He Also Transmigrated on the Wedding Night - Chapter 7
Chapter 7
Madam Pei withdrew her hand.
Too late.
Wax clung to her fingertips.
A bit of red wax.
The same color as what had been lodged under Ah Lu’s nails.
She saw it.
So did I.
Lu Wenzhou gave a small laugh.
“You were still too impatient.”
Madam Pei stared at him.
In that moment, she finally no longer looked like a mother.
She looked like a hunter whose wrist had been caught in the jaws of her prey.
“Du’er.”
Her voice was very soft.
“You were clever from the time you were little.”
“But clever people die the easiest.”
Lu Wenzhou said, “That is why I got married.”
“Husband and wife share one fate.”
“If I die, she won’t have an easy time living.”
“If she lives, then I still have a witness.”
Madam Pei sneered.
“Do you truly think the authorities will believe a new bride who murdered her husband and a poisoned man on the verge of death?”
I said, “The authorities don’t believe people.”
“They believe evidence.”
The moment those words left my mouth, I suddenly thought of the archives in the real world.
Lu Wenzhou had once said the same thing to me.
He said, Jiang Nanxing, emotions don’t win trials.
I said, Then you’ll let the rules win until no one dares to speak.
Now I finally understood. The most terrifying thing was not the rules.
It was someone writing an entire set of rules for you in advance.
So that no matter how you struggled, you could only become what they wanted you to be.
I walked over to the red wedding candle.
Madam Pei tried to stop me.
Lu Wenzhou coughed.
“Mother.”
“If you move again, it won’t look like you’re worried about your son anymore.”
Madam Pei froze.
I felt around the base of the red candle.
The base was scorching hot.
That was how Ah Lu had burned her palm.
Gritting my teeth, I wrapped my sleeve around it and twisted downward.
It did not move.
There was a hidden clasp beneath the base.
I could not see it.
Ah Lu could not see it either.
That was why she had tried to dig at it with her nails, breaking two of them and burning her palm in the process.
Madam Pei’s expression finally changed.
Lu Wenzhou looked at her.
“Mother.”
“This clasp can only be opened with the Contract-Seal Ring, can’t it?”
The room fell silent.
On the thumb of her right hand, she wore an ink-jade ring.
The face of the ring was carved with the character Pei.
The same as the half-character left in the wax mark on the knife handle.
The constables had already entered the courtyard.
They had come at just the right time.
Lu Wenzhou exhaled.
“Please watch carefully, officers.”
“Let us see who can open this lamp.”
Madam Pei did not move.
But the steward dropped to his knees first.
“Madam.”
His voice trembled.
“You cannot let them open it.”
The constables stopped in their tracks.
Madam Pei looked as if she wanted to flay the steward alive with her eyes.
I reached out to take the ring from her thumb.
She suddenly seized my wrist.
My sleeve slipped open.
A corner of the Heart-Linked Lock was exposed.
Madam Pei’s gaze pinned itself to it.
Colder than when she had seen the Red Deed.
She recognized this lock.
The thought flashed through my mind, and a chill ran down my spine.
“Shen Lingyi,” she said in a low voice.
“You dare.”
“I dare.”
I looked at her.
“Because I am not Shen Lingyi.”
Her pupils contracted.
Lu Wenzhou suddenly said, “Officers.”
“She recognized it.”
“That is enough.”
The constables stepped forward and held down Madam Pei’s hand.
The ink-jade ring was removed and fitted into the bottom of the candle base.
The base loosened.
A roll of paper as thin as a cicada’s wing fell out.
Red paper.
A string of names was written on it.
Not dowries.
Not land deeds.
Women’s names.
After every name was a marriage.
Whom they married.
How much farmland they brought.
In what year they died.
How their reputations were ruined.
Elopement.
Madness.
Adultery.
Throwing themselves into a well.
I held that roll of Red Deed, my fingers turning cold.
So this was not only about the Pei Mansion.
Nor was it about Shen Lingyi alone.
This was a ledger that had written human lives into marriage contracts.
The last line had not yet fully dried.
Shen Lingyi.
Married to Pei Du.
Three hundred mu of land deeds to be transferred into the Pei clan.
If she refuses, charge her with murdering her husband.
If Pei Du obstructs the deed, eliminate him as well.
Beneath it was a red seal.
Pei Clan Contract Seal.
Exactly the same as the ring on Madam Pei’s thumb.
Madam Pei said in a low voice, “Take it back.”
The steward rushed forward.
But Lu Wenzhou propped himself up from the bed.
He grabbed the nuptial wine cup and smashed it at the steward’s feet.
The cup shattered.
A bitter smell spread out.
The steward instinctively stepped back.
I saw the sole of his shoe step into the spilled wine.
The wine stained the bottom of his boot.
The color deepened.
Lu Wenzhou said, “Don’t move.”
“You know to avoid this poison.”
The steward’s face turned deathly pale.
Madam Pei laughed instead.
“So what if you have the Red Deed?”
“A new bride who murdered her husband, and a young master poisoned into raving nonsense.”
“When the authorities arrive, you will still be the first ones they arrest.”
She was right.
This was still not enough.
We were missing the final step.
Making her people try to snatch it back.
