Chapter 96
Chapter 96: Marchioness Confined Again
Bai Ci Rong was helped back to the East Main Courtyard, where she bathed and changed her clothes.
Her small face was pale as she sat on the heated bed by the window, tears hanging from her lashes. She looked very pitiful.
Madam Bai changed her clothes, fixed her hair, and went to see her. When she saw this scene, her heart ached fiercely.
Bai Ci Rong threw herself into her arms and burst into tears again: “Mother, I have lost all my face this time!”
At Grand Princess Jia Hong’s Spring Viewing Banquet, she had not made such a disgraceful scene as today. Besides, relatives and friends loved to gossip, unlike the noble madams, who did not even care to talk about her.
Now, whether among the Luo family relatives or among the prestigious clans in the capital, her reputation was completely ruined.
“Stop crying! This is Heaven Above testing you before giving you the highest wealth and honor. You must step over these trials before you can stand on the heights,” Madam Bai comforted her.
She held Bai Ci Rong tightly. Her emotions surged up and down. The anger and unwillingness she could not calm almost turned into greedy dreams about the future.
“Since I can become a First-rank Titled Madam, maybe you can become the Empress!” Madam Bai said.
Bai Ci Rong’s heart gave a hard jump.
[Could it really be true?]
The books said that when Heaven was about to give someone a great task, it would first make her suffer in her heart.
[Are all these things her trials?]
Her future had no limits. Who would have thought that a merchant’s daughter could receive a first-rank imperial honorary title?
If Madam Bai had done it, then Bai Ci Rong could also do it.
Bai Ci Rong squeezed her eyes shut, letting her tears flow even harder: “Mother, you are right. I have cut off all other paths now. The only road left is to enter the palace.”
No aristocratic family would marry her. The Luo family relatives and friends also mocked her. She had nowhere to go.
When she had no way out, it often forced her onto the broad main road instead.
“Mother, it was Luo Ning who harmed me. Lately you have not been managing the household. The second branch and Madam Wen got close to Luo Ning, and they joined hands to plot against me,” Bai Ci Rong cried.
Madam Bai almost ground her teeth to pieces.
Her hatred ran deep.
Luo Ning had killed her son and now had humiliated her daughter.
She was determined to be at total odds with Luo Ning.
“I said it before, we cannot deal with Luo Ning using gentle methods. Her heart is cruel and ruthless. Mother, we must be even more ruthless and get rid of her,” Bai Ci Rong said.
She added: “We cannot leave it to luck. Once Luo Ning becomes Princess Consort Yong, she will never support you.”
Madam Bai’s eyes were red: “You are right. I was foolish to imagine she still had some humanity and cared a little about family ties. I was wrong. She is just like Luo Chong Ye. At the root, they are both rotten to the core!”
Bai Ci Rong lowered her voice: “We must find a way and make her die.”
Madam Bai nodded.
But for the moment, they had not yet thought of how. They needed a few days to slowly plan.
While they were planning, someone came over from the Old Madam’s side.
“Old Madam has spoken. Madam is to rest and nurse her illness well these days. If your condition does not get better, Madam will be sent to the country estate,” the steward’s Nanny Sheng said coldly.
Madam Bai was furious to the extreme.
If she dared to shout even one word at Nanny Sheng, Old Madam would at once tell the Marquis of Zhen Nan to send her to the country estate and decide that she was completely insane.
Earlier, Luo Ning and that old witch had used this trick to deal with Luo Yin.
Madam Bai could not let them get what they wanted.
She smiled, her smile twisted and fierce: “Yes, I will rest well. I have made Mother worry.”
Nanny Sheng did not even look at her and turned to leave.
The Marchioness was basically placed under house arrest.
This time there was no time limit on the confinement. Only when Old Madam’s mood improved would the Marchioness be allowed out.
The servants in the household whispered and discussed it.
Old Madam Wan Xi of the Marquis of Zhen Nan’s household also heard about it.
“Send someone to question that young maidservant named Han Zhi. Then you will know who was really causing trouble today,” Old Madam said tiredly as she rolled her Buddhist prayer beads.
The Marquis of Zhen Nan questioned Han Zhi that very night.
Han Zhi was only a maidservant. The Marchioness had told her to go to Wenqi Courtyard as a spy, and only after giving her many benefits had she agreed.
She could not stand a beating.
Once they beat her, she confessed everything.
So this matter could not be kept secret.
Soon everyone in the Marquis of Zhen Nan’s household knew that the Marchioness had tried to plant her own maidservant into Wenqi Courtyard.
“Has Madam really gone mad?”
“It looks like she has. Otherwise, why would she keep an eye on her own daughter when that daughter is about to become a princess consort?”
“Madam values that cousin too much.”
In the eyes of the servants, Madam Bai’s prestige dropped sharply in just one night.
When one side became weak, the other side naturally grew strong.
The household was still being managed by Second Madam together with the eldest young madam, Madam Wen. But in these few days, the stewardesses who came to report all spoke much more eagerly and politely.
If the Marchioness really went mad and fell from power, these people might all be sold off. They had to flatter the new “household mistress.”
While the Marquis of Zhen Nan was speaking with Old Madam, Luo Ning arrived.
Outside, the night was already dark. Crickets chirped again and again, and the warm early summer wind carried the faint scent of tumi blossoms.
When the Marquis of Zhen Nan saw her, his brows furrowed: “After all, she gave birth to you. Can you not give way to her a bit? She suffered a lot back then.”
Old Madam glanced at him.
The Marquis of Zhen Nan did not feel there was anything wrong with his words and went on speaking to Luo Ning: “What is wrong with forgiving her? She is also your birth mother.”
Old Madam said: “If a birth mother has no daughter in her eyes, should the daughter still be blindly filial?”
The Marquis of Zhen Nan would never go against his mother. But toward his child, he was the father and held absolute authority.
When Luo Ning resisted her mother, the Marquis of Zhen Nan felt it as an offense to himself. He very much disliked Luo Ning’s lack of meekness.
“Today should have been A’Ning’s happy day, yet all this trouble happened, and you still blame her? It was Madam Bai who wanted to shove people into her courtyard,” Old Madam said.
Luo Ning stood there quietly.
The Marquis of Zhen Nan asked: “And where did the snake come from?”
Old Madam said: “You have to ask your madam. She was the one making mischief today.”
Luo Ning stayed silent.
The Marquis of Zhen Nan let out a breath, as if losing steam: “There must be no more trouble from now on. If the inner residence is not peaceful, this family cannot prosper.”
He did not care whose interests were hurt. He only cared about his face.
No matter what happened in the inner residence, it must not blow up and make him lose face.
“Father, it was others who schemed against me first. After Chu Shuang disappeared, someone deliberately came to test me by sending people to fill the spot Chu Shuang left.
They hinted that they wanted to add more servants for me. Everyone knows they would be planting spies. The moment I was a little on guard, I would fall into their trap,” Luo Ning said.
Before the Marquis of Zhen Nan could answer, Old Madam asked Luo Ning: “Do you have enough people in your courtyard?”
“Enough.”
The Marquis of Zhen Nan said: “Then no more people will be added. But you should come speak properly with your grandmother. From now on, you are not allowed to stir up trouble.”
“I am not the one making trouble. It is Mother who has gone crazy,” Luo Ning said.
The Marquis of Zhen Nan stood up and left in a huff.
According to his temper, no matter who was right or wrong, each side should get twenty strokes of the board.
After scolding Luo Ning, he went to scold Madam Bai as well.
In his eyes, both his wife and his daughter were his servants. When his servants stirred up trouble and schemed against each other, making him uneasy, every one of them was guilty.
In the main courtyard of the second branch, the second master and his wife were also talking with their daughter Luo Wan about what had happened today.
“Mother, did you hear how Bai Ci Rong called out ‘Mother’ just now? She was calling our aunt,” Luo Wan suddenly said.
Second Madam suddenly stood up and covered her mouth.
The second master was speechless.
Second Madam warned her daughter sharply: “You must not talk nonsense!”
If this reached the Lord Marquis’s ears, he would never spare Luo Wan.
Second Madam remembered how a few days ago, Luo Ning had come over on purpose and told her to watch Luo Wan.
She had also said, “See through it, but do not speak of it.”
Luo Wan was too young, too eager, and loved to talk.
“Mother, just think about it…”
“Keep it in your heart,” Second Madam said in a low voice. “Be careful, the walls have ears.”
She added: “Some things cannot be spoken aloud. If anything truly happens, others will silence you first.”
Only today did Second Madam understand that this was what Luo Ning’s warnings had meant.
The second master was filled with shock and doubt: “Could it really be true? That cannot be.”
“You should shut your mouth too.”
The more she told them not to talk, the more they wanted to talk. Second Madam felt exhausted, like trying to push one gourd down only for another to pop up.