the Eldest Prince will lose half of his supporters,” Madame Jingrou said.
This move was truly ruthless.
At this time, Lin Mengya was more worried that the Eldest Prince was actually more powerful than what they had seen so far.
However, she forced herself to swallow the words on the tip of her tongue.
In any case, Madame Jingrou’s move was helpful to her plan.
If she told Madame Jingrou about her concern so that Madame Jingrou returned to overcautious and indecisive, all her efforts would go to waste.
“I got it. Madame, you are wise,” she said.
By this time, the sun had gone down.
As the time of her appointment with the Eldest Prince approached, Lin Mengya involuntarily felt anxious.
It seemed that it would not be so easy for her to get through this night.
Although the Emperor did not come, he sent a eunuch to take Madame Jingrou to meet him.
They were presumably going to discuss countermeasures tonight.
Lin Mengya found an excuse to stay in the Fengyu Court. Now only she and Baisu were in the s.p.a.cious side chamber.
“Miss, let me go for you. The Eldest Prince is of insidious means. I’m afraid you can’t deal with him,” Baisu suggested.
Because of what had happened last time, now Baisu didn’t dare to move a step from Lin Mengya, for fear that she would take another risk alone.
Lin Mengya’s eyes glittered in the flickering candlelight.
She wrote down what had happened today detailedly on the paper. If she didn’t guess wrong, tonight the Eldest Prince would interrogate her about Madame Jingrou’s offending the Empress in the daytime.
Alas, it was really difficult to give him an answer.
“No, if you go, you may be in greater danger than I am. Baisu, you should keep your distance from me. Once you’re discovered, run away immediately without leaving any trace, got it?” Lin Mengya said.
She knew Baisu was willing to risk her life for her.
But now, she could only get through this by strategy.
She had a very bad feeling about the Eldest Prince.
Even when she first met Xin Li, she did not feel so fearful.
It was an instinctive premonition of danger.
Maybe the Eldest Prince would be the most dangerous person she had ever confronted in her life.
She could only deal with him and protect herself by being careful in every aspect.
“But…” Baisu said with a frown, and her eyes were full of worry.
However, Lin Mengya waved as a hint for her to stop talking.
Then she said, “Listen to me. If you want me to come back safely, do as I say.”
Baisu nodded heavily. Although she was still laden with worry, she could only obey her master’s order in the current situation.
“Jingle, jingle…”
There came crisp bells that could hardly be heard and sounded particularly strange in the quiet night.
It was impossible for Lin Mengya, who had a keen hearing, to get it wrong. With a severe look in her eyes, she thought the person sent by the Eldest Prince had come.
After she blew out the candle, she and Baisu looked into each other’s eyes in the dark.
After exchanging glances with Baisu, Lin Mengya picked up the secret letter, pretended to be possessed, and stepped out of the side chamber.
The bells were faint and intermittent, seeming to be ringing in a certain rhythm.
Nevertheless, it was not difficult for Lin Mengya to distinguish them.
It was frighteningly quiet around. When she stepped out of the Fengyu Court, she realized that something was wrong.
There were servants on night duty in the palace. Why did she hear no sound all the way out?
The bells became increasingly clear and rang in an increasingly quick rhythm.
Finally, at the corner of the path, a pet.i.te person with a bell in her hand was waiting for her.
“Follow me,” the person said.
From the cold voice, Lin Mengya could tell that it was a girl.
Lin Mengya staggered behind her, only to find that the girl walked much more steadily than she did even without a lamp.
It seemed that the girl had practiced martial arts.
As the night breeze blew, the subtle fragrance of a kind of flower came into Lin Mengya’s nose.
The Shen Nung system in her brain reacted immediately. That explained why there was not even one servant on night duty in the courtyard.
It turned out that the servants had gone off to dreamland under the influence of the strong fragrance of the hypnotic flowers.
Lin Mengya found the pet.i.te and dainty figure more and more familiar, and it accidentally reminded her of someone she had met in the daytime.
It was her as expected!
No one other than her was able to evenly spread this fragrance of the hypnotic flowers throughout the entire Fengyu Court.
However, there was no this kind of flower in her room.
The moon hung high in the sky, casting a beam of silver light.
Lin Mengya, who had gotten used to the dark, vaguely saw the rigid face through the moonlight.
The palace maid working in the greenhouse! It was impossible for her to get the wrong person. Unexpectedly, the palace maid worked for the Eldest Prince!