Chapter 57 : A Secret Meeting

Late at night, the vast mansion was pitch black, with occasional guards carrying lanterns and patrolling past with a neat and tidy pace. Dim yellow light sprinkled on the cobblestone paved path, next to the bushes and wigwam looks more and more eerie, the cool summer night wind from the branches of the tree passed, the leaves sway, rustling, as the dark shadow of malicious intent travelling through it.

The guards have just gone not far, from behind the tree out of a gorgeously dressed middle-aged woman, she alertly scanned the surrounding area, listening to the sound of the breeze, to be sure that there is no one else around, she hurriedly ran across the path, flashing into the group of rockery. False mountains high and low staggered, sparse and dense, continuous as a narrow mountain range, the stream meandering between, the sound of water gurgling, flowers and grasses interspersed among the gaps in the false mountains, but also shows as if the real mountains like charm momentum.

The middle-aged woman nervously looked back at a glance, turned like a maze of small dew, came to a hidden narrow open space, crouched down, hand probe into a bush, slowly groping. Soon, she found the machine spring hidden in the bushes, and after rotating it three times to the right with force, a slight sound of stone rubbing suddenly rang out around her.

That sound in the silent night, for her, undoubtedly like the explosion of firecrackers, she held on to the ground to slide to the side of a secret door, while stretching her neck to look outside the wigwam.

The secret door opened, revealing a staircase extending to the ground and the dim light of the fire, as well as the sound of water "ticking", which made people's hearts tremble.

The middle-aged woman took a deep breath, looked behind her again, carefully climbed up the stairs, pressed the spring, and the stone door then closed. Lifting her skirt and holding onto the rough stone wall, she moved down the stairs one step at a time, not forgetting to keep an eye out for any loud noises coming from below.

Below the straight staircase, the lights seemed to be getting dimmer and dimmer, no matter how hard she tried to see, she couldn't tell what was down there, the woman's heart became even more tense, and the small space made her feel more depressed than she had ever felt before, as if someone had brought a huge stone to press down on her, and couldn't dislodge it, in general.

Walked for a long time, finally reached the bottom of the stairs, middle-aged woman's forehead seeped out tiny sweat live, cover the chest slightly gasping. From birth is a pampered life, clothes to hand, food to mouth, out of the sedan chair and carriage on behalf of the foot, no need to fee to their own half, so this long and narrow staircase for her, is really a not small torture.

Slightly calmed her breath, she looked towards the end of the long tunnel, a brightly lit room, hesitated again and again, cautiously took a step forward, her heart beat as it got closer to the room and lost its normal mobilisation pattern, she could almost hear the strong "thud" sound, about to break her eardrums.

She saw a long, slanting shadow on the floor of the house, which she could vaguely distinguish from herself as a woman, but who that person was could not be identified by the shadow alone.

She remembered again that when she had returned to her bedroom after dinner, a white dove had happened to fly in through the window and landed on her shoulder, and she saw that the dove had a roll of letter-paper tied to its foot, and took it down to read it.

The letter asked her to meet her at midnight this evening in the secret room of the garden, to unravel the years of confusion and struggle within her, and explained the way and the mechanism to enter the secret room.

Only the addressee of the letter was marked, and there was no inscription.

The pigeon took advantage of her lack of attention, fluttering and flying away, so that she wanted to follow the pigeon so as to find the person who wrote the letter completely failed. Seeing those lines on the letter, she ghosted to quietly go to the meeting.

She wanted to know who had seen through her heart's desire that she had not been able to fulfil for years!

"Come in quickly." A voice came out from the house, which was exceptionally familiar.

She was stunned, the familiar voice couldn't help but make her feel at ease, and then she strided into the house, and when she saw the smiling and beautiful woman at the table, she exclaimed in surprise, "Yuan, it's actually you?!"

Tantai Yuan stood up calmly and owed the visitor, "It is none other than me, Aunt Yuexi."

Lady Yuexi was a little confused, she and the second house seldom interacted with each other, with the concubine Tantai Yuan's family of three even only exchanged pleasantries for so many times when they held family banquets, how could Tantai Yuan possibly know her secret?

Thinking of the second house being wiped out, with only Tantai Yuan and her mother and daughter surviving, and being personally sent by the matriarch to marry Lord Zheng, Lady Yuexi was alarmed - could it be that Xiaoyan had seen through it?

I blame myself for being too negligent and coming to the appointment without much thought.

Lady Yuerxi was remorseful and panicked as she looked around, fearing that the matriarch would jump out from a corner with her men and arrest her for "misbehaviour".

Tantai Yuan saw Lady Yuexi's uneasiness and laughed nonchalantly, "Don't be afraid, Aunt Yuexi, it's me who asked you out, it has nothing to do with anyone, don't worry, there's no one else here except you and me."

Lady Yuexi was unwilling to trust her so easily and stumbled at the doorway for a long time, finally making sure that there were really no outsiders here before she slowly walked over to the table and sat down.

Tantai Yuan poured her a cup of herbal tea and said with apologies, "I'm really sorry for troubling auntie to invite me here in the middle of the night. I can't help it that the matter is confidential, and I'm afraid that there are ears on the other side of the wall before I had to resort to this."

Lady Yuexi took the time to drink her tea, adjusted her mind, and calmly asked, "I really don't understand, what did you mean by that letter? Ah Yuan you should explain it to me first."

"Auntie, you know it by heart ah?" Tantai Yuan sat back in her chair, a pair of beautiful eyes unobtrusively swept across the opposite wall and looked at her aunt with a serious face, "You are both talented and beautiful, and you are a direct descendant of the Wuban clan, which noble man wouldn't think of marrying you with such a status? But why do you prefer to be alone for the rest of your life, letting your good years pass by, and not wanting to marry?"

"It's just some fop, instead of marrying such a person for a lifetime of misfortune, I'd rather be at ease and free in this grand mansion." Lady Yuexi replied coldly, a displeased light in her eyes, she didn't like anyone mentioning the fact that she had been staying in the Tantai family and not marrying, although there was nothing shameful about it, it just made her feel bad.

"Is that really true, Auntie?" Tantai Yuan revealed a playful smile and stared slyly at Lady Yuexi.

Lady Yuexi sulked and stood up, "If this is the only kind of thing you're looking for me to talk about at night, then I'll leave first! For the sake of the recent events in the second house, I won't pursue the matter, remember, never mention the matter of not getting married in front of me again, it's not your turn to be in charge!"

She turned around and wanted to walk towards the door, and just as she took a step, she heard Tantai Yuan behind her slowly say, "Auntie, the reason you chose to stay in the Tantai family is for that lofty Witch Pan position, right?"

Lady Yuexi stopped dead in her tracks and turned back to look at Tantai Yuan in disbelief, unable to believe that those words came from her mouth - how could a little girl know what she had in mind?

Tantai Yuan saw Lady Yuexi's form pause and smiled as she continued, ''It seems I wasn't wrong in my guess. Auntie, I can give you a helping hand so that your long-cherished wish of many years can be realised."

Tantai Yuan's words were filled with deep temptation, and Lady Yuexi bit her lips tightly, hesitating for a moment before resolutely turning around and sitting down again, staring intently at her niece's face as she asked, "I don't understand what you're saying!"

If she had given an affirmative answer, it would not have been impossible for Tantai Yuan to inform Xiao Yan of the truth afterwards. In the beginning, Xiao Yan had buried as many eyes and undercover agents in order to straighten out the order within the clan, thus grasping all the movements within the clan and punishing the clansmen who were at fault, she was probably aware of some of it.

Perhaps the relatives who were still joking with you in the front foot would make you lose everything in the back foot.

Until the new emperor assumed the throne, the second house all executed, those eyes and ears only gradually retreated, to carry out other orders issued by the master.

Otherwise, even if she had a million guts, she wouldn't dare risk coming out to Tantai Yuan's appointment.

"Auntie, do you still think that I am actually Tantai Yan's person?" At the mention of that person's name, Tantai Yuan's face revealed a clear look of indignation, "She killed so many of my relatives, and possibly my father's murderer, even if she promises me the position of the head of the second house, I won't be so brazen as to defect to her!"

Tantai Yuan became more and more agitated as she spoke, not giving Lady Yuexi any chance to interject, "I'll never forget those deep grudges, and agreeing to her is just to save my life. I'll look for every opportunity to take revenge on her, make her lose everything too, fall from the clouds to the dirt, trample on all her dignity!"

Lady Yuexi was silent, from Tantai Yuan's words she could hear how deep her hatred for Xiao Yan was.

In fact, how could she not hate?

Decades ago, in terms of talent, connections, and ability to rule, she was invariably superior to her brother, Tantai Yu, but her parents favoured her elder brother, making her lose out on the Wu Pan title, and her family had even forced her family to give it to that uneducated, fun-loving second son of the Wu Li family, and if it wasn't for the fact that the second son lost his footing and fell off a cliff when he was travelling in the mountains, her whole life would have been so ruined!

At that time, the seeds of hatred were planted in her heart, and she silently huddled in the large mansion, pretending to be a gentle and obedient lady, embroidering flowers and enjoying the scenery every day, chatting and joking with her sister-in-law. To outsiders, they appeared to be the most amicable of the noble longhouses, while in reality she was waiting for an opportunity to retaliate, and as soon as the time came she was bound to tear Tantai Yu from her seat!

However, she was surprised by her brother's gradual display of talent, and when she panicked and went to contact her close friends in the court, she was shocked to find out that they had been calling her brother brother their brother since some time ago, and complaining about how "Why isn't Wuban a Tantai Mingzhang" could no longer be heard from their mouths.

Pride comes before a fall, and that was when she finally realised the meaning of the saying, she had underestimated Tantai Yu.

Power was like flowing water, never to return. She hopelessly endured the torment and pain within, continuing to put on the appearance of a good sister who respected her brother and sister-in-law, and continued to wait.

There was a time when she had wanted to give up, after all, it was her own brother who was sitting in the seat of Witch Pan, but the resentment that had accumulated over the days and months still didn't allow her to completely let go.

This wait, Shaohua passed away, red face old, hurriedly more than twenty years in the blink of an eye passed.

When the news of her brother's death by assassination came, she was overjoyed, thinking that the opportunity had finally come, but where did she think that Tantai Yu didn't know when the name of his successor was submitted to the emperor, and had already obtained his permission.

She even thought that her brother had already seen through her mind before arranging everything in advance.

Xiao Yan had become Wu Pan and she could only continue to endure.

For this niece, she had never had a favourable impression, perhaps she was influenced by her brother and therefore carried a prejudice. That girl who had always been cold and icy, whose deep black eyes would make one feel inexplicably weak when they stared at her, she loathed it from the bottom of her heart. Although Xiaoyan might have changed her temperament a bit because she had become an official in the dynasty and was endearing to people, the feelings of hatred had gone deep into her bones.

She had to keep pretending until the day her dream came true. There was no end to the road ahead, the darkness of the night travelled with her, and she didn't know how much longer she could hold out.

In fact, as long as there was enough support from the clan and officials, her dream would be realised as long as Xiaoyan died.

In comparison, Xiaoyan was better to deal with than her brother, young girls where overthinking everything.

But she had no close friends, no people, Xiao Yan had managed the Tantai clan well in just a few months down the line, and there was no extra money to hire an assassin who was even more skilled in martial arts than Li Light Dye, so how was she going to kill her loathsome niece?

The original simple conditions became unattainable in the quiet passage of years ...

Lady Yuexi gradually slowed down from her memories and said to Tantai Yuan with a cold smile, ''Aren't you afraid that I'll expose you to Xiaoyan?