Chapter 260: Finally Seeing the Light

Chapter 260: Finally Seeing the Light

Lu Minghui glanced at Qiu Shi, who lay limp like a corpse, and spat contemptuously, sneering, "You're hard to kill."

She then stopped the panicking servants and ordered coldly, "Throw this wretched maid who knocked over the candlestand into the woodshed at the southwest corner of Lanxi Yard."

As she spoke, Lu Minghui realized her speech came out garbled.

Her teeth!

She reached up to touch them—her front teeth had vanished.

In the dim light, the servants kept their heads bowed, not daring to look up, and thus failed to see Lu Minghui’s blood-streaked face and missing front teeth. They merely assumed her voice was muffled from shock.

"Young lady, the fire hasn’t been put out yet, and the woodshed—"

"Just obey me!" Lu Minghui shrieked hysterically.

"Lu Minghui!"

Lu Minghua arrived, gasping for breath, followed closely by Yongning-Marquis and Yongning-Marquis' Madam.

"Stop this!"

Lu Minghui hiked up her skirts and hurried over to the three of them, tilting her face up. "Big brother, I’m injured!"

"Instead of standing up for me, you’re defending this arsonist bitch?"

Her disheveled hair and blood-smeared face suddenly thrust into view made Yongning-Marquis' Madam stagger back half a step in fright.

"Minghui, you—"

With her wedding approaching, her face ruined and her front teeth missing...

Lu Minghui pointed viciously at Qiu Shi. "Mother, it’s all this worthless servant's fault for knocking over the candlestand!"

Truthfully, Lu Minghui wasn’t even sure who had toppled the candlestand or when.

She had been obsessively stitching words on Qiu Shi’s relatively smooth and unblemished back with needles, while Qiu Shi thrashed in agony, trying to escape.

Only when the flames leaped up and devoured the curtains did she come to her senses.

Lu Minghua refused to even look at Lu Minghui.

His sister didn’t need to be talented or beautiful, but she couldn’t be a heartless monster.

"Her? Starting a fire?"

Lu Minghua barked a laugh, removing his outer robe and stepping forward to swaddle Qiu Shi in it, wrapping her completely.

"In her barely clinging-to-life state, she can barely stand—how could she possibly set a fire?"

"Why don’t you explain how, in just one hour after the welcoming feast ended, Qiu Shi was reduced to this state?"

"You disgrace this family!"

He didn’t dare move Qiu Shi recklessly, fearing the needles might pierce deeper inside her.

Before arriving, he had already instructed his page to summon the most skilled and reputable lady doctor in the capital.

Lu Minghui’s eyes flickered as she said defensively, “It was her—she was distracted and knocked over the candlestick. Xia Chan and Dong Shuang can both testify.”

“Mother,” Lu Minghui suddenly changed her tone, pleading, “Please order someone to have Qiu Shi taken away immediately.”

The Marchioness of Yongning found her daughter's face unbearable to look at.

One more glance would be enough to give her nightmares.

“Mother,” Lu Minghui urged.

The Marchioness of Yongning detected the guilt in Lu Minghui’s voice.

She knew the scandals of the Lanxi Estate must never be exposed.

Clearing her throat, she turned to Lu Minghua. “Ming Hua—”

“Mother,” Lu Minghua interjected sternly, “To raise children without discipline, indulging reckless behavior—do you wish to ruin the House of Yongning?”

“If you still regard me as your son, do not keep making mistakes.”

The Marchioness of Yongning swallowed her words of defense, her heart unsettled with doubt.

Just how much did Ming Hua know?

The Marquis of Yongning, who rarely involved himself in the affairs of the inner household, was completely at a loss.

“Ming Hua, what is the meaning of this?”

He had assumed that after his punishment, the Lanxi Estate had stopped the abuse toward maids and servants, believing Lu Minghui had mended her ways.

“I beg you, Father, to remain calm and wait a moment longer,” Lu Minghua bowed his head. “Given Mother’s indulgence toward Lu Minghui and her own way with words, no matter what I say, there will be endless excuses and denials.”

Hearing this, the Marchioness of Yongning grew anxious. “Ming Hua, Minghui is your own sister, about to be married.”

“She suffered greatly after being separated from us in her youth. Can you not spare her some dignity?”

“Would you, her own brother, personally destroy her?”

Lu Minghua's expression grew more mocking.

Standing protectively before Qiu Shi, he lifted his eyes angrily. “Mother, do you know everything she has done?”

“You knew everything, yet looked the other way.”

“This is utterly absurd.”

As he spoke, Lu Minghua began laughing bitterly, as if expelling all the pent-up frustration in his heart.

The Marquis of Yongning frowned, studying Lu Minghui carefully.

What fresh trouble had this disobedient daughter caused now?

Lu Minghui shrunk back, lips pressed tight, blinking back tears in silent pleading toward the Marchioness of Yongning.

Exhausted, the Marchioness of Yongning looked away.

"The doctor’s here! The doctor’s here!"

The lady doctor behind the servant boy had her hair tied up with a wooden hairpin and carried a medicine chest on her back, looking sharp and no-nonsense.

Lu Minghui widened her eyes, tightly clutching Madam Yongning Marquis’s sleeve, shaking her head and whispering, "Mother, Minghui’s begging you."

She still needed to marry Gu Huai.

Madam Yongning Marquis took a deep breath. "Lanxi Courtyard’s too loud and hectic. It would be better to take Qiu Shi to Biluo Courtyard so the physician can treat her properly."

As she spoke, Madam Yongning Marquis offhandedly signaled two servants.

Lu Minghua stood unmoving, shielding Qiu Shi.

"Doctor Feng, there are silver needles inside her body. Can she be moved?"

"Will it damage her organs?"

Doctor Feng bent down, took Qiu Shi’s wrist, and placed his fingers on her pulse.

After a moment, he sighed. "Go ahead and move her."

"Your mother is right. This place isn’t suitable for treatment."

Moving her or not wouldn’t change anything.

She had broken tradition for thirty years as a woman practicing medicine, and from a pulse alone, she could roughly determine life or death.

Less than three months.

With all her internal organs damaged, not even a god could save her.

Lu Minghua didn’t catch the subtext in Doctor Feng’s words, thinking only that Qiu Shi could still be saved, and he let out a relieved sigh.

"I’m carrying her myself." Lu Minghua glanced coldly at the approaching servants.

Seeing this, Yongning Marquis and his wife spoke in unison, "Minghua, this isn’t proper. Men and women mustn’t touch."

Lu Minghua said nothing, simply picking Qiu Shi up in his arms.

He didn’t trust his mother.

Qiu Shi was light as a pile of dead leaves.

So light it felt like holding a bundle of dry branches.

He was close with his sister Chaochao and was thus very familiar with her four handmaids.

In his memories, Qiu Shi, quiet but always smiling warmly, obediently followed Chaochao, bright-eyed and round-cheeked—a girl who still had her baby fat.

Now, she was skin and bones, barely alive.

"Qiu Shi, I’ll get you safely back to Chaochao’s side."

Qiu Shi was delirious, muttering nonsense.

Morning?

Miss?

Yes, the young lady is back.

She was full of regret.

She wanted to tell the young lady that she regretted her decision.

It wasn’t the prosperity of the marquis’s household she couldn’t bear to leave—it was her newlywed sister.

But her sister had accepted the young lady’s money.

Whether living or dead, her sister had sold her very life to the young lady.

Yes, her very life, not just her body.

She mustn’t die.

She hadn’t yet explained to the young lady.

The Biluo Courtyard.

Candlelight flooded the room as the Grandee removed the outer robe covering Qiu Shi, and a collective gasp rose from those present.

"My, what a crowd!"