Rebirth: The Journey of an Heiress-Chapter 157 - 156: No Communication_1
Chapter 157: Chapter 156: No Communication_1
“Eldest Young Lady, the wind is strong outside. Return inside!”
She gripped Bai Jinxiu’s hand tightly, unsure when they would meet again after this farewell. Both sisters’ eyes turned red.
“Go,” she murmured.
Bai Jinxiu nodded and turned to look at Mrs. Liu, who was wiping her tears with a handkerchief. She solemnly bowed to Mrs. Dong. “Auntie, please take good care of my mother.”
“Good child, get up!” Mrs. Dong helped Bai Jinxiu up and patted her hand. “Don’t worry!”
Mrs. Liu worried about her daughter, but when she thought of how Bai Qingyan had earned a high-rank title for her daughter through military achievements in the South, and even asked the Crown Prince to escort Bai Jinxiu back to the Marquis of Loyalty and Courage’s Mansion, her gaze naturally fell on the frail Bai Qingyan. Her heart felt as though it was being twisted.
It was the dangerous battlefield of the South. The Bai family men had all been buried there. What if Bai Qingyan did not return? How could she have peace for the rest of her life?!
“Mother, I am leaving now!”
After speaking, Bai Jinxiu turned and boarded the carriage. She gave her elder sister one last deep look before bending down to enter the carriage.
That day, the second lady of the Bai family, Bai Jinxiu, was escorted back to the Marquis of Loyalty and Courage’s Mansion by the Crown Prince, along with the third and fourth young ladies of the Bai family. The people were amazed by the Bai family’s upright integrity.
They said that couples were like birds of the same forest, but when disaster struck, they would fly separately. If other husbands’ families were in trouble while the wife was at her mother’s house for a funeral, it would be expected for her to stay there to avoid trouble. Not to mention, Bai Jinxiu had narrowly escaped death at the hands of her husband’s two younger sisters and had been carried out of the Marquis’s mansion horizontally.
Yet, after the Bai family funeral, Bai Jinxiu resolutely returned to the Marquis of Loyalty and Courage’s Mansion. Her quality should be exemplary.
When the two ladies of the Marquis’s Mansion heard that Bai Jinxiu was escorted back by the newly appointed Crown Prince, and that the Crown Prince referred to her as his cousin and instructed the soldiers guarding the mansion to take good care of Bai Jinxiu and her people, they were terrified. Especially the younger second lady, who huddled shivering on her bed. No matter how Nanny Wu comforted her, it was useless.
“What should we do now!” The younger second lady of the Qin family shivered uncontrollably in the corner of the bed, teary-eyed, looking at Nanny Wu. “Now that Bai Jinxiu has returned, we… we might not survive!”
Nanny Wu held a bowl of chicken porridge, tears streaming down her face. “Don’t be afraid, Second Young Lady! We are not afraid… The Bai family values their reputation, she wouldn’t dare harm you!”
“It’s precisely because the Bai family values their reputation! It’s well known! Before, my younger sister and I…” The eldest young lady of the Qin family couldn’t continue, tightly hugging her younger brother, and choked. “Father is dead, and we three siblings have no protector. She must have returned for revenge! If only mother were here, she would surely protect us!”
While the few masters and servants of the Qin family’s second young lady’s boudoir were panicking and clueless, another Imperial Edict arrived. The two ladies of the Qin family nearly fainted.
An imperial envoy stood outside the Marquis of Loyalty and Courage’s Mansion with the Imperial Edict, conferring Bai Jinxiu the title of a high-ranking lady.
It was said that the Crown Prince, after escorting Bai Jinxiu back to the mansion, worried that she might be bullied, immediately went to the palace to plead with the Emperor, resulting in this honor.
The people praised the Crown Prince’s noble act and the Emperor’s deep affection. They remembered how Bai Jinxiu had narrowly escaped death in the Marquis’s Mansion, linking it to Qin Dezhao and the South’s grain case. They believed that Qin Dezhao had long colluded with King Liang and Liu Huanzhang to plot against the Bai family men. Otherwise, how could they have dared to harm the newly wed second lady of the Bai family so blatantly?
Qin Dezhao, the Marquis of Loyalty and Courage, even in death, was cursed by the world. King Liang’s reputation was no better. For his personal gain, he sabotaged the pillars of Jin, resulting in loyal souls burying their lives in the South. Jin had to humbly send envoys to seek peace with Nanyan and Xiliang. What a shame!
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Liu Huanzhang’s betrayal, coupled with the grain case in the South, even common people with a bit of knowledge could piece everything together, let alone Minister of Judicial Review, Lu Jin, who held all the evidence.
However, Minister Lu Jin was puzzled. Whether it was the Emperor or the princes contending for the Crown Prince’s position, with the armies of Nanyan and Xiliang pressing on Jin, the Bai family had mobilized fully to defeat the enemies for the country. Even if King Xin wanted to seize military merits, he wouldn’t be foolish enough to harm the Bai family’s generals before the battle was won.
If, as King Liang claimed, it was orders from King Xin, then since King Xin himself was in the South at that time, wasn’t he afraid of being buried there as well?!
If King Liang falsely accused King Xin to save himself, why would he do so? Even if King Xin died in the South, the Crown Prince’s position would still belong to King Qi, not him!
It didn’t make sense… It didn’t make sense at all!
Minister Lu Jin sat in the dimly lit prison of the Court of Judicial Review, listening to Tongji’s screams during the execution, thinking repeatedly.
“My lord, this servant has fainted.”
Hearing the executioner’s report, Lu Jin tapped the table with his knuckles and said slowly, “Wake him up, continue the interrogation…”
Bai Mansion.
“Everyone outside is saying this is the Crown Prince’s grace! Second Lady… our second young lady has become a high-ranking lady at such a young age. It’s the first case in Dadu City!”
Listening to the servant’s congratulatory words, Second Lady Mrs. Liu was not that happy.
Mrs. Liu knew exactly how her daughter achieved this high-ranking title; it was Bai Qingyan who had to risk her life in the South to gain it!
Mrs. Liu’s eyes reddened. Thinking about her daughter’s reminder, she pressed her heart with a handkerchief and said, “Go… bring the heart protector I had made for my son last year.”
The heart protector was something Mrs. Liu had someone make for her son last year. Who would have known that before she had time to send it to the South, her son was gone?
A few days ago, when Nanny Luo brought back the heart protector, Mrs. Liu cried again out of mourning and asked Nanny Luo to keep it at the bottom of the chest.
Now that Bai Qingyan was going to the South, as her aunt, she couldn’t help but give her the heart protector, praying to gods to keep her safe!
In Qinghui Courtyard, Nanny Tong and Chun Tao had already started packing Bai Qingyan’s belongings for the South.
Bai Qingyan asked Chun Tao to bring out her silver armor, red tassel spear, and the Sun-shooting Bow.
Chun Tao sighed and ordered someone to bring in the dusty redwood box. Inside were Bai Qingyan’s silver armor, red tassel spear, and the Sun-shooting Bow.
Bai Qingyan stood under the flickering firelight. When she saw the heavily worn beast bone thumb ring on top of the silver armor, she picked it up and gently put it on her thumb, observing it under the lamp.
The thumb ring, also called a pull ring, was a gift from her grandfather when she practiced with the Sun-shooting Bow. It was originally used to draw the bowstring, but with Jin’s aristocratic families, who earned titles through martial prowess during the Ancestral Emperor’s reign, this item became a noble ornament as they no longer wished their descendants to engage in martial arts.
The one she wore had absorbed so much sweat that it developed a thin black sheen, unlike her grandfather’s, which remained a renowned piece of its time.
