Chapter 8
Chapter 8: Strangling Vines
Brother Luo Yin climbed out of the lake, soaked from head to toe, and Father still ordered him to kneel as punishment.
He was so cold that his teeth were chattering.
Sister-in-law kept begging for mercy.
Mother and Cousin Bai Ci Rong soon rushed over as well.
Madam Bai also dropped to her knees before the Marquis of Zhen Nan and said: “Lord Marquis, the weather is this cold. A’Yin will be frostbitten. Let him go back to change his clothes first, then you can have him kneel again.”
Even though she was already older, she was still beautiful and dignified. While pleading, she did not look the least bit discomposed. A white fox fur was wrapped around her slender neck, pleasing to the eye.
The Marquis of Zhen Nan valued his Eldest Son greatly and loved his wife as well.
His Eldest Son was outstandingly handsome and well read, and he knew all the proper rites. His wife was stunningly beautiful and graceful. They were both the pride of the Marquis of Zhen Nan.
The Marquis of Zhen Nan sighed and said: “This rebellious son, picking on his sister so early in the morning…”
Madam Bai said: “It takes two to sound a gong. A’Yin is not entirely innocent either. It is just too cold, Lord Marquis, and he is a scholar. Lord Marquis, let him change his clothes first. It will not be too late to beat and scold him after.”
Luo Ning stood to the side.
Her maid and old nurse, Nanny Kong, were with her and heard these words.
Nanny Kong was shocked.
What was the Marchioness saying?
“‘It takes two to sound a gong,’ ‘A’Yin is not entirely innocent’ – this was as good as saying that flies do not bite a flawless egg, that it was all the Eldest Miss’s fault, and the Eldest Young Master had only been dragged down by her.
On the surface she said ‘he is not innocent,’ but in truth she was saying ‘he is innocent.’
She was far too biased.
When the Eldest Miss said Madam was partial, Nanny Kong had thought she was just a sensitive, suspicious girl.
Now Nanny Kong almost could not believe her own ears.
After hesitating for a few breaths, the Marquis of Zhen Nan said to his Eldest Son: “Why are you still not hurrying off to change your clothes?”
Luo Yin answered respectfully and stood up.
He lifted his eyes and glared hard at Luo Ning.
Luo Ning smiled slightly and looked back at him: “Brother, why are you glaring at me? Are you dissatisfied with Father’s punishment?”
Everyone turned to look at Luo Yin again.
Luo Yin gathered his expression and lowered his head: “I would not dare.”
The Marchioness, Madam Bai, turned her gaze to Luo Ning and sighed again: “A’Ning, you are far too spoiled and arrogant. Lord Marquis dotes on you, and he has let you grow this way.”
Then she said to Luo Yin: “Go back quickly. The wind is strong.”
Luo Ning thought of how, in her previous life, after she fell into the water, they had left her standing there for half an hour, and she had almost died of a fever. Her smile grew even brighter as she said: “Father and Mother have always loved me the most. But Brother never takes the rules of the Marquis Manor to heart. He comes here to pay respects to Grandmother with a sharpened sword at his waist.”
In her hand was a sword she had just knocked out of Luo Yin’s grip with her long whip.
She knew very well what taboos her selfish, cold-hearted Father had.
For a military general, when entering an important place, such as the Marshal’s main tent, the first thing to do was to remove his weapons.
Bringing weapons into the tent was a grave disrespect. Because of this, the Marquis of Zhen Nan almost never walked around with a sword.
Everyone had something they cared about deeply. Only when you stepped on it would they truly feel pain.
Of course she knew that Brother’s sword was sharpened and not just for show. Later, she had taken a blow from this sword. It had sliced open the skin on the back of her hand and left a deep scar.
For the sake of Cousin, Brother had not shown the slightest mercy when he hurt Luo Ning.
Thinking of this, Luo Ning drew the sword. The long blade slid out of its sheath, the edge as bright as snow.
The snowy blade caught the morning sun, and the sword light flashed.
In an instant, it stabbed into the Marquis of Zhen Nan’s eyes.
“You wretched child!” This time, the Marquis of Zhen Nan’s anger came from the bottom of his heart.
He cared deeply about rules, and he was extremely filial to his own mother.
His Eldest Son bullying his sister was unkind and unfilial, but he could treat that as a small punishment and a big warning. His Eldest Son daring to break his rules and show disrespect to Grandmother had to be punished severely.
No one was allowed to challenge his authority.
“Kneel!” he shouted. His voice was so loud that his cheeks turned red.
He was a military general, tall and strong, and the weight of his anger was heavy.
Luo Yin, on the other hand, was a scholar. Since childhood he had both hated and feared his Father.
His knees went weak, and he knelt down again.
“You will kneel here for two hours and reflect on yourself!” the Marquis of Zhen Nan said.
The Marchioness’s face turned deathly pale: “Lord Marquis…”
“If you plead for him again, you can kneel with him.” The Marquis of Zhen Nan flung out this sentence, shook his sleeves, and left.
He went first to Old Madam’s courtyard.
Madam Bai glanced at her Eldest Son, whose face had turned purple from the cold, then looked at Luo Ning.
Luo Ning looked back at her.
They were mother and daughter, and their faces were strikingly alike, both of them having beauty that stood out from the crowd and the same gentle, affectionate eyes. At this moment, the emotions in their eyes were also very similar.
“A’Ning, you have gone too far.” For the first time, the Marchioness spoke to her harshly. “He is your blood brother. How can you be so vicious?”
Luo Ning seemed extremely surprised. Her soft lips parted slightly as she said: “Mother, you are calling your daughter ‘vicious’?”
It was all an act.
She looked very much like Madam Bai. When she acted, she was this beautiful and this convincing.
Madam Bai felt a sour taste rise in her throat and almost spat blood.
“So Mother dislikes me this much. In Mother’s heart, there is only Brother and Cousin A’Rong, isn’t there?” Luo Ning sounded as if she were aggrieved. “I and Younger Brother Luo You are so disliked by Mother. Could it be that only Brother and Cousin A’Rong are the ones Mother truly gave birth to?”
The words sounded like a complaint.
But to someone with a guilty conscience, they were terrifying.
Luo Ning had not only spoken of herself. She had deliberately mentioned her younger brother Luo You, making the Marchioness suspect that she had noticed something.
The Marchioness suddenly looked over at Luo Ning.
There was a hint of moisture in Luo Ning’s eyes as she looked back softly at her: “Is that so, Mother?”
A moment ago, sweat had broken out on Madam Bai’s back. Now the cold wind blew, and a chill spread from the top of her head to the soles of her feet: “What nonsense.
Forget it, forget it. Once children grow up, they no longer belong to their mother. You siblings can break your bones and they will still be tied by tendons. If I keep begging for you, I end up the villain on both sides. Do as you please.”
Tears gathered at the corners of her eyes. She said: “I truly sinned, going to the Ghost Gate Pass to give birth to you. A’Rong is your cousin. She is pitiful. She has had no mother since she was little, and you are still jealous of her.”
She added: “Especially you, A’Ning. When I gave birth to you I bled so much that I could not move my hands and feet for half a year, and I still have lasting ailments.”
When Luo Ning heard this, her expression did not change, but her heart clenched hard.
She turned away and pressed a hand against her chest.
She knew this body was still her seventeen-year-old self. It still longed for Mother’s love.
It still held so many hopes for the one who had given her life.
Hearing Mother’s words, her heart could not help but ache.
But the soul that had been a ghost for more than ten years had already seen through everything.
She had paid back her Mother with her own life, truly cutting flesh and scraping bone, repaying the favor of being born.
Now they owed each other nothing.
Luo Ning also went to Old Madam’s courtyard.
Old Madam also helped persuade the Marquis of Zhen Nan and said: “Let him kneel for half an hour. The New Year is almost here. Do not let him catch such a cold that he falls ill, or there will be no one to help you manage affairs.”
Luo Ning knew Grandmother cared about her and was not bad to her.
But in Grandmother’s heart, the most important grandson was still her Eldest Legitimate Grandson, Luo Yin.
In the eyes of the world, the Eldest Legitimate Grandson carried the family’s inheritance. His place in Grandmother’s heart could never be low.
Yet Luo Yin’s heart had long since left the Marquis Manor. He did not even take Old Madam to heart. In her previous life, Luo Yin had surely known the cause of Old Madam’s death, yet he had helped cover it up.
They were like vines. Once they climbed up a big tree, they would try to strangle the tree and take its place. Otherwise, how could vines ever reach high places?
Luo Ning’s blood had watered their wild ambitions.
“Go watch the Eldest Young Master kneel for half an hour, then send him back,” the Marquis of Zhen Nan told a maid.
The maid answered at once.
Luo Ning sat beside Grandmother.
Everyone who came to pay their respects had arrived. Each person had to pass along that path and would see the Eldest Young Master kneeling by the lakeside, dripping wet.
They whispered and discussed it nonstop.
Cousin Luo Wan’s eyes lit up. She said to Second Madam: “Eldest Sister is really capable.”
Second Madam, however, was thinking to herself that the mother and children of the Eldest Branch had grown so estranged.
Was that cousin really so worthy?
Aside from being pretty, rich, and smooth in handling people, she was only a relative. How could she be more important than one’s own daughter and one’s own younger sisters?
That cousin was truly strange.
Even though Second Madam had received benefits from that cousin, she still could not help being suspicious.