Feng Minyan panicked slightly because things were getting out of control. In fact, when she saw that Fang Lianhua became a concubine and successfully retained Long Aotian's favour, she knew she had to take some desperate measures. She went and bribed one of the servants to bring a man for her to have sex with so that she could get pregnant. It wouldn't matter if the baby wasn't her husband's, as long as she was pregnant, she could successfully regain his attention from those wenches.
Long Aotian was fuming and Bai Lianhua saw a green patch on the top of his head. (A/N: Green signifies being cuckolded here). She didn't feel sorry for him though. The fact that he had to keep juggling different women would obviously cause friction and make people act in extreme ways. She felt some slight sympathy that was fleeting because it was Feng Minyan that caused Li Zhenzhen's death.
Long Aotian motioned for the servant to bring a stool and he sat on it, tired from standing. "I will investigate Wen Lili! For now, she will be confined to her courtyard and will not be let out on any occasion!" Wen Lili's eyes teared up and her nose started running. She cried in such an ugly way that people had to look away.
Yes, it was a woman's job to cry prettily. If you saw how Feng Minyan's tears ran down her cheeks like dew drops and her red-rimmed eyes, you would instantly feel pity and distress. But if you saw Wen Lili, you'd just feel disgusted.
At that moment, Long Aotian doubted the system's taste when he saw Wen Lili.
The servants dragged Wen Lili out of the room and her worried maids rushed behind her. They were worried only because they thought they'd chosen the wrong concubine to follow.
"What should l do now? My family is still waiting for my wages. Because of my mistress, those definitely won't get paid now!" A maid thought as she clenched her hands and followed.
Back in the room, the doctor was given taels in a small wooden box as payment. He was thanked Long Aotian, wrote down the prescription of medicines needed for Li Zhenzhen to recover and then left promptly. He had more patients to see.
Once the doctor had left, Long Aotian could now finally discuss the pregnancy issue. He slapped Feng Minyan so hard that she staggered to the side and had to be supported by her dowry maid. Bai Lianhua and all the other women looked and enjoyed the show - as long as it was not them being slapped, everything else was fine. Feng Minyan slowly brought up her hand to cover her swollen red cheek, shocked that Long Aotian would slap her so severely. She had confidence in her status - he really couldn't deal with her but she didn't want to lose his love.
She immediately grabbed his leg and begged: "Msang-gong, the baby is yours! Who else would be with me in my courtyard during those times but you? You can't treat me like this."
Long Aotian moved his leg away and flicked his robes in a villain-like manner. "Feng Minyan, do you think l am a fool? The baby is mine? Ok, wait for me, l will go and find an expert on this to verify. If the baby is mine, we can celebrate. But if it isn't, you better be prepared."
Bai Lianhua suppressed a yawn by biting her lips and kept on shifting between her legs because she'd also been standing for long. She wanted to leave because the whole matter was basically finished. Two women have been eliminated for the race and they did it themselves. All she did was be alive and be smart about their schemes.
'What is surprising is that Feng Minyan can be so smart yet so stupid? Why not just wait until Long Aotian makes her pregnant?' Bai Lianhua thought this not knowing that originally, Fang Lianhua was ignored when she first came into the mansion so everyone thought she wasn't a threat.
Bai Lianhua was also disappointed in Long Aotian's seemingly low IQ. He could have resolved the entire problem within minutes but had to take two hours.
Long Aotian noticed Bai Lianhua's distress and saw that she was tired so he decided to dismiss everyone. The system also came back with an answer to Bai Lianhua's earlier question: "The higher-ups have approved your suggestion to influence Long Aotian's favorability bar. As long as you think about it, you can manually add or decrease your favour to aid your task~" The system was so glad that he fought against the other systems in the line so that it could get a reply to the question early!
Bai Lianhua was grateful and seeing as Long Aotian was being less annoying, she decided to manually increase her favour to 15.
Long Aotian was excited and wanted to push through and claim Bai Lianhua's body. He knew that women had a special spot in their hearts for two types of men: their first loves and their first man. Either one would increase favorability.
"I will leave first. Fang Lianhua, I'll go to your courtyard!" Bai Lianhua rolled her eyes internally but still followed behind Long Aotian on the way to his courtyard.
After everyone left, Li Zhenzhen threw a very expensive vase on the wall and it shattered into pieces. This lightened the intense anger that she felt in her heart but she still couldn't help but want to kill Bai Lianhua and Feng Minyan. 'Why can't they just stay in their lowly place as concubines? Why does that wench Fang Lianhua steal my husband at this most important time?"
Little did she know that it was Long Aotian who left with her on his own initiative.
Such thinking would make Bai Lianhua wonder why women embarrass women all the time. Even in modern society, instead of blaming the cheating boyfriend, the woman always blames the mistress. Logically, if the boyfriend never approached the mistress or accepted the mistress' pursuit, there wouldn't be any cheating, right?
Li Zhenzhen pushed her pillow and revealed a piece of cold jade that reminded her of her brothers. They all warned her when she said she wanted to marry a poor scholar that things wouldn't go well and she was very headstrong about her decision.
Now that all this had happened, she couldn't help but feel regret.
Long Aotian on the other side saw Li Zhenzhen's favorability decreased and felt a crisis. That day, all the other concubine's favour decreased exponentially - especially Feng Minyan. Now, he really couldn't take care of Bai Lianhua seeing as her favorability was not as important as Li Zhenzhen's.
He hurriedly mumbled an apology and walked back to where they'd just come from.
Bai Lianhua's lips curled and she sneered silently but continued walking back to her courtyard with her servants.