The moment Yang Qiushuang finished speaking, footsteps sounded from outside the door. A young man walked in, dressed in a worn-out blue robe, his hair slightly messy. His handsome face was etched with deep exhaustion and resentment. It was none other than Yang Qiushuang’s younger brother, Yang Chengye.
When he saw his sister, his lips moved. "Sister," he called out, his voice hoarse. His eyes were red-rimmed, a clear sign that something was wrong.
"Chengye, what’s going on?" Yang Qiushuang let go of her mother’s hand and turned to her brother. Her tone was still cool, but it carried an unquestionable gravity, as she had already sensed that something was amiss.
Yang Chengye glanced at his mother on her sickbed, then at his wife’s grief-stricken face. He bit his lip, his expression hesitant, as if struggling with something difficult to say.
Under Yang Qiushuang’s quiet yet piercing gaze, he finally began to speak. His voice was filled with humiliation, powerlessness, and an unconcealable shame.
If it weren’t absolutely necessary, he wouldn’t want to trouble his sister. He knew her current situation all too well. He also knew that if not for her, the Yang Family would have likely been destroyed long ago. She had already done far too much for their family.
Although the Yang Family had suffered some repercussions when the Crown Prince was deposed and the Crown Prince’s Mansion fell from grace, they were still much better off than before. At the very least, they had avoided total ruin.
The trouble began with the nearly one hundred acres of prime paddy fields adjacent to the Yang Family’s property.
It was the Yang Family’s ancestral land and their primary source of income.
Several years ago, a landlord from the neighboring estate, surnamed Lou, had taken a liking to these fields and wanted to acquire them. However, the price he offered was far below market value—not even half of what they were worth.
Yang Chengye, honoring his father’s last wishes to protect their ancestral property, naturally refused and rejected the offer outright.
At the time, Landlord Lou didn’t press the matter, and it seemed to be over.
Who would have known that a few years ago, the Lou Family would begin to make trouble at every turn.
First, they claimed that the ridges of the Yang Family’s fields had damaged their irrigation ditches. They brought men to "forcefully repair" them, but in reality, they destroyed many of the young rice shoots in the Yang Family’s fields, causing significant losses.
Next, the Lou Family’s cattle and horses would always "accidentally" wander into the Yang Family’s fields, eating their crops and trampling the land.
When Yang Chengye went to their door to reason with them, he was instead shoved and cursed at by the Lou Family’s vicious servants, who accused him of slandering good people and threatened to drag him to the Government Office.
This spring, Landlord Lou sent his men with an official ultimatum: either sell the fields at the cheap price from years ago, or face the consequences and be given no peace.
He even spread rumors that the elder Crown Prince was on his deathbed and Yang Qiushuang would soon be a widow, leaving the Yang Family with no one to back them.
Yang Chengye was young and hot-headed. Believing that his sister was, after all, still one of the Eastern Palace’s concubines and that their opponents wouldn’t dare go too far, he sternly refused and even filed a complaint with the County Yamen.
However, the complaint vanished without a trace, and there was no response whatsoever.
Not long after, while on his way to the city, Yang Chengye was ambushed by several masked men. They beat him until his face was black and blue and fractured his leg. He was bedridden for two months and has only recently started to recover.
Then, Yang Qiushuang’s youngest sister, seventeen-year-old Yang Qiuyu, was publicly harassed by Landlord Lou’s only son while she was in town buying embroidery thread. He nearly dragged her back to his home.
Her dress was torn in the struggle, and the shock was so great that she fell ill upon returning home. She remains frail even now.
Madam Yang was frantic and furious. Already advanced in age, she subsequently fell gravely ill and couldn’t get out of bed.
The Yang Family spent a great deal of money on doctors and medicine. With their fields repeatedly sabotaged and their harvest greatly reduced, the family’s finances grew tighter, and life became increasingly difficult.
But Landlord Lou only grew more arrogant. He even sent word, saying that the Yang Family’s daughter in the palace was nothing but an ornament with no power. The elder Crown Prince couldn’t even protect himself and was on the verge of death—so what use could he be?
He told the Yang Family to be sensible, or next time it wouldn’t be as simple as a beating and harassment. He threatened that he might just make the Yang Family pay a terrible price.
Yang Chengye’s voice was choked with sobs and rage. "Just the day before yesterday, the Lou Family sent someone over. They said that as long as you, Sister, go to the Lou Mansion to personally offer an apology, everything that has happened can be forgotten, and the price of the land can be renegotiated. If you refuse, they’ll make sure there’s no place left for the Yang Family in the Western Suburbs! It was after hearing this that Mother coughed up blood from anger, and her condition suddenly worsened!"
"They’ve gone too far! Is there no law or justice left in this world?" Lan Xi, who had been listening from the side, couldn’t help but hiss, her brows knitting in anger.
But Yang Qiushuang stood frozen in place, her expression terribly grim.
All the color had drained from her face, leaving it a near-translucent white. Even the faint tint of her lips had vanished.
Only her eyes grew deeper and colder, as if they had instantly frozen over with ancient ice, capable of freezing everything solid.
Landlord Lou. Lou Shiring!
The name was like a rusty nail, violently driving into the depths of her memory and dragging up years of filth and disgust, nearly making her retch.
Decades ago, before she had been chosen for the Eastern Palace, Lou Shiring was already a famous and powerful member of the gentry in the Western Suburbs. He was immensely wealthy, had close ties to the Government Office, and possessed an incredibly deep background.
Back then, he was nearly forty and had a flock of wives and concubines, yet he remained a lecherous womanizer, taking one or two new concubines almost every year.
On one chance occasion, he saw Yang Qiushuang at a temple fair while she was offering incense with her mother. He was stunned by her beauty, as if she were a Celestial Human, and became obsessed.
He immediately sent a matchmaker to their home, intending to take her as his eighteenth concubine. Her father, Scholar Yang, unceremoniously threw the matchmaker out and rejected the proposal.
Soon after, the Crown Prince’s decree for selecting Consorts reached their region. Yang Qiushuang, chosen for her outstanding beauty and character, quickly entered the palace and became one of the concubines of the Eastern Palace.
When Lou Shiring heard the news, he didn’t dare to harass her openly anymore. However, on one occasion when Yang Qiushuang was out, he intercepted her carriage on the road and shouted a stream of obscenities through the curtain.
He spewed things like, "The Crown Prince has countless concubines. You’ll just be living like a widow there, never even getting a chance to be favored by him!" and "Why not come with me? I guarantee you a life of splendor and wealth, with nights of endless revelry." He even tried to lift the carriage curtain.
Fortunately, her coachman and accompanying family members desperately held him back, preventing him from succeeding.
Yang Qiushuang was deeply ashamed of this incident and never spoke of it to anyone. Even her parents only thought she had encountered a common rogue, unaware of the full story.
She never imagined that after decades, that scum still hadn’t given up. He still coveted her, even resorting to such despicable tactics. He was utterly without shame.
His targeting of the Yang Family, his attempts to seize their land, and his injuring of her brother—his ultimate goal was still her. He wanted to possess her.
Moreover, he had timed it perfectly, seeing that the Crown Prince had lost power and that she, a mere Fifth Class Attendant, was without favor or support. That’s why he dared to be so brazen. His arrogance was boundless.
A cold rage, mixed with a profound sense of humiliation and powerlessness, spread through her heart, making it almost impossible to breathe.
She could endure the loneliness of the Deep Palace. She could endure becoming a stranger to the man she loved. She could endure the sorrow of her youth wasting away... But she could not endure this. She could not endure her elderly, sick mother being tormented, her righteous brother being beaten, and her young sister being humiliated—all because of her. She could not endure their ancestral property being coveted and her family being bullied by a tyrant.

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