Xie Yushu hadn’t eaten enough at the banquet, so halfway through, she directly ordered Zhao Feng, the driver, to detour to Fanlou for a proper meal before heading back to the Pei Mansion.
As soon as she entered the mansion, she saw Pei Shilin standing in her courtyard with a cold, dark expression.
He looked at her and asked, “Where have you been?”
“Eating at Fanlou,” Xie Yushu replied cheerfully, holding onto Jin Ye and Yin Ya as she walked into the house.
“Even if you went to Fanlou, you should have at least let us know! Your mother and I searched for you everywhere!”
Pei Shilin angrily crossed his arms to block her path.
He clearly smelled the scent of alcohol on her and asked, “Have you been drinking?”
Before Xie Yushu could get angry, Xiao Dao suddenly flashed forward and slapped Pei Shilin’s arm away, causing him to stumble back a few steps and nearly fall over.
Pei Shilin’s anger deepened.
He steadied himself by leaning on a stone table, his face turning red with embarrassment.
Pointing at Xiao Dao, he shouted, “Isn’t he the one who injured the Duke’s Young Master and Meng Tingchun today in the Guogong Mansion? Is that dog of yours the culprit?”
“Am I giving you face?”
Xie Yushu pressed down on Xiao Dao’s shoulder and coldly looked at Pei Shilin.
“Pei Shilin, are you really refusing to have a good day for even one moment? Zhao Feng, Wang An.”
Her two burly bodyguards immediately stepped forward, grabbing Pei Shilin’s arms on each side and forcefully pressing his face down onto the stone table.
Pei Shilin groaned in pain, but the humiliation was far worse.
This was the Pei family.
Even if Xie Yushu defied the heavens, she was still his wife!
Throughout history, no wife dared to strike her husband!
Refusing to endure this humiliation any longer, he angrily shouted, “What are you all standing around for outside the courtyard? Bring in some men and bind this poison woman, Xie Yushu!”
The servants and junior aides stormed into the courtyard, frightening Jin Ye and Yin Ya, who tightly protected Xie Yushu.
“What is the Pei Mansion doing?!”
Mammy Xi Zhi shouted anxiously, dragging her weak legs as she rushed out to stand in front of Xie Yushu, trembling with anger.
Xie Yushu gently placed her hand on Mammy Xi Zhi’s trembling shoulder, and with a few swift moves, Xiao Dao sent several servants flying aside.
She spoke calmly, “Zhao Feng, break Pei Shilin’s right arm.”
“Yes, Madam.”
Zhao Feng responded immediately.
A sharp crack echoed clearly through the air.
Pei Shilin’s scream was so piercing it seemed to tear the sky apart.
The servants and aides were dumbfounded, never expecting the lady to truly injure the young master.
They had no time to bind her and instead swarmed to help Pei Shilin.
The courtyard instantly descended into chaos.
Pei Mother Li Huixian hurried over and was so shocked by the scene that her face turned pale.
When she saw her son on the ground clutching his arm and nearly fainting, she panicked and burst into tears.
She shouted at the calmly watching Xie Yushu, “What are you doing?! He’s your husband! Are you trying to kill him?! What good will it do you if he dies?!”
“If he dies, being a widow isn’t so bad,” Xie Yushu smiled in reply.
“When your second son dies in prison, the Pei family will have no successors. Then this little bit of family property will all belong to me.”
Li Huixian stared at her in stunned silence.
She never expected Xie Yushu to say such cruel things.
“Poison woman! Shilin really made a mistake marrying a venomous woman like you! What sin did the Pei family commit to bring you into the house and suffer such calamity?”
“What sin? Don’t you know the answer in your heart?”
Xie Yushu sat down coldly, looking at them both.
“Fortunately, I’m a poison woman. If I were even a bit weak, you mother and son would have sucked me dry and used me until I died.”
Mammy Xi Zhi beside her was trembling all over, her eyes reddening.
Yes, who was it that turned the kind and gentle Miss Xie Yushu into this?
Wasn’t it these people?
On the third day after marrying into the Pei family, Xie Yushu was sent by her own husband to the Prime Minister’s Mansion…if she were even slightly weak, she probably wouldn’t have survived.
“Divorce…tomorrow we divorce…”
Pei Shilin gritted his teeth and said, his bloodshot eyes staring at her.
“Dream on.”
Xie Yushu sneered, “You want to divorce me after using me? There’s no such good thing in this world. If I divorce you, how am I supposed to rack up green hat value?”
Her eyes glimmered as they flicked over them.
“Let me make one thing clear today: though Pei Shilin is not worthy of me, I’m still the Madam Pei for now, and I’m living quite comfortably. Before I get tired of this, the only way out is widowhood. Only widowhood. No divorce.”
Pei Shilin and Li Huixian were so shocked by her words they were momentarily speechless.
After a long while, Pei Shilin forced out through the pain, “How can this world…have a poison woman like you…”
Xie Yushu smiled.
“There wasn’t one before, but now there is. Since my husband and mother-in-law know how vicious I am, they’d better serve me well from now on, and we’ll live a peaceful life as husband and wife. Otherwise, this poison woman has plenty more poisonous ways.”
Li Huixian was nearly furious, her eyes red as she stood up gritting her teeth.
“This is unjust! Tonight I will make a scene at the magistrate’s office and let all of Bianjing know the face of this poison woman!”
She charged at Xie Yushu like a raging bull.
Zhao Feng reached out to stop her.
Suddenly, a sharp, cold wind sliced through the night with a “snap” and struck Zhao Feng’s hand.
Zhao Feng cried out in pain, dropping a stone to the ground.
His right hand bore a bloody crater from the blow.
“Who’s there?!”
Xiao Dao jumped up and rushed toward a direction outside the courtyard wall.
Li Huixian froze in place.
Xie Yushu stood up and heard the system voice in her mind: “Host, a [Targetable Character] has appeared nearby.”
Who was it?
It couldn’t be Xiao Zhen or Song Jie—they wouldn’t have reason to save Li Huixian.
What important [Targetable Character] would save Li Huixian?
Could it be…?
Her expression turned cold as she watched Xiao Dao’s back.
He seemed to be struggling with someone on a large tree outside the courtyard wall.
He appeared to be losing as he was suddenly dragged down.
“Xiao Dao, come back!” she shouted immediately, ordering Zhao Feng and Wang An to go all out.
Fortunately, Zhao Feng and Wang An scaled the wall and soon returned with Xiao Dao.
Xiao Dao held his right wrist, face pale, lowering his head as he said to her, “Sorry, I didn’t catch the person.”
“Are you hurt?”
Xie Yushu reached out her hand.
Xiao Dao hesitated when he saw her hand, then looked up at her.
“Let me see your right wrist,” Xie Yushu frowned as she spoke.
For some reason, Xiao Dao felt warmth in his chest.
He had never been cared for like this before and awkwardly stood there, dumbfounded, saying, “Not injured, just an old wound being pulled…”
Her warm hand directly grasped his arm, lifting his twisted right wrist.
Xiao Dao’s heart raced warmly in his chest.
He secretly looked at her and thought: she really is different from everyone else.
She wouldn’t hit or scold him.
She doesn’t even know who he is, yet she gives him full meals and immediately pays attention to him, cares for him…
The gatekeeper suddenly rushed in, frozen in shock at the sight of Pei Shilin collapsed on the ground and Li Huixian’s disheveled hair.
He didn’t know who to report to first.
“What’s going on?” Xie Yushu looked up and asked him.
The gatekeeper answered instinctively, “Ma-Madam, someone is waiting outside the mansion, saying they’ve come to pay money. They asked you to come outside.”
Is it Xiao Zhen coming to pay?
Tonight has been quite lively.
If Song Jie comes too, it’ll be even more entertaining.
Xie Yushu let go of Xiao Dao’s hand, instructed Yin Ya to find a doctor to check on him and Zhao Feng, and whispered quietly to Jin Ye.
In the alley outside the Pei Mansion, an inconspicuous carriage was parked.
Xiao Zhen was still waiting inside.
His attendant stood by the mansion’s gate, waiting for Xie Yushu, who came to collect the money.
After a short while, Xiao Zhen heard the attendant’s voice, “Where is your Madam? Has she not come out?”
Had Xie Yushu not appeared?
Xiao Zhen lifted the carriage curtain and looked out.
Only Jin Ye, Xie Yushu’s little maid, had come out.
She reached out to the attendant and said, “Just give me the silver notes. Our Madam has already retired.”
There’s no way she really rested—there were so many people jumping around in the backyard just now.
“Our master wishes to see your Madam in person to hand over ten thousand taels of gold,” the attendant said.
The little maid replied, “Our Madam isn’t someone you can see whenever you want.”
Her arrogant attitude was exactly like Xie Yushu’s.
“Give me the silver notes, and our Madam will return whatever your master wants,” Jin Ye said.
“If your master really wants to see our Madam, he’ll need to pay an additional five thousand taels of silver.”
“An extra five thousand?”
The attendant’s voice rose in surprise.
Xiao Zhen remained silent and sneered coldly inside the carriage.
He had truly opened his eyes; he had never seen a woman so obsessed with money.
Now he suspected that her disguise as Xie Jia Ning to visit the Song Mansion was also for profit.
The attendant, not having authority to decide, came to ask for Xiao Zhen’s instruction.
“Give it to her,” Xiao Zhen said.
“But she must come to me personally to collect it.”
The attendant returned to Jin Ye with the message, and she wasn’t surprised at all.
She said, “Tell your master to wait by the Pei Mansion’s back door.”
It was as if Xie Yushu had already calculated he would choose this and gave Jin Ye instructions in advance.
Xiao Zhen frowned, a rising fury choking his throat.
He despised feeling so controlled.
If she was like this, he would have to tame her and make her obedient—his pawn.
Xiao Zhen ordered his attendants to drive the carriage to the Pei Mansion’s back gate but stopped in a nearby alley across from it to avoid being noticed lingering at the gate.
This time, Xie Yushu came out quickly.
Supporting Jin Ye, she followed Xiao Zhen’s attendant to the carriage in the alley across and sarcastically said, “Fourth Prince, you’re very cautious. A stranger might think I’m secretly having an affair with you.”
“Get in,” Xiao Zhen said, not wanting to argue with her.
The attendant lifted the curtain to invite her inside.
Xie Yushu held out her hand, “Give me the silver notes first.”
Xiao Zhen’s face was shrouded in darkness.
He stared at her, both angry and amused, and nodded to the attendant.
The attendant handed over a stack of silver notes.
Jin Ye took them quickly and counted, then nodded to Xie Yushu.
It was indeed ten thousand taels of gold plus five thousand taels of silver.
Only then did Xie Yushu support Jin Ye and get into the carriage.
She had just entered and was adjusting to the dim light when a hand suddenly grabbed her shoulder and yanked her forward.