Xie Yuancheng and I went into the mansion, but the more I thought about it, the more uneasy I felt. Ye Ye was filthy and smelled terrible. When I was cursing inside, she could smell the stench as soon as she spoke.
I just saw her looking filthy. A girl like her should be clean, and she's over ten years old, yet she still doesn't know how to wipe herself properly. How could such filth be faked?
When I mentioned it to Xie Yuancheng, his brows furrowed: "Ying'er, you really have too much free time, why do you still remember such dirty things!"
"I was just curious. Who told her to be so blind and try to flirt with you?"
Xie Yuancheng patted my hand: "She was looking at you. When I was following her, she saw you at the market and didn't even blink. She followed you to the restaurant."
But after I went inside, she was still lingering at the door before finally pretending to be timid and going in to sell handkerchiefs. These days, who would spend twenty coins on a useless handkerchief?
"Disgusting~ If what you're saying is true, I don't want to eat dinner tonight~"
"She's definitely more than fourteen years old. Her scheming and acting skills are even better than the Crown Prince's. She should have gone to find the Crown Prince and had a brief affair. If she had a son, her good days would have come."
"Then why doesn't she go back to find the Empress?" If Ye Ye really was the Empress, she could have left long ago.
"Once the matter was exposed, who would be willing to support her? Also, Lu Fengjun killed several of the leaders, making his subordinates watch the whole process, showing no mercy whatsoever."
She was probably hiding in the crowd at the time, which is why she willingly endured the mistreatment. However, she was restless and always wanted everyone to treat her well, which is why she was exposed.
"If someone as smart as you can be fooled, then I'm even less likely to be. Let's wait for the teacher to come back and see what he has to say."
Li Ruowei invited me to dinner that evening, but the memory of what happened earlier made me nauseous, so I said I had no appetite. Xie Yuancheng didn't want to eat either, but he grilled some small meat skewers for me, and we forced ourselves to eat a few.
At the hour of Xu (7-9 PM), the teacher finally arrived and brought the girl back. He said she had denied everything on the street the night before, and then grabbed Xixi and ran away. As more and more people gathered, she took off her wet clothes and kicked Xixi towards the oil fryer.
Fortunately, Xixi was lucky; the elderly women helped by hitting her with sticks, which finally knocked her off the wall. At first, she vehemently denied it, but she only confessed after being tortured.
"Teacher, could there be some people who were missed?" Xie Yuancheng was a little worried. Linyang was where he grew up, and this incident was really upsetting.
"Don't worry, this time it was that smelly girl who used her stinky feet to talk to the kind person. She'd been starving for days and wanted to eat something good, that's why she said it. She's also one of the leaders, so she knows."
I've already sent men to chase after those people. They'll give you something good if you confess. As long as you have a good lead, you can catch them.
Lin Chao rushed in: "My lord, an old woman has come to the manor with a mentally challenged man, demanding that we have arrested her daughter-in-law."
"Go and take her to the dark room, let her see what kind of person your daughter-in-law is."
"yes!"
The teacher had already questioned her gently; he simply instructed the person guarding her to have Ye Ye recount everything she had just confessed. She was truly a master of deception; no wonder she was so good at pretending.
In this incident, there were six ringleaders; the other five were executed, leaving only Ye Ye. That brat wasn't on the list, and besides, her face was completely disfigured, so she had to be sent to the army—consider it retribution for her actions.
Ye Ye was the eldest, almost sixteen. She was clever then, worried that being exposed would implicate her. When she first arrived in Linyang, she found a family in the mountains and fabricated a lie for them.
The old woman saw that she was a decent-looking girl, only thirteen or fourteen years old, and heard that her family was extremely poor, with her younger siblings only able to play in the snow during the winter and not even having firewood, so she took her.
Ye Ye had no idea that Ding Ban had been mentioned. She had thought Xi Xi was a top scholar who could take her to enjoy a life of luxury, but little did she know that he was a fool.
But it was too late for her to regret it. Only the old lady's family in the village was well-off, but she didn't know how to do housework. Her family started to complain when they saw her eating eggs as soon as she arrived.
To please her family, Ye Ye lied and said she had found a lingzhi mushroom on the mountain, when in fact she had bought it. The old lady was naturally happy and took Ye Ye to the city to sell it. After getting the money, she regarded Ye Ye as their lucky star.
She managed to get by night after night thanks to her cleverness and sweet talk, but later the villains were discovered, and she had no money in her pocket, and Xixi's family stopped spoiling her.
Worried about being discovered every night, she asked a girl from the mountains to pretend to be the daughter of a high-ranking official and send her a cartload of fine gifts. That was her last bit of money, just to shut the villagers up.
Xi Xi's family treated her the same as before, but everyone in the village was lazy, and she couldn't even get hot water to take a bath. She was lazy every night, so she thought of coming to the city to feign pitifulness and gain sympathy, hoping to climb the social ladder and find a better match.
She successfully fooled a few people, and the old lady's tastes became more and more demanding. But after the incident with the wicked woman, no one would want someone dressed in dirty clothes to come into their house again.
Ye Ye wanted to dress up nicely so she could attract a rich man. So she went to an embroidery shop and said she had learned double-sided embroidery from an old embroiderer and knew many embroidery techniques. The embroidery shop asked her for a design, and Ye Ye was dumbfounded. She stole an embroiderer's purse to use as a substitute, and the embroidery shop took her in.
She had only been inside for half a day when she was discovered by the embroidery shop staff and driven out. The old woman knew she was trying to escape; this was a child bride bought with money, and she disliked her even more.
At home, she did all the hard work, and if she didn't like something, she would beat and scold her. Her foolish husband would also join in the commotion, which is why the old lady scolded her so fiercely that day.
The teacher sent someone to verify all the people and things that Ye Ye had mentioned, and they all matched up before the case was officially opened.
I sighed, "Luckily, Doctor Wang didn't fall for it. If he had taken her as his apprentice, he probably would have been killed."
"No, she'll be extorted. She's so old. If she really wanted to learn a skill to support herself, she wouldn't be living in such poverty. She just wants to leave that family through Doctor Wang and find a chance to marry into a wealthy family."
After Xie Yuancheng finished speaking, he glanced at me. I said with disgust, "She looks like a ghost. Her face and skin are all rotten. She wouldn't even have a chance to become a prostitute. I have very high standards. Why would I look down on her?"
"Alright, you two, when is that brat from the Lu family coming back!" The teacher looked like she wanted to eat Lu Fengjun alive when she mentioned him. His son had been kidnapped; anyone would be furious in that situation.
"Teacher, when he left, he said that if he captured someone, the soldiers would take her away. Tomorrow, a troop will come from the city to deliver military rations. They can put shackles on her and then take her to the border."
"She got off too easy! She's harmed so many people and is still reaping the benefits behind the scenes. She even dares to lie to others!" I said indignantly. The teacher actually told me to calm down and not let my anger cloud my judgment.
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