Chapter 28
Chapter 28: Brainstorming in the Second Branch
After Lin Yu Ning spat out, “Tell Mother! How can something this big happen without Mother?” she turned and tried to dash out again.
Lin Yu Jiao reacted fast. She grabbed her sister by the back of the collar and hauled her back.
“What are you doing now?” she snapped.
“Telling Mother!” Lin Yu Ning answered, righteous as a little judge.
Her face practically glowed with the joy of sharing scandal. “This news is too juicy. Mother has to know! Dad and Uncle have been sneaking around, and Mother still doesn’t know!”
Lin Yu Wan felt a vein jump at her temple. She was about to scold her youngest sister for running her mouth when Lin Yu Jiao’s eyes lit up—bright with mischief, bright with approval.
“That’s right!” Lin Yu Jiao clapped her hands, already grinning. “Mother will definitely be curious. Come on, come on—let’s go together. There’s strength in numbers. Maybe Mother will even have an idea!”
And just like that, she joined the youngest at once, tugging Lin Yu Ning along as they hurried toward Second Madam Wang’s courtyard.
Lin Yu Wan watched her two troublesome sisters with a long, helpless sigh.
This matter wouldn’t stay hidden anyway. Better she went along to keep them from spreading nonsense unchecked.
Resigned, she lifted her skirt and followed.
The three sisters blew into Second Madam Wang’s main room like a gust of wind.
Madam Wang had been leisurely arranging flowers. Seeing her daughters arrive in such a state—especially the youngest, breathless and disheveled, ornaments skewed—her heart dropped.
And with her eldest and second daughters wearing expressions that did not bode well, she set down her shears and let her face settle into a stern line.
“You three… what disaster have you caused this time? All three of you together—did you poke the same hornet’s nest?”
Lin Yu Ning opened her mouth, but Lin Yu Wan stopped her with a single look.
Lin Yu Wan flicked her gaze sideways. Lin Yu Jiao understood at once. She turned and began shooing every maid out.
“Out, out! All of you out! Close the door—and don’t come in unless you’re called!”
Even Matron Li, Madam Wang’s most trusted attendant, was ushered out with the rest.
Lin Yu Wan went to the door herself, checked the bolt carefully, and slid it shut. Then she moved to the windows and closed each carved lattice panel one by one.
The motions were calm, but the atmosphere turned solemn in her wake.
Madam Wang watched them, worry climbing higher with each click of wood and latch.
Dismiss the servants. Bolt the door. Close the windows.
This was not the behavior of girls who’d broken a vase.
She sat straighter, her expression tightening. “Speak. What world-ending trouble have you made?”
Lin Yu Ning finally had her moment. She chirped like a sparrow, recounting what she’d seen near the bathhouse at Auspicious Cloud Residence in vivid, breathless detail—twice as dramatic as before.
This time she lingered on everything: Xiao Man’s “rumpled clothing,” her “peach-blossom flush,” her “darting eyes,” the way she “clutched the towel as if she’d done something she couldn’t let anyone see,” and how cousin “must still be in the tub and hadn’t come out.”
She even spun up imagined sounds behind a screen—water splashing, whispers, soft gasps—until the whole story practically steamed in the air.
Lin Yu Wan pressed a hand to her forehead, her patience wearing thin. Her youngest sister’s skill at embellishment was terrifying—and somehow, each retelling acquired new details.
Madam Wang’s expression shifted with each sentence: stern to shocked, shocked to unbelieving, unbelieving to something complicated and difficult to name.
When Lin Yu Ning finished with a triumphant, emphatic “debauchery in broad daylight,” Madam Wang’s face tightened as if she’d bitten something sour.
“You… you saw it with your own eyes?” she demanded, voice rising.
“With my own eyes! Absolutely!” Lin Yu Ning puffed out her chest, smug as could be. “Just now! I saw her run out. That look—there’s no way I’m wrong!”
Madam Wang drew in a breath, trying to swallow the explosion of it.
Then she narrowed her eyes. “Does your father… does he know about this? Or rather—does he know about your cousin and that maid?”
Lin Yu Ning looked even prouder, delighted to have more ammunition.
“Of course Dad knows! I overheard it myself! That day Dad and Uncle were whispering in the training hall, and I heard everything. Uncle gave Dad silver notes, and Dad gave Uncle a little box—full of picture albums. Then Dad said things like ‘the young master has awakened’ and ‘we have to help the young master take down that maid’!”
She pointed at herself as if she deserved a medal. “I’m the one who told my sisters. Without me listening at the wall, you’d all still be in the dark!”
Madam Wang stared at her youngest daughter, speechless for a long beat.
The shock in her chest drained away and was replaced by a sharp, hot irritation—the particular fury of being excluded from something interesting.
So Lin De Shang had been plotting behind her back.
He’d been doing this with his brother, and he’d dared to hide gossip this monumental from her.
Madam Wang pressed her lips together, forced her temper down, and fixed her daughters with a hard look.
“All three of you—keep your mouths shut. Not a single word leaves this room. Especially you.” She pointed at Lin Yu Ning. “Watch your tongue. Don’t go spreading this to your miss friends. If I hear any rumors outside, I will skin you.”
Then her tone softened, turning coaxing as her gaze returned to Lin Yu Ning.
“Yu Ning. For the next few days, go to your cousin’s courtyard more often. Don’t truly ask about Buddhist teachings—go and see that maid called Xiao Man for yourself. What does she look like? What kind of temperament does she have? And…” Madam Wang’s eyes gleamed. “Pay attention. Watch whether there’s anything… unusual between your cousin and her. Come back and tell me quietly.”
Lin Yu Ning’s eyes sparkled. A task—and permission to watch the excitement openly?
She nodded so hard her ornaments trembled. “Yes, Mother! Leave it to me!”
Beside her, Lin Yu Wan could only sigh inwardly. Her mother was, in her own way, just as fond of spectacle as her youngest sister.
She could already imagine Lin Yu Ning bouncing around Auspicious Cloud Residence, “observing” with the energy of a small hurricane.
After the girls were dismissed, Madam Wang sat alone amid her flowers, the storm in her heart settling into something that was half shock, half disbelief, and—if she was honest—more than a little amusement.
That night, she decided, she would interrogate the General properly.
Something this entertaining, and he dared to hide it from her?
How many scenes had she missed, all for nothing?
She would hear every detail.