Chapter 76

Cheng Qingyao whipped her head around, only to see a perfectly matched couple slowly walking toward her.

When enemies cross paths, their eyes blaze with instant fury.

Today, Cheng Ruyi was attired in a festive, bright crimson damask coat adorned with patterns of camellias and butterflies. Paired with her stunningly beautiful face, she looked vibrant and absolutely radiant.

The happiness she couldn’t hide, which naturally radiated from the corners of her brow and eyes, made Cheng Qingyao burn with intense jealousy.

At this point, Cheng Qingyao intentionally blocked out the tall, handsome Rong Mo standing beside her.

The more outstanding Rong Mo appeared, the more it glaringly highlighted her own utter failure.

The men who currently adored her were each more pathetic than the last.

Cheng Qingyao wanted nothing more than to slaughter Cheng Ruyi right then and there, but she knew it wasn’t realistic—otherwise, she wouldn’t have bothered tracking down Xue Qi in the first place.

“What are you doing here?”

The moment Cheng Qingyao laid eyes on Cheng Ruyi, she couldn’t control herself from snapping a demand, her originally crisp, gentle voice turning distinctly sharp.

Rong Ting, Cheng Yu, and the others all breathed a collective sigh of relief upon seeing Cheng Ruyi and Rong Mo arrive.

It couldn’t be helped; in their hearts, Cheng Ruyi was an omnipotent figure who could handle absolutely anything.

“Big Sister, Brother-in-law, you’re here! This is great! Cousin Qingyao just barred our carriage path like a complete lunatic, and she keeps calling Brother Rong Ting ‘Ah-Qi’ for no rhyme or reason. I think she’s completely lost her mind.” Cheng Yu immediately lodged his complaint the second he stepped forward.

He maliciously pinned the label of a lunatic onto Cheng Qingyao’s head.

“Brother, Sister-in-law!” Rong Ting called out with a trace of sheepish embarrassment, hanging his head like a child who had done something wrong.

Seeing him behave this way made Cheng Qingyao’s chest feel immensely stifled with frustration.

Cheng Ruyi stepped forward with a playful grin, adding with deliberate malice: “Cousin Qingyao, you’ve orchestrated such a magnificent spectacle, how could it possibly lack an audience? Mo and I explicitly came over to show our support for you!”

Rong Mo: “…”

His little wife truly possessed a knack for infuriating people to the point of near-death.

Cheng Qingyao’s eyes threatened to split from rage. She was no fool; there was no way she could miss the underlying implication in Cheng Ruyi’s words—as it turned out, her every movement had been under constant surveillance.

In her eyes, Cheng Ruyi had always been an uneducated, brainless bimbo, yet here she was, thoroughly outschemed by the very bimbo she despised.

Cheng Qingyao simply could not accept this massive, jarring contrast.

“Cheng Ruyi, don’t you dare spout wild, slanderous accusations! This was clearly entirely engineered by you, you deeply conniving woman!”

Cheng Ruyi’s eyes widened, a deeply smug, delighted grin breaking across her features as she turned to Rong Mo: “Mo, I never imagined that a day would come where someone would actually describe me as deeply conniving. This is truly a rare milestone.”

Rong Mo’s lips twitched: “Someone just called you deeply conniving, what on earth are you getting so thrilled about?”

He truly couldn’t comprehend his little wife’s cognitive wiring.

“Calling me deeply conniving is basically a roundabout way of complimenting my brilliant intelligence, isn’t it?” Cheng Ruyi shot Rong Mo a look, answering with sheer bliss.

Rong Mo: “…”

Every single time his little wife faced off against Cheng Qingyao, her fighting spirit soared. She wasn’t just razor-tongued; she was spectacularly infuriating.

Cheng Qingyao felt like she was about to cough up actual blood.

Being called deeply conniving was objectively an insult, yet Cheng Ruyi explicitly took it as a glowing compliment. This sensation of landing a punch on a soft ball of cotton was utterly suffocating.

Cheng Ruyi turned back to look at Cheng Qingyao, adding fuel to the fire with a beaming smile: “Many thanks for the high praise, Cousin Qingyao. You truly possess impeccable taste.”

A breath of pure rage hitched tightly in Cheng Qingyao’s throat, her gaze locking onto Cheng Ruyi as if she wanted to tear her apart and devour her alive.

“Drop the petty lip service, Cheng Ruyi. Don’t think I don’t see through your pathetic schemes. I never realized you actually enjoyed collecting discarded garbage. Xue Qi was nothing more than a loyal dog of mine. Even if you’ve successfully incited him to defect, so what? If he can betray me today, he can betray you tomorrow. Cheng Ruyi, you better watch your back.”

Since Xue Qi had definitively turned his back on her, Cheng Qingyao was determined to ensure he wouldn’t have an easy time either.

Feigning complete ignorance of her existence…

What an ungrateful, treacherous hypocrite!

At any rate, since she and Cheng Ruyi had already completely ripped away their polite facades, she might as well let the broken pot smash completely.

Cheng Ruyi merely watched with a sweet smile as Cheng Qingyao spewed her divisive, manipulative words, looking at her as if she were a pathetic clown performing on a stage.

“There’s absolutely no need for Cousin Qingyao to trouble her mind over that. Oh, I forgot to mention—this ‘Xue Qi’ character you keep rambling about is someone I don’t know at all. If you’re referring to Rong Ting, he is Rong Mo’s biological younger brother. Are you absolutely certain you haven’t targeted the wrong person?”

“Rong Ting, wouldn’t you say so?”

Hearing his name called, Rong Ting rapidly nodded in agreement, delivering a spectacular finishing blow: “Sister-in-law is entirely correct. My name is glaringly Rong Ting, yet this completely bizarre woman keeps insisting on calling me Ah-Qi.”

“Could she be deliberately trying to manufacture a scene to catch my personal attention? But I don’t like her at all!”

Rong Ting wore an expression of pure, unadulterated horror.

A completely bizarre woman… deliberately trying to catch his attention… didn’t like her at all…

Cheng Qingyao’s face turned black, her entire frame trembling violently with sheer rage.

Xue Qi, you absolute bastard!

Just you wait!

As the dense snowflakes drifted down onto her hair, Cheng Qingyao’s heart felt as though it had plunged into a bottomless ice cellar. She truly shouldn’t have harbored a single shred of hope regarding Xue Qi; perhaps this man had aligned himself with Cheng Ruyi a long time ago.

Had she known, she never would have come here to interrogate him.

“Cousin Qingyao, Rong Ting has explicitly stated that he doesn’t like you, so please stop manufacturing excuses to edge closer to him. There are plenty of fish in the sea, why obsess over a single withered blade of grass?”

Cheng Ruyi offered her counsel with a perfectly solemn face, though inside she felt incredibly smug watching Cheng Qingyao’s utterly livid expression.

Fume all you want, rage all you want—it would be best if you literally died of pure anger.

“What utter nonsense! He’s nothing more than an ungrateful, petty wretch who isn’t even fit to carry my shoes!” Cheng Qingyao spat out viciously, completely pushed past her limit.

At his core, Rong Ting was still fundamentally a twelve-year-old boy. To be completely blindsided and slapped with the label of an ungrateful wretch was something no one could stomach. He immediately retaliated with furious indignation: “You’re the one spouting utter nonsense! I don’t know you from Adam, so how on earth am I an ungrateful wretch? You absolute wicked woman…”

“You… you…” Cheng Qingyao shook with such violent fury that she could no longer suppress it, spraying out a sudden mouthful of physical blood.

The personal guards from Prince Rong’s estate were thoroughly stunned.

It had barely been a handful of sentences, yet this Miss Cheng Qingyao couldn’t even survive the psychological provocation without literally coughing up blood.

Her emotional fortitude was simply abysmal.

“Miss!”

The personal attendants Cheng Qingyao had brought along were all male servants, so they didn’t dare step forward to physically support the swaying, teetering Cheng Qingyao to avoid publicly compromising her maidenly reputation. They could only hover around her in a frantic, helpless circle.

“Oh my, she’s actually vomiting blood…” Cheng Ruyi’s eyes widened in pure, fascinated amazement.

Seeing the wicked woman cough up blood made Cheng Yu incredibly joyful, and he gave Rong Ting a resounding thumbs-up: “Brother Rong Ting, you are spectacular!”

Rong Ting, who had initially been a trace startled by Cheng Qingyao’s sudden fountain of blood, flushed crimson with bashful pride.

Rong Mo: “…”

Cheng Qingyao had already coughed up blood multiple times in the past; her physical constitution had long since been depleted to an incredibly frail state. The fact that she hadn’t completely collapsed unconscious right now was already an extraordinary feat.

“You… all of you just wait!”

Cheng Ruyi smiled with absolute composure: “Splendid, we shall be waiting!”

Once she finished, she offered a delightfully wicked reminder: “Oh, I nearly forgot to mention to Cousin Qingyao—on my way over here, I took the liberty of dispatching a message to Auntie. Calculating the timeline, Auntie’s operatives should be arriving any moment now. I wish you the absolute best of luck, dearest Cousin Qingyao!”

Scheming to secretly escape to Dahua County? Not a chance!

You better stay wrapped up securely inside the capital.

The moment the words left her lips, a sudden thunder of horse hooves echoed from a short distance away.

Cheng Qingyao’s countenance drained of what little color it had left.

She had never anticipated that Cheng Ruyi would actually send an operative to alert her mother. Damn that Cheng Ruyi.

Within moments, the newcomers arrived.

The person who stepped down first was Nanny Liu, the core confidante of the Madam of the Marquis of Jian’an’s estate. Maintaining a stern, rigid face, she offered a polite nod toward Rong Mo and Cheng Ruyi. She then led a contingent of older matrons to stride directly forward, pinning Cheng Qingyao securely between them, shoving her unceremoniously into the carriage, and driving away at a furious pace.

The entire sequence took barely two to three minutes from start to finish.

“Peace and quiet at long last!” Cheng Ruyi let out a delighted laugh, her mood exceptionally bright.

Rong Mo gently scraped the bridge of her nose, offering a thoroughly adoring smile: “You mischievous little thing.”

“This was nothing more than an appetizer,” Cheng Ruyi murmured. The sole reason she had restrained herself from retaliating against her over these past few days was precisely to wait for a perfect window like today.

Rong Mo inquired with a highly amused, cooperative smile: “…Then when exactly do we begin serving the main course?”

Cheng Ruyi pondered for a brief moment before answering: “No rush. We’ll pick an auspicious date before making our move.”

Rong Mo was entirely speechless: “…”

Picking an auspicious calendar date just to execute a wicked plot… aside from his little wife, there truly wasn’t a second soul on earth who would operate this way.

Listening to the exchange, Cheng Yu and Rong Ting were left entirely in a fog of confusion.

Neither Rong Mo nor Cheng Ruyi offered them an explanation. Having thoroughly resolved the issue regarding Cheng Qingyao, the couple made a direct line for the Marquis of Changle’s estate.

With the weather turning so bitingly freezing, the Marquis of Changle rarely stepped foot outside his gates anymore.

He spent his days entirely nestled within his manor, playing with his massive pet tiger.

The moment Cheng Ruyi stepped inside alongside Rong Mo, she caught sight of the Marquis of Changle diligently smoothing down the massive tiger’s fur, and she couldn’t resist rolling her eyes.

“Father, didn’t I explicitly state that we need to release the massive tiger back into the mountain ranges?”

Seeing his daughter return only to instantly demand the banishment of his precious tiger, the Marquis of Changle completely lost his composure.

“We aren’t releasing it. We’re keeping it right here.”

“Father, this tiger consumes an astronomical volume of food, and the grain reserves inside our estate weren’t blown in by a strong gale. It’s best to send it away as early as possible. If you truly find yourself incapable of parting with it, we can just slaughter it, skin it, and hang the tiger pelt inside your chambers. That way, you can touch it however you please and it won’t matter at all.”

A row of dark lines slid down Rong Mo’s forehead.

The Marquis of Changle: “…”

The words tumbling out of his daughter’s mouth truly sounded exceptionally chilling.

Having consumed a vast quantity of the estate’s specially nourished vegetables, the massive tiger—now possessed of a beautifully glossy coat and a distinct trace of spiritual intelligence—pitiably nudged its massive head against Cheng Ruyi’s foot, attempting to execute an adorable display. Cheng Ruyi remained completely immune to the tactic.

“Don’t rub against me. The deep mountain forests are the only place you truly belong.”

Seeing that his daughter was completely unyielding regarding the tiger’s relocation, the Marquis of Changle let out a silent sigh. He longingly stroked the beast’s sleek, smooth coat. The Marquis of Changle’s estate was already drawing far too much public scrutiny as it stood; if they continued to expend precious food reserves to sustain a wild tiger, they would undoubtedly become a prime target for public condemnation. At any rate, since the tiger was bound to return to the wild sooner or later, it was infinitely better to send it off early rather than risk having his daughter literally skin it alive down the line.

“Daughter, you may take it away today.”

Seeing that her father was no longer digging his heels in, Cheng Ruyi threw him a bone of hope: “Father, if you truly love this tiger all that much, once the grand natural disaster draws to a complete close, I’ll go back out and capture it for you again.”

The Marquis of Changle, whose mood had been distinctly depressed, instantly experienced a surge of brilliant light in his eyes: “Daughter, can you genuinely capture this exact same tiger back for me?”

“Of course, it’s a total piece of cake!” Cheng Ruyi waved her hand dismissively.

As long as she stamped a thread of her mental energy imprint onto this tiger’s consciousness, did she honestly have to fear failing to recognize it later?

Having successfully managed her father, she shifted her focus to the collection of red foxes her mother adored. While Rong Susu did indeed fancy the red foxes, her fondness had its limits; the moment the creatures posed an active liability to the security of the Marquis of Changle’s estate, Rong Susu would discard them without a single moment’s hesitation.

Thus, when Cheng Ruyi and Rong Mo emerged from the Marquis’s estate, they paraded the massive tiger and the pack of red foxes directly through the bustling streets, escorting them back to the wilderness under the watchful eyes of the entire populace.

Along the way, they happened to cross paths with the ice-harvesting teams deployed by the Lin family. Cheng Ruyi and Rong Mo looked straight through them, ignoring them entirely.

In their eyes, the members of the Lin family were nothing more than complete strangers.

Once the tiger and the foxes were safely returned to the wild, Cheng Ruyi began consulting the calendar to select an auspicious date, preparing to deliver a magnificent ‘grand gift’ directly to Cheng Qingyao.

Who could have foreseen that before this ‘grand gift’ could even be dispatched, an urgent piece of news would ripple across the capital: in exactly ten days, Cheng Qingyao would officially wed the Heir Apparent of Prince Wei to establish herself as his official side-consort.

Cheng Ruyi was thoroughly astonished: “…”

The legal daughter of the prestigious Marquis of Jian’an’s estate was actually entering a household as a mere side-consort… had her ears twisted the report?

No matter how one spun the narrative, Cheng Qingyao was still fundamentally the female lead of this world. Even if the title of ‘side-consort’ sounded marginally more respectable on paper, it was still ultimately a glorified concubine—merely holding a slightly higher rank than a standard bedwarmer. Whatever happened to her vaunted female lead halo?

Then again, this outcome was arguably even better. Wedding in exactly ten days…

Word on the street indicated that the Heir Apparent of Prince Wei was actually planning to host a magnificent, formal wedding ceremony specifically for Cheng Qingyao.

To orchestrate a formal wedding ceremony for a mere side-consort proved that the Heir Apparent of Prince Wei truly adored Cheng Qingyao to an extraordinary degree—even going so far as to openly rebel against his own parents for her sake. It was simply a pity for the future primary legal consort.

Cheng Ruyi resolutely determined right then and there that she was going to gift her a wedding ceremony she would remember for the rest of her literal life.

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