The sick king's bride to bring him good fortune

The woman glanced at Ruan Mozhu, her eyes filled with fear, her body trembling like a leaf. She looked at Ruan Mozhu and stammered, "N-nothing."

"Oh, really?" Ruan Mozhu slightly raised her eyes, her beautiful eyes filled with contempt as she looked at the woman and repeated her words bit by bit: "Look at these girls nowadays, they really have no shame. The madam has been arrested, and the other girls have all gone far away, but this girl is still stubbornly staying. I saw a few men go in just now, probably looking for her to do business with. It's disgusting, she'd rather be a slut ridden by a thousand men than find someone to marry, tsk."

"Heh, may I ask who said those words just now?" Ruan Mozhu's eyes were devoid of any emotion, only indifference, coldness, and contempt.

"You...you..." The woman stammered, trying to move her body backward, pointing at Ruan Mozhu, unable to get the words out. She had seen Ruan Mozhu and several men go inside, and given that this place used to be the Drunken Spring Pavilion, she naturally had the wrong idea. But how could she have imagined that Ruan Mozhu not only had a bad temper, but that her maid was also a martial arts expert? This carelessness had cost her dearly, and she deeply regretted it.

Almost without Ruan Mozhu's instruction, Su'er's whip had already been lashed out, leaving a bright red welt on the woman's fair face.

"How could this woman talk about that girl like that? Isn't she just asking for a beating?"

"Although that girl is quite beautiful, you can't be so jealous of her."

Ultimately, it all comes down to conscience and self-confidence.

Passersby gossiped, believing the woman had brought it all on herself. If she hadn't been so sharp-tongued, perhaps this wouldn't have happened, and they would have been spared all this suffering.

Even Su'er felt a little sorry for the woman this time. She hadn't hit her very hard; it was just some superficial wounds that would heal after a while. Even the scar on her face would be completely healed once the bruising subsided.

Su'er understood the power of these rumors. Although they were truly unbearable when combined with the physical pain she had inflicted on that woman, Su'er firmly believed that the suffering that woman was going to endure was not at all as easy or ordinary as it appeared before her eyes.

Su'er heard the woman's insults towards Ruan Mozhu. Not only Su'er, but the men who came to do the renovations must have heard it too. Even more importantly, the guards the prince had placed around them also heard it.

Su'er silently prayed for the woman. "Why did you have to insult the Princess? You know, the Prince may not mind being insulted, but he will not tolerate anyone insulting Ruan Mozhu." Although Wei Jingnan hadn't yet punished anyone who insulted Ruan Mozhu because no one dared before, regarding the matter of Ming Qing...

The thought of Su'er sent a chill down his spine, and his eyes were filled with admiration as he looked at Ruan Mozhu. Ruan Mozhu was the only person Su'er had ever seen who could make Wei Jingnan feel panicked or as if the situation was no longer in his control.

"Report!" A guard entered the study through the window, quickly walked to Wei Jingnan, and knelt down on one knee.

Wei Jingnan was racking his brains about how to please Ruan Mozhu when he saw the guard enter. He immediately reverted to his usual stern demeanor, looking at the guard and asking calmly and casually, "Something's up?"

The guard seemed somewhat frightened, glancing up at Wei Jingnan before hurriedly lowering his head, his eyes filled with fear and turmoil.

"Hmm, just say what's on your mind." Wei Jingnan raised an eyebrow slightly, a hint of doubt in his eyes, but a bad feeling welled up inside him.

The guard stammered, unable to give a coherent answer for a long time.

Wei Jingnan waved his hand impatiently, his voice full of annoyance, and said, "If there's nothing else, you may leave."

After a fierce internal struggle, the guard gritted his teeth and said, "Your Highness, the Princess Consort went to take over Zuichunlou and asked Su'er to hire people to renovate it. Su'er hired our people. When Princess Jin's mother passed by, she insulted the Princess Consort. Later, Su'er knocked her unconscious and she was dragged away by our people."

"Princess Jin's mother, that commoner from the marketplace, huh? She insulted Ruan Mozhu, huh?" Wei Jingnan chuckled, a cold glint flashing in his eyes. "How did she insult Ruan Mozhu?"

The guard felt a chill run down his spine under Wei Jingnan's gaze, and goosebumps rose all over his body. However, due to his special status, he had no choice but to continue speaking, and could only grit his teeth and repeat what the woman had said.

“That’s it.” The guard finished speaking and was about to relax his tense nerves when he suddenly realized that the temperature around the person in front of him was almost ice-cold. The guard trembled violently and obediently lowered his head, perfectly befitting the season and his status, without saying a word.

After a long while, the guard felt that the temperature around the prince in front of him seemed to have dropped a few degrees, and he was about to look up.

However, above them came Wei Jingnan's authoritative voice, which commanded respect from everyone. The voice contained a level of anger and coldness that the guards had never heard before in all the years they had followed Wei Jingnan.

Where is she now?

The guard naturally knew that the "she" Wei Jingnan was referring to was Princess Jin's mother. After filtering the long speech he had prepared in a timely manner, the guard reported, "She is currently in the dungeon of the Prince's mansion."

Wei Jingnan's eyes darkened, and he said indifferently, "Go and arrange for her to be placed in the water dungeon, and then you just guard her." With that, Wei Jingnan stood up and left the study under the watchful eyes of the guards, who were filled with surprise, fear, and respect.

Remembering Wei Jingnan's words before he left, the guard trembled again, a pang of pity welling up within him. "Why did you have to do that? To insult Ruan Mozhu. Heaven's sins might be forgiven, but you reap what you sow. This time, even if Princess Jin is wrong, even if the Emperor comes, he can't save you."

The secret guards knew exactly what the water dungeon Wei Jingnan was talking about was: it involved suspending the prisoner's body in water, opening the gates and doors, and submerging the prisoner's lower body in the water while leaving the upper body hanging there, some distance from the surrounding walls, so that the prisoner could not commit suicide by smashing their head against the walls.

The water in the cells was initially changed once a month, but from the second month onwards it was changed daily. The water in the cells was also quite special, similar to seawater. When the wounds on the prisoners' bodies festered and became infested with maggots, the excruciating pain inflicted by each water change was something even the guards found terrifying.

Most importantly, whenever a prisoner couldn't hold on any longer, someone would pull him out of the water, feed him a few precious pills, and then put him back in the water.

The guards remembered clearly the last person to experience the water dungeon: an extremely arrogant assassin who had tried to kill Wei Jingnan, and also the leader of that assassination mission. For the first month after entering the water dungeon, that prisoner would shout and yell at whatever he could, but from the second month onwards, his wails echoed day and night, a truly terrifying sight. Ultimately, he only lasted less than three months before dying.

While countless thoughts raced through Su'er's mind, the woman, under the pressure of Su'er, Ruan Mozhu, and the pointing fingers of passersby, had already started to cry.

Ruan Mozhu snorted coldly, looked at the woman, and then glanced at the surrounding crowd, a fierce glint in her eyes: "The deed to this Drunken Spring Pavilion now belongs to me, Ruan Mozhu. What I, Ruan Mozhu, want to do with it is none of anyone in Chang'an's business, because you have no right to. You may speculate, but please remember, everyone has their own dignity and personality. As for why the deed to this Drunken Spring Pavilion is in my hands..."

Ruan Mozhu paused, her previous words resounding and surprising everyone watching, even Su'er was startled by Ruan Mozhu's sudden outburst.

Ruan Mozhu coughed lightly, then a bright smile suddenly bloomed on her face. She continued what she hadn't finished saying earlier: "Hehe, I don't seem to need to tell you. You just need to know that this Drunken Spring Pavilion is now under my control."

All the onlookers were stunned again, unable to understand how Ruan Mozhu, who, although not exactly delicate, was still a proper young woman, could speak with such domineering manners.

However, Ruan Mozhu refused to answer any questions from all directions, turned around decisively and elegantly, and left.

Su'er quickly recovered her senses and looked at the woman in front of her. The whip in her hand shot out like the forked tongue of a venomous snake, heading straight for the woman's knee.

"Snapped"

"what"

With a crisp crack of the whip, the woman screamed and fainted.

Just as some people were wondering what was so simple about the woman who had fainted with a single whip, some busybodies went up to take a look and found that the woman's knees appeared to be completely unharmed.

Unable to contain his curiosity, the man had the woman's trouser leg rolled up, only to discover that her kneecap had been severed by that simple whip. The woman's knee was a bloody mess, unrecognizable, a bloody red stain that made onlookers nauseous. Some of the more timid girls in the crowd had already begun to vomit.

The crowd gradually dispersed, and just when everyone thought that the woman's body would continue to disgust people on the street because no one would take it away, a scholar suddenly appeared. He looked very poor. After crying in front of the woman's body for a while, he dragged the woman's body away.

Everyone assumed the scholar was the woman's son or relative, and since they were also eager for someone to take away the disgusting body of the woman who had been unconscious for quite some time, they did not object.

This article is from Kanshuwang Novels.