Chapter 75
Chapter 75
[The Male Chauvinist’s Victory – 16]
Li Jiangxue stared at him in astonishment. She could not believe that such cold, heartless words had come from the cousin who had always seemed so deeply affectionate.
The elderly servant beside her had been sent by Madam Wei. Now panicking as well, she dropped to her knees with a thud and pleaded, “Madam has done wrong and should naturally be punished. But please, my lord, consider that she is young and ignorant and has always been frail. Confinement will suffice. Please spare her the family disciplinary rod!”
Liu Che turned to look at her, his gaze cold. “Are you teaching me how to handle my affairs?”
Hearing the hostility in his tone, the elderly servant inevitably felt anxious. Yet she had practically watched Li Jiangxue grow up and understood even better what thirty strokes meant. Her young mistress had been delicate and pampered since childhood. Thirty strokes would cost her half her life!
She knocked her forehead against the floor, then invoked Madam Wei and the Li Family, couching a threat in deferential words. “This old servant would not dare! But my madam is, after all, my lord’s cousin and a legitimate daughter of the Li Family. She lost her senses for a moment and made a mistake. You may scold her or confine her to her courtyard, but how can you punish her with the family disciplinary rod? If she is seriously injured, how could her natal family possibly let the matter rest?”
Steeling herself, she looked toward Li Jiangyue in the seat of honor and said meaningfully, “Madam, my madam is your own sister. She is the proper legitimate eldest daughter of the Li Family, yet through a twist of fate she became the lord’s concubine. How could she not feel aggrieved? Your own mother is a concubine as well. Do you not understand how difficult life is for a woman who becomes one?”
The moment Li Jiangyue heard her invoke the Li Family to restrain her husband, she knew things were going badly. In the past, her husband had courted the Li Family and endured their behavior several times, but that had merely been forced upon him by circumstances. Now that he was a lower-third-rank governor-general and held the military and civil authority of an entire region, how could he still bow obediently to the Li Family?
If the elderly servant had simply begged for mercy and accepted the punishment honestly, that might have been the end of it. Bringing out the Li Family to pressure him would only achieve the opposite.
Worse, the servant was using Li Jiangyue’s mother as leverage. Her implicit meaning was that if Li Jiangyue refused to plead for her sister, she would write to Madam Wei and have her make life difficult for Madam Yu, so that Li Jiangyue would learn what it felt like to have a loved one held hostage. Even a clay idol would have grown angry at that, let alone Li Jiangyue.
She sneered. Her thoughts raced as she leaned back in her chair and decided to make everything explicit. “What do you mean by this? Are you threatening me with my mother? If I refuse to plead for Lady Li and let this matter pass, Madam Wei will torment my mother so that I too may taste what it is like to have a loved one under another’s control?”
The elderly servant had not expected her to voice the implication openly before everyone. Looking embarrassed, she forced a smile and pretended to be respectful. “This old servant would not dare…”
“You would not dare? Do you take me for a fool, or do you think the lord too stupid to understand what you are implying?”
Li Jiangyue laughed scornfully, her expression glacial. She struck the table sharply and declared, “Then let me make this perfectly clear today. Forget you-even if my father and legitimate mother came here in person, they would have no right to overstep their authority and interfere in the Yan Family’s domestic affairs! This is the Yan household. My husband is its head, and I am its mistress. Lady Li is a concubine. Not only did she fail to observe the rules, she secretly bribed others and attempted to kill the child in the mistress’s womb. Both witnesses and physical evidence are present. Even if this case were brought before the Son of Heaven in Jiankang, she would have no justice on her side!”
The elderly servant’s expression changed, and she no longer dared speak. Seeing this, Li Jiangyue said coldly, “My mother is indeed a concubine in the Li household, but she has always conducted herself properly. She has never overstepped the rules, confused the distinction between legitimate and concubine-born children, or tried to murder the child in the principal wife’s womb! You keep saying Lady Li and I are blood sisters, yet it was my own blood sister who tried to kill my child. Does that not make her even more hateful than an ordinary stranger? In any ordinary family, such a vicious woman would long since have been handed over to the authorities or sent directly to an estate in the countryside. The lord is merciful and has ordered only that she receive the family punishment. What is wrong with that?!”
The elderly servant had no answer and could not utter a word. Trembling, Li Jiangxue huddled close to her, tears streaming down her face. “Cousin, I truly know I was wrong…”
Li Jiangyue looked at her coldly and sneered inwardly.
Did she truly understand her mistake, or did she intend to admit fault merely to survive this crisis before offending again?
After so many years as sisters, Li Jiangyue perhaps understood Li Jiangxue better than Li Jiangxue understood herself.
The sisters shared one husband. Li Jiangyue could honestly say that she had never made things difficult for her elder sister or deliberately tormented her. Yet how had her elder sister treated her?
She had tried without hesitation to harm the child in Li Jiangyue’s womb. How vicious!
That elderly servant was even more remarkable.
When Li Jiangxue poisoned her, the servant had not uttered a single word of dissuasion. She had simply waited for Li Jiangyue to miscarry, never considering how severely a woman would be injured by the forced loss of a six-month-old fetus. Then, after the plot was exposed, she used Li Jiangyue’s own mother to threaten her: if she refused to forgive her elder sister, her mother would suffer too.
This was intolerable bullying!
If even an elderly servant behaved this way, one could easily imagine Madam Wei’s attitude. Recalling the subtle things Li Jiangyue had noticed while sharing her husband’s bed over the past two years, numerous thoughts tangled together. She quickly made up her mind, supported her waist as she rose, then knelt before her husband. Tears immediately welled from her eyes.
It was only crying. Who did not know how to cry?
She was eight months pregnant, and her belly was already very large. Inevitably, lowering herself to her knees was difficult.
Liu Che looked at her with pity and reached out to help her. “Jiangyue, what are you doing? Get up quickly.”
Li Jiangyue refused to rise. Shaking her head, she said, “Please hear me out, Husband.”
Liu Che’s gaze deepened. He sighed faintly, as if helpless. “Speak.”
Tears flowing, Li Jiangyue said, “This concubine has been married into the Yan household for nearly two years. I have always acted diligently, observed a wife’s duties, assisted Husband, and cared for my young brothers-in-law, never daring to disgrace either the Li or Yan families. Because Lady Li is my own elder sister, I yielded to her at every turn, unwilling to let sisters of the same blood quarrel and become a laughingstock. Yet Lady Li’s vicious nature cannot be tamed. First, she beat Lady Lu, who is an honored concubine like herself, without cause. Then she tried to poison the legitimate child in the mistress’s womb. Is the child this concubine carries not also flesh and blood of the Yan Family? If she cared even slightly for Husband, how could she commit such an unconscionable act?!”
At this point, she sobbed without cease. Only after a long while did she bow her head to the floor and continue, “This concubine truly dares not allow such a jackal to remain in the inner residence. Unfortunately, she is my own sister, and morality constrains me from dealing with her. Moreover, my mother is in another’s hands. If she should lose her life because of me, this concubine would have no face to meet her birth mother even in the Nine Springs. I beg Husband not to punish Lady Li under our family rules. Please report the matter to the Li Family and let my father and legitimate mother decide how to deal with her. This concubine will also write to Father and request a deed releasing my birth mother from concubinage, so she may come to Shouzhou. I will support her for the rest of her life…”
By the time Li Jiangyue finished this long speech, tears were pouring down her face and she could barely continue.
Liu Che had always known that this woman was clever, but he had not expected her to be quite so intelligent.
He understood everything she had left unsaid and could not help admiring her. Then he considered that even if she had earned no great merit over the past two years, she had certainly worked hard. Now she was kneeling on the floor with an enormous belly, weeping and pleading. She truly looked pitiable.
His tone softened. He gently helped her up. “You and I are husband and wife, one body. Why go this far? Get up quickly.”
Finally, he added, “We will handle the matter as you suggest. There now, stop crying.”
Only then did Li Jiangyue rise with the support of his arm. Choking back sobs, she said, “Thank you, Husband.”
Li Jiangyue had said so much, yet Li Jiangxue understood almost none of it. All she knew was that she would not be beaten for the moment, that her parents would be asked to discuss what should be done with her, and that Li Jiangyue feared Madam Wei would make life difficult for her mother and therefore wanted to bring that vixen Lady Yu to Shouzhou.
These were all good things, Li Jiangxue thought.
First, she did not like being beaten. Second, her parents would certainly protect her. Third, once that vixen Lady Yu left, her mother would be delighted!
Li Jiangxue secretly sighed in relief, and some of that ease appeared on her face. With tearful eyes, she looked timidly at Liu Che and called, “Cousin.”
Liu Che: “…”
Would someone please take this idiot away? She was genuinely lowering the intelligence of everyone in the room!