Chapter 151

Chapter 151

Ling Ling still remembered clearly the first time she met Shen Li.

She had been sixteen then, young and fresh as a spring blossom.

That day was the Flower Festival. She secretly slipped away from the servants and ran to Kaiming Lake to set a flower lantern afloat.

But one misstep sent her tumbling into the water.

Someone heard the commotion, leaped into the lake, and pulled her out.

That person was Shen Li.

At the time, he had been moving cargo in a nearby boat cabin, doing backbreaking labor for hard-earned wages.

When he saw the young lady before him dressed in fine brocade, with a face as lovely as jade and flowers, he could not help but stare. Though her clothes and hair were soaked through by the lake water, it could not hide the beauty she had been born with.

Shen Li froze for a moment, at a complete loss.

Until the young lady before him suddenly let out a loud sneeze.

“Miss, I… should I take you back? It’s… rather cold by the lake.”

The young man looked stiff and shy.

Ling Ling rubbed her nose and looked at him.

Although he was dressed in coarse hemp clothing, he had sharp brows, bright eyes, and an exceptionally handsome face. He was, in fact, better-looking than every man she had ever seen.

So she deliberately said, “Look, my clothes are all wet. Could you find somewhere with a fire so I can dry them?”

Shen Li looked troubled. “I’m afraid there isn’t one on the boat…”

Ling Ling immediately removed a jade hairpin from her coiffure and handed it to him. “Take this. Please help me with this small favor.”

Shen Li stared at the jade hairpin, but he did not dare accept it at all.

One glance was enough to know how valuable it was.

He hurriedly waved his hands. “If you don’t mind, miss, you can come to where I live… It’s not far from here.”

When the innocent young lady heard this, she was not afraid he might be a bad person at all. She immediately tugged on the corner of his sleeve and said, “All right. Take me there. But it would be best if we avoided people. My clothes are wet, and I look far too wretched. I don’t want anyone to see me.”

Shen Li could not help smiling. He led her around the crowds admiring the lanterns and brought her to the place where he lived.

It was a dilapidated hut, bare of nearly everything.

There was not even a proper bed.

Ling Ling looked around, her face full of shock, as if she could hardly believe anyone could live in such a place.

Shen Li brought over firewood and set it up, then thoughtfully gave her one of his own garments.

Still, he began with the same words: “If you don’t mind, miss… you can change into my clothes first. They have been washed clean. They’re just a little old.”

As he spoke, his cheeks flushed red. He stepped out of the room and closed the door behind him.

Ling Ling lifted the clothes to her nose and sniffed lightly. All she smelled was the clean scent of soap pod.

As a pampered young lady who had always lived in luxury, this situation stirred a strange, unfamiliar feeling in her heart. She immediately changed out of her wet clothes.

What she did not know was that behind that broken door, a pair of eyes was quietly watching everything.

After she finished changing, Ling Ling felt somewhat shy as well. She stepped softly over and opened the door, only to see the young man standing far away, his profile handsome and refined, his back straight.

By the time her clothes had dried by the fire that night, it was already late. The servants from Ling Family Village finally followed the trail and found the place.

They assumed Shen Li had abducted their young lady and seized him, ready to beat him.

But Ling Ling rushed forward to protect him and said to the servants, “Who gave you permission to hit him? He is my person.”

That single sentence-“He is my person”-completely changed the fate of Shen Li, the poor young man.

He was taken back to Ling Family Village by Ling Ling.

Because the Ling Family had only this one daughter, the family head had always indulged her every whim.

Though he saw that she had brought back a man, he did not take it to heart.

And so, after Shen Li entered Ling Family Village, in only two or three days, he went from being a lowly servant to directly becoming Miss Ling’s personal manservant.
Ling Ling valued him, liked him, and brought him along wherever she went.

Shen Li understood his situation perfectly. With such a golden opportunity before him, how could he not seize it?

So, at Ling Ling’s birthday banquet, he deliberately made her drink several extra cups of wine, then took the chance to slip a little sedative into it.

Naturally, he never let Ling Ling know about those despicable tricks.

Taking advantage of her drunkenness, he ended up in the same bed as Miss Ling. After they woke, he put on a grand performance of being “overcome with remorse for overstepping his bounds.”

Ling Ling had long since fallen deeply in love with him. All she wanted was to spend the rest of her life with him. How could she have known there was a scheme behind it all?

She immediately went to tell her father about the matter, declaring that she “would marry no one but Shen Li.” And just like that, he went from being her personal servant to the son-in-law of Ling Family Village.

After he married Ling Ling, the head of Ling Family Village loved him for her sake and began to cultivate and treat him like his own son.

Shen Li did indeed have a good head for business. With the Ling Family’s support, he soon opened the largest inn in Kaiming County, naming it Yuelai.

The various businesses under his name also flourished more and more.

From then on, the name Shen Li became famous throughout Kaiming County.

A few years later, the head of the Ling Family passed away. Since his daughter Ling Ling had no desire to get involved in the family businesses, the entire estate fell into Shen Li’s hands.

Unfortunately, after more than ten years of marriage, Ling Ling’s belly still showed no sign of movement.

Ling Ling had always been childlike at heart and did not care much about it. She believed that even without children, the two of them could remain loving forever.

But several times after they were intimate, Shen Li would lie beside her stomach and murmur words with meanings she could not quite grasp.

Ling Ling could tell that he very much wanted a child.

For Shen Li’s sake, Ling Ling began to nurse her body back to health. She saw many renowned physicians, took countless medicines, and even prayed many times to Guanyin for a child. At last, when she was thirty-five, she became pregnant.

By then, Shen Li’s temples had already begun to turn white.

Ling Ling thought that after enduring all that hardship and giving birth to a child, she would finally win Shen Li’s smile.

But when she was six or seven months pregnant, she learned a shocking secret.

It turned out that long before Shen Li married her, he had already had a wife in the countryside.

He had even returned to his hometown many times to see that woman after marrying Ling Ling.

Not only that, the woman had given birth to a son for him.

Now, his son was being fostered in Kaiming County, and Shen Li had already gone in secret to acknowledge him.

When Ling Ling learned of this, it struck her like a bolt from the blue. In her fury, her pregnancy was disturbed, causing the baby to be born prematurely. Before she could even confront Shen Li, she lost her life.

Everyone knew that Madam Shen had died in childbirth, but no one knew what kind of heart-wrenching agony she had suffered before giving birth.

Because the resentment in her heart had not dispersed before her death, and because she could not bear to leave her daughter behind, her obsession kept her soul inside the village.

Only after becoming a ghost did she gradually see everything clearly.

The man she had loved for decades, the man who had shared her pillow, was in truth such a hypocritical, cold-blooded, heartless creature.

Not only had he never loved her, he did not even love his own biological daughter.

So all those years of affection had been nothing but a facade. Between them, there had been no love at all, only exploitation.

Because of this, Ling Ling’s resentment grew deeper and deeper. When the yin energy was heaviest at midnight, her soul would wander beside Shen Li’s bed, even entering his dreams.

Although Shen Li could not see the ghost of his dead wife, he could feel that her Yin Soul lingered on.

In the end, guilty as a thief, he simply found a Yang World Sorcerer and had her soul sealed directly inside the side courtyard.