Chapter 80
Chapter 80
Old Madam Gu had not expected matters to take such a turn either. With Xie Yuheng in this state and the room in complete chaos, it was clearly no longer an appropriate time to discuss the divorce.
Madam Liu was also frightened by the scene. She had never imagined Xie Yuheng would actually vomit blood.
She came over, took Ji Hanyi by the arm, and asked quietly, “Does Eldest Master Xie have some hidden illness? He never seemed so deeply devoted to you before. What in the world is going on now?”
Ji Hanyi shook her head. She did not know, nor did she want to dwell on it.
She had stepped aside to let him and Li Mingrou be together, yet he was putting on an act like this. She even found herself wondering if Xie Yuheng was taking revenge on her.
Taking revenge by ensuring she could never escape the nightmare that was him.
Given the circumstances, Ji Hanyi understood that they could not bring the matter up again today.
She walked over to her grandmother and said softly, “Let’s go back for today. We won’t be able to settle anything now.”
The blood had landed squarely on the handprint that served as proof of identity. Even if the Divorce Agreement were submitted to the authorities, they would not recognize it as valid.
Madam Lin had already left, and Old Madam Xie had gone with her. A physician was being ushered inside by a maid, and no one had even stayed behind to attend to them. Clearly, the situation with Xie Yuheng was so urgent that no one could spare any attention for this side.
Old Madam Gu asked Ji Hanyi, “We clearly won’t be getting the Divorce Agreement now. What do you intend to do?”
Ji Hanyi looked at Old Madam Gu. Her voice was soft, but her tone was resolute. “The Xie Family broke faith first. Even if I cannot obtain the Divorce Agreement right now, there is no longer any possibility of reconciliation between Xie Yuheng and me. I should not remain with the Xie Family any longer.”
Old Madam Gu understood what Ji Hanyi meant. After a long moment, she nodded. “You’re right. The divorce must happen. Staying here will only subject you to more mistreatment.”
“Besides, the Xie Family is in complete disarray right now, and that First Madam Xie does not look easy to deal with. If you stay, she will most likely make things difficult for you. Return to the Gu Family with us. Go pack your belongings first.”
Ji Hanyi murmured her agreement. Glancing back at the cries and commotion behind the curtain and hearing Madam Lin’s wails, she could tell that Xie Yuheng’s condition was likely quite serious.
This was no time to go inside and announce her departure. Ji Hanyi handed the box containing the bracelet Old Madam Xie had given her to the senior maid beside Old Madam, then quietly said her farewells.
The moment she stepped out of the outer room, Ji Hanyi saw Li Mingrou rush in from outside, her face deathly pale.
Li Mingrou was no longer dressed like an unmarried young lady. Her hair had been pinned up and adorned with expensive jewels. She wore a crabapple-red dress, a necklace of pure gold around her neck, and bright red rouge on her lips. Every inch of her radiated ostentatious wealth.
Now that she had gotten what she wanted, she could hardly wait for everyone in the residence to learn of her new status. She wanted to outshine everyone in the main compound and show them that even if she was only a concubine, she was still a concubine of considerable prestige.
At this moment, however, her eyes were red. When she saw Ji Hanyi coming out of the outer room and heard Madam Lin weeping inside, her expression suddenly twisted with resentment. She lunged at Ji Hanyi, reaching for her hair as she demanded bitterly, “What did you say to Brother Xie this time?”
“You have already driven Brother Xie to this state. How can you still have the nerve to remain by his side?”
Ji Hanyi quickly sidestepped. Madam Liu reacted swiftly and moved in front of her. After seeing Li Mingrou’s attire and hearing her repeatedly call him Brother Xie, she had already guessed most of the young woman’s identity.
So this was the young cousin of the Xie Residence — the one who had truly thrown everything into chaos.
Madam Liu was not one to indulge such behavior. She shoved Li Mingrou aside. “What do you think you’re doing? You rushed in here shrieking and attacking someone. Who will answer for it if you hurt her?”
Li Mingrou did not recognize Madam Liu and had no attention to spare for her anyway. Her eyes remained fixed on Ji Hanyi, tears glimmering within them as she said in a choked voice, “You left last night. Why did you come back?”
“Brother Xie doesn’t like you. Don’t ever come back again.”
Ji Hanyi pressed her lips together. Looking into Li Mingrou’s eyes, she could see an obsessive fixation that bordered on madness.
She had no desire to become entangled with Li Mingrou now. She asked her Second Aunt to escort her grandmother ahead while she stayed behind.
Ji Hanyi looked at Li Mingrou and said calmly, “I am leaving, but not because you ordered me to.”
“Furthermore, I came here today to seek a divorce. The person you should be concerned about right now isn’t me, but the one inside.”
With that, Ji Hanyi turned away from Li Mingrou to leave, only for Li Mingrou to seize her sleeve tightly.
Li Mingrou lowered her voice, but every word came through clenched teeth. “What did you do to make Brother Xie suddenly become like this?”
“Brother Xie was never like this before… You must have drugged him somehow, didn’t you?”
Ji Hanyi gave Li Mingrou a mocking smile. “Who is it that likes drugging people most? Shouldn’t you know better than anyone?”
“Is there anyone left in the Xie Residence who doesn’t know?”
“Isn’t this exactly the outcome you wanted?”
Li Mingrou’s face turned white, and she could not help staggering back a step.
Ji Hanyi pulled her sleeve free from Li Mingrou’s grasp, gave her one last quiet look, and walked straight toward the courtyard gate.
Ji Hanyi had already sent Rongchun to her courtyard to see to her belongings. The maids were supposed to carry everything to the rear gate, where Cousin Yan would be waiting.
However, taking her own belongings and leaving proved far from easy. At the rear gate, Rongchun reported that First Madam’s maids were guarding the courtyard entrance and refusing to let them take anything away, claiming they were afraid some possessions belonging to the Xie Residence might be taken as well.
The accusation was utterly insulting. Rongchun had already been driven to tears with anger.
Ji Hanyi had expected that Madam Lin, the First Madam Xie, would not let her take her belongings without a fight. Fortunately, she had already taken all her money with her the night before.
As First Madam Xie, Madam Lin oversaw the household’s communal affairs and property, and Ji Hanyi was still inside the Xie Residence. If Madam Lin refused to let her take anything now, Ji Hanyi knew there was no way she could get those belongings out today.
She offered Rongchun a few words of comfort. If they could not take the things now, then so be it. She could always retrieve them the next time she came. Several paintings her father had left her were still here, and she could not possibly leave them behind.
Now simply was not the right time.
Rongchun wiped away her tears, but she remained upset. She looked at Ji Hanyi and said, “That old woman also passed on a message from the First Madam. She said that if the Young Madam leaves today, the Young Madam will never be allowed to return.”
Ji Hanyi smiled, but there was nothing she wished to say.
She wanted nothing more.
Before leaving, Ji Hanyi quietly gave Nanny Lin a few instructions. She mainly asked Nanny Lin to keep an eye on her belongings for the time being and to take care of Snowball as well. If anything changed in the courtyard, Nanny Lin was to send her word.
As she spoke, Ji Hanyi handed Nanny Lin a purse.
Ji Hanyi trusted Nanny Lin. The woman had served her for a long time, and over the past three years, a genuine bond had formed between mistress and servant.
Nanny Lin accepted the purse in a daze. As she watched Ji Hanyi turn to leave, she suddenly hurried after her and asked, “Will the Young Madam come back?”
Ji Hanyi turned around and smiled at Nanny Lin. “Nanny, we’ll see what the future brings.”
Nanny Lin’s eyes abruptly dimmed. She knew then that the Young Madam would most likely never return.
Even so, she could not resist stepping forward to air her grievances. The young cousin had only come to the courtyard last night to care for the Eldest Master, yet she was already ordering everyone around and acting as though she were the mistress of the place.
What infuriated the courtyard servants even more was that Li Mingrou found fault with every part of the main room. One moment, she claimed that something was no good and needed to be replaced; the next, she called something else shabby. She had even said she wanted to throw away the Young Madam’s favorite pink-ground embossed-floral tea set.
Was that not simply an indirect way of saying that everything the Young Madam had used before was beneath her?
Nanny Lin had also heard that Li Mingrou was now the Eldest Master’s woman. But no matter what, she was only a concubine. At most, she should have been assigned a small side room in the courtyard. What right did she have to dictate how the main room should be arranged?
She had only gotten away with it because the Eldest Master had been unconscious last night. Although the Eldest Master usually indulged Li Mingrou, none of them believed he would indulge her to such an outrageous extent.
She was practically turning the natural order on its head.
A concubine was a concubine. That was all she would ever be.
Ji Hanyi listened without the slightest ripple of emotion in her heart.
She knew something of the situation. Before she married into the Xie Family, Li Mingrou had often visited Xie Yuheng’s courtyard, and she had helped arrange many of the things in his rooms.
In any event, Ji Hanyi would never set foot in that main room again. As for how Li Mingrou chose to decorate it, she could do whatever she pleased. Now that matters had reached this point, caring about such things would only be pointless.
Ji Hanyi remained perfectly calm. Nanny Lin’s aggrieved voice gradually grew quieter until she finally fell silent.
By the end, even she felt there was no point in saying any of this.
The servants in their courtyard merely hoped that the kind and gentle Young Madam they had known before would return.
Yet they also knew full well how the Eldest Master had treated the Young Madam over the past three years. After all the kindness the Young Madam had shown them, trying to persuade her to stay would be doing her a grave injustice.
Countless conflicting thoughts tangled together, leaving them unable to utter a single word in the end.
A chilly breeze swept beneath the covered walkway, lifting the loose strands of hair beside Ji Hanyi’s temples. A pair of red agate earrings peeked out from beneath her fur-lined winter hat. Lowering her head slightly, Ji Hanyi said softly to Nanny Lin, “Nanny, take care of yourself.”
Nanny Lin’s eyes reddened again and again. Finally, she rasped, “Young Madam, please take care of yourself too.”
Ji Hanyi nodded before turning away once more.
Gu Yan stood beside Ji Hanyi. When she was about to board the carriage, he carefully held out a hand to her, stealing nervous glances at her face. “Let me help you into the carriage, Cousin.”
He did not dare look for long. His gaze only caught the corner of an earring showing beneath Ji Hanyi’s fur-lined hat, yet that tiny glimpse against the soft, fluffy fur struck him as extraordinarily pretty and adorable.
Madam Liu lifted the curtain and tilted her head as she watched the scene. She smiled thoughtfully, then let the curtain fall and turned to Old Madam Gu. “Young Master Yan was always bullying Hanyi when they were children. How did he grow up to be so considerate?”
Old Madam Gu said nothing, but a smile crossed her face.
Ji Hanyi looked at the hand Gu Yan had extended and paused for a moment before smiling. “Thank you, Cousin.”
Her small, soft hand settled into Gu Yan’s palm, making his hand tremble. He did not even dare close his fingers around hers as he helped Ji Hanyi into the carriage.
The warmth lingered for only the briefest instant. Yet as Gu Yan watched her lift the curtain, bend down, and enter the carriage, he belatedly realized that a sheen of hot sweat had broken out all over him. Even his ears had begun to burn.
His grandmother’s voice came from behind the curtain. “Young Master Yan, let’s head back.”
Only then did Gu Yan come back to his senses. He hurriedly acknowledged her before going to the front to lead his horse.
After they returned to the Gu Residence, First Madam Gu, Madam Zhang, heard that the divorce had not gone through that day. When she saw that Ji Hanyi had come all the way back with them, she could not help remarking, “What married daughter runs back to her maiden home every other day?”
“The divorce hasn’t gone through yet. What will people say if word gets out? What if this damages the reputation of any Miss Gu as well?”
“The Gu Family still has two daughters who will soon be married!”