Chapter 524   Mother and Daughter Made a Malicious Plot Again in Mingyuan Temple

“Mistress, Liu Feng says that the eldest concubine of the Xia Manor basically doesn’t leave her room. On the whole, she is in the room all day long. Only a maid waiting on her stays with her. As for her trousseau, Liu Feng looked around but did not seem to find it in her place,” Xinmei entered the room and reported.

Liu Feng visited Minster Xia’s Manor last night and came back today.

Later, Ning Xueyan thought of the fact that the trousseau was not in Ning Ziyan’s place. Ning Ziyan was now the concubine of Xia Yuhang, so she had to move to another courtyard. But no matter where she moved, she was still Xia Yuan’s woman, so the trousseau sent to the Xia Manor was unlikely to be moved to another place.

Based on this way of thinking, the trousseau should still be in its original place. Most likely, it was in the courtyard where Ning Ziyan lived previously. Although Xia Yuhang had lowered Ning Ziyan to a concubine’s status, now he did not have a wife yet and would not empty the courtyard for his wife, so the trousseau should still be there.

“Where does Ning Ziyan live now?” Ning Xueyan put down the powder she had mixed in her hand and asked without even raising her head.

“I should have thought that Xia Yuhang, who looks gentle and cherishes love, is heartless, in fact. Since he could kill his fiancée he had worked to get, how much could he love Ning Ziyan who was related to his interests? Now Ning Ziyan has lost her value, so it is a must to drive her away from the courtyard of the official wife.

“And the reason is acceptable – how could a concubine occupy the courtyard of the official wife? So, in whatever aspect, Xia Yuhang will not suffer losses. The truth is that it is not a big deal to have a concubine or lose her in the backyard.

“But Ning Ziyan, who has become a concubine from a wife, will probably never be so willing to give up, so her current forbearance is quite strange!

“Ning Ziyan doesn’t seem to be someone who can bear it. One reason for her to have become a concubine is that Madam Ling was reduced to a concubine, and the other is that she plotted against me in the Cold Mountain Temple, but her plot was found by me, and then she was locked up with a rogue. So, fundamentally speaking, Ning Ziyan shouldn’t be so calm and will launch a fightback, for sure.

“But strangely, she can still stay in the room all day long and doesn’t go anywhere!”

“Ning Ziyan now lives with Ning Yuling. Mistress, Liu Feng says that Ning Yuling returned very late last night. When she came in, she was stopped by the Second Young Master of the Xia Manor. The two talked for a while. In the beginning, Liu Feng did not notice them; later, he found that they had been hiding in the shade of the tree talking secretively in a way that they avoided being seen by others. So, he walked over to eavesdrop, but he went so late that he did not hear anything.”

Remembering what Liu Feng had told her repetitively earlier, Xinmei said that although he did not hear them, he did feel that there was a trick in it. Therefore, he especially asked her to tell this to her mistress.

The thing was that Xia Yudong and Ning Yuling talked with each other in a stealthy way.

Ning Xueyan frowned, walked to the basin on the side, washed her hands, and then cleaned the water stains on her hands gently and slowly with her handkerchief. “The two people huddling together strongly gives me a feeling that there is something wrong with it.

“Xia Yudong is the son of Minister Xia’s concubine. With a character like hers, Ning Yuling will never take a fancy to him, so it is impossible for her to have any relationship with him. Besides, the two did it stealthily, looking like the thing could not be put on the table. The collusion of the two shows that Ning Qingshan and Ning Yuling have colluded.

“Of course, Ning Yuling never knows this. Being so prudent, Ning Qingshan will never allow Ning Yuling to find that she is the person behind Xia Yudong.

“This should be the method Ning Qingshan has thought of to deal with me. That day she asked someone to hurriedly send a letter to the Xia Manor, and the person who received it must have been Xia Yudong. As for some event he and Ning Yuling are scheming to do, I prefer to believe that Ning Yuling has been cheated by Ning Qingshan and Xia Yudong.”

She put on an indifferent smile on her lips. “What did the two say?”

“Liu Feng says that he only heard something like ‘Mingyuan’ and then the words ‘without further ado’ and ‘do it quickly’ Xia Yudong used to urge Ning Yuling.”

Thinking for a moment, Xinmei answered. After finishing speaking, she asked, “Did they mean ‘Mingyuan Temple’, mistress?”

“It should be so!” Ning Xueyan nodded and put down her handkerchief. The reason why the mistress and her maid could remember Mingyuan Temple so clearly was surely that it was the place where Madam Ling lived. The current situation obviously showed that Madam Ling was an indispensable part of it.

“Xinmei, pay a visit to Mingyuan Temple today and secretly see how Madam Ling lives. You’d better use an excuse to bring Mother Chen back.”

“What do you want Mother Chen for, mistress? Will Mother Chen come back with me?” Xinmei nodded as she heard the first few words. The affair of Ning Yuling was related to Madam Ling. Of course, asking a maid to see Madam Ling was to ease her mind, but as for going to Mother Chen, the maid did not know what Ning Xueyan meant. Besides, as a sworn follower of Madam Ling, Mother Chen never looked like a person who could reveal something easily.

“You tell her that her nephew of her parents’ family has been thrown into prison, and let her hurriedly come and see him for the last time,” Ning Xueyan said in a carefree manner. “As for Chen Qing who painted the portrait of the beauty for me, it’s hard for me not to know him.

“In my previous life, a few of his paintings became the evidence of my immoral sexual relationships with other men, with which Madam Ling and her daughter drowned me in the lotus pond; in this life, Madam Ling resorted to her previous plot. In the Cold Mountain Temple, she let the portrait he had finished fall into the hands of Princely Heir of Commandery Prince Li, but she did not expect that her daughter ended up in losing face and being ashamed.”

After that, Ning Xueyan asked some people to look for him, but she did not expect that the person had long escaped to a faraway land. But it was obvious that the person returned to the capital in the end. A few days ago, Mother Han still claimed that she saw him standing at the gate of the Lord Protector’s Manor. Being alone, he wanted to have a secret meeting with Mother Chen.

Ning Xueyan knew that Mother Chen did not have children, and Chen Qing should be her only younger family member, so Mother Chen was less likely to give up such a nephew!

Mingyuan Temple

Madam Ling was half lying at the window. She was very thin, almost as thin as a skeleton. Her face, which was beautiful in the past, did not have any trace of beautifulness due to this bony thinness. The pair of eyes were like hung triangles. When she looked at others, the white part of her eyes was more than the black part. No matter how people viewed her eyes, they gave people unhappy feelings.

At this time, she glanced at Ning Yuling with the eyes where the white part was the most, and the look in her eyes was gloomy and cruel, showing a gray unexplainable color.

“What do you think of my idea, mother?” Sitting beside her, Ning Yuling was feeding her small mouthful after small mouthful with the few pastries she had brought from the Xia Manor. In this place, Madam Ling had nothing to eat but the light flavor congee. When she saw the fragrant and sweet pastries, she could not help eating a few more mouthfuls so that she almost choked instantly.

Mother Chen hurriedly poured a cup of boiled water and sent it over. Ning Yuling took it, fed Madam Ling the water carefully, then she put down the cup, and rubbed her mouth a few times gently with her handkerchief.

“Mother, this is what I especially saved for you to eat. But taking my current status into account, the Xia Manor does not allow me to leave the manor at will. My eldest sister wears a look of being neither dead nor alive, saying that because of you, we will only be the daughters of a concubine, serve as concubines, and will never have hope,” Ning Yuling said with a grievance. As she spoke, her eye sockets had even turned red.

Madam Ling stopped eating the pastries, took a glance with her hung triangular eyes at Mother Chen who was standing beside her waiting on her, and waved her hand. Then, Mother Chen left and closed the door behind her carefully. Ning Yuling’s maid was standing outside the door, and she was the maid of the Xia Manor. Seeing that Mother Chen dressed in those earthy gray clothes came out with a bent back from inside, she turned around disdainfully and did not even look at her.

Mother Chen gritted her teeth angrily. Previously, when little maids like this one saw her, none of them would not behave themselves and would call her Mother Chen respectively because everyone knew that she was the favored servant of the eldest madam and could be half the eldest madam, but no one expected her to even fall into such a situation now, and she had to follow her madam here.

When she served the eldest madam previously, she offended many people. If she had not followed her madam here, she would not have had a good time in the days to come.

But she really didn’t like such a life! Now Madam Ling did not even utter a few words during the day. Most of the time, she would stare at her gloomily, and no one could bear it. No matter where she went, the pair of eyes would fall on her with the look in the eyes of a dead fish. Seeing the current appearance of Madam Ling, she did feel that she was being watched by a ghost so that she was horrified in her bones.

Such a life would truly drive her crazy.

Mother Chen felt that if Madam Ling did not become crazy, she would really become crazy. Now she did not have other wishes but one that she could go down the mountain safely.

In the room, Madam Ling’s eyes fell on Ning Yuling. She looked at her in a daze, and the look made the latter have coldness in her heart. The look in Madam Ling’s eyes was indeed so weird as if she was looking at someone through her. The eyes were blank without focus.

“What do you think we should do, mother?” she swallowed hard subconsciously and asked again.

“Kill that bitch?” Madam Ling turned her eyes and had a faint smiling expression on the skull-like face, making the onlooker have no choice but to feel cold in the heart.

“Right, otherwise, it is never possible for my eldest brother to keep the Princely Heir’s position, and this is related to the benefit of us. Mother, as long as my eldest brother holds the Princely Heir’s position, he will surely come and save you in the end. My eldest brother has filial piety, and you loved him most in the past, so he will not forget it. When I came here today, I went to visit my eldest brother. He was skinny almost out of shape, and he said that Madam Dowager no longer values him in the mansion now.”

Ning Yuling saw that Madam Ling had a reaction and nodded hurriedly.

“Yuan’er...” Madam Ling turned her eyes a few times and mumbled. Now she looked much more animated than she was just now, looking a little alive.

Seeing that there was hope, Ning Yuling immediately made more efforts, putting on a more melancholy and sadder expression, and rubbed the corners of her eyes with her handkerchief. “Mother, my eldest brother is really good. If it were not for your case, my father would have long asked the emperor to make him the Princely Heir. Almost, just almost, my eldest brother would have been the future Lord Protector, but now... my eldest brother doesn’t have anything. He, he is really pathetic!”

Ning Yuling sobbed as she spoke.

“Go ahead, I got it, and do it as you said. Have you brought all the things?” Madam Ling nodded slowly.

“Don’t worry, mother. I’ve prepared all the things you need.” On hearing Madam Ling’s promise, Ning Yuling immediately burst into a smile and patted Madam Ling’s hand hard. The sadness on her face disappeared completely, and what was left was a broad smile. “Mother, I’m coming to see you together with my eldest brother and others in a few days.”