Thirteenth Lady's Comback: Her Everyday Life as a Bystander-Chapter 292 - 4: Truly Frightening Upon Careful Thought

Chapter 292: Chapter 4: Truly Frightening Upon Careful Thought

The person who sent the Inverted Golden Bell as a gift to the Hong Mansion was a friend Hong Sheng made shortly after arriving in Hami. Due to financial difficulties, he had not yet married and only had an elderly mother who loved gardening and planting flowers.

So when he came to visit the Hong Family, he brought along a cart full of fresh flowers he grew himself to give to Susu, more than half of which were Inverted Golden Bells blooming in June.

As the saying goes, "A small gift is a token of heartfelt affection." Hong Sheng knew about their difficulties and specifically explained this to Susu. Susu, being someone who was not greedy, didn’t mind what was gifted. The fresh flowers could even decorate the courtyard.

The elderly lady, although dressed simply, showed signs of excellent upbringing and was neither servile nor overbearing when facing Susu. She was very eloquent. When she left, Susu even prepared some foodstuffs and necessities as a return gift.

But who would have thought, a seemingly kind old lady who loved gardening turned out to have sinister intentions.

Following the lead she provided, Susu and Hong Sheng uncovered a shocking network of relations.

It turned out that this old lady, surnamed Bai, was the illegitimate aunt of Master Bai, the current wealthiest man of Hami, from the Bai Family.

As they continued their investigation, although they found nothing explicitly wrong with her family, there was something peculiar.

For the past sixty years since Bai Family moved to Hami, they engaged in massive arranged marriages. In these fifty-six years, at least over forty daughters were married off.

The legitimate daughters married as wives to low-ranking military officers, while the illegitimate daughters were sent to high-ranking officers’ households as concubines.

To examine how many of those low-ranking officers from back then were promoted and how many high-ranking officers had left the Northwest to take posts in the Capital required military records, which would risk alarming the enemy and was too time-consuming.

Commander Liu still trusted Hong Sheng’s abilities, and with Susu having already revealed the matter to the Qin Family, under his wife’s pressure, Commander Liu secretly instructed trusted people to investigate.

Going through the guest list from the Qin Family’s banquet, they checked each family and surprisingly found that among the families of Fifth Rank and above military generals and local officials in Hami Guard, at least half had female relatives with the surname Bai.

The information gathered indicated that those Bai Family women were praised for being virtuous as main wives, aiding their husbands and educating children.

Even as concubines, they were beautiful, gentle, and never competed.

Unmistakably, a sprawling network had been woven through these women, like a black widow waiting to act from the shadows—an eerie thought upon reflection.

Even Commander Liu was shocked upon learning this information. He had been in the Northwest for over twenty years and served as Commander of Hami Guard for five years, even being privately referred to as the "Local Emperor of Hami."

Yet right under his nose, such an openly apparent network had gone unnoticed by anyone, rendering his title as "Local Emperor" almost mocking.

Upon closer inspection, it turned out that half of the lower-ranking officers in Hami Guard were directly or indirectly connected to women from the Bai Family.

Even one of his close associates—one of the deputy commanders—had outside properties that, upon closer look, belonged to the outside grandchildren of the Bai Family.

At this point, Commander Liu began to believe Hong Sheng’s claim that "what Bai Family seeks is significant."

However, he remained skeptical about declaring the Bai Family as traitors.

If Bai Family were truly Tartar spies, with so many of their women in action, the military secrets of Hami Guard, like deployment maps and troop arrangements, couldn’t have remained completely undisclosed.

During his years in Hami, spies had been caught before, but there had been no signs indicating connections to the Bai Family.

Even if he lacked the foresight, Bai Family had been established in Hami for over sixty years, going through at least ten Command Rooms.

Even his friend, superior, and elder brother-in-law, Third Master Qin, had served as Commander of Hami Guard. He was not an easy man to fool; it was unlikely so many people failed to notice something amiss.

Commander Liu couldn’t figure out any necessary connection between spices and spies no matter how hard he pondered.

Nevertheless, he planned to keep an eye on the Bai Family, but as Hong Sheng suggested, surrounding the Bai Family with troops for direct questioning was out of the question.

The Bai Family had so many relatives and connections; with time, low-ranking officers had already climbed the ladder, while those with higher positions were on par with his brother-in-law.

If troops were sent to besiege without evidence, who knew how many people would take the opportunity to report it?

Curiously, except for Bai Wansan, Bai Family had only a daughter but had a large number of descendants in the previous generations, yet the boys did not live long, always leaving only one heir to carry on the family line.

Like the present head of the Bai Family, Bai Wansan, who had over ten siblings, eventually leaving only him and five sisters, and two younger sisters.

The Bai Family explained to outsiders that the family had a hereditary condition, making it difficult to raise boys.

Some people who disliked the Bai Family’s wealth would also gossip privately, mentioning that old residents of Hami Guard said that the Bai Family’s fortune history wasn’t entirely unblemished, a possible case of retribution.

The records stated that the Bai Family’s patriarch served in the military at the state’s call to arms.

But upon his initial arrival in Hami, his team fell into a Tartar ambush during a battle, suffering severe casualties.

He survived by pretending to be dead, but had to take a detour into Hami. A month later, when returning to Hong Sheng, he had become a casualty, his military records were erased, and even the pension was divided among his superiors.

However, the Bai Family’s patriarch saw the disaster turned to opportunity, changed his name, married an orphaned local family’s daughter, and using gold and silver scavenged from the dead, he started a grain business and gradually prospered.

While Commander Liu investigated the Bai Family’s status, in Hami County’s Hong Mansion, Susu was sitting under the vineyard in the courtyard, eating grapes and listening to the local Hami residents—the wives of several disabled veterans—talking about Bai Family’s history. She expressed skepticism over the hereditary condition of the family that only male children died.

And the reason Susu was so at ease now was that she had already formulated the antidote for Chaotic Heart.

For Susu, the preparation of Chaotic Heart’s antidote wasn’t difficult. She completed it in just one night.

The antidote, also an incense item named "Calming," was a powdered spice that needed to be placed inside an incense ball, inhaling its aroma continuously to expel the poison using a circulation method.

Susu speculated that while there might be many who knew about Chaotic Heart, she was likely the only one who knew about its antidote, or Yue Baiyou wouldn’t have been so confident.

Ever since that day when their mutual facade was torn, Susu forbade Yue Baiyou from paying respects, saying "I can’t accept it," yet to appease her, she nonetheless informed her that she would be taken to Liu Fu Mansion.

Susu’s suspicion of the Bai Family grew stronger with Yue Baiyou’s frequent trips out of the mansion.

Because wherever Yue Baiyou appeared, Bai Family’s eldest daughter, Bai Lili, was invariably present.

Although they always parted on bad terms after every encounter, the little beggars tailing them weren’t easy to fool, saying that the two gave them a strange feeling.

"It’s like how we must brew up some emotions before begging, looking sorrowful but speaking baffling truths, full of lies."

When Susu personally met Linlang’s good friend—a clever, quirky boy aged around thirteen or fourteen—after knowing he declared himself the chief of the Little Beggar Gang in Hami County, she felt she had to redefine her understanding of "beggar."

Their begging involved scripts, directors, lead roles, supporting roles, extras, and props.

This isn’t a Beggar Gang, it’s like the Northern Cinema Academy!