The maid's road to success

When they arrived at the Princess's Mansion, they saw many more guards. An Zizhong immediately became alert. Originally, because of Duke Cheng'en's extensive search for the account books, the Princess's Mansion already had two more teams of guards, and now there were guards guarding everywhere. It seemed that Bai Shoude was in big trouble.

Following Prince Consort Bai to Bai Shoude's courtyard, the housekeeper panicked when she saw An Zizhong behind her and hurried in to ask the Grand Princess for instructions.

"Zi Zhong has been busy all day, go back and rest first. Your brother is fine, don't worry."

An Zizhong knew from looking at the Grand Princess that she wanted to coax him away. It was rare to see the Grand Princess looking so tired. He just wanted to pretend and show concern to the Grand Princess, but she firmly rejected him.

An Zizhong said no more and walked out of the Grand Princess's Mansion, watching a groom coming out of the small door. He avoided the Grand Princess's Mansion and came to a small alley. The groom followed in after a while and whispered something to An Zizhong.

An Zizhong watched the coachman return safely to the Grand Princess's Mansion and gave instructions to Zhuhai behind him.

"Take people to find that woman."

After returning home, An Zizhong went to the study again. Looking at those people in the mansion who always paid attention to his behavior, he felt a little annoyed. Should he just deal with these spies? It was very troublesome.

Thinking that the Black Hawk's staff was currently managed by An Wen Niang, he sent the news directly to An Wen Niang, asking her to arrange for someone to inquire, and also send Liu Nan to help.

An Wenniang was sitting at home, and had just sorted out the information when Zhuchuan came over with Liunan.

After listening to what he said, she stood up and asked Baimei to contact the Black Hawk in Kyoto to find the woman who seriously injured Bai Shoude. Liu Nan's arrival made An Wenniang feel a lot more relaxed. An Yun has been tinkering with medicine recently, and Hongmei has to help Madam Su take care of things in the house. The only people she can use are some people from the Black Hawk and Baimei. As for the others, because Duke Cheng'en is now searching for the account books more frantically, An Wenniang has already told them to be careful and not to pass on messages unless necessary.

Who would have thought that such a thing would happen again? Some of their people were also by Bai Shoude's side, but they were not close servants and could only know a few things roughly.

As the night watchman walked through the streets, Black Hawk's men continued to take action and finally found the trail at dawn the next day. The woman had already suffered serious injuries and barely escaped to an abandoned shed, but fell into a coma. If Black Hawk, who was hiding among the beggars, had not seen a drop of blood, it would have been difficult for him to detect her direction.

"Miss, this person has the auspicious cloud symbol of the Princess's Mansion on him. He must be the one who hurt Bai Shoude."

An Wenniang nodded. Looking at her appearance, she knew that she must have been beaten. Although she doubted how she could escape from the Grand Princess's Mansion with such serious injuries, she still asked An Yun to come and treat her injuries first.

"Thank you for your hard work. Go to the kitchen and have some hot food and rest."

The man dressed as a beggar shook his head.

"That woman is bleeding a lot. I have to go to the shed and clean it up. It would be bad if someone noticed something was wrong."

An Wenniang asked Su Niang to pack a lot of food for him before watching him leave. In order to better cover up, the man really lived as a beggar. If An Wenniang had not instructed Baimei to send food to him regularly, he would probably have starved to death.

It was not until the afternoon that the woman finally woke up. Looking at the unfamiliar environment, she immediately became defensive.

"The girl is hungry. I asked someone to prepare some food. You can have some first."

The woman looked at An Wenniang without letting down her guard. With several other women behind her, she was finally not as nervous as before.

"Who are you? Why are you arresting me?"

An Wenniang shook her head, took the bowl of porridge from Baimei and placed it on the small table in front of her.

"I didn't arrest you, I saved you. Now the people from the Grand Princess's Mansion are searching for you in Kyoto. It was my people who brought you here and bandaged your wounds."

The woman suddenly knelt up, looked at An Wenniang's face carefully, and suddenly pulled out the whip from her sleeve and pointed it at An Wenniang. Baimei and Hongmei behind her immediately drew out their soft swords to guard An Wenniang.

"You are An Zizhong's sister. I have met you once. You are from the An family, which means you belong to the Grand Princess. You want to use me to please the Grand Princess? You are an idiot. The Grand Princess bullied you and your siblings, concealed the fact that Princess Baozhu was pregnant and had a lover, and used your brother as a cover and a pawn. And you still want to help her do things."

Obviously, the woman thought that if she exposed the evil deeds of the Grand Princess first, she would be able to divert An Wenniang's attention to what the Grand Princess did to her brother and sister, thus leaving her with a chance to escape.

"I know everything you said. Is there anything new? For example, why did you want to assassinate Bai Shoude?"

The woman never expected that An Wenniang actually knew about the scandals that the Grand Princess and Princess Baozhu had done. She immediately suspected that they knew these things but could still hide their emotions and work for the Grand Princess. Either they were afraid of the Grand Princess's power and were seeking benefits for themselves, or they had ulterior motives.

Obviously, they found her and brought her back, and did not hand her over to the Grand Princess. If it was not the first option, then it must be the second option. However, she did not dare to take the risk. Her situation was very dangerous now, and she could not trust anyone casually.

"You'd better let me go immediately. If the Grand Princess finds out, you will be in trouble. I castrated Bai Shoude."

An Wenniang didn't expect that this woman actually turned Bai Shoude into a eunuch? How did she do it?

"Don't worry, the Grand Princess won't come back. After all, she is a relative, so even if she comes, she won't dare to conduct a large-scale search. You are safe here, but if you insist on hiding it, I can't guarantee your safety. I will just leave you at the Grand Princess's door. If you castrate Bai Shoude, I believe the Grand Princess will be happy to use you to vent her anger."

This was a naked threat. The woman gritted her teeth and wished she could slap An Wenniang's face. Looking at the two maids who were staring at her covetously, she finally gave up resisting and threw away the horsewhip she used for self-defense.

"I was a flower seller. Qi Yangchuan bought me and gave me to Bai Shoude. He treated me very well at first. Qi Yangchuan also gave me a lot of aphrodisiacs. Bai Shoude doted on me. But Qi Yangchuan was driven away. I no longer had the aphrodisiacs. The women in the mansion took the opportunity to bully me. Bai Shoude then let me go, and I was bullied by those bastard servants."

The woman took off her outer clothes, revealing her snow-white skin, which was covered with scars, marks from gums, pinches, burns, and punctures from sharp objects, and many more.

"The Fourth Prince found me at that time. He gave me a lot of money and asked me to help him. I used the money to return to An Zizhong. The Fourth Prince's order was for me to kill Bai Shoude. If I couldn't do it, I could castrate him. But I chose castration."

As the woman spoke, tears dripped down her legs like threads, and the horrific scars made her look particularly helpless.

"I wish Bai Shoude would live in pain all his life. He coveted my beauty the moment he saw me, but got tired of it and abandoned me when he found a better choice, leaving me to be abused by those beasts. I am also the daughter of an honest family, how could I be treated like this? The Fourth Prince was the one who pulled me out of the mud, but I did it. I castrated Bai Shoude and fled to the Fourth Prince's Mansion to seek his protection, but he ordered me to be beaten to death and thrown into a mass grave. Those people thought I was dead, but I still survived and went back to Kyoto. I didn't expect to be found by you."

An Wen's mother signaled Bai Mei to help her put on her clothes.

"Do you have any evidence that the Fourth Prince asked you to take action against Bai Shoude?"

The woman took off the headscarf on her head and tore it open. It turned out to be two pieces of cloth sewn together, revealing a letter inside.

"The Grand Princess's residence was under martial law before, so it was inconvenient for the Fourth Prince and I to meet, so he had someone send me this letter. I kept it on my guard at the time. In order to prevent the Fourth Prince from abandoning me, I even pulled the bead off him when we met for the last time. I didn't expect that the Fourth Prince would have someone beat me to death without even giving me a chance to speak."

An Wenniang took the thing. This letter should not be written by the Fourth Prince. She had seen the Fourth Prince's handwriting at An Zizhong's place and it was different from this one. But it could be someone close to the Fourth Prince. She put away the letter and the dazzling red bead.

"Don't worry, I won't kill you. When you recover from your injuries and leave Kyoto, I will give you some money. You should live a good life and never come back."

The woman didn't expect that she could save her life and have money to save it. She knelt on the bed and kowtowed to An Wen Niang. When An Wen Niang left, Baimei and Hongmei looked at each other and went straight to find An Yun.

An Yun knew that An Wen Niang would be merciful and spare the woman's life, but An Yun and An Zi Zhong still had the same idea. Every step was crucial and no mistakes could be allowed. Who knew if this woman would be discovered in the future and reveal the fact that An Wen Niang met her today.

However, if An Wen Niang knew that he had killed this woman privately, she would probably be angry. An Yun did not want to make An Wen Niang angry unless it was necessary. After all, it was An Wen Niang who took good care of him and his four siblings when they came out of the southwest mine. To them, An Zizhong was their greatest benefactor, so An Wen Niang was the most trustworthy person. It was a good thing that she was kind-hearted and did not let hatred blind her eyes and turn her into a cold-blooded animal. There was no need to force her to become a dark person like himself.

Someone has to live in the sunshine for them. After thinking for a while, he opened a medicine box, took out a porcelain bottle from it, and he and Baimei held the woman down and stuffed the medicine into her mouth.

The woman looked at Bai Mei and the others' actions and shed tears in pain. She thought An Wenniang had also deceived her and wanted to kill them to silence them after learning the news.

"Don't struggle. This isn't a drug that kills people. It's a drug that makes people mute. As long as you take the money and leave here and never go near Kyoto again, we will spare your life. This drug is just to stop you from saying anything you shouldn't say in the future."

After hearing that it was a mute drug, the woman finally stopped struggling. When she was tortured by those beasts again, she no longer cared about her appearance and voice as much as before. As long as she could live well, it didn't matter if she stopped talking.

The mute potion had not yet taken effect immediately. The woman thought of something and spoke with difficulty.

"The Fourth Prince once said that the Grand Princess cared too much about her idiotic children and was unwilling to plan for him wholeheartedly. Because of Princess Baozhu's matter, she was also alienated from him and became wary of him. He had no choice but to have Bai Shoude abolished and Princess Baozhu given a manic drug, so that the Grand Princess would realize his importance and do her best to help him fight for the throne."

When she spoke to the end, her voice was hoarse like wood being rubbed. The pain made her unable to utter another word. She collapsed on the bed in agony. The effect of the medicine made her throat feel like it was burned by fire. She was sweating profusely. After holding on for an incense stick of time, the pain subsided and her throat could no longer make any sound.

An Wenniang wrote a secret letter with special ink and asked someone to deliver a bag of braised beef to An Zizhong.

Seeing that the package had obviously been opened, An Zizhong's eyes flashed with murderous intent, but he suppressed it and went to the study to check the package of braised beef. He smelled a sour smell on the oil paper package, then spread it on the table, took out a piece of special ink and submerged it in it, revealing the words. It turned out to be the Fourth Prince who did it.

An Zizhong looked at the oil paper until the ink on it dried and the writing disappeared, then he took out a clean handkerchief to wipe off the black ink, leaving the oil paper package still clean.

He picked up a piece of beef and put it in his mouth, chewing it. This was good news. He was worried that there would be certain flaws when he implemented the plan with Princess Baozhu and Prince Consort Bai.

What if the Grand Princess has a great doctor who can find a way to ensure that she sleeps well and doesn't become mentally depressed? What if Princess Baozhu's incident is not enough to make the Grand Princess give up her plan of so many years and break off with the Fourth Prince?

The news that was delivered now was like timely rain, making the Grand Princess childless, castrating Bai Shoude, and giving Princess Baozhu drugs to make her even more manic. This was of a completely different nature.

It wasn't that the Grand Princess herself was concerned about the fact that her family members were wary of the Fourth Prince, but that the Fourth Prince was plotting against the Grand Princess, which was something the Grand Princess could not tolerate. What's more, he was using the Grand Princess's own children to target her, which was touching the Grand Princess's forbidden zone.

An Zizhong felt that it was necessary to choose a suitable time to guide the Grand Princess to discover it herself. If it was exposed suddenly, the Grand Princess might suspect that someone was deliberately framing her. The Fourth Prince was a very cunning person, and he would find room for maneuver as long as there was a slight chance.

An Zizhong couldn't help but sneer. These people really couldn't wait. He originally thought that it would take several years to overturn the verdict, but in the end, these people couldn't wait any longer and handed him a handle. How could he resist?

An Zizhong thought for a while and called Zhushan and Zhuhai. He wrote a letter and gave it to Zhushan, asking him to give it to Master Yuxi to arrange.