Chapter 254 She was indeed her biological daughter
Sun Meiniang cried out, “I treat my sister-in-law Chuanxiong with kindness. When she was sent back to our house by He’s Family, I was afraid that she was living in another yard and there would be a shortage of food and clothing, so I kept her here. She lived in Bao Qin Ge for a period of time. I didn’t expect that she was such a vicious person. She was jealous of seeing her second brother and I being very much in love, so she harmed our whole family in such a way. She dug and buried evil things in our courtyard! Madam! The note is attached to a cursed puppet. In addition to the horoscope of my husband, there were mine and Qiong’s. Those puppets were stuck by so many needles!”
Madam Luo held the note in meditation for a while, and couldn’t believe it. She walked to a half-person-high standing lantern under the porch and looked at it twice. She was the most familiar with Chuanxiong’s characters. When Chuanxiong was a child, she supervised her practice of calligraphy. Later, Chuanxiong lived in Taoist temple all the year round. Every time she went home, she brought two large boxes of handwritten scriptures to Madam Luo. The date of birth and eight characters of a horoscope on this note were all written by Chuanxiong. Chuanxiong’s handwriting was not something others could imitate, as it was round and neat. All her words were not slightly different, as if they were printed out.
But Madam Luo was still skeptical about it. Was it done by Chuanxiong? She went to the Taoist temple to escape from the world, so why was she involved in the malicious division of the family property? No matter how the Luo’s Family’s property was divided, she couldn’t share it. How could a divorced daughter return to her natal family to divide the property?
Seeing that Madam Luo didn’t say a word, Luo Chuangu added a handful of firewood under his wife’s orders and said, “I think of it now. Not long after my Fourth Sister returned to Luo’s Family, I felt very disturbed and puzzled. I couldn’t settle down to read. I originally ranked in top ten for the position of Xiucai in the provincial examination, but after Fourth Sister returned, I failed eight consecutive examinations for the position of Jinshi. I was discouraged and lost confidence to participate in the imperial examination.”
Madam Luo listened to him with her mouth half open, and her lip trembled, “But Chuanxiong is an honest person, not like someone who can do this kind of thing. If she had such an ability to curse others back then, why didn’t she curse the bad guys of He’s Family?”
Sun Meiniang said with sob, “Cats hide their claws. Now there is no need to discuss whether Luo Chuanxiong can do this kind of thing. Anyway, the puppets of me, my husband, and Qiong came out from under the ground in full view. Here are the notes attached to the puppets. It is Luo Chuanxiong’s handwriting. These are irrefutable proof. Madam! What I want to say is that the curse began more than ten years ago, and has not been stopped until today!”
“What do you mean?” Madam Luo’s eyelids were wet by the cold rain, but she stared at Sun Meiniang without blinking.
Sun Meiniang presented two other pieces of physical evidence, and said seriously, “The spell paper is a little faded. We asked Fortune-teller Li, who was invited by you, to identify it. He said that the cinnabar has been on it for a long time, and the technique of drawing spell is also popular five years ago, so the spell paper might be buried about five years ago. And the cloth of the three puppets was rotten, so it was buried more than ten years ago. Besides, the most horrible thing is the paper money with hinged gap, all of which are new and white. In other words, some people have buried paper money in my yard recently!”
“Buried recently?” Madam Luo frowned. “So, Chuanxiong is clear of all suspicion, isn’t she? She hasn’t been home for half a year. Some time ago, she sent a letter to family, saying that she had typhoid and can’t move for a while. She won’t be back this year during the Chinese New Year.”
Sun Meiniang hissed like a snake, “Madam, Luo Chuanxiong has never been back to Luo’s Family, but she has a daughter here.”
Madam Luo winced as if she was pierced by a needle. She frowned more deeply, “You’re talking nonsense! Yi is a child. How can she be involved in these things? Last time you insisted that she harmed Concubine Hua, but the result showed it was not her. Doctor Ma said that before Concubine Hua went crazy, she gave him money as a false testimony. She lied that her fetal instability was caused by taking medicine, but in fact her fetal position was nothing to do with antiabortifacient. I always think that there is a baby in her belly, and she is a little foolish, so I don’t make a fuss with her. You both wronged Yi and caused her serious illness. She can’t go out yet!”
After what happened last time, Madam Luo was sensitive to such things. She felt that if Sun Meiniang said He Danggui’s fault, Sun Meiniang must detest He Danggui and deliberately go against her. Besides, now that the person to propose marriage was here, and it was a perfect marriage for He Danggui. As long as their dates of birth and eight characters of a horoscope were matched, and they were satisfied with each other, then they could get engaged. At such a critical moment, how could the Sun Meiniang stir up trouble again?
Madam Luo was confused that why did Sun Meiniang go against He Danggui. He Danggui was a little girl without making any trouble. It saved more money to raise her than raising a kitten. Since she was quite pretty, it was not hard for her to marry into high society, which was beneficial for Luo’s Family. Besides, Chuanxiong was sterilized. Yi was her only daughter. People in the family all pitied them. Sun Meiniang and Chuanxiong were close friends in the past. Why did Sun Meiniang turn against her old friend?
Sun Meiniang sneered, “He Danggui can’t go out yet? Madam, let me tell you about it. Later this afternoon, someone saw her sneaking in the yard. She prowled around the garden, dodging people and hiding something in her arms. Her behavior was suspicious. Perhaps she buried something in other yards!”
Luo Chuangu gave a beer hiccup, “Mom, you have a big heart. You treat my Fourth Sister as your own daughter. We are even jealous of her, but she is shrewd. She and her daughter never treat you as their mother and grandmother. There is a saying that witchcraft harms three generations. Now you are among the cursed people. You can no longer protect outsiders, or our Luo’s Family will be ruined by her!”
“Madam, don’t you know that?” Sun Meiniang’s voice changed sharply. “The implied meaning of burying bones in others’ yards is to make their families decrease day by day, and it will eventually become extinct! Under the osmanthus tree in my yard, seven or eight human bones were dug up in one go. I don’t know from which grave the bones were stolen. This kind of thing can only be sold on the black market. As for paper money, we open the ancestral hall to worship the ancestors on the twelfth day of the first month. Although I purchased a large number of paper money and paper horses, it has not been opened so far. It can be seen that the brand-new paper money buried in our yard is foreign things. Who is the one loves to run out?” She implied He Danggui.
Since Sun Meiniang’s words were logic and justified, Madam Luo believed it a little bit. In addition to the occurrence of this kind of witchcraft incident during the New Year, she was afraid that it would take away all the good luck and wealth of Luo’s Mansion for the next whole year. This thought made Madam Luo very irritable, and she couldn’t cool down.
But with the lessons learned from last time, Madam Luo would not decide immediately. She muttered, “Today is the third day of the Lunar New Year. It is not suitable to do big things today, not to mention that there are still distinguished guests at home. Well, now that Yi can walk down the ground, let her go to the Depositary of Buddhist Texts in the back hall to copy the scriptures for a few days. You lock the Depositary and give her food every day. After offering sacrifices to ancestors, let’s break this case again. Just take advantage these few days and send someone to Sanqing Temple to pick up Chuanxiong. You have said too much, so you have to give a chance to the people of Fourth Branch to say something.” The most important thing was that there were two guests in the house, Childe Meng and Childe Ning, so the family scandal must not be exposed.
Sun Meiniang did not expect that under such hard evidence, Madam Luo would just ground He Danggui. It seemed that she planned to settle things down. Sun Meiniang framed He Danggui up about the matter of abortifacient last time, but the witch puppets and spells this time were all dug out without her knowledge. At the first sight of the three rotten and moldy rag puppets, Sun Meiniang was also frightened, and even the fetus in her belly twitched twice. Could this such vicious thing be forgotten? They Second Branch had never suffered such a shame!
Thinking of this, she gritted her posterior teeth and sneered, “Madam, you are wrong. Nowadays, Luo Chuanxiong is not the one who can speak the most in the Fourth Branch. Have you forgotten that we just discovered a female storyteller in our family a few days ago? She is so eloquent. It makes me almost wonder if Chuanxiong was too flustered when she ran out of her husband’s house, so that she held the wrong child. He Danggui is not like Chuanxiong’s child.”
Madam Luo scolded Sun Meiniang in a low voice, “How can you be so big-mouth? How can a mother hold her child by mistake? Yi is like her father He Jingxian. Everybody knows it!”
Sun Meiniang said quietly, “He Jingxian killed my father-in-law. We are kind enough to help him raise her daughter. Now he instigated his daughter to harm us. Madam, how could you still help her to hurt your own granddaughters? Not to mention the fact that my fetus was cursed to death, and not to mention that my husband was cursed and failed in competitive examinations, since He Danggui came into our house, Qiong and Shao changed a lot. Can’t this prove everything?”
Madam Luo was taken aback for a moment and then asked dully, “What does it prove?”
“Qiong, a well-behaved child in the past, abides by the Law of the Ladies. She has never made any mistakes, and she is the greatest pride of our family. But since He Danggui came back from Taoist temple, Qiong has suddenly changed. It seems that she was haunted by the ghost, and obsessed with the bad boy Peng Shi. Peng Shi’s mother Luo Chuanbei is also a villain. She is an apparent good relative with a smile in front of face, but refused to admit the children’s marriage to hurt my Qiong.” Sun Meiniang felt heartbroken when she mentioned this, “As for Shao, she used to be as good as her sister. Would she set on fire if she was not deluded by evil thing? I guess He Danggui learned witchcraft from the Shui Shang Temple. After she came back from the Taoist temple, she became totally different!”
“And I!” Luo Chuangu snorted, “I have so many beautiful women, let alone that Meiniang is pregnant. I accompany her all the time, so why would I caste eyes at your closest maid? But yesterday, I was like being manipulated, and I couldn’t help doing that!”
Luo Chuangu was so cheeky that people rarely saw. He clearly coveted the beauty of Gan Cao and raped her. He didn’t admit that he was lustful, instead, he was so dishonest in front of his mother and pregnant wife. He was so shameless to pass the buck to his niece. Of course, Sun Meiniang knew that he was lying, but she didn’t nail the lie even though she was disgusted. It was in the stage of uniting against the enemy. Such a small account could be calculated slowly with the door closed. She also had something on Luo Chuangu.
After hearing this, Madam Luo really believed. She walked down the corridor while muttering, “You both are alarmist and scare me. I want to listen to Yi...”
Just at this moment, disheveled Ding Rong’s wife ran over from the other side in a panic while yelling, “Third Miss is killing and setting fire! She is going to rebel!”
There was also a faint voice in the distance, “It’s on fire… Help… It’s on fire…”
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