At night, when Mrs. Lu wanted to rest, she dismissed the other maids and left only Jinhua to serve her.
"How's that going?" she asked in a low voice.
Jinhua smiled as she took off her coat and placed it on a nearby sandalwood hanger. "It's settled. The guard will disguise himself as a shop assistant coming to pay rent. Tomorrow morning, when you're reconciling your accounts, he'll be able to come see you unnoticed."
Mrs. Lu pondered for a moment with a sullen expression. "But I always have to bring two maids with me when I check accounts. It's not convenient for me to speak directly to this person with them around. If I ask them to leave, it would seem disrespectful and would arouse suspicion for no reason."
Jinhua smiled and said:
“I have already thought of this for Madam.
When that person comes, he naturally won't speak directly to the lady. He will write down everything he wants to say in the account book, and the lady can write down whatever she wants to say in reply. He will never embarrass the lady.
Lu's eyes lit up. She would choose two illiterate maids to follow her, and burn the account book after the matter was settled. This way, the matter would be perfect and would not be exposed.
She nodded and said, "I feel at ease when you do the job."
Jinhua smiled and helped her lie down, then lowered the bed curtains and went to the outer room.
Mrs. Lu lay in bed thinking about this matter. She thought she would not be able to sleep all night, but unexpectedly she fell asleep in an instant.
The incense burner in the bedroom was burning with a faint wood fragrance.
Next to the incense burner, there is an inconspicuous jade ruyi.
In the dim room, a faint red light was emitting from the jade ruyi. The red light was like a puff of smoke, slowly drifting into the tent along with the fragrance, and falling on Lu's sleeping face.
She frowned slightly in her sleep, and then fell into an endless nightmare.
In the dream, she and her two sons were kneeling on the ground, while Marquis Wen Ning and the old lady were sitting high in the main hall, allowing the imperial guards to file in and drag them away.
She accused them of having no conscience in a heart-wrenching manner, but the two men smiled at them smugly and arrogantly.
"I can have another son and marry another woman! The Jiang family doesn't need more of you!"
"Just go to jail and wait for death, haha!"
Mrs. Lu suddenly woke up from her dream and found herself breaking out in a cold sweat.
After her breathing finally became smoother, she suddenly realized that she was sleeping on a straw mat!
She looked around in horror. This was not her luxurious bedroom at all, but a dilapidated cell filled with a sour smell.
She looked down at herself again and found that her hands and legs were in shackles.
"No, no, I'm the wife of Marquis Wen Ning, why am I here!"
She cried out in despair, and the cell door suddenly opened from the outside.
A man who looked like a jailer walked in, looked at her with disdain, and said mockingly:
"You've forgotten that you're here because of your husband. He disobeyed the Emperor and implicated you and your son. Blame it on your bad luck! Now you're just a commoner waiting to be executed, not a marquis' wife at all."
Before she could process the words, she heard something tumble down to her feet.
She lowered her head and saw two human heads.
Jiang Jinyan and Jiang Jinzhen looked at her with their eyes wide open, their blood still flowing from all seven orifices.
Mrs. Lu could no longer bear it and she screamed and fainted.
When she woke up again, she finally returned to the bedroom of Marquis Wen Ning's Mansion.
Thinking of the horrific scenes in her dream, she had trouble breathing.
At this moment, she heard the old lady's voice coming from outside the tent:
"I've consulted an expert, and the reason the Jiang family's fortune is getting worse and worse is all because of that unlucky bitch, Mrs. Lu."
Hearing this, Lu instantly became angry.
Immediately afterwards, the voice of Marquis Wen Ning rang out:
"Why don't you just give her a divorce letter and divorce her directly!"
Lu's eyes widened.
She has been raising children and taking care of the housework for the Jiang family for so many years and has never done anything unethical. Now her husband wants to divorce her. What a heartless person!
But she didn't lift the bed curtains and go out. She wanted to hear what the two men said next.
The old lady said:
"After all, she hasn't committed any of the seven offenses that constitute divorce. If we divorce her now, people will say that our Jiang family is unkind. Although her family has declined, they still have the empty appearance of a family of officials. If a quarrel breaks out, I'm afraid it will ruin our reputation."
Marquis Wenning said:
"Then what should we do? Should we keep this unlucky person at home and ruin the fortune of our Jiang family?"
The old lady suddenly smiled softly and said in a mysterious voice:
"That master gave me a treasure called Xuanyin Tianlu. It looks like a jade Pixiu. But it's very useful. As long as we stick the birth dates of Mrs. Lu and her two sons on the bottom of the Pixiu, we can absorb their luck and fortune to support the Jiang family."
When Mrs. Lu heard this, her whole body trembled.
Half was shock and anger, half was fear.
It was too cruel. Not only did her mother-in-law not treat her as a human being, she even spared no mercy on the precious son she gave birth to for the Jiang family!
Marquis Wenning seemed a little hesitant:
"But Jinyan and Jinzhen are my sons and your grandsons after all. Why not just worship Lu alone—"
The old lady interrupted him and said:
"Because these two children were born to her, they are just as unlucky for the Jiang family as she is. Furthermore, the experts have calculated that even if we don't lend them our luck, they won't have a bright future. Sacrificing these two useless pieces of trash in exchange for decades of prosperity for our Jiang family is a worthwhile deal no matter how you look at it."
Marquis Wenning said:
"Mother is truly thoughtful. I'll have people make preparations right away! I just wonder what will become of this person whose luck was borrowed?"
"You won't die, but you'll just run out of energy, live a miserable life, and have no descendants."
Mrs. Lu finally couldn't stand it anymore, she opened the bed curtains and yelled:
"You are worse than beasts!"
As she cursed, she woke up for the third time.
Jinhua stayed by her bedside and asked worriedly:
"Ma'am, what's wrong with you?"
Lu covered her chest in panic. Was she still dreaming?
Or is he really awake?
Jinhua looked at her pale face, which was radiating a faint red glow. The corners of her mouth lifted slightly before falling back. "I'll go make a bowl of soothing soup for you, Madam!"
But Mrs. Lu grabbed her sleeve and asked nervously:
"Hurry up and check if the old lady and the marquis are hiding a Xuanyin Tianlu in the mansion! Quick, go!"
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