Shards of a shattered teacup splattered against the legs of the red sandalwood table.
The boiling tea spread into a dark brown stain on the floor, emitting a few wisps of murky steam.
Madam Wang's chest heaved violently. The hands she usually used to finger her prayer beads were now gripping the edge of the table so tightly that her nails dug into the wood.
She stared at Xu Qinghuan, her eyes bloodshot—a physiological reaction of blood rushing from extreme terror.
The surrounding noblewomen, who had initially settled in to watch a good show, stood up in shock at the sudden turn of events.
A row of nuns who had rushed in with wooden staffs stood at the door, looking at the disgraced matriarch in bewilderment, unsure whether to advance or retreat.
Xu Qinghuan sat in her chair and reached out to brush off some non-existent dust from her sleeve.
"It seems Madam Wang remembers."
The young woman's voice was completely steady, without a single ripple of emotion. The secret that could determine the life and death of several major noble families was treated as nothing more than a casual side dish at today's tea table.
Madam Wang looked toward the group of nuns, her voice so sharp it nearly cracked.
"Get out! All of you, get out!"
The nuns shuddered at the shrill roar and hastily retreated, pulling the heavy wooden doors shut behind them.
The light in the Zen room dimmed once again.
Madam Liu, the wife of the Jiangning Prefect, stopped rolling her agarwood beads. She looked at Madam Wang, whose face was as pale as a ghost, and then at Xu Qinghuan, who had not even shifted her posture from the very beginning. A sense of unease began to spread wildly in her heart.
As a veteran who had been immersed in the inner courts of officialdom for decades, she possessed a beast-like instinct for avoiding danger.
She feared she could no longer drink the tea offered today.
"Sister Wang, this..." Madam Liu was just about to probe.
But Xu Qinghuan preemptively stood up.
She did not look at Madam Wang. Instead, she turned around to face the group of luxuriously dressed women with varying expressions in the room.
"You ladies frequently come to Ciyun Nunnery to burn incense and worship Buddha, praying for sons, wealth, and peace." Xu Qinghuan's gaze swept over the benevolent statue of Guanyin on the shrine. "But haven't any of you ever found it strange why the Bodhisattva of Ciyun Nunnery never answers prayers?"
The Vice Prefect's wife subconsciously frowned and retorted.
"Watch your words, Princess. Ciyun Nunnery has flourishing incense and is a blessed land of Jiangning."
"A blessed land?"
Xu Qinghuan chuckled lightly, but the smile never reached her eyes.
"There are too many vengeful spirits crowded beneath this ground. It's so packed that even the Bodhisattva has no place to stand. Where would the blessings come from?"
Several gasps echoed in the Zen room.
Xu Qinghuan took two steps forward, her soles stepping on the shattered porcelain shards, making soft crunching sounds.
"You ladies are the matriarchs of your respective households. Some things don't need to be spelled out; you should all know in your hearts. The Zen rooms in the backyard of Ciyun Nunnery have long housed female relatives who are 'recuperating from illness.'"
"Some are concubines who didn't know the rules and tried to climb higher. Some are maidservants who learned secrets the master didn't want them to know. And some are original wives whose families needed to clear a spot for a political marriage."
With every word she spoke, the complexions of the seated ladies grew uglier.
These were the unspoken, dark secrets of the great noble families.
Send a person to the nunnery, publicly claim they are praying for blessings or recovering from illness, and after a year or so, report a "sudden death from acute illness," or simply shave their heads to make them nuns. Their lives would be effectively over.
Dead women tell no tales. This Ciyun Nunnery is a mass grave of the silenced.
"For those who disobey, there are family disciplines here. For those who try to run, there are wooden staffs." Xu Qinghuan pointed to where the nuns had stood earlier. "If they still refuse to behave, the mass grave on the back mountain isn't short of a straw mat to wrap them in."
She turned around and looked at Madam Wang, her voice suddenly turning cold.
"Madam Wang, although this Ciyun Nunnery hangs a Buddhist plaque, exactly how many lives has it swallowed over the past few decades? Your ledger should record it very clearly, shouldn't it?"
Madam Wang gritted her teeth, her entire body trembling uncontrollably.
This was digging up the very roots of the Wang family.
If this fig leaf were torn away, the Wang family's reputation for "charity and accumulating virtue," painstakingly built over a century, would be utterly destroyed, and it would even implicate their official standing in the royal court.
But Xu Qinghuan had no intention of stopping there.
She looked at the ladies whose eyes had begun to dart around in fear, and dropped the true bombshell.
"However, what I just mentioned are merely small fry that can't be brought to the table."
Xu Qinghuan walked up to Madam Wang. The only thing separating them was the table still dripping with tea.
"There is one thing that I think the ladies present, perhaps even Madam Wang's closest ally—the Prefect's wife—do not know."
Madam Liu jerked her head up, her eyes filled with shock and suspicion.
"Deepest within this Ciyun Nunnery, there is a small courtyard that is never open to outsiders. I've heard that enshrined inside is a 'living Bodhisattva,' unseen by anyone without great destiny."
Xu Qinghuan lowered her voice, but she spoke rapidly.
"But the one locked in that courtyard isn't a Bodhisattva at all. It is a living, breathing person."
"A special person... whose tongue was cut out, whose hamstrings were severed, bound by chains in a secret room only three feet square, kneeling day and night on a cushion to 'pray' for the Wang family."
"Shut up!!!"
Madam Wang let out a shrill scream.
She lunged forward to cover Xu Qinghuan's mouth, but tripped over the chair behind her and fell to the ground in a sorry state.
"Xu Qinghuan! If you dare to spout half a word of nonsense, even the Great Golden Immortals couldn't save you today! I will tear you into ten thousand pieces!"
Madam Wang's reaction completely confirmed Xu Qinghuan's words.
If the previous words had only made the ladies feel uneasy, Madam Wang's near-insane behavior at this moment made them feel true terror.
It was the terror of being silenced.
Madam Liu was the first to react.
She didn't even bother to grab her teacup from the table. Snatching up her handkerchief, she dashed toward the door.
"Oh my, I suddenly remembered there's an urgent matter at the estate. The master is auditing the accounts today, and I must go back to attend to him. Sister Wang, let us gather another day, another day!"
With the first one taking the lead, the others quickly caught on.
Hearing such a life-and-death situation involving a family's core secrets could cost them their heads.
"Yes, yes, my boy should be finishing school today."
"My medicine is still brewing."
In the blink of an eye, the Zen room that was full of people just moments ago was completely emptied out.
Even Madam Wang's confidantes couldn't stop them from fleeing.
In the empty Zen room, only Xu Qinghuan and Madam Wang remained.
Outside the door, the rain poured down and thunder roared.
Madam Wang slumped on the ground, her hair bun disheveled, her eyes full of venomous resentment as she stared fixedly at Xu Qinghuan.
"Xu Qinghuan, you know too much. Even if I don't make a move today, once I send word back to the clan, do you really think you can walk out of Jiangning alive?"
Xu Qinghuan looked down from above at the noble matriarch who had been so arrogant just moments before.
She crouched down until her gaze was level with Madam Wang's.
"Madam Wang, do you really think that as long as you kill me, that secret will rot in the ground forever?"
Xu Qinghuan reached out and pulled the final portrait from her sleeve.
It was an item tucked inside the secret memorial Shen Lian had given her, the work of an artist from the Imperial City Department. Though composed of just a few simple strokes, it perfectly captured the features of the imprisoned woman.
It was a face that, despite being aged and haggard, still bore the faint traces of the peerless beauty of her youth.
This was especially true of the cinnabar mole between her brows, so vividly red it looked as though it might drip.
Xu Qinghuan unrolled the portrait and thrust it right in front of Madam Wang's face.
"That mad nun you all publicly claimed to be a remnant of the previous dynasty is no royal descendant at all."
Madam Wang's pupils violently contracted, her breath catching in her throat.
"She is the lawful wife of Xie An, the head of the Xie family, which stands at the very top of the four great noble houses."
Xu Qinghuan enunciated every single word, each syllable striking like a heavy hammer against Madam Wang's heart.
"The very woman who, fifteen years ago, was diagnosed by your Wang family's physician with a 'fatal hemorrhage during childbirth,' resulting in the tragic death of both mother and child... Madam Shen of the Xie family!"
(It was not easy for this humble author to post six chapters today, and my spiritual energy is completely depleted. I desperately need your comments, reviews, and demands for more updates to forge a supreme spiritual spring and restore my power. Love you all! Good night~)
