The Poison Master - Chapter 3

Everyone started and turned.

There I sat astride the wall, wearing a face the exact image of the marchioness’s, my smile cold.

As the Wen family stared at me in horror, I even put aside our differences long enough to wave.

“Little Sister, surely I’m not the poor distant relative you meant? Funny, I didn’t know I had some dreadful disease.”

Wen Tingxue went pale.

“What dreadful disease means I can only eat two sour buns a day with well water?”

The marchioness choked on her reply.

“In a capital this big, Mother and Father couldn’t find anyone to examine an illness like that?”

The marquis and his heir stiffened too.

Before they could invent an excuse and turn on me, I cried, “You really meant to keep the gate locked and burn me alive in front of everyone, just to avenge her?”

“Your adopted daughter said I pushed her, and for that you wanted me dead? Fine. I’ll prove just how unjust my death would have been!”

Even at a time like this, I remembered Master’s lesson: always be polite.

So I cupped my hands and called, “Forgive the offense!”

Then I leaped from the high wall.

Before anyone could recover, I rushed up to Wen Tingxue.

Her pupils trembled. I bared my teeth in a thoroughly malicious grin.

Then…

My fist flashed like lightning and slammed into her chest.

Powder flew from her face. Her slender figure traced an arc through the air, then landed with a heavy thud several zhang away, throwing up a cloud of dust.

Everyone froze. By the time they came to their senses, Wen Tingxue had spat out a mouthful of bright blood and fainted.

Prince Ning and Wen Qingxu’s eyes contracted. They rushed to her.

I straightened my collar and maintained a proper smile.

“I merely wanted to demonstrate that if I’d pushed her, she wouldn’t just have twisted her ankle at the gate and fallen over in front of everyone. She’d have suffered internal injuries like these, coughed blood, and passed out.”

“Luckily, I only used thirty percent of my strength for this push. It isn’t a serious injury. Just like that little fall of hers in public, she’ll be out of bed in four or five days.”

Prince Ning, Meng Qingci, cradled Wen Tingxue, his face aghast.

“Wen Jingzhe! Where did you get the gall to hurt Tingxue?”

I had eaten plenty of snake gallbladders. From the snakes, perhaps?

Wen Qingxu pointed at my nose and exploded in curses.

“Were we wrong to confine you? You claim you’re not vicious, yet you could do this to Tingxue in front of everyone! Will nothing satisfy you until she’s dead?”

If that was what he wanted, I could force myself to oblige.

The marchioness collapsed beside Wen Tingxue and gathered her bloodied body into her arms, trembling like a leaf.

“My daughter! Wake up! It’s all my fault. I didn’t protect you. I’m useless! Wake up. As long as you’re well, what’s a length of figured satin? I’ll swallow my pride and ask Her Highness in the palace for one. Just wake up! Don’t tear your mother’s heart out!”

She wept as if both her parents had died.

But these were only minor injuries.

I had fallen from a cliff. Cold had seeped into my bones. If Master had not refined a powerful poison to fight poison with poison and suppress that cold, I would never have survived infancy.

But once one poison entered me, it took a hundred others to suppress it.

We had been so poor that we caught our own snakes and scorpions to keep me alive. Master’s ruined hands and blind eyes bore witness to that suffering.

We had climbed mountains, crossed rivers, even hauled bones from heaps of corpses to scrape a living. Which day of my life had been less wretched than hers?

Yet my closest blood kin had no interest in learning about my past.

The marquis suppressed his fury and glared at me darkly.

“Unfilial girl! Mad with jealousy, attacking others—your crimes are unforgivable. Today I’ll teach you a lesson with the rules and discipline of this house.”

“Bring the nine-chi whip!”

Everyone’s eyes widened.

Someone whispered, “It’s nine chi long and covered in barbs. One stroke tears away a great chunk of flesh and skin. It’ll flay her.”

“They use it to interrogate the worst state criminals. His Lordship means to use it on his own daughter?”

Wen Qingxu glared at me and gave a cold snort.

“Trying to murder her own sister. An unforgivable crime. Even the nine-chi whip is too good for her.”

The marchioness glanced at me indifferently, then turned away.

Prince Ning ground out through his teeth, “For maiming my future consort, she deserves death. Flog her!”

Silence fell. Everyone knew better than to speak again.

Their pitying gazes settled on me.

Faced with the family’s united outrage, I let out a breath and looked at Wen Qingxu.

“So you know perfectly well I’m your own blood sister, and you’d still rather turn right into wrong to protect an outsider?”

He sneered contemptuously.

“You spend your days hauling bodies out of corpse heaps. With blood and the stink of death all over your hands, you’re a vicious ghost reborn. Call you my sister? Just thinking of living under the same roof as you makes my skin crawl.”

I nodded in understanding and turned to the marchioness.

“I’m the daughter you carried for ten months. Even that counts for less than the false daughter you adopted?”

The marchioness paled and would not meet my eyes.

“Tingxue grew up at my knee for more than ten years. She drank tea and admired flowers with me, teased and played with me. Day and night, we were together. That closeness isn’t false.”

I understood. Finally, I breathed out and asked the marquis, “You caused what happened all those years ago. Now you speak neither of gratitude nor of guilt. Do you simply consider me already dead at the bottom of that cliff?”

His pupils jerked. He barked, “Obstinate creature! You still won’t admit your faults. You’re beyond saving!”

He took the nine-chi whip. It rattled, reflecting the chilling gleam in his eyes.

I remembered Master’s words. A thousand poisons in your flesh cannot compare with the treachery of a heart.

What did blood matter?

It counted for nothing beside an adopted daughter with a bright future who could bring glory to their name.

Or the marquis’s desperate eagerness to conceal his shame.

In that case, these people were no family of mine.

“Father, hit her hard!”

As Wen Qingxu spoke, the marquis’s whip came straight for my face.