Chapter 81

Chapter 81 A Trouble Caused by an Old Woman and a Young Servant

End in the water, start in the fire!

It sounded exactly like her rebirth!

As the queue slowly moved forward, Qu Moying clenched the divination stick hard and tried to suppress her unsettled feeling. She always felt like she had been pushing forward by the hand of fate, and somehow, she could feel it more in this kind of place.

“Ouch! Why did you bump into me?!” A loud sound came from the front.

Qu Moying raised her somewhat pale face and looked towards it.

It was a young servant and an old woman, who looked unfriendly, bumping into each other.

“Hey, watch your mouth! You bumped into me, and you blame it on me?! Are you blind?” The old woman was irritated immediately, talking aggressively.

“You did it! You did it on purpose.” The young servant was only eleven or twelve years, wearing clothes made of coarse cloth, which meant his master’s family was not a wealthy one. At this moment, he started to sob in a grievance, “You broke my thing. You need to pay me back!”

“Brat, how dare you blackmail me? Do you know we are in the capital where the emperor lives? You can’t just blackmail anyone as you want!” The old woman argued back while grabbing the young servant’s sleeve.

Seeing the old woman’s uncompromising attitude and the poor little boy, many people chose to support the boy.

“Which family are you working for? How can you treat a child like this? If you bumped into him, an apology would be fine. Don’t talk about blackmailing to a kid!”

“Exactly. Look at him. He’s at your grandchild’s age. What’s the point of arguing with a little boy?”

“Poor boy. She doesn’t look like a kind one. It must be her bumping into the child.” The crowd burst out discussing and started to scold the old woman.

The old woman was indeed a tough one. She glared at people and said in rage, “Watch your mouth! How can you blame me for it while he did it on purpose? If you didn’t see it, don’t talk nonsense!”

Her words irritated more people and caused more blame towards herself.

Overwhelmed by people’s scolding, the old woman suddenly sat down on the ground and wailed, “How can you all blame it on me? I’m just a poor old woman. The Buddha is watching all of us, and I swear that if I am the one who bumped into the boy, I’m willing to take any punishment and die miserably. If he is the one who bumped into me, the same thing will happen to him!”

The old woman’s wailing and screaming echoed in the entire hall. Soon, a monk from the Dabei Temple showed up.

The skinny middle-aged monk walked up to the old maid and bowed to her politely. “Madam, please talk while standing. You can’t speak too loudly in front of Buddha.”

“Then why did Buddha not see that they all have wronged me? I’m here just to worship the Buddha. I don’t want any trouble either.” The old woman wailed even more loudly.

Seeing her making a swear, some people were convinced by her. Since the old woman was here to worship the Buddha, she must follow the teachings of Buddha. Although there were some people telling straight-up lies, this woman didn’t look like one of them. Otherwise, she wouldn’t dare to make a swear to prove her innocence in front of the Buddha. If she did something wrong, she should be afraid of the consequence!

“Boy, maybe she really did it by accident. What things of yours were broken?”

“Yeah, let’s see what the broken things are. If they are not valuable, just let it go.”

“We are all here to worship the Buddha. It’s better to avoid troubles…”

Some people started to persuade her while everyone’s eyes fell on the young servant. Qu Moying looked in this direction curiously as well. As she took a glance at the boy’s face, surprisingly, he turned his head and looked back at her. She felt weird about it but still maintained her usual calm look.

After her eyes met his, he avoided her gaze immediately.

They so happened to argue near the queue Qu Moying was standing in right now. As other people circled them to watch what was happening, Qu Moying and Qu Qiuyan were also surrounded.

“I-It’s nothing important…” the boy stuttered, clenching the long wallet in his hand.

Somehow, his reaction made people feel he did something wrong.

The long wallet looked like one used by a male, but a lotus flower was embroidered on it. The stitchwork looked pretty terrible as most of the females present could do a better job on embroidery than this.

However, this woman with terrible stitchwork skills still did it. Moreover, the flower was embroidered on a male’s wallet.

Seeing the boy’s weird attitude, many people had a guess in their minds.

Was it a gift from a lady for her lover?

“What is it? Take it out and let me have a look. Don’t just say it,” the old woman sitting on the ground was the first one who realized it, then she pointed at the boy and yelled.

“This…this is my young master’s personal belongings. I can’t show it to some random people.” The boy was in a panic, still holding the wallet in his hand tightly. There was obviously something in it. Since the wallet was made of soft cloth, people could tell the thing inside had a long shape.

“What’s inside?” someone asked him curiously.

“I-It’s nothing. It’s my young master’s…” The boy became more and more flustered. As sweat clung to his forehead, he tried to leave but found out the old woman was holding his foot.

“Why are you getting so flustered? Are you scared? Is it something that shameless woman gave your young master? Show it to us! There’s no point in arguing if I bumped into you or you bumped into me. Just show it to us, and if it’s really broken, I’ll just compensate for your loss.” The old woman couldn’t accept taking the blame and wouldn’t let the boy go easily.

The boy ran into her while she was just walking, but he blamed it on her. If she didn’t prove her innocent and teach the boy a good lesson, she would not let him go.

“Yeah, just show it to us.”

“If it is really broken, you can’t pay it back yourself. Show it to us first.”

“Yeah, yeah, show it to us!” Who would’ve known a random argument revealed a scandal involving a young master and a lady? Those onlookers became excited immediately.

More and more people encouraged the boy to take out the item inside.

The young servant was just an eleven or twelve years old boy. The overwhelming pressure really scared him. His eyes turned red, looked at the crowd pitifully, and then fell on Qu Moying as he tried to approach her. Then he called her name in a low voice, “Fourth Lady Qu.”

Yu Dong walked in front of Qu Moying immediately and stared at the boy warily.

“If you have something to say, just say it. Don’t come any closer and scare the lady,” he said coldly.

“Moying, is this boy calling you?” Qu Qiuyan asked in a low voice. While everyone saw the boy looking at Qu Moying, some people already noticed her, and some heard what the boy said. Although they still didn’t grasp the situation, now that Qu Qiuyan said something, people started to relate Qu Moying to this matter immediately.

“Fourth Lady Qu? This is Fourth Lady Qu?” The person standing next to the boy heard him the most clearly. He mumbled to himself with confusion while sizing up Qu Moying.

The veil on Qu Moying’s face showed people that she had an eye problem. But she could walk by herself, which meant she was not fully blind and could still see things.

“I-I’m…Fourth Lady Qu…” the boy stuttered in panic.

The old woman on the ground stood up. She held the boy’s arm to prevent him from running away while gazing at Qu Moying, “My lady, is he your servant?”

In fact, the boy had already told people that he was working for a young master. Besides, a lady usually only brought maids with her instead of male servants.

“The lady doesn’t know him,” Yu Dong raised his chin up and snorted to the old woman. Then he pushed them away, “Get away from the lady. Don’t come any closer. The lady has nothing to do with it.”

Being pushed by Yu Dong, the old woman staggered back. “Who else would it be? This lady has an eye problem, right? Only a person like her can do such an embroidery,” after she steadied herself, she glared at him and said in rage.

First, a young servant bumped into her, then a young maid pushed her. The old woman couldn’t bear it anymore.

“What’s wrong with the lady having an eye problem? Why would she do something like embroidery to hurt her eyes? Don’t take any groundless guess and get away from the lady. You can’t afford offending her,” Yu Dong said aggressively with his hands on his waist. He had been perfectly playing the role of a mean, spiteful maid.

“Miss…Miss Yu Dong…” The boy suddenly pulled Yu Dong’s sleeve as if he was asking for help.

Yu Dong shook his hand off at once, “Who are you? How did you know my name?”

“Miss Yu Dong…” Scolded by Yu Dong, the boy felt more flustered while waving his hands in a hurry, “I-I don’t know you. I don’t know you.”

Even though he said so, everyone heard him calling Yu Dong’s name. However, a stranger couldn’t possibly know a lady’s maid’s name.

Before, people were just suspecting them, but right now, they started to believe it – this boy was obviously related to Fourth Lady Qu.

The vulgar old woman suddenly understood the situation and vented all her anger on this boy. “What do you mean by not knowing them? Obviously, your young master has something to do with this lady. You bumped into me because you were trying to give the thing in your hand to this lady. Am I right?” She stamped her foot furiously, pointed at Qu Moying first and then at the young servant.

“No wonder you were in a hurry and bumped into me while I was just walking. The lady you were looking for is right behind me. You only saw her and didn’t notice me, and this is why you bumped into me. No wonder! No wonder you want to blame it on me!” the old maid yelled in a pleasure of exposing the truth.

“Moying, is it true?” Qu Qiuyan whispered to Qu Moying cautiously.

A trace of coldness flashed across Qu Moying’s eyes as she said, “Let’s see if it is true or not. Since they started it, we have to let them put it to an end first.”

Qu Moying looked totally undisturbed, and even the veil couldn’t hide her calmness. No matter how people looked at her, she didn’t seem like a lady who was secretly dating another man. Because she was way more tranquil than the young servant who was avoiding everyone’s gaze in panic.

“You have to show what’s inside the wallet to us to prove yourself. You can’t just say it without any evidence. That’s what you did to me to make me take the blame. Show it to us!” The old woman suddenly grabbed the wallet from the boy’s hand. However, the skinny little boy was even shorter than her and didn’t have any strength to take it back.

As the old maid rudely tore the wallet apart, everyone heard a clang and saw something shiny drop on the ground. It was glaring with golden purple light…