Chapter 410 Tit for Tat

Chapter 410: An Eye for an Eye

He trembled with rage, "You—you're being unreasonable and unfilial! I truly regret raising you all the way to adulthood!"

"If I had known you would turn out like this, I shouldn't have been so lenient with you before. I should've beat you every day and starved you, so you'd know who busted their ass to keep you alive."

Wu Jinxi truly hadn't expected that one day he'd be lectured by this worthless girl he looked down on the most!

Back then, if Ji Yuntang's face hadn't been so ugly that nobody wanted her, he'd have sold her off to a brothel to service clients a long time ago. How the hell could she be standing here talking to him now?

Now that she had become a princess, not only did she not appreciate him raising her, but she even ordered him around to do hard labor. This Ji Yuntang was nothing but an ungrateful snake.

Ji Yuntang listened to him curse without getting the slightest bit angry.

Because in her memory, this kind of scolding was already the tamest. What she remembered more was Wu Jinxi going on drunken rampages and beating her.

When he went on a drunken rampage, he didn't give a damn about anyone. Sometimes even Chen Huaxiu had to hide from him to avoid getting caught in the crossfire.

Ji Yuntang couldn't be bothered to argue with Wu Jinxi anymore. Compared to what the original owner had gone through, what he was suffering now was nothing.

She shot him a glance and pulled rank as the Princess.

"I'm the Princess, and you, foster father, are just a commoner. I, the Princess, can let your words slide, but you'd better watch yourself."

"After all, if anyone hears you insulting royal relatives, you could lose your head."

As she spoke, she made a throat-slitting gesture with her hand.

Wu Jinxi's face turned green with rage. "Ji Yuntang, are you threatening me?"

Ji Yuntang smiled slightly. "You got it wrong. This isn't a threat—it's an order."

"I, the Princess, am ordering you, foster father, to finish chopping all this firewood. Once you're done, you can go eat in the dining hall. Otherwise, you'll be starving tonight!"

The firewood in front of him wasn't even one percent of what she'd hauled down from the mountain back then.

Back then, if she didn't finish chopping firewood, she'd go hungry, and even sleeping was a luxury.

She was just giving him a taste of his own medicine. And Wu Jinxi couldn't even take that?

What a joke!

Ji Yuntang finished giving her orders and left. The second she was gone, Wu Jinxi tossed the axe aside.

He cursed under his breath and grabbed a stool to sit on. "I'm not chopping today! What are you gonna do about it?"

"Princess? Ha! Princess my ass!"

The moment he spat, he felt something ice-cold pressed up against his neck.

Leng Yan had appeared silently behind Wu Jinxi, his voice cold as ice.

"Our Princess said if you don't chop firewood, I'll chop you instead."

"Chop firewood or get chopped—your choice!"

The sharp blade pressed against Wu Jinxi's neck, and he froze in terror.

"Firewood! I'll chop the firewood! Just move the blade away!"

Leng Yan sheathed his blade and said coldly, "A word of advice—don't try anything funny. I'll be watching you."

With that, he vanished into the shadows just as silently as he'd appeared.

Wu Jinxi was stunned. So that was the legendary shadow guard?

Why would a shadow guard this skilled listen to that useless Ji Yuntang?

He cursed Ji Yuntang out in his head a thousand times, then reluctantly picked up the axe and started chopping.

When Ji Yuntang got to the West Courtyard, she saw Chen Huaxiu standing at the outer gate, arguing with Tao Zhi.

Both were red in the face, going at it hot and heavy.

Chen Huaxiu stood with one hand on her hip, looking like a total shrew, pointing at Tao Zhi's nose and cussing her out.

"You snot-nosed little maid! Look at your place—how dare you order me around? Do you know who I am?"

Tao Zhi said, "I don't care who you are. The Princess ordered you to come take care of our Prince. If you don't do it, I can't answer to the Princess."

Chen Huaxiu's chest heaved with anger. "I'm your Princess's mother and your Prince's mother-in-law! Since when does a mother-in-law wait on her son-in-law?"

Tao Zhi rolled her eyes. "You invited yourself here and moved into someone else's house. What's wrong with helping out a little?"

Chen Huaxiu pursed her lips, recalling what she'd just seen inside, and said with disgust, "Is your Prince even human?"

"His face is already rotted to that point. I say just give him a bowl of poison and put him out of his misery. That way he can get reborn sooner."

Tao Zhi was furious. "How dare you! You're cursing our Prince to die?"

Just then, Ji Yuntang walked over and asked, "What's going on here?"

The two fell silent. Ji Yuntang looked at Tao Zhi. "Tao Zhi, you tell me."

"Princess, you told Chen to fetch some water and wipe the Prince's hands and face. But the moment she went in, she started screaming that the Prince was a ghost and knocked over the basin."

"When I argued with her, she said she's your mother and the Prince's mother-in-law, that the Prince is about to die and she shouldn't have to serve him, afraid she'd catch bad luck. She even cursed the Prince to die."

As Tao Zhi spoke, her eyes reddened, looking utterly wronged.

Ji Yuntang praised her inwardly—Tao Zhi's acting had improved remarkably fast! Even she had almost been fooled!

This Chen Huaxiu was really asking for it!

Her eyes flickered, and she turned to Chen Huaxiu, asking in an ambiguous tone, "Foster mother, did you really say those things?"

Chen Huaxiu kept her mouth shut.

Ji Yuntang continued, "I treat you as my mother, as one of my own. I never expected you to curse my husband to death?"

"Do you know that every piece of ground you stand on, every breath of air you take, belongs to the Night Prince's residence—belongs to my husband?"

"By all rights, you should pay my husband for your life, because without land you would die, and without air you would die too."

"The only reason you're alive and standing here is the Night Prince's residence's grace. You should be grateful to us."

Chen Huaxiu: "..."

Chen Huaxiu: "!!!"

She found Ji Yuntang’s words sounding more and more familiar.

Wasn’t this exactly what she’d said to Ji Yuntang back then?

She remembered her own words at the time.

"You useless girl, do you know that every inch of land you stand on and every breath of air you take belong to our Wu family? It’s our Wu family that allowed you to live."

"By rights, you should pay us for keeping you alive, because if you don’t stand on our land, the earth will bury you, and if you don’t breathe our Wu family’s air, you’ll die."

"You’re only alive and well right now because our Wu family has shown you great mercy, and you should be grateful to all of us."

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