The beggar refused to talk to anyone, and the cell returned to silence, creating a slightly suffocating awkwardness.
Su Xiaoning felt helpless, but still retained some curiosity. She lowered her voice and tentatively asked, "Someone like you shouldn't be in jail. How did you get in? Don't you want to get out?"
There was still silence, no response. Even the faint sound of snoring could be heard, as if the beggar had fallen asleep.
It seemed she wouldn't get any information out of him. Su Xiaoning shook her head regretfully, retreated back into her haystack, closed her eyes, and forced herself to sleep.
Before long, a wet sensation suddenly came from my face, just like when I was awakened by the pearl licking me in the bamboo house.
As if sensing something, Su Xiaoning suddenly opened her eyes and saw Pearl lying next to her head, sticking out her tongue foolishly.
"Why are you here? Are you alright now?"
Su Xiaoning was overjoyed and immediately sat up, holding the pearl in her arms.
Pearl seems to have been healed by the birch tree. It looks no different from before, and is even more lively. I don't know how it ended up in the Ministry of Justice prison.
Su Xiaoning hugged Pearl tightly, feeling much more at ease. As usual, she stroked Pearl's fluffy head, but suddenly felt something under her hand.
She parted the pearl's thick hair and saw a piece of paper folded into a small square stuck there.
What happened? Wasn't the prescription already taken down?
Su Xiaoning took down the small square with doubt, opened it, and saw that it was Su Qingcai's handwriting.
The message was short, consisting of only six words: "Don't be afraid, I will save you."
These six words gave Su Xiaoning immense courage. Her heart warmed, and she pressed the paper to her chest, feeling incredibly comforted.
It seems that Pearl was put in prison by Su Qingcai to send her a message, or perhaps to keep her company so she wouldn't be so bored.
Su Xiaoning lay down on the haystack with Pearl in her arms, and Pearl nestled quietly in her embrace. With just the two of them, the long night wasn't too hard to bear.
...
In the Seventh Prince's mansion, Qin Yunyun was sleeping soundly.
Fu Ruo suddenly sneaked into the mansion in the dead of night. She went to Qin Yunyun's room with ease, patted her face without any politeness, and shook her awake.
Suddenly woken up, Qin Yunyun was a little unhappy and said unhappily, "Can't we talk about it tomorrow? Disturbing my sleep in the middle of the night, I can't have a moment's peace!"
"Of course I have something important to tell you," Fu Ruo replied curtly. She wasn't very good at social niceties, so she would rush to find Qin Yunyun whenever she had something to say.
Qin Yunyun rolled her eyes, then turned over and closed them again.
"What does it matter? Nothing is more important than my sleep! You'd better leave. You're acting like a servant, don't even think about managing your master!"
Although she had begged and pleaded with Fu Ruo to come, Qin Yunyun had never considered Fu Ruo as an equal partner. In a fit of anger, and still half-asleep, she blurted out her true feelings.
"A servant?" Fu Ruo's expression changed, and the surrounding temperature seemed to drop to freezing point.
She sneered and chanted an incomprehensible spell. Soon, the koi fish mark on the back of Qin Yunyun's hand burned like fire, making her scream.
"Ouch, it's burning me! I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that! Please let me go!"
Qin Yunyun was so hot that she rolled around on the bed and even fell to the floor. Once she was fully awake, she no longer cared about saving face and kept begging Fu Ruo.
Fu Ruo wasn't a stubborn person. She recited another string of incantations, and the koi fish mark slowly returned to normal.
Qin Yunyun huddled on the ground in agony, unable to calm down for a while. Fu Ruo squatted down, looking at her coldly, as if she were an inanimate object.
"Now you can listen to me in peace?"
"Okay, okay... You can say whatever you want whenever you want, just don't treat me like this anymore..." Qin Yunyun was still in shock and dared not be coy anymore.
Fu Ruo snorted coldly before slowly saying, "With my methods, Su Xiaoning will not wake up again. I can't find out the cause right now, but this matter is definitely of great importance. Su Xiaoning cannot be allowed to live any longer—"
She stared into Qin Yunyun's eyes, her words carrying a chilling intent: "Kill her."
"So we're going to get rid of her?" Qin Yunyun opened her mouth, feeling a bit surprised. She had been planning to torment Su Xiaoning first.
"If we don't get rid of her now, she'll be a menace sooner or later," Fu Ruo said coldly, turning and drifting away. "I'm leaving now. Figure out a solution yourself."
She left the door open, and a gust of cold wind blew in, making Qin Yunyun shiver.
Qin Yunyun got up from the ground, her expression gloomy. She gritted her teeth and stared in the direction Fu Ruo had left, cursing her hundreds of times in her heart before closing the door and hastily going to bed.
Despite the scolding, the task assigned still needed to be done. The next day, Qin Yunyun went to find Su Qinghe.
"Your Highness, I had a terrible dream last night!"
Qin Yunyun threw herself into Su Qinghe's arms, tears streaming down her face, as if something terrible had happened.
Su Qinghe wasn't interested in dreams, but since the other person was Qin Yunyun, he casually asked, "Don't be afraid, what kind of dream did you have?"
"I dreamt... I dreamt that my koi fish mark was gone!"
"Say it again?"
Su Qinghe frowned; he was particularly concerned about anything related to the koi fish mark.
Qin Yunyun wiped away her tears and immediately started making things up.
“Last night I dreamt that the koi mark was gone. In the dream, a koi told me that the mark shouldn’t have been mine, and now that it’s gone, it means it has returned to Su Xiaoning’s side. I begged it to tell me how to get the koi mark back, and it said that as long as Su Xiaoning is alive, one day the koi mark will return to her side…”
"Is everything you're saying true?"
After listening to Qin Yunyun's "dream," Su Qinghe's forehead veins throbbed, and a sense of unease welled up in his heart.
Qin Yunyun nodded seriously, and said with some worry, "Your Highness, this dream is too coincidental. It must be a divine message sent to me in this dream, warning me to be wary of Su Xiaoning. Now that Su Xiaoning is still alive, I'm worried that one day this kind of thing will happen..."
She spoke cryptically, but it still led Su Qinghe to think of something.
Su Qinghe sneered, his eyes gradually turning murderous.
"As long as she's not alive, this kind of thing will never happen!"
"Maybe..." Qin Yunyun said softly, still looking scared on the surface, but she was secretly overjoyed.
If Su Xiaoning is not eliminated, there will be endless troubles in the future. Su Qinghe made a decisive decision and went directly to the Ministry of Justice.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
