The Counterattack of the Downcast Queen

Snow was flying on the Mount Dizi in the deep winter.

In the afternoon, Qiu Yelan was trudging on the path to the top of the mountain.

It snowed heavily, and the wind was blowing violently from the top of the mountain. Although she took off her fur coat to move more easily, she still had difficulties in struggling forward.

"Cousin, cousin! Let me go! Let me go!" With hands and feet tightly tied by the soaked twine, Kang Jinzhang was dragged in the snow by her with a rope. His tears and snots were condensed into ice, and he was begging in horror, "It is that Yue Zhi seduced me! Believe me! Believe me... I am your cousin, and we are related!"

"So now you have remembered that you are my cousin?" Qiu Yelan stopped. She wiped the snow on her face and turned her head, looking at Kang Jinzhang with a faint smile. Her voice was cold, "When you sneaked into my room at that midnight, why didn't you think about it? Yue Zhi just suffered for me. Do you think that I don't know who your real target was at that night?"

Kang Jinzhang was startled, "You know?!"

"I had to go out that night, so I let Yue Zhi sleep on my bed to take my place. But I didn't expect that it would hurt her..." Qiu Yelan smiled slightly, and her smile was as beautiful as the plum blossom. But then she heaved the rope without hesitation and kept climbing.

"That night... I drank too much that night! Really!" Kang Jinzhang vaguely remembered that at the end of this road was a cliff. He was so frightened and begged incoherently, "Cousin, listen to me! Yue Zhi is just a servant girl. And grandma loves me the most. As long as you release me this time, I can give you many servant girls better than her! I will find ten for you, no, one hundred!"

Seeing Qiu Yelan was indifferent, he hurriedly said, "Cousin, do you know? There's something wrong with the marriage that grandma let First Uncle manage for you." Suddenly, Qiu Yelan's action accelerated, and Kang Jinzhang exclaimed, "Although Deng Yi is the nephew of Duke of Guangyang and he is tall and handsome, he only loves men! He has no interest in girls! As long as you let me go, I'll ask grandmother to dissolve the engagement for you!"

"General Ruan has become incurably ill, and he is your grandfather! If you kill me, you won't be able to hide it from grandmother, as well as the fact that you secretly followed General Ruan to study martial arts would also be exposed! Do you want General Ruan's last period of time being so unpeaceful?" Kang Jinzhang said earnestly, trying his best to think about his words, "And my Second Aunt -- your mother is also not well. This time she sent you here to look for me, and isn't it just to let you please grandma? You... Aren't you afraid that grandma would let your mother pay for my life with her life?!"

Qiu Yelan let him down again. Smiling at him, she leaned down and gave him two slaps!

"Go on. I am listening. Let's see whether you can make me let you off." She dragged Kang Jinzhang forward again but said leisurely.

Kang Jinzhang looked at the cliff getting closer and closer, horrified to death, "There is a secret. If you kill me, you will never know it in this life!"

"Oh?" Qiu Yelan laughed while dragging, "What's the secret?"

"About your brother's death!" As soon as he said this, he was put down.

Kang Jinzhang breathed a sigh of relief in his heart and then quickly said, "Your brother was not dead because of you at all! I heard in my ears that he was killed by our family!" For fear of Qiu Yelan changing her mind, he hurriedly said in one breath, "It is just shortly after the news of your father's death coming back, your brother died, and at that time you just got your first birthday, Grandma thinks that it is because of you that your father and your brother died, so she always hates you."

"So what?" Qiu Yelan ran her fingers through her hair and smiled at Kang Jinzhang, but a faint one. "You know it, but you didn't speak it out. After so many years, what evidence can there be? What's the matter if I know it or not?"

"There is the evidence! There is the evidence!" Kang Jinzhang was anxious, "I can testify to you! I heard it myself! Grandma will believe me! You know she loves me the most!"

Qiu Yelan gave him a pitying glance and sighed, "But it's useless! He is dead, and he can't be alive again even if I find out the murderer."

After she finished talking, she continued to drag him up the mountain.

Seeing that it was not far from the cliff, Kang Jinzhang struggled on the snow and wept bitterly, "Cousin... no! Cousin, please let me go! Please, please! I will never dare to play tricks on you again! I will never dare to egg grandma on to make troubles for you! As long as you let me off, I will do whatever you want me to do! I beg you! We are cousins! We are the brother and sister!"

Qiu Yelan was thinking carefully about it.

Kang Jinzhang was like catching a life-saving straw, "Cousin, you say! You just say it! Isn't that First Aunt always bullying you? When I go back, I can ask grandma to take her..."

"The antidote of the poison Youmianxiang, do you have it?" Qiu Yelan asked softly, "If you have, I will send you down the mountain immediately!"

"The poison Youmianxiang?" Kang Jinzhang was extremely surprised, "The poison Youmianxiang has no antidote... No! Cousin, it really doesn't have any antidote! I can surely do it for you if you give me another order..."

Qiu Yelan chuckled and said, "Don't bother. Didn't you mention that General Ruan and your Second Aunt are all at death's door from illness? It is because that they were all poisoned by Madame Lu, your dear grandmother, with the poison Youmianxiang! Otherwise, why would I follow your Second Aunt's words to go here after knowing you want to misbehave while you egg Madame Lu on to send me into this mountain?"

"Did you think I would have the antidote of the poison Youmianxiang?" Kang Jinzhang was so compunctious that he was almost about to hit the ground, and he yelled hurriedly, "Wait! It hit me that grandma seemed to have let me take over a box, and she seemed to have said that it is related to the poison Youmianxiang..."

"I never expect to get the antidote from you." Qiu Yelan smiled and broke his hope. She dragged him to the cliff and said lightly, "Don't expect my mother to pay for your life. Do you know why?"

Kang Jinzhang felt half of his body outside the cliff and half of him inside. He was so frightened that his heart was almost broken, and he asked subconsciously, "Why?"

"Because the mother of this body should have died of poisoning a few days ago." Qiu Yelan looked at him with a smile, "She asked her daughter to come here before taking the poison. What she liked here were just the deep snow, the high mountains, and the dense forest. It was secluded, and it would be easy for her daughter to get away!"

As she pushed Kang Jinzhang out of the cliff, she smiled and said what Kang Jinzhang couldn't understand, "In order to let her daughter safely leave Qiu Family, although this body's mother could still live for half a year, she would rather kill herself in advance... I have taken over the daughter's body now, and if I don't do anything for them, I would be very sorry. Don't you think so?"

"Ah‒!!!!"

"You will not die originally. But with such a shout, it will become more terrible for you to be buried alive!" A moment later, in the sound of avalanche, Qiu Yelan hid in a cave near the cliff and sighed, "In fact, I did not think of making you dead from falling. I just wanted you to be frozen for a while, and I would ask you questions then..."

"Whip! Whip her to death!" With hair disheveled and eyes red, Qiu Yuqing hysterically urged the old maidservants who were punishing Qiu Yelan, "Whip her till her flesh was torn to shreds and see if she still dares to not admit how she murdered my poor Jinzhang!"

Four or five old maidservants who were strong and merciless waved the whip as she ordered. "Crack!" "Crack!" With a few sounds of whipping, Qiu Yelan hanging from the beam of the room made a weak cry. She dropped her head. It seemed that she would like to struggle, but she did not have strength.

"I thought that since this body has been engaged to the nephew of Duke of Guangyang, Qiu Family would not be too ruthless." Feeling the burning pain of whipping more and more numbness, Qiu Yelan, who was at the gate of death, sighed in her heart, "If I had knew earlier that this Aunt Qiu is so lawless, I should have escaped according to the order of the body's mother, Princess Ruan. I should not have been back here, even though that house was buried in the avalanche and I had no money to seek refuge with that aunt thousands of miles away..."

Finally getting rid of the end of world in the previous life, she did not expect that the second life would be worse than the last days! At least, she had never been beaten like this in the past life!

Seeing Qiu Yelan's breath getting weaker and weaker, Princess Yang, the Duchess of Xihe, frowned slightly and said, "Sister, it is enough. We'd better let her off now."

Qiu Yelan heard these words when she was on the verge of shock, and she thought, "In my memory, although the Duchess of Xihe doesn't like me, she much more hates that Aunt Qiu wants to take over the right of the Prince's Mansion with the favor of Madame Lu... It seems that Aunt Qiu did not ask Princess Yang's opinion when ordering to hang me here and beat me as soon as I came back today. And it hurt Princess Yang the hostess's face."

Thinking of this, Qiu Yelan used her last strength to say with a weak voice, "Aunt Qiu, I am a member of the Qiu Family anyway. Even if I have done something wrong, my First Aunt is here, though my mother passed away. As you hit me like this, do you really follow the rule of Qiu Family?"

...When Princess Ruan was still here, she lived behind closed doors, indifferent to the right and wrong of the Prince's Mansion. Both Princess Yang and Aunt Qiu counted on Princess Ruan and sometimes they even cooperated. Now that their common goal, Princess Ruan was gone, and it would be strange if they two did not fight each other directly!

"Rules?!" Qiu Yuqing was deeply sad for the death of her only son. At this moment, being like an angry lioness, she went over and gave Qiu Yelan a slap upon hearing the words! She angrily shouted, "In this Prince's Mansion, I am the rule!"

"Enough!" Sure enough, when Qiu Yuqing just finished her words, Princess Yang, who couldn't hold back anymore, stood up and said furiously. "Qiu Yuqing, you have got married. Prince took you back to live here for thinking that you cannot get along well with your husband Kang's family, and it would be not easy for you, a widow, to live with two children. But now you even regard yourself as the rule of Prince's Mansion!? Where do you place Prince and me, and the Madame? Or in your mind, the Prince's Mansion of Xihe now has belonged to the Kang Family?!"

And then Princess Yang excitedly said to Madame Lu, who was taking tears with the handkerchief and whispering about her poor grandson, "Mother! Please judge for us! Does this Prince's Mansion of Xihe on earth belong to which family? The Qiu Family or the Kang Family? If it belongs to the Kang Family, as the daughter-in-law, I would not dare to occupy the sister-in-law's place with my children!"

Madame Lu put down her handkerchief and glanced at Qiu Yelan coldly, "A bad junior provoked you two with her words, and both of you should really be provoked? Are you idiots?"

"Doesn't Princess Yang understand this?" Qiu Yelan closed her eyes, making her breath weaker and more obscured, sneering in her heart, "But she still stands up immediately. ‒ Can she not stand up? Just now I almost spoke out in public that she, the real hostess of the Prince's Mansion, was standing back. If she still didn't come out yet to say something, then Qiu Yuqing would surely take over the right in the Prince's Mansion! By then, she, the princess, would indeed be a joke!"

An angry expression flashed on Princess Yang's face, "Mother! It cannot be said in this way. A state has its laws, and a family has its rules. Yelan is a member of our Qiu Family, and she is even the Commandery Princess Ningyi conferred formally! Even if you want to ask her about Jinzhang's death, you should ask in a proper way, instead of directly torturing her!"

Madame Lu said coldly, "You are a fair person! Then according to your words, you are the Duchess of Xihe conferred formally, while I am an old woman without any title! When I meet you, should I kowtow to you as a greeting?!"

It was known to all over the Prince's Mansion of Xihe that what Madame Lu hated most was that she still had no status and no title even though her son had become the Duke of Xihe. In the past, she, as the concubine of old Duke of Xihe, had been formally kicked out of the house by the old Princess.

But when Princess Yang heard these words, instead of immediately kneeling down to apologize, she said in a same cold voice, "How dare me? Mother, you are over thinking!"

"This Princess Yang..." With only one breath left, Qiu Yelan was still sober and insisted on listening, with her ears up. Something hit her slightly, "She just spoke out on purpose? She was just waiting for me to say those words, so that she could take this opportunity to fight with Qiu Yuqing? Otherwise, since Madame Lu's words are so serious, Princess Yang should have yielded... I don't know if she contradicts Lu now, how can she explain to Duke of Xihe later?"

In her memory, her First Uncle, Duke of Xihe, was a filial son. ‒ So even though Madame Lu favored her own daughter Qiu Yuqing, Princess Yang could only see the husband's sister come back to the family as a widow and scramble for power...

Thinking of this, Qiu Yelan tilted her head over her shoulder, pretending to faint!

Princess Yang glanced at her and said, "Put the Commandery Princess down. Two days ago, when the Empress convened the peeress to the palace, she taught us that as a wife, we should be kind and never torture innocent people for pleasure, not to mention torturing the Commandery Princess! Do you want to make trouble for Prince?"

It was done!

Hearing these words, Qiu Yelan was finally relieved. She was really afraid that Princess Yang helped her in order to anger Lu and Qiu Yuqing to kill her, and then caught them tripping for that they killed the Commandery Princess conferred formally by the court...

Until now that Princess Yang mentioned the Empress did Qiu Yelan believe that Princess Yang really did not want her to die.

When Qiu Yuqing saw that even Madame Lu kept silence after her sister-in-law mentioned the Empress, she was so shocked and angry that she sat down on the ground and slapped her thigh, crying. "What a cruel sister-in-law... I've lost my beloved only son! Now I just hit this little b*tch a few times, and then you want to let her down! Don't you have a conscience! Is it you that asked her to kill my son? Is it?! Tell me! Tell me clearly!!!"

"Gag her mouth!" Princess Yang looked resentful and pounded the table!

"Madame! Madame! What's wrong with you, Madame?!" As soon as she finished her words, Princess Yang heard the maids screaming behind her. She looked back, only to see Madame Lu raising a finger pointing at her and covering the chest with one hand. The Madame almost seemed to faint!

Princess Yang gritted her teeth, "Why not hurriedly help Madame go back to rest?!"

At this moment, a man in red brocade robe rushed in. When he saw Qiu Yelan hanging from the beam of the room, he frowned and screamed angrily, "D**n! What are you doing?! Hurriedly put her down!"

After seeing the person clearly, everyone was in a daze.

Qiu Yelan almost thought that the Duke of Xihe who always disliked her was also possessed by another person. While Qiu Yuqing immediately screamed, "Brother, are you mad? This little b*tch killed my Jinzhang..."

"Shut up!" The face of Qiu Mengmin, Duke of Xihe, turned red with anger. They were born by the same mother, so he always loved his younger sister. But he yelled at her at the moment, "General Jiang just came in person and asked why our family had been making so much noise and nagging his family for over one hour. The lady of Marquess Qin is living in the Jiang's residence next door, and she is the mother of the Empress! Hurry up to clean it up?! Would you like them to come in and have a look personally?!"

"You suffered a lot, Your Grace" At dusk, Su He, the personal maid, took the medicine and fed Qiu Yelan who was lying on her side, with a spoon. Qiu Yelan's scars were still shocking after taking the medicine. From time to time, Su He turned her head and wiped tears on her own shoulders, "Lady Yuqing is so hardhearted!"

"It's lucky that the Prince got there in time." Mrs. Zhou was an old domestic maidservant of Princess Ruan. Her eyes were red and swollen, but she still tried to show happiness on her face and said, "With Prince's words, Commandery Princess can have a good rest to nurse the injury. After Commandery Princess recovers... we can ask her cousin for help and ask him to make an excuse and take Commandery Princess to live in General's House..."

Su He was the granddaughter of Mrs. Zhou. Since now there was no other people in the inner room, Su He couldn't help speaking out, "The Prince didn't mean to save our Commandery Princess, did he? It's clear that he was just afraid to bother the lady of Marquess Qin enjoying the plum in the next house, so that he let others put our Commandery Princess down! If it were not for General Jiang's coming, our Commandery Princess would have been..."

"Hush!" Mrs. Zhou frowned and dressed her down in a low voice, "Do you want to kill our Commandery Princess!"

Then she said to Qiu Yelan softly, "Commandery Princess, we are living under other's thumb now, and you... you have to bear it! Never show your hatred to the Prince!"

"Mrs. Zhou, I know." Qiu Yelan coughed a few times and then spat out some blood. She said lightly, "Not only Prince, but also my Aunt. I understand her. After all, Kang Jinzhang is her only son."

Listening to her bland tone, Su He looked at her in amazement, but she only saw Qiu Yelan's indifferent expression and her unfathomable eyes being like the deep cold lake. Just having a glance, Su He couldn't help trembling!

"It is good that you can understand." Mrs. Zhou also noticed Qiu Yelan's anomaly, and she sighed, "We can only endure..."

"Mrs. Zhou, you just mentioned my cousin, and who is he?" Qiu Yelan suddenly interrupted her, "My male cousins of my grandfather's family have all been gone, haven't they?"

In her memory, her grandfather, General Ruan, was the No.2 in the Dari's Army. His prestige was only second to that of Marquess Qin, Jiang Qianchuan, who was also known as Piaoqi General and the "Defender of the State". At that time, Ruan Family was also very prominent.

However, due to a fiasco of General Ruan ten years ago, his sons, grandchildren, and Qiu Zhongyan who was his son-in-law and the former Duke of Xihe all lost their lives. It not only led to the death of all offspring of Ruan Family and his relatives by marriage but also took away all his honor gained from the half-life army experience, only leaving him one General's Mansion and the vacant title of General.

For this reason, the Madame Lu had the courage and opportunity to take action on General Ruan and Princess Ruan!

"He is the heir adopted by General Ruan when you just left the capital city." Su He whispered, "It is said that he is the offspring of General Ruan's former subordinate. On the Princess Ruan's funeral, he also showed up. When hearing that you were trapped on the mountain by the avalanche and hanging between life and death, he proposed initiatively that he could attend Princess Ruan's funeral in your name."

While saying, Su He's eyes turned red, "As soon as Princess Ruan passed away, Lady Yuqing and Princess Yang just sent someone over to tell us that it wasn't a good day when Princess Ruan died. They said if she was not buried soon, it would hinder all the members of the family... If it hadn't been your cousin who gave Prince's Mansion five thousand tael of silver as the present for the first-time meeting, they would have even planned to carry the Princess out that day."

Qiu Yelan exhaled, "I see. This cousin... Is he my elder cousin or younger cousin?"

"This young master is five years older than you." Su He said, "By the way, he originally asked Princess Yang to let him know as soon as you came back. Perhaps he was caught by something in the daytime, otherwise..."

"Since he used five thousand tael of silver for a chance to attend the funeral, if he comes to see me again, how can he be empty-handed?" Qiu Yelan said nothing, thinking in her heart, "It seems that the reason why Princess Yang protected me is not so simple. However, in my memory, Ruan Family has a very hard life since they failed, and Princess Ruan often sold her dowry secretly to help them. For this reason, General Ruan was poisoned by Lu when she got a chance. Could this cousin who suddenly showed up have so much money?"

At this time, the door of the inner room was suddenly opened, and a well-dressed old maidservant came in swaggeringly. As she saw Qiu Yelan awake, with a long voice of "Yo", she went to a drum stool not far away and sat on it directly. She said harshly, "You are not dead yet?"

"You!" Su He was so angry to stand up, but she was quickly pressed back by Mrs. Zhou. Mrs. Zhou quickly gave Qiu Yelan a wink, and then she made a fawning smile at the old maidservant, "Mrs. Fan, what brings you here?" She was Mrs. Fan, Qiu Yuqing's trusted servant.

"Ridiculous!" As Mrs. Fan heard it, she immediately grabbed the tea bowl on the table and smashed it to the ground, "Your Commandery Princess killed our young master! You even dare to think that it is over just because General Jiang came, and the princess said something for you?!"

Su He could not help shouting, "My master did not harm anyone! It was you who forced my master to..."

"You the little b*tch dare to talk back to me?" As Mrs. Fan heard it, an angry look flashed in her eyes, and she stood up and gave Su He a slap in the face heavily! Su He screamed and fell on the quilt covering Qiu Yelan, together with the small bowl of medicine that had not been fed!

"Your Grace!" Having no time to care about her granddaughter, Mrs. Zhou hurriedly came forward to check Qiu Yelan. Qiu Yelan's face turned pale for Su He fell right on the wounds on her whole body. But when Su He got up, Qiu Yelan shook her head slightly to show she was fine. And then Mrs. Zhou was in relief.

Seeing this, Mrs. Fan suddenly pushed Su He again, but this time, Su He fell down on the blue brick floor rather than press Qiu Yelan again!

"Bah! Slut! No manners!" In the end, Mrs. Fan didn't dare to hit Qiu Yelan directly. When she found that she had no opportunity to hurt Qiu Yelan, she spat on Su He and said scornfully, "All in all, our young master is dead, but you are still alive. It is impossible for our lady to let it go!"

"What does my aunt you want?" Qiu Yelan's face was pale, and she looked at Mrs. Fan for a moment, asking indifferently.

Mrs. Fan felt a little scared when Qiu Yelan stared at her. But thinking that Princess Ruan was dead and the so-called Commandery Princess was only twelve years old, while she had the backing of Qiu Yuqing, she opened her eyes widely and fiercely again, "What does she want? Our lady just has the only one son, and she undergoes all sorts of hardships to raise him! Let alone the love..."

Mrs. Fan said for a long time while patting her legs and the table. When seeing that Qiu Yelan slowly closed her eyes and seemed to be tired, she was afraid that the real business was held up, so she stopped grunting and said hatefully, "Take all the old Princess's and your mother's dowry out as the dowry of my young lady later! My young lady may beg for forgiveness in front of our lady to save your life! Otherwise..."

Both Mrs. Zhou and Su He exclaimed, and Mrs. Zhou angrily said, "These all belong to our Commandery Princess! If they were all given to the young lady, what should we do?"

"Don't think that with the two poor wretches who are still willing to serve you, you will be able to keep your life!" Mrs. Fan sneered and squinted at them, "If it were not for that my young lady feels you pitiful and remembers the cousin relationship between you and her, it would be no wonder that you cannot live through tonight! I can tell you now. You have this only one chance. If you don't finish the document of giving us the two dowries voluntarily as the compensation for killing our young master before dawn, you can just wait to accompany your buried mother!"

After that, she spat on Mrs. Zhou again, and then she went away proudly!

Mrs. Zhou raised Su He in tears and asked Qiu Yelan, "Your Grace..."

Before she finished her words, there was a noise outside. It was a gentle voice, "Oh, why don't you close the door?"

"Xiuyan!" Mrs. Zhou was startled. She had no time to change Qiu Yelan's quilt and rushed out eagerly. "What brings you here? Is it that Princess Yang has some orders?"