Going Back to Settle Scores with the Jiang Family

"Going… back to the Jiang family?" Jiang Ying thought she had misheard, the sound of wind still lingering in her ears. That place was ten thousand times more terrifying to her than the legendary underworld. During those sunless years in the side courtyard, every creak of the door opening could mean a vicious beating or a bowl of spoiled leftovers. She would rather stay in this dilapidated temple with those brainless wandering spirits than face Madam Jiang's hypocritical face again, reeking of that pungent powder fragrance.

"What? Scared?" Pei Ji keenly caught the momentary stiffness in her body, his tone dripping with condescending mockery. He seemed to enjoy watching this mortal struggle in fear.

"General, although the Jiang family is merely a merchant clan, they hired Priest Xuyun to secure connections with the powerful. That priest's methods are ruthless—you saw his killing formation last night..." Jiang Ying took a deep breath, trying to reason with him. She knew Pei Ji was strong, but he had only recovered thirty percent of his power, barely sustained by drinking her blood. If something went wrong at the Jiang estate and he fell victim to Priest Xuyun or other more powerful cultivators, she—bound by the blood contract—would be buried with him. She didn't want to escape the stone coffin only to walk right into death's door.

"Xuyun?" Pei Ji laughed as if he had just heard the funniest joke in the world. His laughter shook dust from the temple rafters. "You think a swindling old Daoist who knows a few superficial tricks is worthy of my fear? A thousand years ago, even if their founder had come with the ten divine artifacts, he'd only be fit to polish my boots outside the formation!"

The eerie green light in his eyes blazed brighter as he grabbed her slender arm. "Let's go! I want to see who in this world dares to stop me today!"

Traveling by day, Pei Ji couldn't slip through the woods as a silent shadow like he did at night. The pure yang energy in sunlight naturally suppressed ghostly beings, and even a thousand-year-old ghost king like him had to avoid its edge while his power was still unrecovered. He opened a shabby black umbrella he had taken from some unfortunate soul. The canopy was made of tung-oil coated black cloth, giving off a musty smell, but it blocked the sunlight completely.

Jiang Ying was half-embraced under the black umbrella's shadow, stumbling along the rugged mountain path. Her ankle had been reattached, but the swelling hadn't subsided. With every step, the misplaced pain shot straight to her brain like stepping on knife blades. But she clenched her teeth and bore it without making a sound. A fine sheen of cold sweat covered her forehead, trickling down her cheeks. She knew that showing pain to this man would only earn her more vicious mockery—nothing more.

They walked and rested, mainly to accommodate Jiang Ying's injured foot. It wasn't until dusk, when the last trace of sunset was swallowed by night, that they finally arrived at the back gate of the Jiang family mansion.

Though the sky was darkening, the Jiang mansion was brilliantly lit, bright as day. Even over the high walls, the faint sounds of music and guests' laughter and conversation could be heard. The aroma of wine and meat, mixed with the scent of powder, wafted out on the night breeze.

"What day is it today? Why is it so lively?" Jiang Ying frowned in confusion. Logically, she had just been sent off for a ghost marriage yesterday—she was considered "dead." Even if the Jiang family avoided holding a funeral for propriety's sake, they absolutely shouldn't be hosting a grand celebration the very next day. It was against all custom.

"Let's go in and see. Perfect—the more people, the more fun." Pei Ji let out a cold laugh. He wrapped his arm around Jiang Ying's waist, lightly touched the tip of his foot to the ground, and leaped onto the high wall like a giant night owl.

The two hid in a thick old locust tree in the back courtyard. Using the leaves for cover, they looked down at the commotion in the front yard.

The front yard was decorated with lanterns and colorful streamers. Large red silk hung from every pillar, and strings of red lanterns bathed the entire courtyard in crimson light. Master Jiang and Madam Jiang stood at the hall entrance, beaming with joy and glowing with satisfaction as they greeted the endless stream of guests. Beside them stood a young girl in full finery, adorned with pearls and jewels, her head bashfully lowered.

Even without seeing her face, Jiang Ying recognized that familiar, delicate laugh—it was her legitimate elder sister, the eldest Miss of the Jiang family, Jiang Mingzhu.

"Congratulations, Master Jiang! Congratulations, Madam Jiang! For Miss Mingzhu to marry into the Prefect's household—what incredible fortune! From now on, the Jiang family can do whatever they please in Qingzhou City!" a portly merchant said sycophantically.

"Yes, yes! The Prefect's son is talented and handsome, a perfect match for Miss Mingzhu! A match made in heaven—truly enviable!"

The flattery from the guests was endless, each voice louder than the last, as if terrified Master Jiang might not hear them.

Hidden in the tree, listening to those grating praises, Jiang Ying clenched her hands into fists. Her nails dug deep into her palms, almost drawing blood, but she felt no pain.

So that was it!

So they had been in such a hurry—even willing to drug her and send her to that eerie stone coffin for a ghost marriage—not for some "family interest" of appeasing a "heroic spirit," but to clear the way for Jiang Mingzhu to marry into the Prefect's household!

The Prefect's family was wealthy and powerful, with strict rules that valued status and face above all. They would never allow their future daughter-in-law to have a blind sister—it would be a laughingstock among the upper circles. So Madam Jiang had concocted this vicious scheme of a ghost marriage to make her disappear without a trace. To cover it up, she even spread the story that Jiang Ying had volunteered for the sake of family blessings.

What ruthless hearts!

"Furious?" Pei Ji's icy voice sounded in her ear, carrying a seductive, almost demonic quality, as if tempting her to fall. "Hearing them celebrating on your bones—doesn't it feel like your heart is being roasted over fire? Do you want to go down there and turn their wedding feast into a bloodbath of a funeral?"

Jiang Ying trembled all over. She did. She dreamed of it. She wanted to rush down and demand where their conscience was. She wanted to ask why they had treated her so cruelly. She wanted to tear off all their hypocritical masks and show everyone the disgusting maggots hiding beneath the Jiang family's glamorous facade.

But reason told her she couldn't act impulsively.

She was just a blind girl—a weak woman the world already considered "dead." If she rushed down like this, the Jiang family had countless ways to declare her "mad" and have her beaten to death with impunity. She didn't want mutual destruction. She wanted to ruin their reputation!

"No." She took a deep breath, suppressing the raging fire in her heart, and said coldly, "Killing them outright like that would be too easy. I want them to lose what they treasure most."

"Oh?" Pei Ji raised an eyebrow, seemingly surprised by her answer. "And what do you plan to do? With just your words?"

Jiang Ying didn't answer. Her gaze "looked" toward the direction of Madam Jiang's bedchamber—the most heavily guarded place in the Jiang estate, and also the one hiding the most secrets.

"General, can you take me to Madam Jiang's room?"

Pei Ji looked at her hollow eyes, which blazed with the fire of vengeance, and curled his lips in satisfaction. "As you wish."

Taking advantage of the crowded front courtyard, where all the servants and maids were busy serving tea and attending to guests, the back courtyard was unusually empty. Pei Ji led Jiang Ying like two ghosts, silently slipping into Madam Jiang's bedchamber.

The room was thick with the scent of sandalwood, trying to mask some rotten smell. It was the same scent she had smelled in the bridal sedan chair last night, making her physically nauseous.

"What are you looking for?" Pei Ji crossed his arms and leaned by the door, keeping watch while observing her.

"The truth about the fire back then." Jiang Ying groped her way toward the dressing table beside the carved canopy bed. "Back then, my mother and I lived in the side courtyard. Even the servants delivering meals didn't want to go there. There were no sources of fire nearby. How could it suddenly catch fire? And the flames spread so fast—even the only escape door was locked from the outside... This was no accident! She must have left some trace."

She fumbled anxiously through the dressing table drawers, rifling through boxes of powder and jewelry, turning everything into a mess.

Pei Ji watched her, his eyes flickering slightly. This blind girl was sharper and calmer than he had imagined. Even when consumed by hatred, she could keep her wits and search for evidence.

Suddenly, Jiang Ying's hand touched a cold, hard object in a hidden compartment.

It was a small locked iron box.

Without bothering to look for a key, she grabbed a bronze mirror from the dressing table and smashed it against the lock. With a bang, the lock broke. Inside were several yellowed letters.

Though she couldn't see, she could smell the old scent of ink on the paper—oddly out of place among the cosmetics.

"General, can you read what's written here?" Jiang Ying handed the letters to Pei Ji, her hands trembling slightly.

Pei Ji took the letters and glanced over them casually. He normally wouldn't bother with such trivial mortal family conflicts, but for some reason, he didn't want to refuse her.

"This is a copy of a prescription." Pei Ji's voice rang out in the silent room. "It says to mix small amounts of deadly poisons like red arsenic and oleander into a calming herbal soup. The dosage is light, so it won't kill immediately, but it will gradually weaken the person until their heart fails."

Jiang Ying's heart sank as if falling into an ice cave. Calming soup? Back then, because her father doted on his concubine, her mother couldn't sleep at night. To appear magnanimous, Madam Jiang indeed sent a trusted maid every day with a bowl of calming soup. After drinking it, her mother's health deteriorated, and eventually, she couldn't even leave her bed.

"What else?" she asked, her voice trembling, her nails practically digging into her palms.

"There's also a secret letter to someone named Zhao San." Pei Ji continued reading, his tone as flat as if he were reciting a recipe. "It says that after the deed is done, he'll be given five hundred silver taels and must leave Qingzhou City immediately, never to return. If he breathes a word of it, his entire family will be killed. The date on the letter..."

Pei Ji paused and looked at Jiang Ying.

"What date?" Jiang Ying pressed urgently.

"The day before your mother's courtyard caught fire."

Jiang Ying felt the world spin, nearly collapsing. She gripped the edge of the dressing table desperately, barely managing to stay upright.

The truth—so brutal, even more horrifying than she had imagined.

There was no such thing as an accidental fire from dry weather! Everything was a carefully orchestrated murder by Madam Jiang! First, she had slowly poisoned her mother. Then, when her mother was on the verge of death, fearing exposure, she bribed a servant to set fire to the side courtyard, trying to destroy the evidence and eliminate all threats! And she—Jiang Ying—was merely a lucky survivor of that conspiracy, yet she had lost her eyesight and endured twelve years of living in darkness, worse than a dog or pig!

"Madam... Jiang!" Jiang Ying gritted out these three words, each one dripping with boundless hatred, as if she wanted to chew them to pieces. Twelve years of darkness, twelve years of abuse worse than an animal's, her mother's bloodcurdling screams in the sea of fire—the culprit behind it all was exposed in these few thin sheets of paper.

She had always thought Madam Jiang simply disliked her out of jealousy, that she only mistreated her for her legitimate daughter's status. She never imagined her heart could be so venomous, treating human life like mere weeds!

"It seems your enemy is even more vicious than you imagined. Human hypocrisy is truly more nauseating than evil ghosts." Pei Ji tossed the letters onto the table, his tone laced with disdain for humanity.

Jiang Ying clutched the letters tightly, her knuckles turning white from the force. These papers were heavier than a thousand jun.

"Do you want revenge?" Pei Ji walked up to her, looking down at her. His eerie green eyes flickered with a dangerous light.

"Yes." Jiang Ying answered without hesitation, her voice hoarse but unwavering. Her eyes blazed with the fire of vengeance, a fire not even darkness could extinguish. "I dream of it. I want her to pay blood for blood."

"Excellent." Pei Ji smiled with satisfaction—a cruel, bewitching smile. "The wife of Pei Ji should have such spirit. Come, let's go to the front hall and give them a gift they'll never forget."

In the front hall, the engagement banquet was at its peak.

Master Jiang rose, his face glowing, and raised his white jade wine cup to toast the assembled guests."Thank you, esteemed relatives and friends, for honoring us with your presence at my daughter Mingzhu's engagement banquet with the刺史's son. I drink to you all first! I hope you will continue to support the Jiang family's business in the future!"

"Of course, of course! Master Jiang is too kind!"

Guests raised their glasses in flattery, the atmosphere reaching its peak. Madam Jiang sat in the seat of honor, surveying the hall full of guests, and touched the jade bracelet on her wrist, her eyes full of smug satisfaction. That blind girl was probably already suffocated to death inside the stone coffin by now, wasn't she? Now, no one would ever stand in the way of Mingzhu's brilliant future.

Just as everyone was immersed in this joyous atmosphere...

"Bang!"

A deafening crash rang out, like a sudden clap of thunder from the ground. The two heavy nanmu front doors, carved with a pattern of a hundred children and a thousand grandsons, were violently kicked open from the outside with extreme brutality.

The wooden doors crashed to the ground, even shattering two large flower pots at the entrance, sending up a cloud of dust and porcelain shards.

The sudden upheaval plunged the once-boisterous hall into dead silence. All music ceased abruptly. Everyone stared at the doorway in shock, even terror.

As the dust cleared, a tall, straight-backed man in black robes, holding a worn black umbrella, stood outside the door like a demon emerging from hell. Dark red bloodstains seemed to cling to the umbrella handle. Beside him stood a young girl in a thin, coarse linen inner garment, draped in a large black outer robe, her body covered in mud and leaves.

Although the girl's eyes were closed and her long hair was disheveled, her pale yet stubborn face, illuminated by the lamplight, struck everyone from the Jiang family as terribly familiar. They gasped sharply, as if they had seen the most terrifying ghost.

"S... Second Miss?!"

A timid maid who usually brought meals to the side courtyard dropped her tray with a clatter and let out a shrill scream.

"A... a corpse rising! The Second Miss has come back from the dead to claim her revenge!"

That scream was like water dropped into a pan of hot oil. The entire hall erupted into chaos. The guests, though not understanding what was happening, saw the ghost-like expressions on the Jiang family's faces and began to flee in panic, scattering everywhere. Tables and chairs were knocked over; precious dishes and wine spilled across the floor in a mess of broken cups and plates.

Master Jiang and Madam Jiang turned ashen with terror. Madam Jiang's legs gave way, and she collapsed into her grand armchair, scrambling backward, her hand pointing at the door trembling uncontrollably.

"You... are you human or ghost?!" Master Jiang summoned his courage, his voice shaking terribly as he stammered out the question.

Jiang Ying did not respond to his question, nor did she pay any attention to the surrounding chaos. Amidst the din, she relied on sound to precisely locate Madam Jiang's direction.

"Madam Jiang," Jiang Ying's voice was not loud, but because of the panic in the hall, this cold, clear voice reached everyone's ears distinctly, as if echoing. "You went to great lengths, even using sleeping drugs to send me off to a ghost marriage, just to clear the way for your precious daughter to become the young mistress of the刺史's mansion. Isn't that right?"

Madam Jiang's face changed color dramatically, but having spent years maneuvering within the inner chambers, she quickly forced herself to appear calm, raising her voice to cover her guilt: "Nonsense! You went willingly to pray for the feng shui of the Jiang family by participating in that ghost marriage! It was for the good of our family! You unfilial girl, daring to pretend to be a ghost and escape back to ruin your sister's happy occasion—just wait until I break your legs!"

"Willingly go in my sister's place? For the good of the Jiang family?" Jiang Ying let out a cold laugh, filled with endless mockery and bitterness. She pulled out a few yellowed letters from her robes and held them high for everyone to see.

"And what about these letters? You poisoned my mother with calming soup laced with oleander back then. When you saw that the truth was about to come out, you bribed the servant Zhao San to set fire to the side courtyard to destroy the evidence—evidence of murder and arson. Was that also for the good of the Jiang family?!"

At these words, the entire hall erupted in shock. Even the guests who had been about to flee stopped in their tracks.

Everyone stared at Madam Jiang in disbelief. If what Jiang Ying said was true, if this evidence was solid, then this seemingly kind and gentle Madam Jiang was nothing less than a venomous, snake-hearted woman! This was a serious crime involving human lives!

"You... you're slandering me! Those letters are fake! You blind girl forged them! Don't believe her, everyone!" Madam Jiang shrieked like a cat whose tail had been stepped on, her face deathly pale, her eyes full of barely concealed panic. She even lunged forward trying to snatch the letters.

"Whether they're forged or not, take them to the刺史's mansion and let his honor investigate!" Jiang Ying did not flinch, her back straight as a rod.

Seeing this, Master Jiang felt utterly disgraced. If this got out, how could the Jiang family continue to hold their head up in Qingzhou City? This hard-won marriage alliance would also be ruined! Blazing with anger, he roared, "Guards! Seize this crazy girl! Gag her and lock her in the cellar!"

A few servants snapped out of their stupor, grabbed the wooden clubs used to prop open the doors, and charged menacingly at Jiang Ying.

"Who dares touch her!"

Pei Ji, who had been standing off to the side, coldly observing this human tragedy, suddenly let out a sharp rebuke.

His voice was like ice from a cellar, carrying a tangible murderous intent. He casually waved his hand, and his wide sleeve swept out a powerful, frigid gust of air that exploded at the doorway.

Before the servants could even get within three feet of Jiang Ying, they were struck as if by an invisible wall of solid ice. With a loud crash, they screamed and flew backward, crashing heavily into rockeries and pillars in the courtyard, spitting blood and immediately losing consciousness.

The entire hall fell into deathly silence. Even breathing could be heard clearly.

Everyone stared in terror at this black-robed man, who was like a god of slaughter. Such skill was far beyond ordinary!

"You... who are you? How dare you run wild in my Jiang home! Do you know who my in-laws are?!" Master Jiang's legs trembled so badly he could barely stand, but he still tried to bolster his courage by invoking the刺史's name.

Pei Ji slowly folded his worn black umbrella and tossed it aside. He raised his head, revealing his pale, handsome yet fiercely violent face. His dark green eyes gleamed with an eerie light under the lamplight.

"Me?" A cruel, spine-chilling smile curled at the corner of his mouth.

"I am the very—ghost husband—you went to such lengths and spared no means to send her to marry."