"Does this count as scamming the elderly?"
Xu Qinghuan rolled over, staring blankly at the bed canopy embroidered with a hundred birds paying homage to the phoenix.
She originally wanted to package herself as a prodigal, home-wrecking wicked woman who disrupted the imperial court, so that the stingy and suspicious emperor would quickly issue an decree to exile her, even if it meant going to Lingnan to plant lychees.
By then, the sea is broad enough for fish to leap, the sky is high enough for birds to fly. With a system in her hands and technology in her brain, wouldn't she be a local emperor wherever she went?
But now?
Her old dad's heartfelt words completely smashed her wishful thinking to pieces.
"As long as your dad still has a breath left, no one in this world can make you suffer."
These words gave her a headache and made her heart feel blocked.
If she really got exiled, this old man would probably risk his life to hijack the execution ground, right?
Thinking of that scene—the fat old man who usually panted just from walking and felt heartache for half a day when seeing a loss in the ledger, holding a rusty kitchen knife and trembling as he stood in front of the prison cart.
Xu Qinghuan suddenly sat up and fiercely grabbed her hair twice.
No, it's too stuffy in this room.
Everything in this Liu Garden, even the smell of wealth floating in the air, made her feel suffocated.
That was heavy fatherly love, pressing down on her so much that she wanted to escape.
"Li Sheng!"
Xu Qinghuan shouted out the door at the top of her lungs.
No movement.
"Li Sheng!!"
Her voice rose an octave.
A flurry of panicked footsteps finally came from outside the door, then the curtain was lifted, and Li Sheng, with a bird's nest haircut, poked half his body in with a bewildered face.
"What's wrong, what's wrong? Miss? Are you feeling unwell? Or are you hungry?"
Li Sheng rubbed his eyes while buttoning his clothes, obviously having just crawled out of bed.
Xu Qinghuan jumped off the soft couch, not even changing her clothes, just wearing her loungewear with a cloak casually thrown over it.
"Prepare the carriage."
Li Sheng was stunned directly.
He turned his head to glance at the pitch-black sky outside the window, then looked at his young miss's restless face.
"Um... Miss."
Li Sheng gulped and carefully pointed outside.
"It's already the Chou hour."
"If you want a midnight snack, Fatty Liu is still awake in the kitchen, should I have him whip something up for you?"
"Eat what eat! Am I the kind of person who only knows how to eat?"
Xu Qinghuan rolled her eyes at him unpleasantly while tying the strings of her cloak.
"Prepare the carriage! I'm going to Lemin Hall!"
"Where?!"
Li Sheng almost bit his tongue.
"Lemin Hall."
Xu Qinghuan spoke with self-assurance, spouting nonsense as soon as she opened her mouth anyway.
"I suddenly remembered that the new batch of cotton hasn't been put into storage yet, I'm worried, I need to go see."
"No... Miss."
Li Sheng was about to cry.
"That cotton was stored three days ago, you just signed the ledger yesterday afternoon, did you forget?"
Xu Qinghuan's hand movements paused.
A bit awkward.
But this didn't stop her from continuing to be unreasonable.
"Then go check the accounts! Anyway, I can't sleep right now, my heart feels panicked, I must find something to do!"
She couldn't exactly say, I'm feeling guilty because I was moved by my dad, and I want to go out for some fresh air, right?
That would be too embarrassing.
Li Sheng looked at his young miss's posture of "if you don't go, I'll go myself," and sighed helplessly.
What is this called?
This is called the master moves her mouth, and the errand boy runs his legs off.
"Alright, alright, you're the ancestor, you have the final say."
Li Sheng resigned himself and turned to walk out.
"I'll go call the driver, but let's agree on this, Miss, we'll just take a look and come right back. The sky doesn't look too good, it's stuffy, it's probably going to rain."
"Got it, got it, why are you even more nagging than my dad."
Xu Qinghuan waved her hand, stuffed the banknotes into her chest, and lifted her foot to walk out.
Half a cup of tea's time later.
A low-key green-canopied carriage and a high-profile team of guards "secretly" slipped out of the side door of Liu Garden.
The horses' hooves were wrapped in cloth, and the wheels were greased, rolling over the bluestone road.
Inside the carriage, Xu Qinghuan lifted a corner of the curtain and looked out.
The night in Jiangning City, usually even at this hour, the Qinhuai River area should be brightly lit.
But today was a bit strange.
The streets were empty, without even a night watchman.
After the wind stopped, the air became extremely thick. Breathing it into the lungs felt wet, making one's chest feel tight.
"Miss, don't you feel... the weather is a bit eerie?"
Li Sheng sat on the carriage shaft, driving the carriage while muttering over his shoulder.
He came from a martial arts background, so his senses were sharper than ordinary people's.
At this moment, he kept feeling a chill down his back, as if something was staring at them.
"Don't scare yourself."
Xu Qinghuan pulled her head back and leaned against the carriage wall, actually feeling a bit creeped out herself.
But she forcefully found excuses for herself.
"This is called the calm before the storm, understand? Besides, we're going to inspect the property, that's proper business, what's there to be afraid of?"
As soon as she finished speaking.
Rumble—!!!
A clap of thunder exploded overhead without any warning.
It made people's ears numb.
Immediately following.
Crash—!
There was absolutely no transition.
One second it was a slightly cold stillness, the next second, bean-sized raindrops smashed down relentlessly.
It was truly smashing.
The crackling sound was so dense it made one's eardrums hurt. The roof of the carriage was pounded with thudding noises, feeling as if it would be smashed through at any moment.
"Holy crap!"
Li Sheng let out a weird cry outside.
"Miss! Isn't this rain a bit too much? Did the Dragon King wet his bed?!"
"Shut your mouth!"
Xu Qinghuan was startled by this sudden change, her body lunging forward sharply with the violent jolts of the carriage, almost hitting her head on the door frame.
"What Dragon King wetting his bed, the Dragon King is trying to drown us!"
The wind outside also picked up.
This time the wind was different, carrying a viciousness that felt like it would peel off human skin.
The gale swept up the torrential rain, instantly blurring all vision.
Let alone seeing the road, even the lantern hanging at the front of the carriage was completely extinguished in an instant.
The world plunged into pitch blackness.
Only occasional lightning streaking across the sky shone a pale, terrifying light on the scene.
"Whoa—! Whoa—!!"
The driver desperately pulled the reins, trying to calm the frightened horse.
The old horse pulling the carriage whinnied wildly, terrified by the thunder. Its hooves slipped on the slick bluestone slabs, and the carriage swayed violently, feeling like it would flip at any moment.
"It's no good, Miss!"
Li Sheng's voice was intermittent in the wind and rain, hard to hear clearly.
"The rain is too heavy! We can't see the road ahead at all! And the horse is spooked!"
"If we keep going, we'll end up flipping into the Qinhuai River to feed the turtles!"
Xu Qinghuan gripped the edge of the carriage window tightly, her face pale.
She was regretting it so much right now.
Wasn't it fine to just count money in bed?
Why did she have to be so fussy!
Why did she have to come out for fresh air!
Now look, the fresh air has turned into chilling to the bone!
"Then what do we do?! We can't just stop in the middle of the street?!"
Xu Qinghuan shouted back at the top of her lungs.
With nowhere to turn, were they supposed to stop in the middle of the road waiting to be struck by lightning?
"Ahead! There seems to be a place with a light on ahead!"
By the flash of lightning, Li Sheng wiped the rainwater off his face and pointed to the right front, shouting.
"There is a fork in the road over there! Following the river inward, it looks like a teahouse or something!"
Xu Qinghuan narrowed her eyes and glanced in that direction.
Sure enough.
Through the pitch-black curtain of rain, a faint orange light glimmered vaguely to the front right.
Though dim, in this hellish weather, that light was an absolute lifesaver.
"Go there! Hurry up and take shelter there!"
Xu Qinghuan made a prompt decision.
"This rain isn't going to stop anytime soon. Let's find a place to rest first, before we actually flip into a ditch!"
"Got it! Hyah!"
Li Sheng cracked his whip. Not caring whose territory it was, he drove the carriage straight toward the fork in the road.
The side road was very narrow, and its condition was poor.
The carriage jolted even more violently; Xu Qinghuan felt as if her internal organs were going to be shaken right out of her.
Fortunately, this stretch of road was not long.
After only a hundred meters or so, the carriage finally came to a halt in front of a dilapidated gatehouse.
It was a small two-story building.
Built by the water, half of it rested on the bank while the other half was suspended over a tributary of the Qinhuai River.
The characters on the door plaque teetered in the wind and rain. By the light of a solitary lantern, they could barely be made out:
Tingyu Pavilion.
The name was quite elegant.
But on a night of such fierce wind and torrential rain, coupled with the pitch-black, dead-silent surroundings, it gave off a sinister, ghostly vibe no matter how one looked at it.
"We are here, we are here! Careful, Miss!"
Li Sheng jumped down from the carriage and opened an oil-paper umbrella, trying to shield Xu Qinghuan from the storm.
But the wind was too strong. The moment the umbrella was opened, with a loud snap, several of its ribs were directly blown broken. The whole umbrella flipped inside out, instantly turning into tattered ruins.
"Don't bother! This umbrella is more fragile than I am!"
Xu Qinghuan pushed the ruined umbrella aside, pulled her cloak's hood over her head, lifted her skirts, and dashed toward the gatehouse.
The rain was piercingly cold, stinging her face as it hit.
Soaked with moisture and shivering with cold, the group practically stumbled and scrambled their way into the main hall of Tingyu Pavilion.
