Chapter 238 Out of the Bag, Auntie Fang Reaped What She Sowed
Hearing the nanny’s scream, everyone turned back in shock. It turned out that the pouch got loose. Blown by the wind, some clothes stuck out of the bag. Inside, there should be two palm-sized dolls. They had head, arms, and legs. Moreover, five silver needles about one inch long were deeply stuck in them. At one glance, they looked like two wavering skeletons, which was horrifying.
Everyone’s face changed.
“What, what is this?” Auntie Fang shivered and pointed to Mo Xuetong. She cursed through clenched teeth. “Third miss, though we don’t know you because of your stay in Cloud City for a year or so, you shouldn’t have harmed me and your sister. No wonder I went crazy and lost my baby. And since you’re here, things kept happening to your sister. It turns out it’s all because of you. Third miss, how can you be so cruel? They’re your brother and sister!”
Seeing the two dolls, Auntie Fang finally felt relieved. Though she’s crying miserably, her eyes flashed with traces of smugness. This time, the physical evidence was here. The wretched woman wouldn’t end up in any other way no matter how hard she tried to turn the tables.
“It’s Miss, not me, not me.” The young maidservant shook more violently. She was practically lying on the ground. She pointed at Mo Xuetong but seemed not to dare to say anything. However, everyone understood and all fixed their eyes on Mo Xuetong.
Mo Huawen’s eyes were cold. He ignored them and stepped forward to pick up the two weird dolls. Holding them in hand, he observed carefully. Suddenly, he stormed and threw the dolls to Yu Feng. “This is the evidence, the so-called evil thing, you found for that wicked woman. This is the thing you’ve been trying to do to Tong’er. Fair enough, since we’ve gotten into such a mess, we should take this to the Emperor together.”
No one expected that Mo Huawen acted so tough after they found the item. Auntie Fang and her group were all rattled. They had a bad hunch.
Yu Feng quickly caught the dolls Mo Huawen threw at him. Agape, he gawked at the words on the dolls. The words in smeared ink were not the familiar birth dates of Auntie Fang and Mo Xuemin. Apparently, the dolls weren’t used to curse them, but then who?
A perfect plan in their eyes should go out of control, which unnerved them at once.
“You want to know whose birth dates they are, don’t you?” Mo Huawen sneered and stared closely at Auntie Fang. Evident disgust was in his eyes. “They’re Qiong’er’s and Tong’er’s birth dates. Wicked woman, now, do you still call them your and Min’er’s birth dates?”
“Why is that! How could such a perfect plan go wrong?”
Auntie Fang looked shocked and scared. She only felt the blood rushing to her brain. She had been in bad health, now, her knees weakened and her vision became blurry. “How? How did the nasty woman get out of the trap this time? I’m sure I’ve buried the dolls with my and Min’er’s birth dates.
“As long as I can charge Mo Xuetong with playing those evil tricks. The things I’ve done, Mo Xuemin’s blemished reputation, and her affair with a man will all be justifiable. Many people will forgive what we’ve done after we’d been put under a spell. It was all Mo Xuetong’s fault. How can an unmarried girl be so vicious? Even if she doesn’t have to atone her crime with death, she can only spend the rest of her life in the family temple.”
Auntie Fang’s face paled. She couldn’t collect herself at the moment, staggering her way and murmuring, “No, it’s impossible. They are mine and Min’er’s. They should be mine and Min’er’s. How come they’re not…”
Mo Xuetong didn’t let her off. Eyes fixed on Auntie Fang, she asked the latter at once. “How does Auntie Fang know the birth dates on the dolls are yours and eldest sister’s? Is it that you’re involved? Or did you bury them to frame me?”
Auntie Fang’s soul was almost out of her body. She looked absentminded and was murmuring. She could only subconsciously refute Mo Xuetong’s words, and then, her knees softened and she flopped on the floor. “No, it’s not me… I didn’t write them. I didn’t, I never did something…”
Seeing she was about to let the cat out of the bag, Yu Feng hurried over to add, “Sister, don’t you dare talk nonsense.”
Mo Huawen coldly stared at the shocked and speechless Eunuch Wei and ruthlessly attacked Consort Yu. “Eunuch Wei, do we still have to search? Or do you think we should report this to the Ministry of Justice or even the Emperor himself? This is the good sister Consort Yu found. I wonder if His Majesty will love Consort Yu more if he knows about such an evil sister of hers.”
He was mild-tempered indeed, but this time, he was raged!
“When Consort Yu is found to have such an evil sister, will His Majesty love her more!”
Hearing that, Eunuch Wei suddenly realized. “If His Majesty knows about this, he’ll only think less of the Yu family. How will a woman from such a family be kind? When she’s only a concubine, she’s already turned her husband’s family into a mess. If she got to be in charge of the harem, what a mess there would be!”
Thinking about the Emperor’s rage toward this, or the possibility that Consort Yu would even be exiled by the Empress because of this, Eunuch Wei felt a chill from head to toe. At this time, he had no plan to talk arrogantly at all. He hurriedly apologized with a smile on his pale face. “Since you’ve looked into this matter, Your Grace should decide since it’s inside your family. It’s lucky that such an evil woman only shares a surname with Her Highness and isn’t really related to her.”
He was cutting off the ties with the Yu family in case he got into trouble.
Seeing Eunuch Wei withdrawing, Yu Feng got anxious. He turned around to call. “Eunuch Wei…” Without Eunuch Wei’s backer, Consort Yu, he didn’t dare to challenge Mo Huawen. Both his rank and status were much lower than Mo Huawen’s. Moreover, Mo Huawen was not only a third-grade official in the capital, but also someone with real power and a close connection with Emperor Zongwen. He was one of the Emperor’s trusted subordinates.
In a confrontation, Yu Feng could only lose and never win!
Eunuch Wei snickered and gently warned Yu Feng. “Sir Yu, is this vicious woman your sister? After many years, a child can change a lot. I don’t want you to get fooled by others. The Yu family is a scholarly family, with such a sinister woman, the entire family’s name will be ruined.”
These words left Yu Feng dazed. He instantly realized. “Now, Auntie Fang is already a bad woman in people’s eyes, but except Mo Huawen and the group, the others don’t know we’re related. If I accept her as my sister, I’ll certainly harm the Yu family.”
Last time, Yu Sirong’s scandal already made the Yu family famous and disgraced him among his peers. When people saw him, they’d still occasionally talk about if they had had a sinister daughter at home… Other than Yu Sirong, he still had other children. Therefore, he decided to send Yu Sirong to the family temple in Cloud City, which was almost the end of Yu Sirong’s life.
However, even after that, he couldn’t easily marry his children to good families because of a blemished name. Just when he found a well-matched official’s family for the second daughter, they immediately canceled the marriage learning he had an evil daughter with poor education at home. They also said that if such a girl married into their family, the entire family shrine would be tainted.
Now, if another vicious girl came from his family, all the juniors in his family wouldn’t marry into good families.
“No, I can’t! I can’t let her ruin the family!” Thinking like that, he slowly took a few steps back.
Auntie Fang also came to her senses. Seeing Yu Feng’s grim face, she knew that things were going terribly wrong. At this time, without Yu Feng’s backing, she had no one to rely on anymore. Therefore, she supported herself up and scrambled on her knees to Yu Feng. She clung to his legs and cried. “Brother, brother, save me. I didn’t do it!”
Yu Feng looked at his bony sister. She was crying so sadly, and thus he couldn’t help but pity her. “She’s miserable, being abducted and ending up in a poor family when she’s little. She was sold into Mo Manor as a maidservant and only became a concubine after successfully seducing her master. She must’ve suffered a lot.”
Eunuch Wei’s cold voice sounded beside his ears and made him come to his senses. “Sir Yu, you must consider your entire family!”
“Right, no, I can’t take her!”
He tried to get his legs out of Auntie Fang’s grab, but she had clung to his calves. Under the situation, he had to kick her. Taking the kick, she was sent back flying, crashing against the nearby tree roots. Immediately, blood streamed down her forehead, and she stared at Yu Feng in disbelief, crying, “Brother, brother!”
Her weeping voice made Yu Feng feel sorry for her. He remembered how soft and cute she looked when she was born. At this time, he felt a heartache. “She’s my sister. She’s been away from home for years and couldn’t return to the family. If I really ditch her today, she’ll die.”
Auntie Fang murmured and her pale face resembled a ghost’s. Her eyes were out of focus and the blood tainted her face. Half of her face was blood-stained and looked very scary.
As if grabbing the last draw of hope, Yu Feng immediately turned to Mo Huawen. “Sir Mo, it can’t be her. She can’t have done something like this. It must be a trap. Someone wants to frame her. She was locked in Lihua Garden. How could she get out and find her way into Third Miss Mo’s yard?”
They had lost the best chance. Now, all he wanted was to get Auntie Fang out of trouble. It was no more possible to frame Mo Xuetong.
Mo Huawen’s eyes were like nails. He fixed them on Yu Feng and said with a sneer. “Then who does Sir Yu think did this? And why does this wicked woman know it so well? Why is she certain that her and Min’er’s birth dates are on the dolls? How could she be so sure if she hadn’t known it before?”
As a Sir mayor, he had handled many cases. Of course, he could saw and pick up cues from Auntie Fang’s words. It was no different than a confession. Eyes on the nannies and maidservants by the side, he thought about their previous framing Tong’er together and felt furious. He could only suppress it down to calmly glance at their faces.
“These people can’t stay!”
Under his gaze, the nannies and maidservants all shivered. None of them expected a carefully-arranged plan to go badly astray. Notably, the girl on her knees was now receiving the cold smile from around Mo Xuetong’s lips and the disgust in her own master’s eyes. She knew she was in trouble!
The little maidservant screamed and pointed at Auntie Fang to expose her. “Old sir, old sir, I didn’t do this. It’s her. She sent people to tell me that as long as I helped her frame the third miss, she’d free me and give me money. My family won’t need to be servants. My life is in her hand, and I don’t dare to disobey her.”
Mo Xuetong blandly said, “Who did she send?”
The servant couldn’t control herself now. Like pouring beans out of a bamboo tube, she told everything she knew. “It’s, it’s Mo Xiu from the first miss’s yard. It’s her, really. The night before last night, she came to me from Lihua Garden. I heard when she came back from outside the manor, she directly went to Lihua Garden before visiting the first miss. Then, she came to me after leaving Lihua Garden and gave the thing to me.”