Reborn of the Rightful - Chapter 249

Chapter 249 - The Maid Who Was Driven Out

By the time Ren Yaoqi and Ren Yaohua caught wind of the incident, the rumors had already spread like wildfire among the servants of the Ren household.

Ren Yaoqi summoned Mama Zhou to inquire, "Who is this maid everyone keeps talking about?"

Mama Zhou was herself running ragged over the affair. Having assisted Madame Li in managing the third branch's inner courtyards for over a decade, she possessed an encyclopedic command of the household personnel and immediately replied, "It should be Meihong, a third-class maid who was assigned to the courtyard before the Third Young Miss and Madam moved to the estate."

Prompted by Mama Zhou's recollection, Ren Yaohua remembered as well, furrowing her brow. "Meihong? It's her?"

Ren Yaoqi drew a complete blank at the name. While two years ago felt like yesterday to the others, to her, it was over a decade in the past—plus, Meihong had merely been a third-class maid who never worked in close attendance. The Crape Myrtle Courtyard housed four masters, and when combining the second- and third-class maids, there were easily twenty or thirty of them, with batches regularly being dismissed and replaced every few years.

"Third Sister remembers her?"

Ren Yaohua thought back. "Ordinarily, a third-class maid who didn't work in close attendance wouldn't warrant my attention. It's just that she constantly hovered around me for one flimsy reason or another. At first, I assumed she was simply diligent and eager to please her mistress, but one day, some of the other maids in the courtyard spotted her sucking up to Fang Yiniang as well. When I heard about it, a wave of disgust washed over me, so I fabricated an excuse and ordered the stewards to sell her off."

Maids were strictly divided by rank and duties; under normal circumstances, a third-class maid had no business approaching the masters. Meihong's overly enthusiastic behavior had already caught Ren Yaohua's eye, and her subsequent contact with Fang Yiniang led Ren Yaohua to assume she was Fang Yiniang's plant.

Everyone knew that Fang Yiniang was the person Ren Yaohua detested most in the world, and anyone associated with Fang Yiniang never met a pleasant end under Ren Yaohua's watch.

Ren Yaoqi, however, shook her head. "I actually think you acted rather rashly in this instance. Someone like Fang Yiniang operates with the utmost caution. If Meihong were truly her person, how could she possibly allow people to witness them interacting? Let alone multiple people. In my view, while that maid was indeed cunning and ambitious, currying favor with Fang Yiniang wasn't necessarily her primary motive."

Mama Zhou sighed. "This old servant did caution the Third Young Miss back then. For a third-class maid like Meihong to constantly scheme for a chance to display herself before the masters—and even succeed in drawing the Third Young Miss's notice—was bound to spark jealousy among the other third-class maids in the courtyard. Being framed by her peers wasn't out of the question, especially since everyone knew the Third Young Miss despised betrayal above all else."

Reflecting on it now, Ren Yaohua realized her actions back then had indeed been rather impetuous. Having just suffered a setback under Fang Yiniang's hands and constantly bickering with Ren Yaoqi every other day, Meihong had simply walked straight into the line of fire.

"At the time, I figured it was better to punish the wrong person than let a potential threat slip by, viewing it as making an example of a chicken to frighten the monkeys. But was that woman really Meihong? Mama, do you recall where Meihong was sold off to?"

Mama Zhou carefully ransacked her memory. "Maids dismissed from the estate are invariably handed over to matchmakers, and they are generally never sold to neighboring prefectures or counties. As for her exact destination, we would have to ask the agency that handled her sale back then. However, because Meihong hadn't committed any unforgivable offense, Madam—fearing the Third Young Miss might be penalizing an innocent—explicitly instructed the matchmaker to place her in a respectable household as a regular maid."

Thus, the ultimate destination of a dismissed maid often depended heavily on her former master's disposition. If the old master retained a shred of lingering affection and left such instructions, the maid's fate would be vastly superior. Take Chun'er, who had previously splashed wine across Ren Yaoqi's dress—she had enjoyed no such mercy. Upon learning the full sequence of events, Mama Zhou had grown equally furious with her and explicitly ordered the matchmaker to sell her off to some frigid, barren frontier to suffer hard labor.

Neither Ren Yaoqi nor Ren Yaohua found Madame Li's private instructions surprising; Madame Li possessed no cruel bones in her body and was, by nature, exceedingly kind-hearted.

Ren Yaohua let out a cold laugh. "In other words, regardless of whether that woman is actually Meihong, this entire scheme was deliberately orchestrated to target me?"

Ren Yaoqi likewise suspected this was another countermeasure deployed by Fang Yiniang.

"However," Ren Yaohua raised an eyebrow, "if this is a calculated trap aimed at me, why didn't she use Chun'er—who was just recently driven out of the Ren estate by my hands—instead of digging up Meihong, who has been gone for so long? Using Chun'er would have been far simpler, wouldn't it? Plenty of people in the Ren household recognize Chun'er, whereas Meihong left over two years ago, and since she was quite young at the time, her appearance is bound to have changed."

Ren Yaoqi pondered for a moment before replying, "First, the Li family just made a public scene not long ago; if they tried to build a narrative around Chun'er now, it would be far too transparent and run a high risk of directly implicating Fang Yiniang. Besides, even if you wanted to sell Chun'er to a place like that, how could you possibly be foolish enough to dump her right here in Baihe Town under your own nose? Meihong, having been gone for over two years, could easily have been bought back through resale brokers. Second, Chun'er was Ninth Sister's former personal maid; if she ended up in such a degrading environment, would Ninth Sister retain any face at all?"

Should Chun'er happen to spill some of Ren Yaoyn's intimate secrets in such a public establishment, would Ren Yaoyn ever have a chance at a respectable marriage in this lifetime?

Mama Zhou fretted, "Then what is to be done now? We can simply let these rumors run rampant unchecked?"

Ren Yaohua sneered coldly. "Since she expended so much effort to set up this elaborate trap, how could she possibly leave me an easy escape route? Just watch—this rumor has likely already spread beyond the inner courts. And what is there to fear? At worst, I'll spend the rest of my days growing old and solitary within the inner courtyard, but those two mother-and-daughter schemers better watch their backs! Since I've already earned such a 'vicious' reputation, what restraints do I need to observe when dealing with them from now on?"

A jolt shot through Mama Zhou's heart upon hearing those words. "Third Young Miss, you must never think like that!" She hastily turned her gaze to Ren Yaoqi. "Fifth Young Miss..."

Ren Yaoqi offered Mama Zhou a soothing, reassuring smile, though her expression turned noticeably chillier as she turned back to Ren Yaohua. "Third Sister, what is your social standing, and what is hers? Mutual destruction? Does she even deserve it? What did you tell me when you were dealing with Ninth Sister earlier? And yet this is the extent of your capability?"

Ren Yaohua glared fiercely at Ren Yaoqi, who remained entirely unfazed.

"You're conceding defeat right at the opening move, and you still expect people not to talk?"

"I haven't conceded defeat!" Ren Yaohua retorted angrily.

Ren Yaoqi shook her head, adopting a measured, unhurried tone. "In my eyes, a draw means you've lost! You are a legitimate daughter of the primary lineage while she is merely a concubine—do you seriously imagine that a grand general dragging a nameless nobody down with him to the grave counts as a victory?"

Ren Yaoqi's analogy left Ren Yaohua momentarily stunned before her anger gave way to a wry, helpless expression. "What kind of utterly chaotic comparisons are you making?"

Fixing a solemn, piercing gaze on Ren Yaohua, Ren Yaoqi continued, "Third Sister, you must live well—and you must live vastly better than she does. That is the only true definition of winning! Once a person is dead, everything is gone; what talk of victory or defeat can there be then?"

This was not the first time Ren Yaoqi had heard Ren Yaohua utter phrases hinting at "mutual destruction" as a last resort, and it was a mindset she was determined to stamp out.

Ren Yaohua stared at Ren Yaoqi, her lips trembling slightly as though she wished to voice something before swallowing the words back. Turning her face away with a frosty huff, she muttered with an ungracious tone, "As if I needed you to tell me that!"

Watching the interaction between the two sisters from the side, Mama Zhou inexplicably felt her eyes sting with hot tears. She discreetly turned away, lifting her sleeve to dab at the corners of her eyes as a profound wave of warmth filled her chest.

Just then, Wucheng stepped into the room to announce that a junior maid from the Elder Madame's courtyard had arrived on Elder Madame's orders to respectfully request the Third Young Miss's presence at the Rongsheng Courtyard.

Ren Yaohua nodded an acknowledgement to Wucheng before turning to Ren Yaoqi. "The news about Meihong has likely reached Grandmother's ears. A tongue-lashing is definitely unavoidable once I step in there."

Ren Yaoqi was hardly surprised that the affair had reached the Elder Madame. Since all the maids and matrons of the Ren household were already whispering about it, if the Elder Madame remained oblivious, she wouldn't be fit to rule over the inner quarters of the Ren estate.

And since the Elder Madame knew, the household would inevitably take measures to suppress the gossip. Yet if Ren Yaoqi could deduce this much, the mastermind behind the plot surely anticipated it as well.

Could it be that the Ren household's reaction and countermeasures were entirely accounted for within her rival's calculations?

With that thought taking root, Ren Yaoqi told Ren Yaohua, "Since she summoned you at an hour like this, my guess is it's precisely because of this matter. I'll accompany you."

Ren Yaohua frowned. "I'm going over there to be scolded and lectured; what business do you have tagging along?"

Ren Yaoqi shook her head. "You go take your scolding. I'm tagging along to see how the Ren family intends to respond. An enemy calculates three steps ahead for every move made; if you want to win, you have to look further ahead than she does, otherwise you'll remain perpetually on the defensive."

The corner of Ren Yaohua's mouth twitched at Ren Yaoqi's opening remark, but as the deeper implication of her words sank in, she fell into a contemplative silence.

When the two sisters arrived at the Elder Madame's courtyard within the Rongsheng compound, they found the Elder Madame already seething with wrath.

Seeing Ren Yaohua step across the threshold, the Elder Madame dispensed with her usual pleasantries, pointing a finger directly at her and berating, "Look at the fine mess you've stirred up this time!"

Noticing Ren Yaoqi trailing closely behind, the Elder Madame frowned slightly, though she did not chase her away. Instead, she redirected her fury back at Ren Yaohua: "I've told you time and time again that you need to temper that scorching temper of yours! If a mere maid offended you and you wanted to make her suffer, there were plenty of ways to do it—you could have simply handed her over to the penal matrons. Why did you insist on playing those convoluted games? And what good has it brought you now? You've dragged the entire Ren family's reputation into the mud!"

Only after the Elder Madame had exhausted her tirade did Ren Yaohua respond with a look of aggrieved indignation. "Grandmother, back then I merely disliked the girl, so I instructed the matchmaker to sell her to another household. I truly never ordered anyone to dump her into a disreputable place! If you don't believe me, you can summon the matchmaker who escorted her away back then and question her face-to-face!"

The Elder Madame wavered between doubt and belief, though upon reflection, she knew Yaohua wasn't one for blatant falsehoods. Having independently investigated the matter previously, she knew Yaohua had merely given instructions to sell the girl without even subjecting her to corporal punishment. If the maid had truly committed some unforgivable capital offense, given Yaohua's temperament, she would never have spared her a physical beating.

"Could it be a case of mistaken identity?" The Elder Madame's complexion remained dark.

"Has Grandmother tracked down the matron who claimed she saw Meihong and brought her in for questioning?" Ren Yaohua countered.

The Elder Madame snapped, "Of course she was questioned! And there wasn't just one witness—two different matrons crossed paths with her while out purchasing sewing needles, and both swore under oath that she looked identical to the maid you drove out!"