Chapter 5

Song Qianqian was found outside a medical clinic.

When they caught up with her, she was dressed in a maid’s clothes and already had one foot through the clinic door.

The servants I had sent out brought her back.

The moment she saw me, panic and guilt flashed across her face. Before I could speak, she even tried to seize the initiative by questioning me.

“He Jinyue, what is the meaning of this? You actually sent people to follow me!”

I looked at Song Qianqian, whose hands had been tied.

Because of the child in her belly, I had ordered the servants not to bind her from head to foot. They had merely tied her hands, placed her in a carriage, and driven her back to the Zhou estate.

“If I had not sent people to find you, how would I ever have learned that you were bold enough to seek a physician outside the estate for medicine to abort your own child?”

The instant I finished, Zhou Ziyuan rushed to her defense.

“Qianqian was merely frightened. We have found her and brought her home. There is no need for you to condemn her so harshly!”

With Zhou Ziyuan protecting her, Song Qianqian’s earlier guilt vanished. She lifted her chin arrogantly and ordered the servants to untie her.

“What worthless creatures are you, to dare bind me with rope? I’ll sell every last one of you!”

She was furious and threw a violent tantrum.

The servants who had followed my orders and gone searching for her immediately dropped to their knees, kowtowing and begging for mercy.

Song Qianqian was merely making an example of them.

The display was meant for me.

With Zhou Ziyuan protecting her, anything I said became another offense, and she seized the opportunity to flaunt her power.

But from the corner of my eye, I had already seen my parents-in-law hurrying toward us. I immediately rose. “You left the estate without permission and even appeared in public dressed as a maid! Have you given no thought to the Zhou family’s reputation?”

My parents-in-law valued the clan’s honor above all else.

The Zhou family possessed an earldom that had to be inherited.

If someone with malicious intentions learned of this affair, they would certainly use it against us. It might not damage anyone’s official career, but if word spread that one of the Zhou household’s wives or concubines had appeared in public seeking an abortion, the entire family would become a laughingstock.

No sooner had I finished than my mother-in-law strode forward.

Without another word, she slapped Song Qianqian across the face. This time, she spared her none of the courtesy she had once shown for Zhou Ziyuan’s sake.

“You are nothing but a concubine, yet you dared show your face in public and even tried to kill my grandchild. Such outrageous insolence!”

There was not a trace of a smile on my mother-in-law’s face. Her severity stopped Zhou Ziyuan from uttering a single word in Song Qianqian’s defense.

“What? She has committed a wrong. Do you still intend to shield her?”

My mother-in-law turned directly toward Zhou Ziyuan, her gaze full of warning and menace. The Zhou clan was vast and wealthy, and Zhou Ziyuan was not her only son. If he grieved his parents for the sake of a concubine, it would be the gravest lack of filial piety—an act of outright defiance.

Once that charge was established, his life would be ruined.

Zhou Ziyuan could rebuke me.

But filial duty stood above heaven itself.

And Song Qianqian had indeed done wrong. If his parents scolded or even struck her, he had no grounds on which to protect her.

Zhou Ziyuan lowered his head slightly and stood before them. “Your son would not dare.”

Those few words left the furious Song Qianqian utterly helpless.

If even Zhou Ziyuan refused to support her, there was no second person in the entire estate who would stand behind her.

Song Qianqian had spent these years in pampered comfort, never lifting a finger to work. Her little face was pale and tender, and the slap soon raised a broad red swelling.

Clutching her cheek, she collapsed into Zhou Ziyuan’s arms and wept.

She, too, knew that he could not take her side in front of his parents.

So all she could do was cry.

She used her tears as a weapon to make Zhou Ziyuan ache for her, then whispered poison into his ear in an attempt to estrange him from his own parents. It was a pitifully foolish plan.

“Yueniang, how do you think today’s matter should be handled?”

My mother-in-law turned to me, her eyes full of benevolence. By asking me in front of everyone, she meant to establish my authority and show the entire estate that I was the daughter-in-law acknowledged by the Zhou family.

I looked at Song Qianqian, who lay weeping piteously in Zhou Ziyuan’s arms.

A beating was naturally out of the question.

Zhou Ziyuan would be angry, and with a child in her belly, my parents-in-law would never permit it either.

Then…

“Since her mind is so unsettled, let her remain in her room and copy scriptures for two months. I will also have medicine sent to stabilize her pregnancy every day, and I will personally see that she drinks it.”

Two months.

Even allowing for the fact that a pregnant woman must not exhaust herself, that was time enough to copy an entire book of scripture.

It was confinement under another name.

For a restless, active woman like Song Qianqian, it was an enormous punishment.

So when I finished speaking,

she immediately raised her head. Hatred had entered the eyes that fixed upon me.