Chapter 240

Chapter 240: The Real-Life Poor Scholar and the Official’s Miss

Assistant Official Li kept insisting that his son had stayed home all day. There were no suspicious people lurking around, so how could anything happen?

Constable Song also felt something was off, but he trusted Yu Zhi Yi and said: “Let’s go inside and take a look.”

Assistant Official Li was unhappy and planned to add another charge when he went to court the next day: bribing the constables of the Court of Judicial Review. He looked at the people around him and thought: [Look at them, all bewitched by her.]

The group entered the manor. Before they reached his son’s courtyard, a sharp woman’s scream cut the air: “I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you!”

Assistant Official Li froze. His face went pale. He didn’t have time to think. Though he was over forty, he sprinted like a man in his twenties. Constable Song and the others hurried after him.

In moments they rushed into the courtyard. A woman about twenty years old stood there, raging like someone lost to madness. She gripped a pair of scissors. When anyone tried to move closer, she brandished them. Many people were present, but no one dared step forward.

Young Master Li was anxious. He kept coaxing: “Ting Er, be good, put the scissors down.”

Hearing his gentle voice, the woman’s eyes calmed a little, and she stopped waving the scissors. Young Master Li let out a breath. He thought he had soothed her, so he strode up, planning to take the scissors from her hand.

Just then the woman suddenly looked up. Her dark eyes filled with frenzy as she yelled: “You killed my son, so I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you!”

Young Master Li was already in front of her. He had no guard up. The scissors were about to stab into his chest.

At the critical moment, a black-booted foot slammed into the woman’s wrist. Pain still exists even in madness. She cried out. Her arm flew up high and the scissors were kicked free.

Constable Song drew back his foot. Seeing the woman about to fall, he grabbed her other hand and steadied her. He wiped sweat from his brow and thought: [Good thing I remembered Official Yu’s warning and stayed on full alert the moment we entered Li Manor, or Young Master Li would really have been done for.]

What had just happened hit Assistant Official Li as hard as losing his whole fortune in an instant. His legs went weak, but he still forced himself to stay upright and rushed to his son’s side to check him over. Once he was sure his son was unharmed, he finally exhaled and slumped against the steward who had just arrived. If the steward hadn’t been strong, he would have sat down hard on the ground.

Choosing his words, Constable Song asked: “Lord Li, what in the world is going on? Who is this young lady?”

He was really asking about the woman. Could she be someone Young Master Li had cast aside?

Lord Li saw doubt in his eyes. Ignoring his own discomfort, he gave a bitter smile and explained: “Constable Song, don’t misunderstand. She is my daughter.”

Constable Song blinked in surprise: “Ah? Your daughter?” He had never heard that Lord Li’s daughter had gone mad.

Assistant Official Li sighed: “This touches on a family shame. It is hard to speak about.”

Constable Song frowned: “That will not do.” This was an attempted injury with a weapon, and the woman was not in a normal state. There could be hidden reasons. Since Official Yu had predicted trouble here, he could not treat this lightly. If his carelessness caused an innocent woman’s grievance to go unheard, how would he face Official Yu?

Assistant Official Li was stuck for a moment, then began to tell the story.

The woman was not someone Young Master Li had wronged. She was Assistant Official Li’s daughter, and Young Master Li’s sister. Assistant Official Li had one son and one daughter. He was not the kind of father who favored sons over daughters. The whole family cherished the girl like a pearl. If she wanted something and it was within reach, he, his wife, and their son all did their best to give it to her.

Raised with such affection, the daughter grew up innocent and sheltered, lively and naive, and, to put it plainly, easy to trick.

Miss Li met an examinee who looked “well-behaved and virtuous.” Under his sweet words, her first love blossomed. Assistant Official Li was not the sort to trade his daughter for his own future. He only hoped she would marry a good young gentleman. The man did not need a grand family. As long as the home was decent, he would accept it, even if it wasn’t an exact match in status. Of course, if she could marry up, that would be best.

But that examinee’s family was dirt poor. The money for his books came from all of them pinching every coin. Assistant Official Li also learned that the examinee had five older sisters. Only after a son was finally born did the parents stop having children. As a man, he knew what that meant: the boy was the family’s crown prince, and the five sisters were there to feed his future. If his daughter married into that home, it might look like she was marrying the treasure of the house, and with her father’s support life might seem okay. But who could say whether the examinee’s mother would treat his daughter as another person to squeeze for the son?

After much thought, Assistant Official Li decided this marriage would not do and strictly forbade his daughter from seeing the examinee again.

Sadly, love does not listen to parents. From childhood, his daughter had loved romance stories about poor scholars and rich misses. Those tales poisoned her thinking. She decided he was the evil parent in the books, blocking her road to happiness. In anger, she wanted to cut ties with her family and elope with the examinee.

But the examinee did not seek a rich miss to cut off his future. He wanted a rich miss to pave his road. Eloping meant leaving the Capital City. He would not be able to sit the Imperial Examinations again. How could he agree? He also hoped Assistant Official Li would calm down after a few days and, for his daughter’s happiness, accept him as a son-in-law.

So he coaxed Miss Li, saying he wanted to stay and keep taking the Imperial Examinations to show her father his ability and resolve. Simple-hearted Miss Li did not see through his plan, and she also wanted to prove her father wrong, so she agreed to stay.

But the examinee was not made for the exams. He failed, just as one might expect. Miss Li felt disappointed but understood it was hard to become a top scorer. She comforted him, saying he should not lose heart and maybe he would pass in three years.

The examinee wanted her to go home. Miss Li stood firm. Seeing her parents still refusing to yield, she felt too ashamed to return and decided to follow the examinee back to his hometown. He was unhappy with her stubbornness, but he believed Assistant Official Li would give in sooner or later, so he took her back anyway.

Miss Li thought leaving her parents with her beloved meant she was running toward freedom and love. She did not know she was falling from heaven into hell.