Chapter 41

In the classroom, Mo Yun kept checking the time. She had already packed her schoolbag and was just waiting for the teacher to dismiss the class.

The teacher on the stage seemed to have heard her thoughts, and the next second she announced the end of get out of class. Mo Yun jumped up and rushed out, eager to get back to her dormitory to read her novel.

Now, following the daily updates of "The Great Tang Female Painter" has become a habit for her, especially since Wang Ergu appeared in yesterday's updated chapter.

After bumping into the female lead at the beginning of the novel, Wang Er Guniang never appeared again. Mo Yun thought she was just a minor character, but then she suddenly returned.

Surprise plus!

It's a pity that February is too good at keeping people in suspense.

Her update yesterday ended abruptly with just the sentence "A sudden change occurred," leaving her wondering all day what exactly happened!

After finally getting through get out of class, Mo Yun grabbed her bag and ran off. On her way back to the dorm, she made a detour to pick up her takeout, which she had ordered in advance and which arrived just in time.

Everything was perfect.

Back in her dorm with her takeout, Mo Yun couldn't wait to sit down at her desk and start reading a novel while eating.

She needs to know what exactly happened on the mountain behind the temple.

......

It turned out that a group of bandits had appeared in the bamboo forest behind the mountain. The bandits were dressed in black and their faces were covered. As soon as they came up, they shouted and threatened to kill everyone, showing no mercy.

The King of Wu immediately shielded Yan Huaijin.

The people at Prince Gong's Mansion are in a bit of danger. Prince Gong is old, and Princess Gong is a weak woman. Only the second son of Prince Gong's Mansion is still struggling to hold on.

The assassination attempt ended with Prince Gong seriously injured and Wu's men arriving to provide support.

A member of the royal family was seriously injured, and his own son almost met with disaster. Emperor Taizong was furious and ordered the Dali Temple to thoroughly investigate the case. However, the investigation eventually led to the Prince of Wu.

It turned out that a few years ago, the King of Wu destroyed farmland with his horse. The farmer, unable to survive, became an outlaw and harbored resentment towards him. That's how he persuaded his brothers on the mountain to kill him to vent their anger.

Unexpectedly, the assassination attempt failed to kill the Prince of Wu, but instead brought undeserved disaster to the people of the Prince Gong's mansion, especially the Prince Gong himself, who almost lost his life and is now barely clinging to life in the mansion with various precious medicinal herbs.

Emperor Taizong of Tang, after reading the bandits' confessions: "..."

He had nowhere to vent his anger.

Back then, he also protected his own son in that incident, only punishing the advisors under the King of Wu, blaming them for failing to properly educate the King of Wu. Who would have thought that this would lead to today's disaster?

When Yan Huaijin heard about this at home, he felt there were many suspicious points.

Everything was too coincidental.

Was the farmer a real person or a fake? And how did he know the whereabouts of the King of Wu that day?

King Wu clearly had a sudden urge to go to the temple to meet her that day. Could that farmer have foreseen that?

Too many coincidences are no longer coincidences but suspicious. However, in order to protect his son's reputation, the emperor had the Dali Temple hastily close the case, and the case file only stated that the bandits killed for robbery.

The matter was simply dropped.

Wow!

Mo Yun couldn't help but exclaim in surprise after eating a mouthful of noodles, and the plot suddenly became unpredictable.

"There's definitely something wrong; it's definitely not just a simple matter of holding a grudge!"

She shared the same opinion as the female lead and also felt that something was amiss.

However, her mind was completely blank, and she couldn't figure out who was behind this or who they were targeting.

There are too many characters appearing in the temple: the female lead, King Wu, King Gong, the second son of King Gong's mansion, and King Gong's wife. She feels that everyone has a reason to be targeted.

The female lead doesn't even need a reason, because she is the female lead and naturally attracts attention. The King of Wu, just like the farmer said, is either deliberately seeking revenge, or someone is trying to harm him for the throne.

The Prince Gong's Mansion was in even more chaos, with his two adult sons possibly vying for power behind the scenes.

Huh?

Mo Yun's eyes lit up. It seemed that the eldest son who hadn't appeared was likely the mastermind behind it all. After all, if the whole family died and only he was left, he could easily inherit the title.

How wonderful!

Mo Yun did her own wild analysis and felt satisfied with it, so she quickly flipped to the next chapter, hoping the mystery would be revealed in that chapter.

The author updated two chapters today, which is wonderful! The plot is so captivating; if it had ended here, she would have really cried.

Mo Yun looked at it with delight, then her eyes widened.

What?! The Prince Gong's Mansion actually invited the imperial physician to help Princess Gong with her pregnancy, claiming that she had been frightened at the temple and that the baby was not developing properly.

? ? ?

Princess Gong is pregnant. Pregnancy is one thing, but the key point is that it was mentioned that she is already four months pregnant.

Not only was Yan Huaijin in the novel shocked, but Mo Yun off-screen was also stunned, her mouth agape. This... this... Miss Wang is over four months pregnant, why is she asking the female lead to paint her portrait...?

It's terrifying to think about.

In the book, Yan Huaijin suddenly recalled the painting he had done for Princess Gong last month.

She made Princess Gong lie on the cold stone for almost half an hour. Princess Gong cooperated completely without uttering a single word of objection. At that time, she was already three months pregnant. Did she not know this at all?

Even if she didn't know, did the vast Prince Gong's Mansion not have the money to hire a doctor to visit her regularly?

Yan Huaijin frowned.

What exactly is Princess Gong trying to do? Doesn't she want this child?

But this doesn't make sense. On the day of the temple disaster, she clearly saw Prince Gong and the Second Prince protecting her, and they seemed to be a very close family.

Why did she do this? Yan Huaijin was at a loss for words.

......

"Oh no, it's all gone!"

Mo Yun flipped to the last page and couldn't turn any further, realizing that she had already finished reading the latest chapter. But it wasn't enough! She had been hoping that the assassination would be revealed in this chapter, but instead, the mystery only grew.

All she knows now is that the Prince Gong's Mansion is not as simple as it seems, and that the Second Miss Wang is not as kind as she appears.

It turns out that nothing of the sort really happened!

Mo Yun was brainstorming when Yang Hui suddenly sent her a message.

Little Sheep Loves Grass: Have you read the latest chapter of "The Great Tang Female Painter"? I can only say that this Second Miss Wang is no ordinary girl.

Silence is golden: You don't need to tell me, anyone with eyes can see that.

Little Sheep Loves Grass: I really didn't expect that she would have a role later on. Weren't you the one who was most looking forward to her? What are your thoughts after reading this chapter?

Silence is golden: ...

Silence is golden: Is she some kind of major villain? Judging from the description in the novel, I always feel that she wants to have a miscarriage and then frame the female lead.

Silence is golden: Sigh, I don't want the author to portray her as a brainless villain.

Little Sheep Loves Grass: It feels quite abrupt. The female lead has no grudge against her, so why does she suddenly want to shift the blame onto the female lead?

Silence is golden: I don't know, I can't even imagine it. Let's wait for the author's later updates.

Little Lamb Loves to Eat Grass: That's right, you'll see later, the author will definitely be able to smooth things over.

The appearance of Princess Gong, who seemed to harbor malice towards the female protagonist, immediately enlivened the novel's comment section.

Everyone is speculating about what will happen next, and some people are genuinely worried about the female lead's situation, fearing that she might be bullied.

In response, Xu Ying could only say that they were thinking too simply; Princess Gong's goal was never the female lead.

Of course, these things will be revealed gradually later.

*

While saving her manuscripts, Xu Ying also made sure to draw some abstract sketches and send them to Luo Ying.

She painted her own vision of Chang'an, the capital of the Tang Dynasty, a city that never sleeps. However, her painting skills were not very good, and she could only barely express what she was thinking.

Fortunately, Luo Ying graduated from the architecture department and had a high aptitude for these things. Xu Ying told him her ideas and gave him a rough sketch, and he was able to roughly model it on the computer.

Later, with her suggestions for improvement, Luo Ying was basically able to recreate the image in her mind.

When Xu Ying first received the modeling diagram from Luo Ying, she was completely stunned. She had always thought that Luo Ying was just messing around with Zhou Xingyun, but she didn't expect that he actually had some real skills.

As a result, she became even more unscrupulous, sending over sketches whenever she had an idea.

On the other side, Luo Ying was very bald.

Zhou Xingyun is too stingy. She entrusted him with supervising the set construction, but the budget was so small that he had to be careful with everything he bought. He even learned to bargain with vendors on his own.

Heaven bears witness, Luo Ershao has never lived such a frugal life in all these years!

And then there's Xu Ying.

I really don't know what's going on in her head; she keeps coming up with weird and strange ideas.

Nowadays, she writes the scripts, designs the costumes, creates the actors' on-screen demeanor, and even builds the sets he's currently in charge of according to her requirements.

This was truly the first person he had ever met with such abundant inspiration, as if it were inexhaustible.

Here she is, sending me another sketch.

He clicked on it and looked at it; well, it was the same abstract style as always.

The next moment, he turned off his phone without hesitation. No matter how many sketches Xu Ying gave him, it was useless if the budget was insufficient.

With the little money he has now, he'd struggle to even build a small section of Chang'an Street, let alone the grand nightscapes Xu Ying envisioned.

In particular, the panoramic view of Chang'an that never sleeps, with its dazzling lights and auspicious colors, could only be achieved through post-production special effects.

Actually, Xu Ying knew it herself without Luo Ying saying it.

She was just a little reluctant to part with it. The TV series had already been filmed, so of course she wanted to include more of the grand panorama of the Tang Dynasty in it.

After sending out the sketch, Xu Ying left for the film set.

Along the way, she kept thinking about whether she should also enroll in a class to learn some painting skills, since she would need them in the future, and she couldn't keep bothering Luo Ying every time.

She'll definitely enroll in a painting class, but she'll wait until this drama is finished filming; she's just too busy right now.

The cast members were mostly people selected by Xu Ying who had good acting skills and decent character. With such people in the same production team, and since there weren't any big stars around, everyone got along very easily.

When Xu Ying arrived, several actors waiting for their scenes were chatting in the lounge.

They were all waiting to act alongside the female lead.

In the TV series "Empress Wu Zetian", Tang Ningshuang is the absolute protagonist. Her scenes take up the vast majority of the series, which means that while others can take breaks according to their schedules, she is filming all day long, shooting different scenes with different people.

She was the most exhausted actor on set.

But what's amazing is that even with so many scenes, she still maintained a very good condition.

In just a few days since filming began, the director has repeatedly remarked to Xu Ying on Tang Ningshuang's exceptional talent and boundless energy in acting.

"Such a promising talent, his best years were wasted, it's such a pity!"

If she had just followed the proper path and focused on acting, she would have been a household name across the country by now.

Xu Ying agreed.

Tang Ningshuang herself had heard the director say that, and of the three, she was the most open-minded.

"There are gains and losses. If I were a big star now, I wouldn't be able to play the role of Wu Zetian."

Even famous actors aren't that free.

Even if the actors themselves agree to participate in "Wu Zetian," a new production by a new team, would their management team and massive fan base agree?

If she had become famous earlier, she probably would have missed out on this project.

Coming into a notebook like this at this stage of my life, when I'm mentally mature, is just right.