Just like that, Su Yuexi led Sikong Jing into the courtyard...
By the time they reached the hall, Mei Xiaofang had already come out of her room, her face still clouded with gloom.
This time, she naturally noticed Sikong Jing. Pointing straight at him, she asked, "You're that criminal?"
Sikong Jing's expression darkened further. He hated the word "criminal," because Yan Tianmo and Yan Ruyu had pinned that charge on him. But remembering what Su Yuexi had told him, he held back and said, "Mother-in-law, I..."
"Stop. Don't call me mother-in-law. It disgusts me." Mei Xiaofang cut him off again.
Su Yuexi's expression shifted slightly. She reached out her slender hand and gripped Sikong Jing's tightly, as if timidly trying to comfort him.
Then Mei Xiaofang turned to Su Yuexi and ordered, "Kneel."
Su Yuexi trembled all over, her eyes reddening, but she still prepared to kneel... Then she realized that the thick hand she was holding had clamped around hers, refusing to let her kneel.
"I said, kneel!"
Mei Xiaofang hadn't noticed Sikong Jing's quiet intervention. She thought Su Yuexi was refusing to kneel and defying her.
Biting her lip, Su Yuexi wrenched her hand free and dropped to her knees with a thud.
"Someone, bring me a ruler."
At Mei Xiaofang's command, a servant brought one over.
Clutching it in her hand, she raged at Su Yuexi, "I'll beat you to death, you jinx! I'll beat you to death, you ugly thing! I'll beat you to death, you wretched girl who's going to kill your father!"
She swung the ruler hard at Su Yuexi, who instinctively squeezed her eyes shut.
Yet the pain never came.
Suddenly panicking, she opened her eyes and saw just what she'd expected: Sikong Jing had caught her mother's hand.
This was bad!
Now her mother would surely fly into an even greater rage.
"Si... Sikong Jing, let go of Mother's hand," Su Yuexi urged reflexively.
But Sikong Jing stood firm. At some point, his eyes had turned cold, and a fire was burning inside him.
"Criminal, how dare you stop me from disciplining my daughter?"
Mei Xiaofang exploded. Her eyes blazed with fury, and she gritted her teeth.
Sikong Jing closed his eyes briefly, trying to calm himself, but his gaze remained resolute. "I'm sorry, Yuexi. I can't hold back."
As he spoke, Sikong Jing fixed Mei Xiaofang with a tiger's stare and said, every word deliberate, "Yuexi is my wife first, and your daughter second. Did you ask me before trying to discipline her?"
They said a married daughter was like spilled water.
In the Great Shang Dynasty, once a daughter married, she belonged to another family.
So Su Yuexi was now Sikong Jing's woman.
Mei Xiaofang knew that too, but there wasn't the slightest trace of fear in her eyes. "She nearly got her father killed. I have every right to discipline her."
"Yuexi didn't ask Father-in-law to go to Pig Farm and bring her back."
Sikong Jing refuted her flatly. "Father-in-law brought Yuexi back from the Su Clan Enforcement Hall."
At that, Mei Xiaofang's fierce gaze suddenly froze. "The Enforcement Hall?"
He let go of Mei Xiaofang's hand, then turned to Su Yuexi and reached out to pull off her veil, revealing half her face—the side Aunt Dou had trampled. The blood on it had yet to dry completely.
Su Yuexi gasped and covered the face that could frighten the life out of anyone.
But Sikong Jing pulled her hand away. He feared no ugliness; he loved her heart.
Besides, he would soon reach the ninth level of the Bright Realm. By then, Su Yuexi would bloom with her brightest colors.
Then he took out the white handkerchief Su Yuexi had used to wipe his blood in the Pig Farm hut and gently wiped her face with it. "A shrew named Aunt Dou trampled her into the ground and did this."
Mei Xiaofang's expression changed slightly, and her gaze flickered. "What happened at the Enforcement Hall?"
"I cut that shrew down."
Sikong Jing spoke gravely, recounting what had happened. Then he stood and looked Mei Xiaofang straight in the eye.
"May I ask, Mother-in-law, where were you when that shrew was trampling Yuexi?"
"Where were you when Su Yun humiliated Yuexi? Where were you when Su Zhengtao was going to have Yuexi receive a hundred strokes?"
"If Father-in-law hadn't happened to go to Pig Farm to bring Yuexi back, you wouldn't need to throw a tantrum here. You could be collecting Yuexi's corpse instead!"
Sikong Jing's voice rang out, each forceful word hurled at Mei Xiaofang.
Mei Xiaofang's mouth hung open, but she couldn't utter a word. Her face turned pale, flushed red, then ashen.
Suddenly, unable to bear Sikong Jing's questioning, Mei Xiaofang snapped again, "And isn't this all because of you, criminal? If you hadn't cut down Aunt Dou, would Yuexi have been taken to the Enforcement Hall?"
Sikong Jing rose in anger. "If someone wants to pin a crime on you, they can always find a pretext! Do you think some servant would dare make up the story about stealing pigs?"
Mei Xiaofang's face stiffened again. Of course she knew this had to be Su Zhengtao's frame-up, all to anger Yuexi's father to death.
"A mother shouldn't find her own daughter ugly."
"But you call her a jinx one moment and an ugly thing the next. Is Yuexi even your own daughter?"
Sikong Jing pressed his advantage, closing in step by step.
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