"Master, I'm innocent! I've worked hard and dutifully in this manor for the past few years. How could I have done anything wrong?" Aunt Liu immediately protested, casting a resentful glance at Shen Yunjiao. "Eldest Miss, you must have been lying to Master, right? Master! You must believe me. Ever since the eldest young lady returned to the manor, she has been targeting me. She must dislike me and want to smear me!"

"Whether it's nonsense or not, you'll find out soon enough. Someone, bring An'er up here," Shen Yunjiao said loudly.

An'er? Who is that?

As Aunt Liu was wondering, a young girl of about fourteen or fifteen years old, who looked unfamiliar, walked in with a timid expression.

"Master, I don't know her!" Aunt Liu immediately raised her voice, "You mustn't believe a word she says!"

Shen Yunjiao said to An'er, "Repeat what you said to me today. Don't be afraid. My father and I are fair people. You just need to tell us the truth."

An'er obediently recounted how she bought Aunt Liu's maid from the market and the series of events that followed.

"Those two maids also said that they had overheard Aunt Liu of the Shen family telling the second young lady several times that she should find an opportunity to let the second young lady enter the Pei family and replace the eldest young lady as the Pei family's heir's wife."

"Liu Ru'er! How dare you!" Shen Zhizhang slammed his fist on the table and roared upon hearing this. "I will naturally find Yunmo a good family. Why did you make Yunmo do these things? Yun Jiao is her own sister!"

"I...I didn't! This girl is talking nonsense! Master, please don't believe them!" Only now did Aunt Liu realize her panic and vehemently denied it.

"Bring those two girls in too," Shen Yunjiao said calmly. Fu Xia, who was standing to the side, walked to the door and called out, "Ke Lan, Tan Chun, you two come in."

When Aunt Liu saw that it really was her two maids, she was so angry that she gritted her teeth and said hatefully, "You two wretched girls, I have always treated you well, but now you have been bribed and have learned to lie and make up lies."

The two maids stood with An'er, too timid to speak.

Shen Yunjiao put down her teacup, walked up to them, and assured them, "Tell the truth, don't be afraid of her."

Looking into Shen Yunjiao's bright eyes, the two men felt much more at ease for some reason, and then they told her the whole truth.

What they said was exactly the same as what An'er said; An'er had not exaggerated.

Shen Zhizhang recognized the two maids; he had seen them before in Liu Ru'er's courtyard.

Shen Zhizhang's face immediately darkened: "The witness is right here, Liu Ru'er, what else do you want to say?"

"Master, what if these people were hired by the eldest young lady to harm me? How can you convict me based on just a few words?" Aunt Liu adopted her usual delicate and pitiful demeanor, with a few large tears rolling down her cheeks. "Since I married into the Shen family, you've all seen how devoted I've been to you, Master, Miss, and Young Master. I've been so good to the eldest young lady; when she was sick, I took care of her day and night, even more attentively than to my own daughter. And now, the eldest young lady dislikes me and wants to smear me. This is so unfair to me!"

Aunt Liu cried so pitifully.

"You care about me more than your own daughter?" Shen Yunjiao glanced at her coldly. "Then you should prepare some poison for your own daughter to make her infertile."

"What did you say?" Aunt Liu's pupils shrank, and her tear-streaked face instantly lost all color. She glanced at Shen Yunjiao in horror, and seeing her composed expression, she panicked even more.

That shouldn't be the case. Shen Yunjiao was so young at the time; she wouldn't have noticed.

Aunt Liu believed that she had never given herself away.

Moreover, so many years have passed, the dregs of the medicine have all turned to ash, so what can Shen Yunjiao use to expose her now?

The doctor she found wasn't some miracle worker; he was just a random barefoot doctor who had vanished without a trace.

Even if Shen Yujiao had suspicions, there was nothing they could do about it!

Aunt Liu comforted herself with this thought, and asked, "Young lady, what are you saying?"

Upon hearing this, Shen Zhizhang immediately looked at Shen Yunjiao: "Yunjiao, why do you say that?"

"Father, please listen to me." Shen Yunjiao knelt down in front of Shen Zhizhang. Looking at her loving father, Shen Yunjiao had even more courage.

“I was frail and sickly from childhood. At that time, you were busy establishing yourself in the court and entrusted the entire Shen family to Aunt Liu. Aunt Liu then harbored malicious intentions towards me. She randomly found a doctor from Qingzhou and, under the pretense of treating my health, secretly poisoned me, causing my chronic illness to persist.” After saying this, Shen Yunjiao pulled out a piece of paper from her bosom. “Father, this is the doctor Aunt Liu found. His name is Zhong Shen. He is not a famous doctor, but a barefoot doctor from Lanhua Village in Qingzhou. The medicine he prescribed for me was not a tonic, but a cold and poisonous drug. Therefore, my health is in this state today because Aunt Liu deliberately harmed me.”

Shen Zhizhang took the letter. The letter, which explained Zhong Shen's background, was even stamped with the official seal of the Prefect of Qingzhou, further confirming that what Shen Yunjiao said was not unfounded.

"Liu Ru'er, you have some nerve! Now that things have come to this, do you have anything to say in your defense?" Shen Zhizhang was so angry that he smashed the teacup at Aunt Liu's feet.

Aunt Liu's heart sank, and she immediately knelt on the ground and began to sob. "I didn't know either. My family said he was a famous doctor in Qingzhou, so I invited him here. I didn't know that the medicine he prescribed was poison!"

"Hehe, if you didn't know about this, then why did you specifically give this doctor fifty taels of silver after the deed was done, so that he could escape elsewhere? As a result, after Zhong Shen spent all the money, he returned to Qingzhou a few years later to swindle and cheat. He didn't go far at all; he's currently imprisoned in the Qingzhou prison," Shen Yunjiao said coolly from the side.

Aunt Liu stopped crying instantly; the panic in her eyes was no longer concealed. She looked at her husband in bewilderment.

Shen Zhizhang kept rubbing his fingertips. He had never imagined that the gentle woman sleeping next to him was as venomous as a snake, and that she would even poison his own daughter.

"Aunt Liu, the evidence is all there, so you don't need to argue anymore. Just confess your guilt." Shen Yunjiao said calmly as she stood up.

“Master, I was wrong.” Aunt Liu sobbed softly. “That was a long time ago. I haven’t done anything bad to the eldest daughter in the past few years.”

"That's because doing this one thing is equivalent to doing a hundred," Shen Yunjiao sneered.

Shen Zhizhang sighed deeply, pinched his brow, and slowly said, "Liu Ru'er, I really didn't expect you to be so cruel."

"Sir, I was confused for a moment."

"A moment of folly? You've already caused Yun Jiao to be kicked out of the Pei residence—"

"That's because she's useless! She's not loved by her husband, and the eldest daughter was never a good girl to begin with. She has only herself to blame for this situation," Aunt Liu shouted, revealing her sharp and mean side at this moment.