So when she saw the qin that Master Pei had sent, Ren Yaoqi was quite shocked, even more so than when she saw the nine carriages from the Prince of Hezhong’s mansion. In this lifetime, she had only met Master Pei three or four times and had barely exchanged a few words with him. She hadn’t expected that Pei Zhiyan would send her such a significant gift.

Because while others didn’t know, Ren Yaoqi understood the meaning of this qin to Pei Zhiyan and his wife. However, at the same time, Ren Yaoqi felt very moved. On the back of this ordinary, even simple qin, Lady Pei had personally carved the words “Married as husband and wife, loving without doubt.” Nothing could better express Master Pei’s blessing for her and Xiao Jingxi. To receive such sincere blessings from Pei Zhiyan was something Ren Yaoqi had never even dreamed of in this lifetime.

The days passed one by one, and in the blink of an eye, it was September.

Three days before the wedding, Xiao Jingxi went to the Xiao family ancestral tomb, where he performed a series of rituals in the ancestral temple, informing the Xiao family ancestors that he was about to take a wife and asking for their protection and blessings.

However, even this journey wasn’t entirely peaceful. On his way back from the ancestral temple to Yunyang City, Xiao Jingxi was attacked by a group of people of unknown origin. These people were all extremely skilled in martial arts, and their every move was a killing technique aimed at putting Xiao Jingxi to death.

Fortunately, Xiao Jingxi was always cautious. Besides his obvious attendants, Xiao Hua had also brought many experts to secretly protect his safety, so Xiao Jingxi ultimately returned safely to Yunyang City, though it was a close call.

When Ren Yaoqi learned of this, she was startled but also relieved. However, she couldn’t even meet with Xiao Jingxi now, let alone see him. The etiquette officials from the Yanbei Prince’s mansion had sent five or six nannies to the Ren family, and these past few days they had been constantly by Ren Yaoqi’s side. So Ren Yaoqi couldn’t even send a message to secretly comfort him.

The day before the wedding, the Ren family began sending the dowry to the Yanbei Prince’s mansion.

On this day, the people who came to the streets to watch the excitement were truly a sea of humanity. The teahouses, wine shops, and restaurants on both sides of Zhengyang Street were all packed, everyone waiting to find a good vantage point to watch the spectacle. Those who hadn’t managed to come and join the excitement when the Prince of Hezhong’s mansion sent dowry gifts to Ren Yaoqi all came this time.

This spectacle didn’t disappoint the crowd.

Setting aside the dowry the Ren family gave to Ren Yaoqi and the gifts others added to her dowry, just the dowry from the Prince of Hezhong’s mansion alone was enough to shock the world. Yanbei had never seen any family marry off their daughter with such grandeur. Even when the old Princess Consort’s only daughter, Xiao Wei, was married, she hadn’t been as magnificent as Ren Yaoqi.

From this dowry alone, people could sense that Miss Ren marrying into the Xiao family wasn’t marrying above her station. At least, no family in Yanbei could be found that could display such grandeur when marrying off their daughters. Some of the dowry items given by the Prince of Hezhong’s mansion couldn’t be found even by ordinary wealthy families with money. At this moment, no one remembered that Ren Yaoqi was a young lady born in the Ren family of Baihe Town. What the world saw was only the granddaughter of the Prince of Hezhong, the legitimate daughter of a princess getting married.

The Ren family sent off the dowry in a grand procession, and the Yanbei Prince’s mansion held a banquet to entertain these people according to custom. However, the task of making the bed and arranging the dowry for the new couple was done by special personnel, and the Ren family only sent two of Ren Yaoqi’s maids to stay at the Yanbei Prince’s mansion.

According to custom, Ren Yaoqi should be accompanied by her sisters this evening, but Ren Yaohua was already married and hadn’t yet completed her month of confinement. The Ren family offered to send Ren Yaoying and Ren Yaoyin to accompany Ren Yaoqi, but Ren Yaoqi firmly refused. She didn’t want to create complications at this time – some people were better kept at a distance.

Ren Yaoyin’s marriage hadn’t been arranged yet, but Ren Yaoying’s wedding date had already been set for March of the following year. After failing to prevent it, Third Master Ren had completely given up and stopped caring. He hadn’t been a very responsible father to begin with, so he simply chose to ignore what he couldn’t see.

However, some people couldn’t be avoided even if you wanted to avoid them.

That evening, after the Ren family and the etiquette officials sent by the Yanbei Prince’s mansion had confirmed all the arrangements for the next day once more, someone knocked on the Ren family’s main gate.

The visitor was Ren Yaoying, who hadn’t returned to Yunyang City for a long time.

The gatekeepers were all Nanny Zhou’s people and had been carefully instructed. So when Ren Yaoying returned, the gatekeepers pretended not to recognize her and refused to let her enter the mansion. Ren Yaoying immediately began crying on the spot.

At this time, besides the Ren family members, there were also many etiquette officials and nannies sent by the Yanbei Prince’s mansion to assist the Ren family in completing the wedding ceremony. When the gatekeepers saw Ren Yaoying crying, they knew things were going to be troublesome. After all, losing face at any other time might be tolerable, but these two days absolutely couldn’t involve any loss of face.

So the gatekeepers went in to report the matter to Nanny Zhou.

Nanny Zhou had returned from the Lei mansion two days ago, specifically for Ren Yaoqi’s wedding. When Nanny Zhou heard that Ren Yaoying had come crying at the door to bring bad luck at this time, she was so angry she almost cursed on the spot. However, no matter what, such family matters couldn’t be aired in front of the Yanbei Prince’s mansion people, or it would also damage Ren Yaoqi’s reputation.

So after informing Li Shi, Nanny Zhou still let Ren Yaoying in, but refused to let her appear in public to embarrass everyone. Instead, she confined her to the back courtyard and had four women watch her. As for Ren Yaoying’s maids, not one was allowed into the mansion – they were told to go back where they came from. Ren Yaoying could make a scene, but would her maids dare to?

After confining Ren Yaoying alone, Nanny Zhou was stilln’t at ease. She simply added enough sedative medicine to Ren Yaoying’s food to knock out a bull, put her to sleep, and then had four women watch her without leaving for a moment. Nanny Zhou didn’t even report Ren Yaoying’s return to Ren Shimin, fearing that Ren Shimin might soften for a moment and want to see his daughter, giving Ren Yaoying an opportunity to cause trouble.

Although Nanny Zhou wasn’t a bad person, she had never been a soft-hearted pushover either, or she wouldn’t have been able to protect Li Shi safely in the Ren family for so many years. So she had no qualms about drugging Ren Yaoying, and didn’t care whether the dose that would keep Ren Yaoying unconscious for three full days might damage her health – that wasn’t within her consideration. If circumstances had allowed, Nanny Zhou could have been even more ruthless.

People like Nanny Zhou, who had been trained from childhood to spend their lives solving problems for their masters, were good or bad entirely depending on what kind of person their master was. If Li Shi had been a woman skilled in schemes and hard-hearted, Nanny Zhou might already have many lives on her conscience.

Ren Yaoying herself hadn’t expected that while she successfully returned home, she would be drugged unconscious without even seeing Ren Shimin and Li Shi, and all the people she brought were blocked outside and didn’t get to come in.

Now, whatever Ren Yaoying had come back to do, she had no way to accomplish it.

Nanny Zhou did tell Ren Yaoqi about Ren Yaoying’s sudden return. After hearing it, Ren Yaoqi just nodded and left it entirely to Nanny Zhou to handle. She didn’t have the leisure to deal with people like Ren Yaoying right now.

Tomorrow, she would leave home, and from then on, this would be her maternal family. Ren Yaoqi was only getting married once in two lifetimes, and honestly, it was impossible not to feel some nervousness and anxiety. She was, after all, just an ordinary woman.

In the evening, Li Shi brought a box to Ren Yaoqi. As soon as Ren Yaoqi saw the box, she knew what it was. She had seen it when Ren Yaohua got married last time, and she knew the box contained a book of erotic illustrations.

Although this was Li Shi’s second time doing this, she was still somewhat hesitant and unclear when explaining her purpose, finally just instructing Ren Yaoqi to look at it carefully by herself tonight.

After Li Shi left, Ren Yaoqi opened the box with some embarrassment, but when she saw the book of erotic illustrations, she was slightly stunned because she felt this book looked very familiar.

Ren Yaoqi took out the book and flipped through it casually. Inside were indeed some half-concealed scenes of men and women in intimate positions, but Ren Yaoqi immediately recognized that this book of erotic illustrations was the one Ren Shimin collected in his study. Unlike the vulgar erotic paintings circulating in the marketplace, this book had a very subtle and beautiful artistic style, was the work of a master, and was also one of Old Master Ren’s beloved possessions.

When Ren Yaoqi was young, she had once accidentally discovered this book, although she didn’t understand anything at the time. She hadn’t expected that this book would become part of her dowry – her father was quite generous after all.

Ren Yaoqi conscientiously read through the entire book with the same attitude she had when reading the books Pei Zhiyan had assigned her to read. During this process, aside from some facial flushing, she didn’t feel any particular discomfort.

However, when she returned to bed to lie down, she found it somewhat difficult to fall asleep. Her mind kept involuntarily conjuring the images she had just seen, but with the figures replaced by…

Ren Yaoqi couldn’t help but feel extremely embarrassed.

That night, many others besides Ren Yaoqi were unable to sleep.

One of them was Concubine Fang, who was still secretly confined in a certain residence.

Concubine Fang had been imprisoned all along, but she hadn’t lacked for food. On this day, before leaving, the person who brought her meal told her that Ren Yaoqi and Xiao Jingxi’s wedding would be tomorrow, and very objectively and systematically described to Concubine Fang the dowry and grandeur that the Prince of Hezhong’s mansion had given to Ren Yaoqi.

Concubine Fang, who had been confined for a long time, had long lost her former elegance. Her hair was dry and yellow, her eyes were puffy and dark, and fine lines had appeared at her forehead and eye corners. Although she was still alive, she wasn’t living well.

Xiao Jingxi wasn’t so extreme as to order people to persecute her. Concubine Fang had been tormented into this state by the demons in her own heart. It had to be said that Second Young Master Xiao was very skilled at attacking people’s hearts.