On a rare day, Dōngfāng Mínghuì woke up early in the morning. She heard the sound of hurried footsteps, which likely meant they discovered what happened with fourth sister.
“Miss, a major event has occurred in the West Wing courtyard.” Cui’er came in with water and loudly said.
“What happened?” Dōngfāng Mínghuì didn’t rush to wash her face, it was as if she was not at all responsible to events that played out last night.
Cui’er just repeated what she’d heard, “It seemed the second young master and Lài Gōngzǐ talked and made an appointment to go to the streets, then the second young master opened the door recklessly and found him and the fourth lady…..”
It was difficult to say, after all, the young master found his good friend and his own sister lying on the bed, naked. He was speechless.
At that point, lady four woke up, screaming, attracting other people’s attention.
From one to ten, ten to a hundred, it took little effort for the whole scandal to reach the ears of the Dōngfāng family.
“Let’s go check it out.” Dōngfāng Mínghuì guessed her father should be seething in rage, it would be unacceptable for anyone to have a scandal right after their birthday.
“Yes, miss.”
By the time Mínghuì arrived with Cui’er, things had settled down, everyone had disappeared from the scene. Her father asked the second young master to bring Lài Gōngzǐ in the hall, what they talked about, she didn’t know.
As for her good fourth sister, she was naturally brought back to her rooms crying and crying, the first wife sent the old maid to look after her. Perhaps she was fearful she couldn’t handle it?
Fourth sister originally had a fiancé who matched her status very well. After this incident, the Patriarch would certainly have to send someone to withdraw the marriage, or have another sister take her place.
According to the wisdom of Dōngfāng Lì Zhū, everyone would soon start to become aware of all the underlying issues with her.
As Mínghuì expected, fourth elder sister came to her courtyard seeking to have a “heart to heart chat” on the same day.
“Fourth sister, why did you come here?” Dōngfāng Mínghuì welcomed with a smile, holding a book detailing on a collection of flora in her hands.
Dōngfāng Lì Zhū walked up to her, slapping away with the the book her hand with a ‘pa’ and angrily said, “Ninth sister, you dare scheme against me!”
Dōngfāng Mínghuì had a pained look, staring at the book thrown out from her hands, then gazed at Dōngfāng Lì Zhū with a wronged expression, “What are you talking about, fourth sister? Why would I ever scheme against you? Besides, I wanted to ask you, where were you yesterday?”
Dōngfāng Lì Zhū snorted, grabbing Mínghuì’s shirt, “Don’t play dumb with me, isn’t the writing on this note yours? Your servant girl also led me to the West Wing courtyard, if you didn’t plan this, who did?”
Note?
Dōngfāng Mínghuì grinned, she calculated her sister wouldn’t dare take out the note to confront her, but it was written above – the plan has changed. If she took it out, she’d have no way to explaining the meaning of the note.
Mínghuì explained innocently, “Yes, I wrote the note yesterday because my cousin didn’t manage to drink the drugged wine I prepared for him, the plan couldn’t go smoothly, so I wrote a note for Cui’er to discuss this with you. The west chambers was indeed the place I wanted Cui’er to guide you, but when I finally arrived, you were missing. I was waiting for you for a long time. If you don’t believe it, just ask Cui’er.”
Ask Cui’er? Wasn’t it clear?
In that moment, Dōngfāng Lì Zhū discovered she’d been trapped. She thought she was playing others in the palm of her hands, but in reality, she was merely on someone else’s palm. She chuckled, “Ninth sister, really good, I actually looked away.”
Mínghuì was hurt and widened her eyes, “Fourth sister, you still don’t believe me?”
Lì Zhū closed her eyes and took a deep breath, in this place, she could no longer stay, “Ninth sister, fourth sister isn’t feeling well, I will take my leave first.”
“If that’s the case, have a good rest then, fourth sister.” Dōngfāng Mínghuì whispered to her maidservant, “Cui’er, help send off fourth sister.”
Regarding Dōngfāng Lì Zhū, the Patriarch quickly resolved the issue, she was assigned to Lài’s son to be a concubine and to be married in a month. Perhaps out of rage, the third wife personally asked Father to reconsider, but Father wouldn’t budge, so the matter was settled.
Dōngfāng Mínghuì had recently been browsing through a series of books on plants. This shithole world was a world where the strong were respected and the fantasy background was a main theme. When people reach a certain age, they would be inspected by their family to detect the level of spiritual power. Her physical body was considered to be prodigy-level, at the age of eight, she woke her spiritual powers and stepped one foot in the ranks of geniuses, the other still stuck in the door. Because Mínghuì wasted her potential, she only had a little sense for plants and flora. She was considered semi-waste material.
This was also why she was constantly courting death with the protagonist, seeing the female protagonist being waste material was like looking a mirror at herself, a piece of scrap.
Of course, that was what the Mínghuì from the past thought.
Having read countless fantasy novels, she obviously knew that plant spiritualists were a type of support class, assisting their teammates in fighting their enemies. See, she was actually pretty useful. It was just that the only people who encountered her didn’t have eyes.
In order to live well, one must not only cling to that woman’s thigh, but also make oneself more useful. That was what Mínghuì concluded after being repeatedly rejected by the female protagonist.
“Miss, these are the flowers from the garden.” Cui Er placed three potted plants on the table one by one, a pot of jasmine, a pot of rose and a pot of peony.
After Mínghuì dismissed her, she examined the three potted flowers from top to bottom. She knew that the roses were in a gloomy state and seemed unhappy. The peony was in full bloom but would much prefer to bask in the sun. The last pot which had jasmine flowers had wilted petals on the flowers, giving people a kind of a ‘exhausted lamp light’ feeling.
“Cui’er.” Mínghuì called.
Her maidservant pushed open the door.
“Put the peonies outside for some sunlight.” Dōngfāng Mínghuì pointed to the flowerpot in a pleasant mood, then pointed to another pot, “Just a moment ago, was there another pot of flowers when you moved it? Move another bowl too.”
Cui’er obeyed, doing everything one by one, although she was unsure of her reasons for doing so.
Dōngfāng Mínghuì also went out to observe the peony basking in the sun, noting the sun had made it more beautiful and felt the spiritual power of the peony was about to leak. So she quietly made a deal with it, “Let me take one of your flowers, then I will let you out in the sun everyday.”
The potted plant in the sun immediately shook the lower branches to agree.
Mínghuì used her weak spiritual power to form a pair of scissors, she clipped the flower’s center in one strike and placed them in a glass bottle.
Due to a long period of inferiority and resistance, Mínghuì’s spiritual level remained at first level, now she planned to breakthrough.
When Cui’er returned, there was another pot of roses by her side. The roses on the other side instantly recovered their spirits, explicitly clear that it was afraid of being left alone.
Dōngfāng Mínghuì wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry, after all, wouldn’t she have to deal with these plants and flora in the future?
To upgrade, one must need something in preparation, such as Gù Yuán Dān, the most commonly used medicine which was sold everywhere in the streets, not an expensive buy. There was also the essence of plants and flora hence why she needed the peony’s center, it contained the flower’s essence. The more rare it is, the more valuable it will be, obtaining it from outside sources would cost a lot of money. Everyone’s spiritual breakthroughs required plant essence. High-leveled plants could be used, but some were intelligent, seeing the humans slaughter them scared them away, so many people hired mercenaries to hunt after them.
When they were ready, Dōngfāng Mínghuì locked the door and made Cui’er keep watch for outside of the entrance, in case a rash ghost would break in and interrupt her spiritual breakthrough.
Perhaps the peony’s essence played the role, or it was the years of suppression Mínghuì had for so many years, but she was approaching her spiritual breakthrough, in half an hour, she would rise from first to the second level.
On the second level, she would be able to form closer relations with more plants, but all of them would be low-grade.
Cui’er waited until Mínghuì came out of her room, first congratulating her on her breakthrough and then reporting, “Miss, lady seven seems to have gone out from her house.”
Dōngfāng Mínghuì promptly summoned two guards and rushed out. She dared not to get too close, only following from afar.
She had another thought, although acting too adverse made her uncomfortable, she should just show up anyways.
Mínghuì reached out to the two guards behind her, “Get some silver, Miss is going shopping.”
Dōngfāng Wǎnyù needed one more plant essence, so she visited the workshop to inspect the goods. Much to her surprise, she bumped into another troublesome lady. At the moment, these two were fighting for the same plant essence.
While Wǎnyù was the seventh lady, her actual position in the household might even be lower than a maidservant. It was only natural she lacked the silver to compete with a willful elder lady.
Dōngfāng Mínghuì didn’t know of this, but how could she let go of such a good opportunity to hold her thigh?
“That spike of vanilla, I want it.” Mínghuì placed a pack of silver in front of the shopkeeper.
Staring at the silver, the shopkeeper was in a dilemma. Just now, there were only two girls fighting for it, but now a third has arrived. When did vanilla become so rare?
“You don’t need to keep staring, my silver is for my seventh elder sister, is this enough?” Mínghuì stood directly beside Wǎnyù, clearly stating her intentions.
As soon as he saw this, he promptly declared, “It’s enough, Miss, the vanilla is yours.”
Dōngfāng Mínghuì took the glass bottle and took no time to present it to Wǎnyù, “Seventh sister, let’s go.”
The girl that spent quite some time arguing with Wǎnyù was dissatisfied, she slammed the table and said to the shopkeeper, “What is the meaning of this, do you think I don’t have enough money?”
He explained, “Little miss, there’s actually one more in stock, but it needs to be transferred from another workshop. You may come back tomorrow to pick it up.”
“No, I need this one!”
Mínghuì didn’t care, it was already paid and bought. Hooking an arm to Wǎnyù’s, she was about to leave, but who would’ve thought a whip would fiercely rush towards her face?
Mínghuì was locked closely beside the protagonist, with little time to hide, she could only watch helplessly.