Chapter 402
Chapter 402: You Knew It Was a Swamp and Still Watched Me Jump In
She smiled as she spoke, but her words were cold: “After all, you targeted me. If I don’t at least make a note or two against you, I’d be letting myself down.”
She tipped her head, voice light and almost playful: “So if you want to jump into the fire pit, why should I stop you?”
She went on, still smiling: “I won’t just refuse to stop you-I’ll even lay a layer across that fire pit that looks thick and flame-proof, so you’ll think a smooth, open road lies ahead. You’ll run forward, happy and sure, and in the end you’ll still fall into the fire.”
She finished with a soft laugh: “Do you understand?”
Yu Jiao Jiao felt cold all over as she whispered: “You… you’re terrifying!”
She tried to run, but her feet felt like they were filled with lead, and she couldn’t move at all.
She suddenly realized something was off and blurted out, eyes widening: “No! If Duke Yong’s Manor is really that awful, then why did you live so well in our last life? You even became the Princess Consort because of Zhang Tian Shun!”
Yu Zhi Yi lifted a brow and asked, amused: “I became the Princess Consort because of Zhang Tian Shun?”
She gave a short, sharp laugh and said: “Zhang Tian Shun-the useless man who only knows how to eat, drink, visit brothels, and gamble?”
Yu Jiao Jiao fell silent, even more confused than before.
Yu Zhi Yi spoke calmly, like stating a fact: “You’d rather believe that kind of waste could be made a titled lord and a commanding general than believe there’s another possibility. That is why your life has been so miserable for two lifetimes.”
Yu Jiao Jiao’s eyes trembled hard. [Another possibility… what else could it be?] She suddenly opened her eyes wider, as if lightning struck her. It really was another possibility.
She shook her head in panic and cried: “No… that can’t be!”
Yu Zhi Yi’s tone turned almost playful as she pierced the last bit of Yu Jiao Jiao’s hiding place: “Believe it or not, it’s still the truth. In our last life, Zhang Tian Shun rose and won favor because I, Yu Zhi Yi, cleared the road for him.”
She said, steady and sure: “Duke Yong’s Manor was a swamp, but I could turn that swamp into a strong fortress.”
She lifted her chin a little, voice smooth: “The mother-in-law you couldn’t handle was nothing to me. She even had to rely on me to live well.”
She continued with an easy tone: “The father-in-law who made you shake when you saw him would discuss state matters with me. When he had problems he couldn’t solve, he would come to ask my advice.”
She finished without pride, only certainty: “I climbed step by step to that place in life not because of some so-called backer. I was my own backer.”
She hooked a finger under Yu Jiao Jiao’s chin and said, voice mild but cutting: “Do you understand now, true daughter?”
She showed a thin, mocking smile and added: “You knew nothing. You saw the shine on the surface and tried to replace me. You switched the engagement on your own, but the only thing you managed to switch away was an empty shell.”
Yu Jiao Jiao broke down and shouted, voice hoarse: “No! I don’t believe it! I don’t!”
She shook her head hard and argued, stubborn to the last: “You’re just an adopted daughter, a fake! I am the real daughter of the Minister’s Manor! Why can you do what I can’t?”
Yu Zhi Yi took Yu Jiao Jiao’s handkerchief, wiped her hands as if something dirty had touched them, then tucked the handkerchief back into Yu Jiao Jiao’s palm. She watched her coldly as Yu Jiao Jiao raved.
Then Yu Jiao Jiao suddenly went quiet, her eyes turning wild as she forced a smile and said: “Even if everything you said is true-even if the glory of Duke Yong’s Manor in the last life was all thanks to you-so what? In this life you failed just like me!”
She sneered, like she’d found a weak spot: “At least I was kicked out three years later, but you didn’t even last one year before Du Zi Heng divorced you!”
Yu Zhi Yi clicked her tongue and shook her head: “Your standard for success is how long you can stay by a man’s side?”
She spoke plainly, almost bored: “Right now I hold fifth-rank office. Even Du Zi Heng has to respectfully call me ‘Official Yu.’”
She continued, counting off like items on a list: “I bought my own house. In my own house, I do whatever I want. I don’t have to follow anyone’s rules. I don’t have to bow morning and night. Even if I sleep until late morning, no one dares to lecture me.”
She looked straight at Yu Jiao Jiao and said: “I have money, so I don’t need to ask anyone for it.”
She added, steady and free: “I have freedom. When I go out, I don’t have to report to anyone. If I come home late, no one dares to nag me with nasty words.”
She ended with a quiet question: “Can a man give me all that?”
Yu Jiao Jiao stared blankly and couldn’t speak. Even she had to admit she longed for that kind of life.
But she still forced out a retort, voice shaking: “Without a man, who will you have children with? Without children, you’ll grow old alone! After you die, there won’t even be someone to smash the funerary bowl for you!”
Yu Zhi Yi actually laughed, finding it funny: “If that day comes, I’ll already be dead. The ones who have to worry about those things won’t be me but the people who see my body. If they don’t settle my remains properly, they’ll be the ones who are scared, won’t they?”
Yu Jiao Jiao blinked, stunned: [Wait, you can think of it that way?]
Yu Zhi Yi changed the subject with an easy turn: “Besides, I cultivate the immortal path. Whether I’ll die at all is another question.”
She said it lightly, like weather talk: “If I really die someday, it will be because enemies grind my bones to ashes. If it comes to that, I definitely won’t need to worry about who smashes a bowl at my funeral.”
Yu Jiao Jiao’s face filled with fear. How could this woman say such terrible things in such a calm voice?
She stammered, at a loss: “You… you…”
She realized, all at once, that she and Yu Zhi Yi were no longer people from the same world.
After a long silence, she could only curse, bitter and loud: “Heaven is unfair! If Heaven let me be reborn, why did it let you be reborn too?”
She had thought that coming back to life would let her ride on memories of the past, rise high, and trample Yu Zhi Yi underfoot. But Yu Zhi Yi had been reborn as well. Forget stepping on her-Yu Jiao Jiao couldn’t even manage her own life.
Yu Zhi Yi shook her head lightly and said: “Heaven is fair. Whether you live well has never depended on me; it depends on you.”
She spoke in a weightless tone that hit like an arrow: “Last life I wasn’t reborn, yet after I left Yu Manor, didn’t I still step over you?”
Yu Jiao Jiao felt a stab in her chest and almost coughed blood.
She suddenly hardened her face and shouted: “Yu Zhi Yi, you’ve ruined me for two lifetimes. I’ll fight you to the death!”
Yu Zhi Yi only raised a brow. She didn’t move. She waited calmly as Yu Jiao Jiao rushed closer and closer.
When Yu Jiao Jiao was about to reach her, Yu Zhi Yi lifted one slender, pale finger and said one word: “Freeze.”
Yu Jiao Jiao stopped dead, eyes full of confusion. She didn’t understand why she suddenly couldn’t move.
Yu Zhi Yi slowly circled her once, then reached into Yu Jiao Jiao’s sleeve and took something out.
It was a talisman.
Yu Zhi Yi had never seen this kind of talisman before. Yet the instant she saw it, a powerful sense of danger rose in her heart-no weaker than the danger she’d felt from Immortal Qing Feng.
She thought for a moment, then looked up at Yu Jiao Jiao. She saw Yu Jiao Jiao staring at the talisman paper with shining excitement.
Yu Zhi Yi’s brow twitched. Without thinking, she tossed the talisman paper into her storage ring.
A storage ring was a space container far more stable than a Spatial Talisman. It could completely block a master’s Divine Sense. If items inside a Spatial Talisman could still be exposed, then the things inside a storage ring would never be exposed-unless the ring’s master died and someone erased the Divine Sense imprint on it.
The instant the talisman paper vanished, the crushing sense of danger faded into nothing.
Yu Jiao Jiao was dumbfounded. She didn’t understand how the talisman paper could vanish into thin air, and she didn’t understand why Yu Zhi Yi was unharmed. Wasn’t she told that as long as she took the talisman paper out within two meters of Yu Zhi Yi, it would lock on and strike her so she’d die for sure?
She stared, blank and shaken, and thought numbly: [Did that person lie to me?]