Chapter 332: The Ordeal of Green Pearl |
After Han Jiuxian achieved Foundation Establishment, his status in the family shot way up. He became the great hope of the Han family’s next generation. Even when he took a former courtesan as a concubine and swore he would never take another wife, the family had no choice but to accept it.
But no matter what, that "live-in son-in-law" label stuck to him like a permanent stain he could never scrub off. To his face, the Han family said nothing and treated him with great respect. But once he left the mountain, rumors started flying everywhere.
Han Jiuxian had left Dafeng Mountain half a month earlier. Green Pearl had no cultivation of her own, so she could not go with him and stayed behind by herself. Just a few days after he was gone, all those vicious rumors and whispers suddenly turned and zeroed in on her.
At first, Green Pearl simply endured it. She knew where she came from and had long been mentally prepared for this sort of thing. She let people talk and did not take it to heart.
But five days ago, she began to feel unwell. After checking, she discovered she was pregnant.
This should’ve been great news, but somehow ugly rumors started spreading through the Han family estate. People whispered that the moment Han Jiuchian left, she went right back to her old ways, sleeping around with some random guy, and that’s how she got pregnant.
Otherwise, why didn’t she get pregnant during the first half-year when Han Jiuchian was still around? The man had barely left, and she got pregnant?
The rumor was ridiculous and not even worth arguing over. Anyone who bothered to do a simple count of the dates could tell the truth at a glance. The child was clearly Han Jiuxian’s.
But the truly vicious thing about rumors is how they spread. They pass from people who want to believe them to people who do not know the facts. And there are plenty of people who do not. So the story grew wider and stranger as it traveled, gaining details and sounding more and more real.
After she came to, it did not take long for her to trace the rumor back to its source. It had started in the private quarters of the Han family’s legitimate Third Young Lady.
Green Pearl did not dare provoke that legitimate Third Young Lady directly. Still, she needed to make her position clear. She tucked a pair of scissors into her sleeve and waited outside the young lady’s residence. then stabbed the person who was closest to her and who had been spreading the rumors most eagerly these past few days: the concubine-born Sixth Young Lady.
“I wanted to stand up for Madam,” the maid sobbed, “but Madam would not let me do it. She said that if I took action, the crime would be too serious and she would not be able to protect me. But if she did it herself, no matter how harshly the family punished her, they'd never go too far with her. I was scared and went along with it. Madam has always treated me so well, yet when something happened, I was afraid. I really deserve to die. Waaah…”
Liu Xiaolou cut her off sharply. “Why are you crying? Tell me. How is she now?”
The maid choked back tears. “Sixth Young Lady did not die, but Madam stabbed her badly and left her gravely injured. Madam was seized by several elders of the clan and thrown into the confinement chamber. She has been locked up for two days now, and no one knows whether she is alive or dead. I have heard about that chamber. It is not a place for a human being. And Madam is still pregnant. What are we going to do?”
Liu Xiaolou thought for a moment. “Do not panic. What is there to panic about? First, tell me clearly. Who exactly is this Sixth Young Lady?”
The maid wiped away her tears. “She is a concubine-born young lady from the Third Branch. My master is ranked fifth and belongs to the Second Branch. If you count it that way, she is my master’s younger sister. But she and my master have never gotten along since they were children.”
Liu Xiaolou asked again, “Does this concubine-born young lady have any cultivation?”
“She does,” replied the maid. “She reached the second layer of Qi Refinement.”
Liu Xiaolou froze for a moment, finding it hard to believe. “Second layer? And she was seriously injured after being stabbed with scissors by your madam? As far as I know, your madam has never cultivated.”
“Yes,” the maid said. “It was only these past six months. My master taught Madam a few basic techniques. After practicing them, she did become a bit stronger and healthier.”
But no matter how you looked at it, what could someone really achieve in just half a year? She probably had not even opened a single meridian. And yet she still managed to stab a Sixth Young Lady who had reached the second layer and seriously injure her. That alone said a lot about just how…
Liu Xiaolou did not even know how to put it into words. Han Jiuxian was already around forty years old, and this Sixth Young Lady had been on bad terms with him since childhood. That meant she could not be young either. After cultivating for so many years, she was still stuck at the second layer.
And since she was still living in Han Family Manor and the maid was still calling her “Sixth Young Lady,” that meant she was not married. At her age, still unmarried, which meant…
After three years with the Su family on Shenwu Mountain, having weathered all the storms that come with a cultivation clan, Liu Xiaolou sized things up in an instant. He spotted a whole list of problems, but they all pointed to the same conclusion. Green Pearl had picked her target well. As expected of a top girl trained at Green Serenity Courtyard.
He quickly tried to reassure her. “Your mistress is carrying Brother Jiuqian’s child. No one in the Han family would dare lay a hand on her.”
To be fair, locking Green Pearl in a restricted room was not unreasonable. If he were the one running the household, he would have done the same. But that should be the end of it. There was no reason to go any further. He did not believe the Han family would break with one of its own pillars, someone from the next generation who had already reached Foundation Establishment, over a mere concubine-born young lady. That was obvious. No aristocratic family would make that choice. Especially since the girl was not even dead.
That said, Liu Xiaolou had no intention of being “fair.” He was going to follow his heart, and he was absolutely not sitting on the fence. He was firmly on Green Pearl’s side.
Green Pearl was an old hand from Wuchao Town and one of Sister Qing’s most trusted girls. She and Liu Xiaolou were close. Pretty much every time he visited the Green Serenity Courtyard, when Sister Qing was too busy to keep him company, it's usually Green Pearl who steps in and hangs out with him. So yeah, he absolutely had to help her out with this one.
“Where did Brother Jiuqian go? When is he coming back? Did he say anything before he left?”
“My master said he was going to Chicheng Mountain to buy some spiritual pills. Young Master Liu, could you please find a way to bring him back as soon as possible? Madam has been locked in the forbidden room. Every extra day she’s kept there, who knows what kind of torment she’s going through. I really… I’d rather be the one locked up instead…”
The maid started choking up again.
The best solution, of course, would be to bring Han Jiuqian back. But with him having gone thousands of li away, the chances of actually finding him were slim.
Liu Xiaolou decided he would have to step in himself. Still, as an outsider, he needed to be very careful about how he did it. If he handled it poorly, not only would it fail to help, it could make things much worse.
After a moment of thought, he asked, “What’s your name?”
“This servant is called Xiaocui,” the maid answered.
Liu Xiaolou nodded. “Xiaocui, go back for now. Don’t panic. I’ll figure something out.”
After sending the maid away, he hid in the woods outside the estate and waited. It was not until evening that someone finally came out. Judging by his clothes, it was a household servant.
Liu Xiaolou followed him quietly for a few miles. Then he put on a bamboo hat and a face covering, changed his clothes, hurried ahead, and blocked the road. Lowering his voice, he called out, “Hey there, friend. Come on, I need to ask you something.”
The servant froze for a moment. He clearly had not expected anyone to dare waylay someone near Dafeng Mountain. But the guy had some guts; he didn't flinch. Instead, he fired back with a threat of his own: "Do you even know where you are? You've got some nerve, thief, but you're blind as a bat..."
Liu Xiaolou couldn't be bothered with more chit-chat. He flicked out a finger and jabbed the guy's acupoint, dropping him flat. "Like I said, just wanna ask something... Where's your family's Sixth Lady right now? Think you could pass along a message for me?"
As he questioned him, Liu Xiaolou also applied a bit of pressure. The servant had no way to withstand it. Wailing, he confessed everything. The Sixth Lady had been seriously injured and could not leave the mountain. He also spilled that it was Green Pearl who had stabbed her, along with Green Pearl’s maid, Xiaocui. The details were more or less the same as what Xiaocui had said.
After hearing it all, Liu Xiaolou did not make things hard for the servant. He sighed and muttered a couple of lines like “such a long night ahead” and “with injuries like that, how will she ever recover,” then let the man go. Seeing him act this way, the servant seemed to grow convinced that the Sixth Lady had indeed been involved in something improper with an outsider. Curiosity got the better of him, and he even tried to probe into Liu Xiaolou’s background, only to be curtly chased off.
Once the servant fled in a panic, Liu Xiaolou changed back into his daytime clothes. Before the sun fully set, he returned to the Han family estate.
This time, he went straight to the mountain gate and set up a formation disk.