Reborn in Each Other’s Bodies: A Mother and Daughter’s Deadly Revenge - Chapter 137

Qingying’s words made Sheng Minmin sneer coldly.

These past few years, Sheng Mingjian and his two brothers had certainly not been idle.

Each was striving hard to make something of themselves. Seeing the three of them promising, Sheng Yong hadn’t stinted on giving them silver in private.

This allowed the three brothers to socialize freely outside the mansion and also buy people’s loyalty within the estate.

Qingxin came to the Peony Court regularly, and within the first two years, she had already won over two matrons, though lowly matrons couldn’t be of much real use.

Sheng Mingjian then secretly had his servant boy, Gaoshan, deliberately start getting close to Qingxiang.

Qingying, being sharp and observant, and sharing a room with Qingxiang as fellow first-rank maids, had noticed Qingxiang’s unusual behavior very early on.

For these past two years, Qingxiang thought her contacts with Gaoshan were well hidden, but in reality, Sheng Minmin was aware of everything.

Besides Sheng Mingjian, Sheng Mingyi also had his servant boy, Yannian, approach Qingdai.

Ever since Qingdai first entered the mansion, she had presented herself as sly, lazy, greedy, and boastful.

Yannian, two years younger than Qingdai, was all smiles with everyone and had a smooth tongue.

Around Qingdai, he was always calling her ‘big sister’ this and ‘big sister’ that, often bringing her tasty treats.

Qingdai guessed his intentions and proactively told Sheng Minmin, who simply advised Qingdai to play along.

With her mistress’s approval, Qingdai grew closer and closer to Yannian.

From time to time, Qingdai would accept some small benefits from Yannian and leak some unimportant, non-critical information to him.

Now that Sheng Mingzhu was back, the two brothers’ activities would likely become more frequent.

“Keep a close eye on her in your daily routine.”

Sheng Minmin instructed Qingying, then remembered what Qingxiang had been inquiring about.

Currently, Sheng Mingzhu was still ostensibly the legitimate daughter of the Sheng family. If she, the mistress of the house, didn’t send some gifts over, it would be easy for others to criticize her for neglecting propriety.

“I remember we bought a batch of talisman paper earlier at Chunshan Temple. Take two sheets and send them over to her.”

“Just say they are treasures that have been consecrated before the deities for a long time, capable of ensuring good deeds are rewarded and evil deeds punished…”

Qingying acknowledged the order.

After Sheng Minmin sent someone to deliver the items to Hibiscus Court, within less than an hour, the concubines, the two young masters, and the cousin lady of the estate had all sent gifts over as well.

They weren’t particularly valuable gifts, just tokens of goodwill.

Even Huang Yaning sent a gift.

Qingtian had a few maids carry two rather wilted-looking plants and swaggered off to Hibiscus Court.

Whether Sheng Mingzhu was truly resting or just pretending, she remained inside her room and didn’t come out.

Qingtian, after all these years with Huang Yaning, had become quite bold. She stood outside Sheng Mingzhu’s door and said with a smile,

“Sixth Miss, my mistress said that you lived in the Begonia Court for seven years, so you must have many fond memories associated with it. You must have missed everything about the courtyard dearly during these five years away…”

“However, my mistress had already donated all the items from the Begonia Court to charity five years ago. Seeing you return today, she felt a bit sorry that she didn’t leave anything for you as a memento.”

“Fortunately, there were still these two begonia plants left in a corner of the courtyard, remnants from the past. So, she sent them over for you—”

Five years ago, when Sheng Mingzhu left the capital, she was still the ‘Lucky Star’, and Huang Yaning was the ‘Disaster Star’.

But after the charity donation incident, no one called Sheng Mingzhu the Lucky Star anymore, while Huang Yaning’s reputation kept improving.

Sheng Mingzhu only heard about that incident several months later and was furious for a long time.

And now, Qingtian was bringing up that sore subject?

This wasn’t a gift delivery; it was blatantly coming to mock her!

Unfortunately, Sheng Mingzhu was currently committed to playing the part of the sensible, well-mannered ‘poor little thing’. Xiazhi and Jixue didn’t dare argue with Qingtian.

In the end, Qingtian smiled triumphantly and swaggered away, leaving Xiazhi and Jixue staring at the two limp ‘weeds’, their expressions a picture of pure frustration…

——-

Meanwhile, over at Taoniang’s place, she had already learned about what happened to the Feng family from the two servants she sent to investigate in Taohua Village.

She was so angry she smashed the teacup on the table, then hurled the teapot to the floor as well.

How dare the Feng family do this?

The old man Feng and Old Li sold her two daughters?!

And Feng Lao’er actually agreed to it?!

During all those years she worked as a wet nurse for the Sheng family, she had given those two old things several hundred taels of silver in total!

So what if their house burned down? How could they possibly be reduced to begging and selling her daughters?

If she hadn’t learned that the Feng men (except the old patriarch) were all crippled, Taoniang would have sent people to break their legs herself.

Old Man Feng, thinking he was clever, came to the capital to beg and sold her daughters, only to have the money stolen and the men beaten and crippled.

Although Old Man Feng reported the robbery to the authorities the next morning and a case was filed, which ultimately allowed them to keep the farmland in Taohua Village.

But with the able-bodied men crippled and useless, Old Man Feng had to rely on selling land to survive.

The family lived in utter misery, practically skin and bones.

Served them right!

They reaped what they sowed!

If the Feng family had been a little smarter and had any conscience, they would still have their money, wouldn’t be crippled, and wouldn’t have ended up like this!

It was just her poor Fourth Girl and Fifth Girl… Taoniang had already sent servants to make inquiries at the slave agency.

She hoped to find out where her two daughters had been sold.

Over the years, Taoniang had grown to resent her eldest daughter, whom she blamed for her disability.

Mingzhu, while successful, communicated with her less and less and increasingly didn’t take her seriously.

Like with her legs – she had kept begging Mingzhu to put in a good word for her, to ask Young Master Lin to treat her.

Taoniang believed that if Young Master Lin could cure Mingzhu, he could certainly cure her.

But no matter how many times she begged Mingzhu, Mingzhu never broached the subject with Young Master Lin.

Once, when she pressed a bit too urgently, Mingzhu coldly said something about not having enough people now and promised to help her get treatment after she ‘ascended to a high position’ in the future.

Taoniang didn’t really understand those words, but she didn’t dare ask again.

Overall, Mingzhu gave her money, bought her servants, and even got her a few maintenance prescriptions from Young Master Lin.

She told her to come to the capital, acquire a shopfront, and sell cosmetics.

Mingzhu was still good to her, just not as attentive as before.

That’s why Taoniang thought of her other two daughters.

She never expected that the heartless Feng family would sell them.

Now, she could only have the servants make rouge and cosmetics while she looked for a suitable shop and searched for Fourth Girl and Fifth Girl.

Little did Taoniang know that the two daughters she was searching for were also right there in the Sheng mansion.

And one of them had been discovered by Xiazhi.

“Fourth Girl, why are you here in the mansion?”

After double-checking that she couldn’t possibly be mistaken, Xiazhi, without waiting for an answer, pulled the person to a secluded spot.

Once they were in a deserted place, Qiuju unwillingly shook off Xiazhi’s hand.

“My name is Qiuju now—”

Qiuju was formerly Feng Siya. Four and a half years ago, she was assigned to Sheng Mingyi’s side.

Because she was someone Sheng Minmin had sent, she was now a very respected maid in Sheng Mingyi’s courtyard.

After being a respected maid for several years, Qiuju had changed significantly.

Even facing her older sister, whom she previously wouldn’t have dared to defy, she now had the nerve to show displeasure.

Initially, Qiuju hadn’t wanted to admit her identity, but Xiazhi had lived with them for so many years and knew them all too well.

Rather than risk being pestered and having the news leak out later, it was better to admit it now.

“Fourth Girl, why are you here?”

Xiazhi was both shocked and fearful, a vague sense of foreboding growing in her heart.

“Why else?” Qiuju’s face was full of scorn.

“You and Mother went off to live the good life with Sixth Miss, not caring whether we lived or died!

“The house back home burned down, Grandpa and Grandma brought us to the capital to beg. Later, when there was no food left, they sold me and Fifth Sister—

“If Fifth Sister and I hadn’t been lucky enough to be sold into the Sheng mansion, we’d be wandering ghosts by now—”

Xiazhi stood stunned for a long moment; she was processing a lot of information in a short time.

The house in Taohua Village burned down?

They were begging?

Fifth Girl was sold too?

She questioned Qiuju carefully about what had happened.

Qiuju told her everything except the part about being coerced by Huang Yaning to find people to deal with the Feng family.

“Sister Xiazhi, nobody in the mansion knows mine and Winter sunflower’s real identities now. I hope you can keep it a secret for us!”

“Impossible!” Xiazhi instinctively said sharply. Seeing Qiuju looking around nervously, seemingly very afraid of being overheard, Xiazhi took a breath and lowered her voice to ask.

“How could Sixth Girl— I mean, Seventh Miss—not have discovered your identities?”

“How should I know? Perhaps Seventh Miss, like everyone else in the mansion, thinks we were specially sought out and brought into the mansion by the Madam—”

Xiazhi couldn’t believe that for a moment.

If Seventh Miss were that stupid and careless, she could never have made things so difficult for Sheng Mingzhu five years ago!

There must be something more going on here!