The fish took the bait
"Nobody here cares about me at all..."
Jiang Manyan's voice was hoarse and aggrieved, with a sob in it. Large tears rolled down her cheeks and landed on Song Guansui's hand, hot and wet.
"You haven't come to see me for just a few days... and the food you bring is... so hard to swallow. Are you going to punish me again...?"
Jiang Manyan's accusations were broken and desperate, each word striking Song Guansui's most sensitive nerve.
Just then, Fu Cong, the guard outside, suddenly burst in without regard for etiquette, his face grave: "Young Master! The birds outside the courtyard..."
Before Fu Cong could finish speaking, and before Song Guansui could even get angry at his intrusion—Jiang Manyan, who was standing in front of him, suddenly went limp without warning, her eyes closed, and she fell straight backward!
Jiang Manyan's originally pale face instantly lost all color, and her full red lips turned a strange purplish-black at a visible speed!
Song Guansui instinctively reached out and pulled him into his arms, his hands feeling something cool and soft.
"Yan'er?!"
Song Guansui's heart sank suddenly, and he shouted sternly.
Combining Fu Cong's words, his gaze suddenly shot to the window—on the food spilled on the ground, several sparrow corpses lay stiffly.
In an instant, a surge of rage and a near-panic overwhelmed Song Guansui.
He scooped up the unconscious Jiang Manyan, whose lips were a terrifying color, and roared furiously at the guards who rushed in and his subordinates who had been alerted to the situation…
"Investigate! Investigate thoroughly! Arrest everyone who handled today's meals! Seal off the backyard! Keep an eye on Mother's people too! Don't let a single one escape!"
"Call the doctors! Call all the doctors here!"
...
Song Guansui gently placed Jiang Manyan on the bed, his fingers trembling as he probed her nose for breath.
The breathing was so faint it was almost imperceptible, the skin touched by the fingertips was unusually cold, and only the glaring dark purple lips proclaimed some kind of deadly attack.
"Yan'er... Yan'er!"
Song Guansui's voice carried a sense of panic that he himself was unaware of.
He turned his head and said menacingly to the arriving doctor.
"Save him! If anything happens to him, you will all die with him!"
The lead doctor scrambled to the bedside, placed his fingers on Jiang Manyan's wrist, and after a moment, his face turned extremely pale.
"how?!"
Song Guansui's voice sounded as if it had been pulled out of an ice cellar.
"Young...Young Master..."
The doctor was drenched in cold sweat...
"Young Master Song Manyan's pulse is weak and slow, suggesting poisoning. And that lip color... that lip color is definitely indicative of poisoning! But... but the toxicity is strange, and I cannot immediately... determine what kind of poison caused it..."
"waste!"
Song Guansui kicked over the low table next to him, and the sound of shattering bottles and cups silenced everyone.
"Can't find the cause? Then try! Use every antidote you know! Acupuncture, medicine, bloodletting! No matter what method you use, I want him to wake up!"
The entire courtyard was instantly plunged into a hellish state of busy activity and fear.
More doctors were "invited" to come and consult with great trepidation, trying various methods.
The guards rushed towards the kitchen and all places related to food like wolves and tigers. The shrill screams and pleas for mercy could be faintly heard from afar, indicating that the interrogation was being carried out in the most brutal way.
Song Guansui stood by the bed like a demon, staring intently at Jiang Manyan's lifeless face.
Those honey-brown eyes, which always sparkled with cunning, vibrancy, and occasionally revealed dependence or resilience, were now tightly closed, their long lashes casting a deathly shadow on their pale faces.
Song Guansui's heart was being torn apart by a raging rage and a deeper fear...
His anger stemmed from his mother, Liu, and he knew without investigating who had poisoned him!
He had just placed her under house arrest and warned her, and she still dared to do it!
She actually dared to kill his "possessions" again! This act of depriving him of his treasures ignited his destructive rage.
Fear stems from the possibility of loss.
Jiang Manyan's current appearance is eerily similar to his despairing state on that rainy night five years ago.
He finally managed to capture this person and keep him by his side, but before he could completely tame and possess him, was he really going to lose the only person he wanted?
The possibility of "gaining and then losing" filled him with an overwhelming sense of panic.
"Young Master!"
Fu Cong, the leader of the secret guards, returned, his body reeking of blood, and reported in a low voice.
"The two kitchen helpers who handled the meals have confessed...it was the lady's maid who threatened them with the lives of their families, forcing them to poison the food."
"The poison was provided by that maid, but they don't know exactly what it is. I have already sent people to arrest the mistress's personal maid, and she has been captured and interrogated."
Song Guansui's face was expressionless, but in his deep eyes, a storm had already formed, a darkness powerful enough to devour everything.
"Very good...very good."
He uttered three words softly, his voice eerily calm.
Song Guansui bent down and gently wiped Jiang Manyan's purplish lips with his fingertips, the action carrying a chilling tenderness.
"Mother...you are truly...my good mother."
He whispered, as if murmuring in a lover's ear, but the content was chilling.
He cannot lose Jiang Manyan. No matter the cost!
He turned and strode out, his handsome face gleaming with a cold light in the dim light.
"Send more men to guard this place. Don't let a single fly in. Keep him alive with the best medicine. If he dies before I return, everyone..."
Song Guansui's voice wasn't loud, but it carried an absolute cruelty and resolve.
He didn't go to Liu's courtyard, but went directly towards the dungeon in the mansion.
He wanted everyone, especially his mother, to see clearly what a terrible and unbearable price would be paid for messing with Jiang Manyan.
This raging fire, ignited by Jiang Manyan herself and fueled by Song Guansui's insane psyche, finally spread to the Liu family and pushed Song Guansui into an even deeper abyss.
Jiang Manyan, who has taken the "Dream Silk," will await the outcome of this storm in a deep sleep where no one truly knows the antidote.
— — — —
The cold, damp air in the Song Mansion's dungeon seemed to freeze.
On the rack, Liu's personal maid was on the verge of death, her intermittent confession like the most poisonous needles, each word piercing Song Guansui's ears.
"...Madam...Madam ordered me...to add 'Peacock's Elixir' to the young master's daily meals...She said...that as long as...Young Master Manyan is gone...you can...completely let go of your attachments..."
"Peacock Poison...extremely poisonous...incurable..."
With a "thud," the maid's head lolled to the side, and she fell completely silent.
The dungeon was deathly silent.
Song Guansui stood still, without making any movement; even his breathing seemed to have stopped.
Song Guansui's mind went blank, then was bombarded by a tsunami of fragmented memories.
Mother Liu's icy voice: "Sui'er, you are the eldest son of the Song family, the future head of the family. You must be perfect, you must be powerful!"
The weight accumulated from countless days and nights in his childhood almost bent his spine.
The harsh, even inhuman, discipline; the crisp, cold echo of the ruler striking flesh; the burning pain of whipping; the bone-chilling coldness of kneeling on the blue brick floor of the ancestral hall…
All of this is woven into a giant net called "for your own good," trapping young Song Guansui firmly in the center, unable to move.
Liu Shuwan transformed her disappointment in her marriage—her husband's long-term indifference—into a paranoid and terrifying energy.
Demanding more from one's son is both a demand for emotional reciprocation and a demand for absolute control.
She secretly transferred all the unspeakable resentment and hatred she felt towards her husband onto the young, helpless Song Guansui...
Her love was twisted, a heavy chain that kept him firmly locked to her side.
Every tiny spark of his own will was seen by her as a sign of betrayal.
We must use stricter discipline to stifle it.
...
Five years ago, he was imprisoned in a dark room in a mine in Northwest China, and he was in a miserable state.
She was also his mother. She sold all her dowry and private property, and even misappropriated the Liu family's bank deposits, causing the Liu family's bank to collapse. She almost broke ties with her elder brother Liu Zhao, but she managed to pull him back from the brink of disaster.
At that moment, Song Guansui believed that no matter how suffocating her mother's methods were, that love was real...
Various extreme and conflicting emotions were raging wildly in Song Guansui's mind, almost tearing him apart...
...
Song Guansui suddenly chuckled softly. The laughter started off lightly, then grew louder and more manic, echoing through the dungeon and sending chills down everyone's spines.
"Haha...hahaha...hopeless? What a wonderful hopeless situation!"
The laughter stopped abruptly.
Song Guansui suddenly raised his hand and slammed his fist hard against the cold stone wall beside him!
His joints were instantly torn open, bleeding profusely, but he seemed to feel no pain whatsoever.
"Why?!"
He let out a beastly growl, no longer a laugh, but an expression of extreme pain and rage.
On one side is his biological mother, who gave birth to him, loved him in extreme ways, and sacrificed everything for him.
On one side is his half-brother, Jiang Manyan, whom he cherishes as his life, is obsessed with, and is willing to do anything to keep.
Song Guansui's gaze suddenly shot toward the dungeon exit, as if it could pierce through all obstacles and see his mother in the main courtyard.
In that look, the last trace of tenderness that belonged to a "son" was completely extinguished, leaving only cold, insane hatred and resolute determination.
"Mother……"
Song Guansui murmured softly, his voice as cold as ice from the ground.
"You gave me life, you saved me once... but that doesn't mean you can decide everything for me, much less that you can destroy the only person I want."
"You ruined him..."
Song Guansui's voice suddenly rose, filled with resentment and malice.
"You've ruined me! Since that's the case..."
He turned abruptly and strode out, blood dripping onto the ground with each step, winding into a shocking trail.
Song Guansui uttered an extremely cold command to his trusted confidant Fu Cong beside him, every word dripping with venom.
"Go. 'Invite' the lady back to her courtyard. No one is allowed to disturb her without my order. Clean up all the servants who have served the lady."
"The official statement was that his wife was ill from worry and needed to rest."
"Go and fetch that dagger!"
After saying that, he continued forward, heading towards the Liu family's courtyard.
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