Reborn as a concubine's daughter and entering a noble family: Xie Lang, don't be too seduc

Outside the city of Shengjing, there stands the Lanyin Temple.

It is said to be extremely effective.

Consort Qi said that Huo Sanghua suddenly fainted the day before yesterday, probably because he had attracted some evil spirits. Therefore, she should go to Lanyin Temple to pray before the wedding to drive away the evil spirits.

To avoid bringing bad luck into the marriage and affecting future fortune.

To put it bluntly—

The day before yesterday, Yunqiao was indeed acting on her orders to train Huo Sanghua.

But she didn't know how Yunqiao had managed to knock the person unconscious.

With Huo Sanghua's wedding just around the corner, if word got out that she had ordered palace servants to discipline the Xie family's soon-to-be bride, only to knock her unconscious... she wouldn't know how to answer if the Empress Dowager inquired!

So they had their palace staff claim that Hawthorne had been possessed by something evil...

That's when she fainted!

They even made a special trip for Hawthorne to Lanyin Temple to verify its authenticity.

In fact, Huo Sanghua already knew. On the day she fainted, Consort Qi called Yunqiao into her room and scolded her for a long time.

When Yunqiao came out of Consort Qi's room, she was crying terribly!

People say she's unlucky, but she doesn't really care.

When she was a child, her whole family was killed, and she was the only one who survived. His Majesty took pity on General Huo's misfortune and specially ordered people to bring her to the palace to be raised.

From that time on, everyone tended to believe—

She was born with bad luck!

I've heard that there are even more exaggerated rumors circulating in the palace. Back then, an old Taoist priest read her fortune and said that she was someone who had died.

Whether she had died or not, she herself didn't know; in any case, she was alive now.

I plan to live a good life from now on.

She knew that His Majesty had not truly appreciated her father's loyalty and righteousness, which was why he had brought her back to the palace.

Rather, it was to win people's hearts and gain a reputation for virtue.

Consort Qi wasn't truly pitying her tragically deceased sister, which is why she kept the girl, who was being raised under her sister's name, in her own care.

This was to compete for the emperor's favor with the other concubines, and to cultivate an image of loyalty, virtue, and gentleness before him. She wanted the emperor to perceive her as different from the other women in the harem...

Hawthorne understood; she understood everything.

Having been forced to grow up in such a treacherous and scheming world since childhood, she had to pretend not to understand.

It was just a trip to Lanyin Temple; she treated it as a rare opportunity to rest and have some fun outside.

No need to be confined to the palace and have to watch other people's expressions, I'm overjoyed!

The only drawback is...

The person traveling with me was actually Li Lang.

Consort Qi had not arranged for Li Lang to accompany her at all; she encountered him as soon as she left the palace!

Li Lang said he had some free time today and was bored, so he heard that his mother wanted him to go to the Lanyin Temple to pray, and he decided to accompany her...

It's good to relax and clear your head.

Hawthorne sat in the carriage, extremely agitated!

The more you try not to see someone, the more likely you are to run into them.

Yesterday, she secretly asked Li Lang who the person was who shouted "Stop!" and saved Yunqiao from her clutches that day.

Li Lang said it was Qin Ao, a palace guard on patrol.

But she tried, and Qin Ao's voice was not the one she had heard when she fainted!

When asked further, Li Lang couldn't remember. He only said that the news he received at the time was that Yun Qiao had knocked her unconscious, and Qin Ao happened to pass by, stopped Yun Qiao, and rescued her.

She asked the other maids who were present at the time, but they all said they didn't know.

To prevent the matter from leaking out, Consort Qi issued a gag order, strictly forbidding anyone in the palace from discussing it further.

She thought it was a hard-won clue, but it was cut off right in front of her. She couldn't possibly ask each of the palace guards to speak to her, could she?

"...Now I know that person is in the palace, but I'm about to leave the palace to marry into the Xie family, so what's the use?" Huo Sanghua became angrier the more she thought about it. She had no chance to investigate the voices of those people in the palace one by one.

What if those people try to kill Xie Shu again on their wedding night?

Upon arriving at Lanyin Temple, Huo Sanghua knelt before the ancestral master enshrined in the temple and sincerely made a wish to leave the hustle and bustle of the capital as soon as possible, hoping to live a peaceful life away from the city.

Just as she got up to offer incense—

The old woman kneeling beside him stood up at the same time, but suddenly her body swayed and she fell towards Hawthorne.

Hawthorne reached out to help.

The old woman, dressed in coarse cloth, thanked her repeatedly and walked out of the main hall where the ancestral master was enshrined.

She then came to her senses and was about to insert the incense stick into the incense burner when she felt something was amiss.

There seems to be something in my sleeve—

Reaching out, I found it was a crumpled note.

The note read: Do not marry into the Xie family.

Same as last time?!

Hawthorne chased after her from inside the hall, but the old woman had already vanished without a trace.

Li Lang, who had just said he would wait for her outside the palace, had also vanished.

She heard a voice coming from a corner and recognized it as Li Lang speaking, so she cautiously went over to find him.

Just as I got closer, I suddenly heard another voice. "...So what do we do next?"

Is it... the maidservant who accompanied Consort Qi to Lanyin Temple today?

Hawthorne suddenly understood.

So that's how it is. Even this guy is one of Li Lang's men? No wonder he insisted on coming along. He probably already planned to discuss his future plans with someone here.

For a fleeting moment, she almost truly fell for Li Lang's deception.

She liked... in her past life

What kind of scumbag is he?!

She was only focused on eavesdropping... ...Huo Sanghua wanted to know what Li Lang's next plan was, and whether it would be detrimental to her.

"Be careful Sang Hua finds out, let's go back first," Li Lang said.

Oops.

Hawthorne was eager to retreat so as not to be discovered by them.

But in that urgent moment, she was startled to realize that a somewhat familiar scent was approaching her!

As soon as she turned around, that aura hit her! She bumped directly into the man's arms. Before she could think, her arm was held down and her mouth was covered!

"..." Hawthorne couldn't make a sound, but after seeing the person's appearance clearly, he was completely stunned.

It's him? Xie Lin?!

Then, Xie Lin dragged her into an empty side hall, and she struggled to escape from his grasp. She stopped a good ten feet away from Xie Lin and sternly warned him not to step into that area!

"How could it be you?" Hawthorne frantically wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

Thinking about how Xie Lin had just covered her mouth and dragged her here, she was really annoyed!

How could he... ...

Doing that? That's incredibly rude!

"Be careful when eavesdropping, or you'll be in big trouble if you get caught," Xie Lin said, pointing out that she had been eavesdropping on Li Lang and the maid's conversation, his tone laced with mockery. "The person you actually like is the Fourth Prince, isn't he?"

"Nonsense!" Hawthorne jumped up in anger. "I was eavesdropping because... I was afraid they would harm me! Who said I liked him!"

"Whether you like him or not is fine, but you'd better not marry me." Xie Lin had come all this way specifically to persuade her to give up the idea. "I'm not what you see. You won't have a good life if you marry me."

Hawthorne gave him a disapproving look; did he think...?

"You think I'm really interested in you? Now that things have come to this, neither of us has a way out, so I advise you to accept reality as soon as possible."

They each represent their own forces, yet they happen to be the ones with the least say among these forces.

They are destined to have no choice in how they are manipulated.

"Do you even know that I come from a humble background and am disliked by my stepmother? If you insist on marrying me, you'll suffer with me from now on!"

Xie Lin had guessed her answer and shrugged, indicating that he didn't care.

It's just necessary to let her know what kind of hellhole the place she wants to marry into really is.

Hearing him say that—

Coupled with her memories of her past life, Hawthorne wavered. "Hmm... If I had a choice, I would definitely run away! But things have turned out this way, and there's nothing I can change. How about this, we'll give you a year. After a year, you find a way to help me leave, and I promise I won't bother you anymore. How about it?"

It sounds like it didn't affect him at all.

“However,” Hawthorne emphasized, she had a condition. She walked up to Xie Lin and said earnestly, “For the next year, you must protect my life! You can’t let anyone kill me! Is that alright?”