The dilapidated, broken-cornered wooden door was pushed open with a loud, creaking groan.
"Oh, you're awake! I was wondering why you could bear to die, especially since the title of a scholar's wife isn't even warm yet."
Mrs. Zhao stood in the doorway with her hands on her hips, her voice dripping with sarcasm, showing not a shred of joy at seeing the sick woman wake up. "If you're awake, get out! Clean up your own mess—have some shame, the young girls in this family still need to face people!"
The mud-plastered walls were far from soundproof, and upon hearing the commotion, the Cheng family members hurried over, almost knocking Mrs. Zhao flying.
"My child, you're awake." Old Madam Cheng wept tears of old age, anxiously reaching out to touch the wound on her daughter's neck. "Does anything hurt? You scared your mother to death."
Cheng Nuo propped herself up on the bed board and shook her head. This minor injury was simply not worth mentioning compared to the bone-deep blade and spear wounds she had suffered back at the training camp.
Cheng Dazhuang eagerly stepped forward holding a cracked bowl. "Hurry up and eat this bowl of egg custard. You've been asleep half the day and must be starved."
The egg custard had only a few scattered specks of oil and looked like watery paste, making it completely unappetizing. She knew that for the Cheng family, a bowl of egg custard was already a rare delicacy, but Cheng Nuo, who had lived in the apocalypse, was long used to relying on nutrient-dense condensed pills and felt an instinctive resistance to sudden food.
"I don't want to eat."
These words instantly took on a different meaning in the ears of the Cheng family. In the past, whenever there was anything good to eat or drink in the family, Siniang was always the first to enjoy it. Even though the rest of the Cheng family were as thin as firewood with sallow, malnourished skin, Cheng Siniang had been raised with a well-proportioned figure and fair, tender skin, all fed to her by bowl after bowl of egg custard.
Now, looking at Siniang, her face was pale, and there was still a shocking red mark left by hanging on her neck. This meant she had been bullied miserably by the Meng family, and she felt so wronged that she couldn't even eat.
"Ever since our little sister's incident happened, the Meng family hasn't even shown their faces. It's completely outrageous." Cheng Dazhuang said, grinding his teeth with anger.
Cheng Siniang's twin brother, Cheng Sanhu, rolled up his sleeves, veins bulging on his arms."That ungrateful wolf Meng Xizhou, I'm going to drag him over right now and make him apologize to you!"
Cheng Ershun, who was usually the most steady and sensible, also lost his reason and snatched up a farming tool from behind the door.
The three brothers surged forward furiously like three rampaging wild bulls, looking ready to beat the Meng mother and daughter half to death. Mrs. Zhao and her sisters-in-law were as anxious as ants on a hot pan. Meng Xizhou was no longer a commoner; he was a scholar with an official scholarly reputation, whom even the county magistrate treated with courtesy. He might soon rise to greatness and wealth—how could they afford to provoke him?
Cheng Nuo was deeply grateful for her brothers' unconditional trust, but impulse could not solve problems, and sometimes it only led them into traps:
"Big Brother, Second Brother, Third Brother, calm down! The Meng family is hiding and staying silent precisely to provoke you. Don't fall for their trap!"
The three figures rushing outward paused. Provoke them?
The whole family looked at Cheng Nuo simultaneously, their eyes filled with confusion.
Cheng Nuo continued, "I've been unconscious for several hours, and the news has long since spread to Yunxi Village. The Meng family is playing deaf and dumb because they are betting that you won't bear to see me wronged and will come looking for an explanation. When that happens, they will turn things around and slap the Cheng family with the charge of using power to oppress others and bullying the weak."
Ever since passing the imperial examinations, Meng Xizhou had been celebrating and feasting with fellow scholars in the county town and had not returned yet. Only Mother Meng and Meng Xizhou's unmarried sister were at home. With the three brothers built like broad-shouldered brutes, even if they had reason on their side, they would end up in the wrong once they stormed over there.
By then, instead of washing away the mud on her reputation, the entire Cheng family's name in the village would likely stink to high heaven.
Old Madam Cheng felt this made sense, but she couldn't set her mind at ease regarding her daughter. "Then what should we do? We can't just do nothing. Rumors are flying all over the village right now, and if we keep quiet, others will think we have a guilty conscience."
Wouldn't that firmly cement the crime of infidelity? Just thinking of this made Old Madam Cheng's vision swim with dizziness.Cheng Nuo had already figured out a solution in her mind: "I didn't have an affair. An innocent person clears herself. As for the rumors in the village, they will naturally collapse tomorrow once the day has passed. Through this ordeal, I've also seen the true hypocritical and ungrateful faces of the Meng family. Since they have been heartless, don't blame me for being unrighteous."
Could this really be Cheng Siniang, who used to put her husband's family first in everything?
The Cheng family exchanged bewildered glances. Mrs. Zhao even suspected that she had made a trip to Yama's Hall and become possessed by a ghost.
The former Cheng Siniang was not only selfish, but also muddle-headed and hopelessly dense. How could she possibly say such words today, let alone see through the calculations of the Meng mother and daughter?
Could the trauma have been so severe that it caused a drastic change in her personality?
Mrs. Zhao couldn't care about all that now. She only knew that she had to quickly clear the dirt off Cheng Siniang: "Anyone can talk big, but you need to come up with an actual plan."
The plan was rather underhanded, so Cheng Nuo could not speak of it right now. Whether the Cheng family agreed or not, she had already made up her mind.
Twilight fell quietly like a heavy curtain, and outside, the last trace of the setting sun was swallowed by the darkness.
At the entrance of Dali Village.
Holding a paper lantern, Cheng Nuo prepared to set off.
The three Cheng brothers confirmed once more, and upon receiving the same reply that she intended to return to Yunxi Village alone, they could only watch with worried faces as their younger sister vanished into the night.
After leaving Dali Village, Cheng Nuo walked toward Yunxi Village following the memories in her mind.
Along the way, she replayed the events of yesterday in her mind once more.
After Meng Nanzhou passed the imperial examination, streams of neighbors came to offer congratulations, and the house had only quieted down yesterday. Claiming that their winter jackets were old and unworthy of the mother and sister of a successful imperial scholar, Mother Meng and Meng Xizhou's younger sister, Meng Sijing, decided to go to the tailor's shop in town to buy new clothes, leaving Cheng Siniang alone at home.
For once not having to wait on her mother-in-law and sister-in-law, Cheng Siniang stole a moment to take a nap. Who would have expected that halfway through her sleep, when she woke up, a man was standing by her bed with his clothes stripped to his waist—a good-for-nothing idler from the village. Before she could let out a scream, the bedroom door was kicked open.
"Caught in bed! You shameless wretch!"
Behind her mother-in-law and sister-in-law stood three or four village women, who swarmed in and surrounded the two of them, pulling hair and tearing clothes in utter chaos.
"Cheng Siniang seduced me!" Leaving behind these words, the idler slipped through the gap and bolted.
Those women were the town gossips. Within an hour, news that Cheng Siniang had taken a lover spread throughout the entire village.
After the incident, the idler showed no fear of retaliation from the Meng family; instead, he boasted to everyone he met:
"Cheng Siniang? She might be a bit ugly, but once you blow out the candle, she's still usable."
"What? Auntie, you're asking me why she didn't want the scholar gentleman and came to hook up with me? You're an old-timer, how could you not know? Naturally, it's because I'm strong and good in bed, and Cheng Siniang got hooked."
"She loves me to death, even giving me her intimate little bodice. Look, didn't I embroider the character 'Cheng' right on top?"
Few villagers could read, yet almost all of them recognized the character "Cheng," simply because a century-old chastity archway stood at the entrance of the village, and virtuous widows bore the surname Cheng.
Ever since then, the bodice embroidered with the character "Cheng" was passed around and viewed throughout the village. Cheng Siniang was taunted to her face by two sharp-tongued matrons, and driven by overwhelming fury and despair, she had sought to hang herself.
The instigator was guilty, and so were the accomplices. Cheng Siniang's death was the responsibility of these people. Since she had inherited the original owner's body, she had the obligation to collect debts on her behalf.
As Cheng Nuo was refining her plan in her mind, a sudden gust of wind swept past, licking against the paper lantern:
"Oh no..."
No matter how she tried to save it, she could not stop the lantern from being completely burned to ashes.
Cheng Nuo looked up at the sky. Starlight eclipsed the moon; there was no moonlight tonight, and pitch-black darkness surrounded her on all sides. Fortunately, she could deduce her direction from the North Star, but traveling without light was still excruciatingly difficult.
"If only I had a flashlight."
The moment her voice trailed off, her palm grew heavy.