Chapter 072
Chapter 72: Brown Sugar Mochi, Poisoned Blade
The carriage ride back to the manor was heavy and silent, the girls’ fear and anger after the close call pressing down on everyone like a dark cloud.
At parting, Qiu Ru Ying’s tearful, grateful gaze made the hearts of the Lin Clan’s three sisters and Xiao Man sink with guilt and worry.
By the time they reached the General’s Manor, dusk had already fallen.
The three sisters looked at one another and saw the same grim resolve in each other’s eyes; they turned at once toward their parents’ main courtyard.
Xiao Man, however, rushed straight for the Auspicious Cloud Residence.
She pushed open the courtyard gate and blew in like a gust of wind.
In the study, Lin Qing Xuan sat quietly by the window with a sutra and a cup of tea at hand, like a calm immortal living above the dust of the world.
Xiao Man marched up to him and snapped: “Eldest Grandson Young Master, you are really living easy!”
He lifted his eyes; the moment he saw her, peace returned to him, and a faint smile touched his gaze as he said: “You’re back.”
She huffed as her eyes landed on a plate of delicate Osmanthus Cake on his desk; after running all afternoon, she was starving, so she blurted: “I’m starving to death!” and grabbed a piece, stuffing it into her mouth.
The Osmanthus Cake was too dry, and she swallowed too fast; she choked at once and coughed hard: “Cough, cough, cough…”
Lin Qing Xuan moved quickly; he set down the book, reached for the teacup, and held it to her lips while his other warm palm pressed between her shoulders, gently helping her breathe.
With a tender, helpless indulgence, he said: “Eat slowly. No one is taking it from you.”
The warm tea washed the cake down at last. Eyes watering from the coughing fit, Xiao Man gulped another big mouthful of tea and finally felt alive again.
But when she looked up and met his handsome, worried face so close to hers, her temper flared. She knocked his hand away and, pointing at his nose, accused him: “This is all your fault!”
He answered at once, as if taking it in stride: “Yes, blame me.”
She jabbed again: “Your face almost got Qiu Ru Ying, Miss Qiu, killed today.”
He solemnly nodded and said: “Yes, it’s guilty.”
His soft, easy way of yielding left her punches landing on cotton. She stopped circling and went straight to the point, face clouding over as she told him everything: how the Third Princess used the Winter Green Peony as bait to lure the girls to a separate villa for flower viewing, when in truth she planned to ruin Qiu Ru Ying’s name; how they broke in to save her. She told it all, crisp and complete, like pouring beans from a bamboo tube.
Gifted with words, she made the whole thing vivid; when she got angry, her fists waved in the air. She spat out her disgust: “That Third Princess, I could spit! Wearing a royal title, but her heart is so black. She is more vicious than any stray dog in Potter’s Field!”
Lin Qing Xuan listened without a word; the smile on his face faded.
When she said the princess used a drugged incense that knocked Qiu Ru Ying out so a villain could steal her innocence, his brows knit tight, and the warm gentleness around him cooled into a hard chill.
When Xiao Man finished, he spoke at last, his voice cold as ice: “Shameless. All the sutras she has heard these days were fed to the dogs.”
Xiao Man, finally finding common ground, nodded hard. Then she slanted him a look, the corner of her mouth tipping up in mockery as she said: “Oh? Eldest Grandson Young Master, you really think she comes to hear you Expound the Dharma?”
Pinching her voice like a Noble Lady, she teased with a sweet drawl: “The drunk cares not for the wine, but for the man who Expounds the Dharma.”
His brow quirked; the icy air around him melted, and something thoughtful and amused stirred in his eyes. He considered her with a steady gaze and said: “Lesson learned.”
He leaned in a little, lowering his tone, smooth and deep: “Only… do you care about me, the one who Expounds the Dharma?”
“Cough, cough!” She had just calmed down, but his sudden flirt made her choke again.
[What are you even talking about! I’m telling you serious news, and you pull a sneak attack like that?]
[Seriously? Are the sutras stuffed with cheesy love lines now?]
The worst part was that coming from his calm, clear voice, the words made her both shy and mad, like something light had bumped her heart.
Her face flushed in an instant. Her eyes wandered, and she dared not meet the gaze that felt like it could draw her in. She blustered: “What nonsense are you saying! Stay on topic when we’re talking about serious things!”
For a hard redirect, she jabbed a finger at the remaining cake and complained: “Eldest Grandson Young Master, this cake is way too dry. Next time I’ll make you Brown Sugar Mochi, soft and chewy and sweet. It tastes a hundred times better!”
She hoped to stuff his mouth with food.
But his smile only deepened as he looked at her and said, each word clear: “I know you risked yourself to save someone today. That is a great merit. But it was far too dangerous for you and Wan Wan. In the future, think three times before you act.”
She threw up her hands: “When it’s life or death, if we stop to think three times, Miss Qiu would already be ruined!”
At the same time, the main courtyard of the General’s Manor felt like a block of ice.
General Lin De Shang, though in plain clothes, still carried the hard authority of a battlefield commander. Face like iron, he sat at the head. On the pear-wood table beside him, a fresh crack stood out, the mark of a furious slap.
Madam Liu twisted her handkerchief tight, eyes red with fear that still would not fade.
The Lin Clan’s three sisters stood with hands folded, each face grave.
A moment earlier, the eldest, Lin Yu Wan, had reported the danger at the flower-viewing party, brief but complete. She added nothing and hid nothing, but every word hit Lin De Shang and Madam Liu like a heavy hammer.
“Outrageous!” Lin De Shang roared like an angered lion. “A royal Princess acting so filthy, without shame, treating lives like grass, the law like nothing! Does she even deserve to be of the Imperial House?”
His shout shook dust from the beams.
“She dares to insult a minister’s daughter like this! Is there any law left in this Capital City!”
Madam Liu’s voice trembled as she said: “Heavens… A young Miss’s reputation is her very life. What the Third Princess did is no different from murder. Worse than murder.”
To destroy a girl’s name could drown her in spit and shame her whole family.
Lin De Shang paced the room, anger burning hotter with every step. “No. I will not let this pass!” He stopped short, eyes flashing with a deadly light. “I will go to court at first light and impeach her. I will ask His Majesty if this is how he raises his daughters!”
“Father, don’t!” Lin Yu Wan and Lin Yu Jiao cried in unison.
Madam Liu hurried up to stop him: “Master, please don’t act on anger! Calm yourself first!”
“How can I be calm?” he shot back. “Today it was the Qiu Clan’s girl. Who can say tomorrow it won’t be Wan Wan, Jiao Jiao, or Ning Ning? Must I wait until tragedy hits my own house before I speak?”
“Father, that wasn’t our meaning,” Lin Yu Wan said, stepping forward, her gaze steady and sharp. “The Third Princess is ruler; we are subjects. If you rush in without preparation, with only our word and no proof, how will you make her admit guilt? You may fail to convict her and instead be accused of slandering the Imperial House.”
Lin Yu Jiao added: “Yes, Father. Everyone at that villa is the princess’s trusted people. We can’t get witnesses.”
Pulled back by wife and daughters, his reason cooled his rage a little. He exhaled hard, dropped into his chair, and punched his own thigh, full of bitter unwillingness: “So we just watch this snake walk free to harm others?”
A cold light far beyond her years flickered in Lin Yu Wan’s eyes. She said each word like a nailed vow: “Father, Mother, please be at ease. To deal with a viper, either we do not strike… or we strike the seven inches and end it. Break her seven inches so she never rises again.”
Night deepened.
The study in the Auspicious Cloud Residence was still bright.
Xiao Man had gone to rest.
The air still seemed to hold her lively scent, and the sweet promise of Brown Sugar Mochi.
But Lin Qing Xuan’s face showed no warmth or smile. He stood at the window, moonlight glazing his profile with frost.
A royal Princess’s cruelty had crossed everyone’s bottom line.
He returned to the desk and spread a fresh sheet of paper. He lifted the brush and dipped it deep in ink.
The tip hovered, then fell, not to write flowing scripture or gentle landscapes, but a single name:
Third Princess Xuan Ji.
Impeach her?
No.
Too easy.
A darker light than the night glinted in his eyes. He did not want a few scoldings and days of house arrest. He wanted to rip out her power by the roots and grind it to dust.
For that, he needed more evidence.
He needed a seamless plan, a moment that would drag every crime into the sun.
The brush in his hand was no longer the gentle pen of scripture. It had become a blade ready to drink blood.