The Fourth Lady novel Chapter 107

Seeing Su Qingyuan like that, Ning Siyao felt as if she was getting struck by lighting.

It was as if she'd already predicted what had happened that night, and that it wasn't as simple as it appeared on the surface.

In the end, the bitter fruit planted by oneself, still needed to be repaid.

Just as the line: 'Heaven sins, yet can live; self sins, cannot live.'*

Perhaps, is referring to people like Ning Siyao.

(*T/N: Originally comes from the Classic of History, Shangshu, by Confucius; however, the author seemed to have written one of the character wrongs, unsure if intentional or not. The intended meaning I'm fairly sure is the same though. Instead of 'live', in the original, it's the word 'avoid' in the first part. It means along the lines of, you can avoid natural disasters brought by heaven, but you can't escape from disasters brought about by yourself.)

Su Qingyuan's scream spread to every corner of the courtyard. When Chai Yiyun arrived at Su Qingwen's room, she found Su Qingwen lying on the bed, that appearance looked very pitiful.

"Wenwen, what's wrong?" Chai Yiyun walked up next to Su Qingwen and worryingly asked, even pulling her into her arms. That appearance certainly looked like a good mother.

"Mother, just what do you think is wrong with big sister?" Su Qingwen carefully asked as she hugged Chai Yiyun. "Big sister seemed to have changed into another person."

Chai Yiyun didn't know just what was wrong with Su Qingyuan either, or rather what Ning Siyao had done, but this matter seemed to have exceeded their expectations. Perhaps, none of them were able to bear the consequences.

"Wenwen, don't worry. You have mother here, I won't let you be harmed." Chai Yiyun patted Su Qingwen's back as she spoke in a soft voice.

Now that Su Yun's returned, she needed to think of other ways to deal with Su Qingyan. But just what ways can she deal with Su Qingyan?

Chai Yiyun suddenly thought of a person she could use, and that was Su Ming's concubine. That concubine, called Ye Jiqing, has a son. But this son was ignorant and incompetent; eating, drinking, whoring, and gambling*, not one he didn't touch. And Ye Jiqing would always not be able to do anything about this son.

(*T/N: An alternative or simplified translation of this idiom would be 'to live a life of debauchery'.)

If she can use Ye Jiqing to deal with Su Qingyan, then perhaps it wouldn't be a bad idea. She had heard that Ye Jiqing was skilled with incenses. If she wanted to use this kind of method to harm someone, for the most part it should be feasible.

At that time, Su Qingyan will die unknowingly, and no one will know it was them who did it either. And if that doesn't work, then she'll just push out Ye Jiqing. Either way, it won't have anything to do with her; she can just sit and reap the rewards.

"Mother, I really think fourth sister is too scary." Su Qingwen mumbled while hugging Chai Yiyun.

"Silly child, you're the future Empress, what are you worried about? Mother will protect you." Chai Yiyun said as she tightly held on to Su Qingwen, hoping to give her a bit of warmth.

Su Qingwen's mood gradually was eased by Chai Yiyun. When she looked to Chai Yiyun, she spoke with a smile, "Mother, your daughter thanks you for your concern."

Chai Yiyun looked to Su Qingwen and endearingly held her hand, "Silly child, what nonsense are you saying. These are all things mother ought to do for you."

Looking at Su Qingwen's appearance, Chai Yiyun's heart ached the more she thought about it. But she didn't know what to do right now either. Furthermore, the situation's development seems to be increasingly exceeding her expectations.

When Chai Yiyun returned to her yard, her servant Meixue told her an interesting piece of information as a joke.

That was, the storyteller said: 'Recently, there's a noble family's daughter that became a prostitute that slept with a thousand men. Some say this was of this noble family's miss's own accord; some also say whoever's family ends up with this kind of a daughter would be considered a rather disgraceful* thing.'

(*T/N: The original idiom 'ren jin ke fu' is rather difficult to incorporate here so I'll just explain the intended meaning of the idiom. It refers a promiscuous woman, who can crawl into bed with any man and treat them as their husband, rather derogatory in modern use. There's actually another older interpretation of this idiom that involves a really long backstory, but it doesn't fit the context here. It's also a negative connotation, in the story a girl chooses to sacrifice her husband to save her father, and thus is called as such.)

In the end, this kind woman was less than a prostitute.

It's like how Yi Honglou is split into six levels; the topmost level girls only sell their talent and not their body, only the remaining five levels sell their body.

Chai Yiyun listened to Meixue's words and thought of Su Qingyuan's cries from earlier. For some reason, she figured Su Qingyuan was that noble family's miss in the stories. However, she didn't have a way to verify the reliability of this news with anyone.

Meixue looked to the pondering Chai Yiyun, naturally unclear as to what Chai Yiyun was thinking about in her mind. She only thought it was a joke.

On Qingyan's side, she was already more or less considered Sun Bimeng's close confidante. Under Qingyan's naive and innocent guise, Sun Bimeng actually told Qingyan all about her past in detail.

And Qingyan would also pretend to earnestly listened to her, but in her mind was another calculation in hand.

That day, after she left Sun Bimeng's yard, Qingyan didn't directly return to the Su manor, but rather headed to Julong Zhai, in accordance to her earlier agreement with Murong Jingxuan.

This time, inside Julong Zhai was only Murong Jingxuan alone. He was standing by the window, looking out into the scenery in the distance.

"Yan'er, you're here. I figured you should've arrived by now." Murong Jingxuan turned to Qingyan behind him and smiled.

Qingyan looked up into his eyes and smiled, "What did you ask me to come for?"

"Yan'er, the Imperial Consort said she wanted to meet you. However, she was turned down by the Fourth Prince, saying she'll naturally meet you during the Dragon Gate Banquet." Murong Jingxuan looked to Qingyan with a serious look, "After all, the previous matters made her rather doubtful of you."

This seems to be the second time Qingyan heard Murong Jingxuan say Qilian Yuran wanted to meet her. Fortunately, the Dragon Gate Banquet at the end of the month was about to arrive. However, meeting Qilian Yuran at that time, might not necessarily be a good thing.

"Thanks." Qingyan dully replied. "With Su Qingming and Xiuran's matter added together, it's already a bit vexing, moreover, there's also Sun Bimeng's matter."

"Thank you for your hard work on these." Murong Jingxuan walked up and hugged her, "Yan'er, I'll always stay by your side."

"Murong Jingxuan, for Sun Bimeng's matter, let's make a trap within a trap." Qingyan raised her head to look at him, "Although a Sun Bimeng can't bring about any influence to Su Qingming, she can affect the Second Prince. Especially his reputation with the commoners."

Murong Jingxuan furrowed his brows, "What are you planning to do?"

"Puppet." Qingyan slowly said this word. "I want to turn Sun Bimeng into a puppet; a puppet that will only listen to my command."

"But Chonglou doesn't know how to create that kind of medicine. Are you going to use the parasite method?" Murong Jingxuan tightly frowned as he looked at her. He was very disapproving of this method, because this method was a bit too risky.

Qingyan shook her head, "That's not the case. I can control animals, this bit you should know! I can have the ghost ringed scorpion live inside the person's body, thus controlling their will."

Qingyan's words made him shiver, when did she have that kind of ability, furthermore he didn't know.

"Yan'er, your ability to control someone's will...."

"I also only found out recently. I discovered that whenever I play the flute, the scorpion in my body feels excited for some reason. Later it told me, it seemed to be able to control other's hearts." Qingyan looked to Murong Jingxuan and slowly explained. Afterwards, she half-jokingly asked, "Don't tell me you think I'm a monster?"

Murong Jingxuan shook his head, softly saying, "Silly girl."