Reborn: Revenge of the Concubine’s Daughter

Mammy Tang understood how Madam Luo felt, so she said sadly, “I know that among all the ladies in the family, in addition to First Miss, Fourth Miss is closest with you. Now not her parents but you feel sorry for her the most. In my opinion, Fourth Miss is only 9 years old. How could she distinguish between good and bad? It must be some of the servants around her who urged her to do so! Madam, you know, Second Mistress Luo is the busiest person in our family. Even in her spare time, she cares about Second Miss’s things first. With time goes by, she neglected her instructions for Fourth Miss and let those servants around Fourth Miss exploit the loopholes. Fourth Miss is now like a piece of noun-shaped nephrite, i.e. she would become the kind of person that people around her say what she should be.”

Seeing that Madam Luo couldn’t accept the fact, Mammy Tang thought for a moment and said, “Just now when I went back to the mansion, the first thing I did was to ask someone to secretly lure a maid of Fourth Miss. I immediately detained her and let her know the severity, ordering her to say anything abnormal about Fourth Miss’s recent daily life and hobbies. The maid refused to tell the truth at the beginning and lied a lot, only telling trivial issues. So, I cheated her that another maid of Fourth Miss had reported to me that recently Fourth Miss often fiddled with some dangerous bottles and containers. And the maid was upgraded to the first-class maid for reporting this. If other maids in Fourth Miss’s room still continue to hide the truth for their master, they will be sent to the outside canal to drudge. With this in mind, the maid feared, and exposed all the recent misconducts of Fourth Miss.”

Madam Luo asked, frowning, “What did she say?”

Mammy Tang hesitated, and then replied, “In addition to playing a trick in Third Miss’s clothes this time, Fourth Miss scattered a half bottle of Diaoshanyao Powder on Third Miss’s body last time. Besides, according to the maid, Fourth Miss’s room is a collection of various herbal medicines. Many of them like aphrodisiac, dumb medicine and poisons, are used by those filthy people who make a living in Jianghu. There were also many other staffs. Now I don’t have time to tell you in detail. Ji has already written that maid’s confession and put them away. That maid is now tied and gagged at the backyard woodshed for your enquiry in the future.”

Hearing this, Madam Luo suddenly hit her leg hard resentfully and said, “Does the Immortal stop blessing Luo’s Family and allow the bad things to happen one after another?! Zhu looks like dying, and Shao had another issue. She, as an unmarried Miss, collected filthy aphrodisiac and poisons for pleasure. This is the Miss taught by Luo’s Family! I can’t express how I hate this! When Luo Duzhong was alive, he didn’t even care about either the family issues or his three sons. Now the three of them in their thirties can do nothing, only living by causal dealing with medicinal material business. They are now much weaker in comparison with those of the West Yard in Luo’s Family of the capital! 7 years ago, my cruel husband closed his eyes, throwing all troubles to me! He has been worshipping by burned joss sticks at the ancestral temple since then. Why didn’t he know how to protect his descendants?!” Her face wet in the end.

Silently listening to Madam Luo’s complaints about late Grandpa Luo, Mammy Tang was also sad and felt like crying. As she was about to mollify Madam Luo, what Madam Luo said about “Zhu looks like dying” reminded her of something. She grasped Madam Luo’s arm immediately and shook, “Don’t be sad, Madam. I learnt something strange from the Taoist temple, and there is something I want to tell you!”

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“Liao, are your hands OK?” Lu Jiangbei opened the door and smiled.

In the room, Liao Zhiyuan was lying in the bed with his upper body exposed, and there was a strange girl standing beside him. She was applying medicine for him. At first glance, they were close together, Lu Jiangbei said, “Sorry, I have to go now.” Then he was ready to leave.

Liao Zhiyuan struggled to sit up, grimaced in pain and yelled, “Stop! Shit for your sorry. Chief, hurry up and help me with your internal force. It hurts a lot. Gao is such a son of bitch! I had some sympathy for him originally, but he wanted to kill me just because I read his mind! It’s so cruel! Shit, no wonder Chick He didn’t accept him! He deserved it!”

Lu Jiangbei asked, frowning his dashing eyebrows, “What’s all this nonsense? Where did you hear it? Did Gao Jue say this? Miss He didn’t like him?”

“Please! Help me with your internal force. Give me a break!” Liao Zhiyuan excitedly waved his right arm, which was just connected, and looked at Lu Jiangbei pettishly, snorting, “Help me, Brother Jiang. I know your martial arts is better than Gao’s and you are much better than him! Just treat me and massage me, please!”

Lu Jiangbei couldn’t help but walk over to sit behind Liao Zhiyuan. As his right hand was about to lift on Liao Zhiyuan’s shoulder, and his corner of vision casually skimmed the face of the woman beside them, he cried in amazement, “What, you! How could …”

The woman’s face changed, and then covered her face and sipped. Lu Jiangbei hurriedly turned to look at Liao Zhiyuan’s head and apologized, “Sorry, I didn’t mean anything, just …”

Liao Zhiyuan impatiently interrupted him, “Hey, chief, can you chat later? My hands are very painful, and they might not be cured within a few days! As for this shoulder injury, can I report it as an ‘injury suffered on the job’? In that way, I can get some subsidized silver, or vacation, or something like that? Brother Lu, you have no idea. My family got a catastrophe! My sister grabbed my whole year’s salary, and now absconded with the money. I don’t even have any silver to meet the Peony Lady!”

Before Master Geng was appointed to the imperial guard, Lu Jiangbei was the most powerful man among more than 20 imperial guard generals, so everyone called him the chief. Even now there were many people who couldn’t change the appellation. Maybe because Lu Jiangbei was another strange man among the imperial guards besides Duan Xiaolou. It was said that he never cussed when he interrogated criminals. Others privately discussed that the chief being close and kind to his own people was a good thing. But he was polite to the enemies, which almost damaged their murderous images that had been deeply rooted in people’s hearts. It was more unacceptable than Master Duan saving women on the way to the cases.

“Blame your mouth for that. You not only offended Gao Jue, but also got me affected.” Lu Jiangbei, while he was accumulating internal energy, said like he was educating a little boy, “Since you are engaged, it’s time not to play like before. Don’t go to the brothels too often, and let your fiancée get some peace of mind before she gets married. Otherwise, she would have negative thought that ‘you are not reliable’.”

The palm on Liao Zhiyuan’s shoulder kept conveying a warm flow to his main and collateral channels, repairing the damaged bones and muscles. Liao Zhiyuan comfortably whispered, “Ah, ah, uh… a little lower, yes, right there! Harder, ah, great, just do it like this…”

“Well, do you want me to make it harder? Can you stand it?” Lu Jiangbei raised his eyebrow and asked, “Let’s change a position. I think it would be better if you lie on the head of the bed. Otherwise, after a while, your kidney channel can’t pass below, and then you will feel the lower limbs weak and your waist and legs painful. I remember that’s how Master Duan felt last time.”

The woman stood beside them grasped the corner of her clothes hard, like she could squeeze out some water directly. And she rolled her eyes to observe the two men in the bed.

Feeling that strange vision frequently focusing on his profile, Liao Zhiyuan waved his hand like he was driving a mosquito away, and then ordered, “Go away. Get me some wine from the front yard! Find two pots of Nv’erhong Wine, heat up, and then take them back!” The bystander who still wanted to observe them finally walked off.

Waiting for the woman’s figure disappeared at the door, Lu Jiangbei finally couldn’t help asking in a whisper, “Lynx, who’s that woman? Her… Why doesn’t she have the tip of her nose?” Lu Jiangbei had seen people losing noses or eyes, and had even made many people that way. However, suddenly seeing that such a beautiful young woman who lost her nose and the wound got scabbed recently, Lu Jiangbei still felt shocked.

Liao Zhiyuan groaned comfortably while he lazily replied, “Obviously it was cut away. She is Liu Sui, the maid of the skunk, Ling Miaoyi. Half a month ago, Ling Miaoyi bought over the iron guards we managed, learned our whereabouts, and finally tracked us all the way to Yangzhou City. First Madam Ling was very angry without reason after she learned this, so she caught Ling Miaoyi’s maids to vent her anger. Liu Sui is the cleverest one among those people. When she heard that First Madam Ling wanted to cut their noses, she found the fake nose that Ling Miaoyi used in disguise. She luckily deceived them in the execution and just lost the tip of her nose. She was even positive and thankfully said that she was very lucky compared to other maids.”

Lu Jiangbei frowned to hear this. He asked coldly, “I once heard that Ling’s Family is an aristocratic family. Why are the women from it more vicious than another?”

“No, no, no. In fact, there are only several women in Ling’s Family, and the most well-known malicious women are Gao Jue’s wife, Ling Miaoqi, and her mother. Although Ling Miaoyi has the potential to become a malicious woman, she is not comparable with those two.” Liao Zhiyuan stretched himself, then lied prone, and turned his head with a smile, “It’s a rare chance. Chief, please continue to massage my back. I heard from Master Duan that since the last time you helped with his injury, his internal force improved a lot. And his control about Hanqing Cold Palm strengthened more than 20% directly. Shit, at that time, I was so envious that even wines could not please me! My chief, please give me a chance to share the benefits. I, Lynx, make a pledge to the Immortals: from now on, I definitely won’t be lazy in my work, won’t tell jokes at dinner time, and won’t snore when all of us guards sleep together, OK?”

Actually, all the imperial guards who were transferred by the Emperor to Changye Tower had their own code names. For example, Lu Jiangbei was called “Sika deer”; Gao Jue, “Hai Dongqing”; and Jiang Yi, “Hawk”. But none of them were as vivid as Liao Zhiyuan’s “Lynx”. He was just like a “Lynx”, clever and a little slippery, uninhibited and showed a bit wildness. Occasionally, he would be coquetry. Everyone called it as a habit, and even Liao Zhiyuan himself also gradually took “Lynx” as his name.

Lu Jiangbei laughed, “You are good at seizing the opportunity. Last time Master Duan’s tendons were broken by a mysterious senior, so I helped him. Now your spirit is even better than mine, but you want me to massage you instead! No way! If this precedent is set, tomorrow Jiang Pi would also come to me, and the next day would be Du Yao. Should I help them? If you all want to take shortcuts and refuse to practice hard, it would be my fault if the strength of the imperial guards declines!”

Liao Zhiyuan made his eyes protrude and curled his lips, “You are too stingy. All you said is just your excuse! Jiang Pi has a senior brother Jiang Yi, so he definitely could seek his brother for help first. Du Yao isn’t taught by the same master with us and his martial arts is far different from us. If you help him, it might work the other way around. Chief, help me massage my back, please! Fine! I’m ready to risk everything. I’ll tell you another secret about Chick He!”