Chapter 4 - Return of the First Daughter

A plain-looking carriage moved steadily on the road. The coachman was a lad. He had a simple and honest smile on his face and drove the carriage steadily.

In the carriage, a young girl dressed as a maid in pale bluish-white said softly,

“Miss, there is only an hour’s ride to the gate of the capital. We’ll enter the capital city soon.”

“Um.” The voice was low but pleasant, and listeners were naturally attracted to listen carefully to figure out what she had said.

The interior of the carriage was extremely comfortable, with all kinds of gorgeous and exquisite items. A young girl was half leaning on the pillow embroidered with delicate peonies, holding a book in her hand. Her eyelashes were long and thick, casting a light shadow on her flawless face, forming a scene radiating with tranquility and charm.

The maid who was dressed in white and sitting on her heels beside the girl said, “Miss, the road is not very smooth. I think you shouldn’t read any more. It’s not good for your eyes.”

“It’s hard for us to have such leisure in the future. I want to read for a while. Bi Zhu, have you sent the message to the Shen family? ”

“Yes, miss, I have.” The maid in dark green said, while sorting out the books in the carriage. “But there was no reply from either your father or mother.”

The girl curled her lips. Her smiling eyes indicated that she was in a good mood. She was Shen Ninghua, who had been missing for more than half a year. “I’m just a neglected daughter. How can I expect them to write back when they know I’m going back?”

“Miss, your returning home this time will surprise them.”

Shen Ninghua’s smile deepened. A trace of coldness flashed in her eyes, but that was quite invisible even if someone looked carefully at her eyes. “Haha, I’m afraid they would be oversurprised.”

From her appearance, no one would ever think there was any connection between this extremely beautiful girl with the dark-skinned girl she used to be: one was as dark as a pile of mud whereas the other as beautiful as a peach flower in full blossom. They were way too different.

Shen Ninghua looked at the book, but her eyesight was not focused on it. After she was bitten by an inch snake, she woke up to see Granny Poison. In fact, she didn’t know Granny Poison’s real name. She only called the old woman Granny Poison because she had tested various poisons on her for the past half year.

When she woke up that day, she was shocked by Granny Poison’s scarred face. After living with her for some time, she felt that the scarred face was actually more pleasing to her eyes than Shen Linghan’s peerless beautiful face.

Besides treating her with all kinds of medicine every day, Granny Poison did not have a single word with her. Therefore, although they had lived together for nearly a year, she didn’t know why Granny Poison lived in the valley. She only knew that Granny Poison was proficient in medical skills and seemed to have a deep hatred towards the Zhao family in the capital, because she accidentally found a jasmine tattoo on Granny Poison’s ankle, a pattern unique to the direct line of women of the Zhao family, tattooed at birth. Granny Poison always looked at the pattern with hatred on her face.

Seeing that Shen Ninghua was lost in her thought, Bai Ruo gently reminded her, “Miss.”

Shen Ninghua regained her presence of mind. She put down the book in her hand and looked at the four girls around her. The light in her eyes slightly darkened.

The four young girls in front of her were Bai Ruo, Bi Zhu, Hong Ling and Qing Que. She had taken them out of the valley to be her maids. Granny Poison had brought the four of them into the valley to test her medicine. When they first came into the valley, they were either seriously injured or ill. Granny Poison left them to Shen Ninghua. Although she herself was suffering from the pain of being tested by Granny Poison, she kept reading medical books all day and applied what she learnt to save them bit by bit.

The four of them were grateful to Shen Ninghua. After they recovered, they all begged to stay with her. Shen Ninghua happened to need assistants, so she let them stay with her. Granny Poison showed no objection. After they became her maids, Granny Poison stopped testing medicine on them. Later, she found that each of the girls had different abilities and she came to realize that Granny Poison had actually brought them into the valley to be her maids.

The carriage continued moving forward smoothly. Hong Ling, the liveliest among the four maids looked outside through the gap of the curtain and said happily, “Miss, the capital is really different. The women here are so beautiful. However, they are not as good-looking as you.” Of course her master was the best-looking!

Shen Ninghua smiled and looked at her fingers carefully. She used to think she was born with dark and ugly skin, but didn’t know the reason: someone had applied poison to her when she was still in her mother’s womb.

In order to recover her appearance, she lived a miserable life in the past half year… What made her even worse was the poison had been with her when her mother was pregnant. So the fact that her mother died in giving birth to her was questionable. As the prime minister’s wife, who also had an imperial mandate, who could have the chance to poison her when she was pregnant?

When she learnt the message from Granny Poison, she immediately thought of Zhao Yunxiang, Shen Dong’s current wife. Only she had the motive to poison her mother. When she returned to the Shen family, she would find out the truth.

The noise outside the carriage was loud. Shen Ninghua closed her eyes, calmed down, and let out a little sigh of relief. Only then did she feel that she was really alive: now she was neither in the dark cold palace or in the valley where she had undergone an abyss of suffering.

All of a sudden, the horses hissed; the carriage shook and then came to a stop.

Bi Zhu and Bai Ruo guarded Shen Ninghua on her left and right, while Qing Que and Hong Ling nimbly jumped out of the carriage. After a while, Qing Que came back and reported, “Miss, a horse was startled and it has been stopped. We can reach the Shen Mansion in a quarter of an hour.” Qing Que was seriously injured when she was rescued. She didn’t talk much and it took Shen Ninghua quite some time to discover that Qing Que was a master of martial arts.

“Anything unusual?”

Qing Que frowned and thought a while, “Miss, I didn’t see anything unusual, except that the horse suddenly appeared and we didn’t see its owner.”

“Well, that’s not our business. Let’s move on.” A faint smell of blood came from the tip of the nose. What a coincidence it was to encounter a startled horse upon arrival at the capital, Shen Ninghua thought to herself.

Chu Junyi was now standing on top of the Qinyang Building. He was dressed in silk gown and had a flash of light in his eyes as he held a folding fan tightly in his hand. He drank up the wine on the table as Shen Ninghua’s carriage disappeared. He got up and said to a man in a green robe, “Elder brother, I’m leaving now to deal with some business.”

The man in green looked cold and stern. He frowned and asked Chu Junyi, “Was the first daughter of the Shen family sitting in that carriage? Junyi, for more than half a year, you have been prying into the Shen family just for this girl?”

“It’s a long story. Anyway, you needn’t worry about it.” Having said that, Chu Junyi straightly went downstairs and walked toward the Shen family. He needed to find out with his own eyes whether it was that dark-skinned girl in the carriage.