Chapter 872 A Picture of Her in the Last Life
It was getting warmer and warmer, and especially it was sunny today. So people could feel warm if they were not in the wind.
Though there were not many flowers in the early spring, along their way there were a lot of trees that had been dyed green by the spring breeze, and they were no longer as withered as before.
Shao Wanru looked at the courtyard in front of her with a frown.
Compared with other courtyards whose buildings were showy and gorgeous, it was a very modest one with an atmosphere of humbleness. And it had a modest gate, behind which there were three simple houses.
“What is this place?” Shao Wanru stopped and asked.
“It is a study. Let me show you something!” Gu Xishu said with a smile and suddenly reached out to push Shao Wanru.
Shao Wanru was not on her guard and almost fell down.
Yujie rushed forward to protect Shao Wanru and cast a vigilant glare at Gu Xishu.
“Fifth Miss Shao, are you afraid?” Gu Xishu raised her eyebrows, lifted her chin, and sneered at her.
“Why should I be afraid? Could it be that Miss Gu hides some ulterior secrets here?” Shao Wanru gently pushed Yujie away and said with a cold face.
“There is indeed something ulterior, but I didn’t hide anything! Fifth Miss Shao, how scheming you are! You hooked up with Prince Chen and my Third Cousin at the same time!” Gu Xishu looked at Shao Wanru with jealousy and hatred. She had tried her best but got nothing, but how could Shao Wanru get what she wanted so easily?
“What do you mean?” Shao Wanru’s face darkened. She couldn’t understand Gu Xishu’s words, but they shocked her a lot.
“Fifth Miss Shao, don’t you understand? You really know how to pretend. There is no one else here. You’d better be frank!” Gu Xishu said with anger and hatred. When she thought of the painting, she felt so angry that she almost lost her temper.
What she wanted should belong to her. If someone else took it and she couldn’t get it, she would rather destroy it!
Gu Xishu had determined to marry her Third Cousin since she lived in the Mansion of the Prime Minister. But now he was getting farther and farther away from her. At the thought of this, she gnashed her teeth in anger.
She grew up with Third Cousin, and she accompanied him until now. Why did Third Cousin fall in love with someone else?
At first, she felt that the girl in the painting was very familiar, but she couldn’t remember who she was for a second. Later, she recalled all the outstanding girls she had seen in her mind and found that the painted woman looked like Fifth Miss Shao of Marquis Xing’s Mansion.
Gu Xishu had a good memory. Shao Wanru didn’t look the same as the girl in the painting when she first met Gu Xishu just now. She still looked like a naive teenager. But some characteristics could not be changed, such as her delicate and beautiful facial features and her pure and charming watery eyes.
Of course, Gu Xishu was just skeptical about Shao Wanru at first, but she changed to be certain when she saw Shao Wanru today.
Yes, it was Shao Wanru, the current Shao Wanru but not the previous one.
“But how could it be her?” That was also why Gu Xishu was so shocked when she saw Shao Wanru for the first time. “Why should it be her? When did Third Cousin get acquainted with her? Why have I never known about it and have never heard of it before?”
Shao Wanru had calmed down. Her watery eyes fell on Gu Xishu’s jealous and ferocious face, and then she questioned with a smile, “What do you mean by saying that I should be frank? Miss Gu, do you think you can say whatever you want? How could you slander me at will?”
The calmer Shao Wanru was, the angrier Gu Xishu became. She pointed at Shao Wanru and scolded loudly, “You… how dare you deny it?”
“Miss Gu, please don’t talk nonsense without evidence. My Miss is going to marry into Prince Chen’s Mansion soon. Not anyone can talk nonsense about her!” Yujie glared at Gu Xishu and said.
Just now, her Miss was almost pushed over by her.
Gu Xishu’s servant girl also took a step forward to protect her master. She faced Yujie and said, “How dare you cut in with rude words when my master is talking?”
“Is your Miss’s servant girl the same as our Miss’s?” Yujie looked up and down at that servant girl with disdain.
“You…” Gu Xishu’s servant girl was so angry that she was about to take action but was stopped by Gu Xishu.
“Shao Wanru, you won’t admit it until you see the proof, right? Well, I’ll show you! Come with me!” Gu Xishu said with a sneer.
She turned around and walked into the house. After taking a few steps, she turned back and said, “Shao Wanru, don’t you even dare to have a look at the painting? If you refuse to see it, I’ll show it to all the guests today. I’ll make everyone see through what kind of person you are! Let’s see whether Prince Chen still wants to marry you then.”
After that, she rushed into the main room.
Shao Wanru pondered for a second and followed her fearlessly.
The door of the main house was closed. Gu Xishu took out a key to open it and went inside. It turned out to be a study with shelves of books instead of a room for living. The three houses were actually a building with two side rooms connected to both sides of the main room.
Gu Xishu led Shao Wanru to the side room on the left. There was a big desk, on which everything was available, including writing brushes, ink sticks, paper, and ink stones.
There was a big painting jar beside the desk with a few paintings in it.
Gu Xishu walked to the painting jar, took out a scroll, and handed it to Shao Wanru with a cold face. “Take a look at it yourself. Don’t tell me that you don’t know who she is in it even though there are some differences. They are just tricks designed by Third Cousin to deceive people. Anyone who sees it will know that it’s you! The more he tries to deceive us, the more conspicuous it is!”
Shao Wanru frowned and took the painting. She walked to the desk beside the window, slowly unfolded it, and laid it flat on the desk.
When she saw the woman in the painting clearly, her face changed. The woman in the painting was exactly her.
Yujie had thought that Gu Xishu was talking nonsense. Now when she saw the face of the woman in the painting, she was also shocked with her eyes widely open, and she could say nothing in a moment.
“This… is Miss, isn’t she?”
“Don’t ever say that you don’t know the woman in the painting or try to lie that she is not you but someone else, Shao Wanru. How unexpected it is that you are such a woman, who has… with Third Cousin! You… you two…” Gu Xishu pointed at the painting and was so angry that her face turned livid.
Her eyes were full of hatred, as if Wen Xichi had always been hers.
“Shao Wanru, I am going to show this painting to everyone later so that you can experience what it means to lose your reputation. You want to marry my Third Cousin brother? Forget it. Even if you are disgraced and have to marry him, you will be merely a concubine at most and you will be below me. I can torture you in any way I want!”
Gu Xishu’s eyes were tinged with angry red.
Shao Wanru ignored her and watched the painting carefully. Everything in it was very familiar to her. Her clothes and expression, and even the surrounding environment were very familiar as if it was just right in front of her. When looking at it again, she seemed to be in a dream.
She touched the face of the woman in the painting with her trembling fingers. For a moment, the hatred that she thought disappeared in her heart aroused again.
The woman in the painting stood in the corridor, followed by a servant girl far behind her. She was not Yujie, but another servant girl who, she remembered, was arranged for her by the Mansion of the Prime Minister. She was loyal, but Shao Wanru failed to protect such a loyal servant girl at that time. She was beaten with a large stick 20 times because of bumping into Gu Xishu of the second branch.
By the time Shao Wanru knew the news and went to find Gu Xishu, Gu Xishu had gone out to have fun. So her servants did not let the servant girl go. When Gu Xishu came back, the servant girl was already dead.
It was drizzling in the painting. She was staring up at the sky with a sad and lonely expression on her face—She was pursing her lips tightly with bitterness and helplessness. Her eyes seemed to fall on the rain or somewhere else through the rain.
Someone else was at the end of the corridor, but the face was too vague to be told who he was. However, from the color of the clothes and the thin figure, Shao Wanru could tell that it was Wen Xichi who was almost too sick to stand up at that time.
He seemed to be standing by the window of the house and quietly watching Shao Wanru, who looked sad in the corridor.
Some memories came into her brain. She married into the Mansion of the Prime Minister in the name of suppressing the bad luck, but she was looked down upon by all the people in the mansion. She was treated quite well by the servants in Wen Xichi’s courtyard. As for those in the other courtyards, they didn’t see her as a master at all. When they saw her, they were usually indifferent, and few of them obeyed her orders.
Not to mention asking her servant girl to deliver her orders, even if she said it herself, no one would care about her. At that time, Wen Xichi was in poor health, so Shao Wanru didn’t dare to disturb him with this kind of thing at all. She just wanted him to take good care of himself. If anything happened, Shao Wanru always tried her best to keep it herself and deal with it alone.
At that time, she felt inferior, and she was sensitive and timid. When she couldn’t think of a solution, she would stand alone in the corridor and feel sad for herself.
The woman in the painting was her in the last life, and it seemed that she looked a little older in the drawing than she was now.
But why would there be such a painting? Did Wen Xichi remember anything?
“Where… where did this come from?” Shao Wanru heard her own calm voice. It seemed to be from above the clouds as if it were not made by her. It sounded distant and unreal!
“How shameless you are to ask that! Of course, it was painted by Third Cousin. Will you deny that this person is you? Although Third Cousin used some techniques to make the woman in the painting look a little older than you, so what? Anyone who sees it can tell that it is you, right?”
“Miss Gu, you are wrong. This is not me.” Shao Wanru said lightly, “The background is the courtyard of your mansion, isn’t it? And isn’t this a servant girl of your mansion, either? I’ve never been here before. How could there be such a scene?”
Shao Wanru slowly traced the corridor with her fingers. The servant girl in the painting had lived a bitter life in her last life because she had been Shao Wanru’s servant. In this life, they were not even connected, so Gu Xishu would not kill this servant girl. It was actually the best end…