Chapter 178

Chapter 178 Wan Linlang gave her a cold, sidelong glance. "Unless it's a grave offense, the Prince rarely subjects his consorts and concubines to corporal punishment." "House arrest for half a year... is already a very severe punishment for Fang Yuan'er." Though Wan Linlang hated Fang Yuan'er, she remained perfectly rational: "Fang Yuan'er has been managing the household these past days, enjoying favor and bearing a son. Just when her momentum was at its peak, she was suddenly punished—this has crushed all her arrogance, and she won't be able to climb back up anytime soon." Wan Linlang saw even deeper: "And the Prince punishing her with half a year of house arrest also reveals something..." "What does it reveal?" Suiyu looked at her mistress with curiosity. "She's likely to fall out of favor for a while." If Prince Jing truly doted on her and trusted her, he would have let the matter slide. The fact that he punished her so heavily now meant he already harbored displeasure in his heart, and he wouldn't be visiting Songya Court anytime soon. Wan Linlang lowered her eyes, her long lashes concealing the calculations beneath. This period of time—this was her chance! She would need to scheme carefully! Suiyu wanted to flatter her mistress, but seeing her face gradually darken, Suiyu's heart leaped with fright. She simply shut her mouth and dared not speak another word. Wan Linlang didn't learn of Yuezhi's death until she woke from her afternoon nap. Suiyu nervously relayed the news to her. "Before she died, Yuezhi implicated Ping'an, saying that Concubine An, because she bore Fourth Young Master and fell out of favor, wanted to make Fifth Young Master and Third Young Miss both fall ill, so that it wouldn't seem like Concubine An was incapable of caring for the children." Wan Linlang looked at her expressionlessly. "Do you believe it?" Suiyu said awkwardly, "This servant does not believe it." "With Concubine An's courage, how could she dare harm anyone? If she had the ability to reach into Chunshan Court, she wouldn't have ended up in such a state herself." Suiyu still had words she didn't say. If Chunshan Court were that easy to infiltrate, her mistress wouldn't have had to go through so much trouble just to connect with a rough servant girl beside the wet nurse. Suiyu said softly, "Yuezhi revealed that Ping'an gave her two thousand taels in banknotes and also signed a contract with her, bearing both their fingerprints. The evidence is conclusive—the Prince has already ordered Ping'an locked in the dungeon." "Concubine An is now cowering in her courtyard, trembling with fear, not even daring to plead for mercy." Wan Linlang's expression turned strange. "The Prince believed it?" Suiyu hesitated. "With both witness testimony and physical evidence present... the Prince naturally believed it." "True. With witness and evidence both in hand, the Prince had no choice but to believe." Wan Linlang curled a knowing smile. "The fact that the Prince didn't punish Concubine An directly makes it clear he knows there's another mastermind behind this." "Does mistress mean... the Prince knows Concubine An and Ping'an are innocent? Then why still punish Ping'an?" Wan Linlang let out a derisive laugh. "The Prince has always been cold-hearted." "Ping'an was schemed against—that's her own stupidity. If she can't explain herself clearly, she has to bear this crime!" If the Prince wouldn't punish even with conclusive evidence, then wouldn't similar matters in the future also be handled lightly? Fang Yuan'er would also jump out claiming her innocence, saying she shouldn't have been punished. Some things, even if one knows the person is innocent, cannot be forgiven lightly! "If Concubine An is willing to swallow her pride and beg, Prince Jing might let the matter slide and spare Ping'an's life. If she doesn't dare, Ping'an will likely lose her life." Being a servant girl herself, Suiyu naturally felt a pang of sympathy upon hearing this. Suiyu then slowly relayed the bits of gossip she had gathered to Wan Linlang. Wan Linlang had initially been in the mood to watch the drama unfold, but as she listened, she suddenly felt something was off. Her heart suddenly began to beat faster, and she felt inexplicably uneasy: "Do you think it really was Ping'an who met Yuezhi at Yunjiao Lane?" Suiyu paused. "Since mistress says it wasn't Ping'an who did it, then the person who met her certainly wasn't Ping'an either." Wan Linlang said coldly, "But the timeline matches, and the Prince sent people to question those near Yunjiao Lane—all said they saw Ping'an coming and going from the lane those two days!" Suiyu was confused. "Does mistress mean that the one who met with Yuezhi and made the arrangement really was Ping'an?" If so, why was her mistress so certain it wasn't Ping'an who did it? As Wan Linlang thought it over, her heart sank to the depths. "What if someone disguised themselves?" Suiyu: "That... isn't very likely, is it?" "How could one disguise themselves like that? If you mean someone who looks similar... but Yuezhi wasn't stupid. Someone serving in the same household wouldn't mistake a person's face." "And finding someone who looks exactly like Ping'an to do this—that would be too difficult. There's no word of Ping'an having a twin sister either." Listening to Suiyu's muttering, Wan Linlang unknowingly broke out in a cold sweat down her back. She exclaimed in shock, "What a cunning scheme!" "This move was originally aimed at me!" Suiyu was dumbfounded, thinking to herself—it was indeed aimed at us, but haven't we already cleared ourselves of suspicion? Wan Linlang could no longer hear what was said outside, sinking into her own world of unease and fury. In that instant, she was absolutely certain that the one who had secretly schemed against her in the tapioca powder incident was Fang Yuan'er! She possessed a certain skill, one she had always kept hidden and never revealed to anyone. Even in her previous life, right up until her death, she had never shown the slightest trace of it. Now that someone was using this as a pretext, she couldn't think of anyone other than Fang Yuan'er! In that instant, Wan Linlang became increasingly uncertain about whether Fang Yuan'er had truly swapped souls. Who, after swapping souls, could know things they hadn't known in their previous life? Wan Linlang's skill was called face-shifting. She was an orphan, found in the mountains by an ugly old woman who raised her. That old woman, besides being skilled in medicine and eccentric in temperament, possessed a unique craft—face-shifting. Relying on this skill, the solitary old woman had managed to take Wan Linlang across most of the Great Yu Dynasty. In her previous life, after entering the prince's household, Wan Linlang had kept this skill hidden, never daring to reveal it, until the critical moment when she dealt Fang Yuan'er a fatal blow. Had Fang Yuan'er not narrowly escaped death by discovering she was pregnant, and later found a chance to turn the tables, she would have died in that calamity. But even when Wan Linlang was ordered to die, Fang Yuan'er never figured out how she had been framed. In this life, Fang Yuan'er was truly different—she actually used this matter as a pretext! Wan Linlang gnashed her teeth and said, "Having Yuezhi bite Suici was only meant to divert everyone's attention!" Fang Yuan'er's real scheme was to pin everything—the disguise as Ping'an, the collusion with Yuezhi to harm Fifth Young Master—onto Wan Linlang. Simply adding tapioca powder, without causing much harm to Fifth Young Master, even if successfully framed on Wan Linlang, would only result in a minor punishment. But this current case—harming Fifth Young Master, killing Yuezhi, implicating Ping'an... if anything else went wrong on Concubine An's side, it would be stained with countless blood debts! Now Ping'an had taken the blame, but everyone knew it couldn't have been Ping'an who did it. If Prince Jing eventually traced it back to Wan Linlang, with conclusive evidence, Wan Linlang would die—whether she wanted to or not!