Chapter 369 Don’t get involved
Daiyu felt a surge of anxiety.
“I went to see the old lady the other day, and she was perfectly fine. She took her pulse every day and was drinking ginseng tea. How could she possibly faint?”
She didn't bother to see who was delivering the message, and repeatedly told Xueyan to help her change her clothes so she could hurry to the Rongguo Mansion to visit her maternal grandmother.
"Princess, don't worry. Let's send someone with the medicine to take a look and find out what's going on," Granny Shi said, trying to comfort Daiyu while glaring at the old woman who had come to deliver the message.
“You’re the messenger in Old Madam Shi’s courtyard. You’ve learned all the proper etiquette. Stop making such a fuss. Even if the old lady is unwell, there’s no need to say ‘something’s wrong!’”
Granny Shi came from the palace, so she was more sensitive to these taboos than others.
Hearing the messenger woman's unruly words, I knew something was wrong.
Old Madam Shi is getting on in years and is more wary of such things than younger people. How could she possibly send someone like that to the Lin family to deliver a message?
As soon as Granny Shi finished speaking, Zijuan walked in quickly from outside, panting. As soon as she saw the old woman, she was furious.
"You rude old woman! I already said I was here to deliver a message to the young lady, but you rushed into this courtyard first..."
Zijuan calmed herself down, and finally remembered where the old woman was from, so she quickly said...
"Granny Shi, this old woman isn't from the old lady's courtyard. She's a lowly maid from the Jia family garden. I don't know why she was sent to deliver this message?"
When someone from the Rongguo Mansion comes to deliver a message, Zijuan is usually the one who receives them. Today, she heard someone say that an old woman from the Rongguo Mansion had come to deliver a message, so she went out with her. But when the old woman saw Zijuan, she said that she had something important to report to Miss Lin.
Zijuan noticed that the old woman not only had rough hands and feet, but her clothes were also not as refined as those of the other old women in the courtyard, so she became somewhat suspicious.
In the past, the people who came to the Lin family to deliver messages were either familiar to them or the maids and servants who were favored by their masters. This servant was a complete stranger.
She was about to ask the old woman what message she had come to deliver when, unexpectedly, the old woman did not play by the rules and ran into the courtyard.
Unexpectedly, she found Jiaoyun Garden with great accuracy and even ran inside.
It just so happened that Daiyu was there, and she overheard it.
"Take her down!" Granny Shi glanced at the two burly women who seemed to be doing nothing beside her. Upon hearing the order, the two women stepped forward, twisted the old woman's arm behind her back, and kicked her behind the knee. The old woman fell to her knees with a thud.
The two then gagged the old woman and dragged her away.
The old woman knew that her words had reached Miss Lin, so she did not resist even though she was restrained.
She was just there to deliver a message, and she wasn't a servant of the Lin family. It wasn't the Lin family's place to fight or kill her!
Although she was dragged out, the old woman was fearless.
Although Daiyu knew something was wrong, she couldn't help but feel anxious.
No matter what the old lady did, she always showed great favoritism towards her, and she also had a deep blood bond with the old lady.
Granny Shi sent someone ahead to Rongguo Mansion to inquire about the news, while the rough maid who had just been taken away was also tied up and interrogated.
The old woman stubbornly insisted that she was a relative who had come to deliver a message, not a member of the Lin family. She argued that they treated their relatives this way, and weren't they afraid outsiders would say the Lin family was heartless?
"You are just a servant girl. You neither kneel nor bow to the princess. You cannot escape the crime of disrespect! Don't think that just because you are a lowly servant girl from the Rongguo Mansion, you are not guilty of disrespecting the princess. Even if you were a servant girl from the side of the Old Madam Shi, you would be punished for disrespecting the princess if you came here without any manners!"
To make her understand the seriousness of the matter, the interrogating woman deliberately frightened her.
The old woman was stunned upon hearing this, and muttered something under her breath.
"I'm just here to deliver a message for Grandma Zhu..."
Is the old lady really sick?
"I saw this morning that the imperial physician had been summoned to the residence... He must be ill..."
"How do you know the way around the princess's courtyard?"
“In previous years, I accompanied the princess on her birthday and carried the gifts to her courtyard once.”
The old woman finally changed her address, no longer calling her "Miss" so formally. A sense of unease crept into her heart; things were indeed different. When Miss Lin was in the Rongguo Mansion, she was generous and easygoing, but now that she was a princess, she probably wouldn't be as approachable as before...
Seeing that they couldn't get any more information from her, the two men carried her to the carriage outside.
Before long, Daiyu's carriage came out from inside, and next to her was Lan Su, who had just returned from the Rongguo Mansion where she had been sent to gather information.
Lan Su moved swiftly, taking only the time it takes to drink a cup of tea to make a round trip. Including gathering information, she managed to find out the whole story in just half an hour.
“Miss, Old Madam Shi is indeed ill, but it’s not because she misses you. It seems she’s been upset by the people in her family,” Lan Su whispered, leaning over the car window.
"Susu, come up and talk." Daiyu's voice was calm inside the carriage. It was clear that after changing her clothes and washing up, Daiyu's mood had calmed down.
Lan Su doesn't like riding in carriages, but if Daiyu invites her to get in, she won't refuse.
Inside the carriage were only Daiyu, Zijuan, Xueyan, and Granny Shi; the other maids and servants rode in another carriage.
“Miss, the funeral in the East Mansion hasn’t even been finished yet, and the house is already in chaos. There’s no one to manage the household. I don’t know who has set their sights on Second Mistress Lian, and they’ve sent Jia Zhen to ask Second Mistress Lian to temporarily manage the household in place of First Mistress Lian. When the old lady heard this, she was so angry that she collapsed on the spot.”
Lan Su's tone was somewhat gloating, but upon seeing Daiyu's tense little face, she quickly suppressed her smile.
"Girl, let's not worry about anything. We'll come back after we've seen the old lady, and then this kind of thing won't affect us!" Xueyan suggested.
“But the person who came to deliver the message to the young lady today was sent by Grandma Zhu. They will definitely not allow the young lady to get away unscathed.” Zijuan was very worried. “They might use the old lady to coerce the young lady into being a good person and persuade Grandma Lian to come back.”
Zijuan's analysis made a lot of sense, and Daiyu fell into deep thought for a moment.
“Girl, if Second Mistress Lian doesn’t want to go back, who can force her? Second Master Lian hasn’t returned from Changbai Mountain yet. If he comes back and finds out that Second Mistress Lian has been wronged, he’ll probably cause a huge uproar in the whole family.”
Lan Su had no patience to listen to their analysis. After saying that, she got out of the carriage and continued riding on horseback.
The three people inside the carriage looked at each other, and finally Daiyu nodded emphatically.
"This isn't our family's business, so we shouldn't get involved in a single word!"
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