At Cheng Residence,
The atmosphere was sombre and serious, to the extent that the servants around didn't even dare to breathe loudly, fear of being implicated for no reason written all over their faces.
The mistress of the residence also had a dark look on her face and dark clouds of gloom and rage hovered over the whole Cheng Residence, threatening to break any moment.
During the day when Cheng Li Juan was carried by her two maids in a hysterical and unrecognizable state, the whole mansion was drowned in an uproar.
Soon after their arrival, a servant rushed into the inner courtyard without any care, to inform madam Xu of this matter.
When madam Xu heard that her precious daughter was hurt badly, she immediately dashed into her daughter's courtyard while ordering the servants to call in a physician.
When madam Xu arrived outside her daughter's chamber in haste, she heard howls and shrieks of her daughter accompanied by noises of shattering of porcelains and servant's cries.
Feeling uneasy madam Xu rushed into the room without delay to witness the scene of Cheng Li Juan causing a ruckus.
With a crazed expression on her hideous, bloody face Cheng Li Juan kept throwing things around in her room that intentionally or unintentionally would hit her maids who were trying to stop her. She behaved like a mad, resentful spirit wracking havoc wherever she went.
Greeted by this scene madam Xu felt her world spin, as she took a deep breath to steady her emotions before rushing forward to stop her daughter.
She hugged her miserable daughter who looked mentally unstable and was still going berserk in her mother's embrace, inflicting many injuries on her mother in her unstable state.
However, Madam Xu who deeply dotted on her daughter didn't mind her injuries and instead let Cheng Li Juan do as she pleased while trying to coax her to stop her crying and screaming miserably.
After a while, Cheng Li Juan, who was coaxed softly seemed to have realized her actions were hurting her mother and stopped moving. Snuggled into Madam Xu's arms she sniffled occasionally appearing exceptionally fragile and pitiful. Haggard from hours of crying and screaming Cheng Li Juan felt her eyelids turn heavy and under her mother's coaxing, she slowly closed her eyes and drifted into sleep.
Not long after she fell asleep the royal physician arrived and checked her condition and declared that her condition wasn't that bad. With a month's rest and prescribed medicines, she would heal in no time.
However, regarding her face, the royal physician could only shake his head helplessly. There was no way he could think of that would help Cheng Li Juan recover her previous beautiful face, the only thing that could help her was a grade three beauty pill that was hard to come by.
Though it seemed a feasible solution as Cheng Li Juan's master was also a grade three alchemist, however, the herbs required for the pill were quite precious and rare, very difficult to obtain. And even if they managed to acquire some with the royal family's connections there was no guarantee that alchemist Kang would be able to produce the pill without failure and more than eighty per cent fusion rate. As a pill below eighty per cent fusion rate wouldn't have much effect on Cheng Li Juan's horrible-looking face that had its nose crooked at an angle.
Besides that, her broken nose wasn't the only thing that brought them horror. The two knocked teeth in the front of her mouth also brought the family an unavoidable headache, as it was impossible to fix them back to their original places.
Feeling extremely vexed at her daughter's condition madam Xu immediately interrogated the two maids of her daughter regarding this matter.
Under Madam Xu's fierce, angry gaze the maids recounted the incident at Countless Herb Hall. However, both maids tactfully avoided the matter of their mistress provoking the attendant of the herb hall and brought up Jiang Ying Yue's name again and again. Both maids went in circles, talking in a roundabout manner only placing all the blame on innocent Jiang Ying Yue in the end.
They knew it was their mistress who was being unreasonable and Jiang Ying Yue had nothing to do with this matter. She was just a random target that was picked by their mistress to vent her frustration.
But what did it have to do with them?
As long as they could keep away from punishment what was there to regret?
They knew better than anyone, once they opened their mouths about their mistress's actions at herb hall it would be them who would face the burn, it would be them who would be blamed and punished on behalf of their mistress. So, they chose to keep silent to escape punishment and diverted all attention to Jiang Ying Yue.
Upon hearing that her daughter's miserable state was Jiang Ying Yue's doing madam Cheng exploded into rage and ordered people to teach her a lesson that she would remember all her life, without giving a single thought that the girl who she thought was the one to hurt her precious daughter was a sick and defenceless girl whom they had been making fun of by calling her waste.
Let alone giving it a thought, even if Jiang Ying Yue wasn't the one who hurt her daughter madam Xu wouldn't care. Right now, all she had in her mind was to beat Jiang Ying Yue senseless to vent her anger and frustration.
To put it bluntly, madam Xu was just like her daughter, an unreasonable bully who liked to bully people on whims.
Unexpectedly, before long the rumours regarding this incident spread all over the capital at a tremendous speed as if they were some air-borne diseases, circulating throughout the Capital via air. And it was all thanks to the two maids Qiu and Niu, who not only worked themselves but also discreetly hired many idle rumour mongers who spread the news throughout the capital.
Soon, this news also reached the ears of the royals and officials. Now the whole Capital knew the Cheng family's only daughter acted like a hedonistic bully and offended people of the giant Countless Herb Hall, resulting in her being beaten up badly.
Cheng Li Juan's father, Cheng Ying who was accompanying the crown prince on some business hurriedly rushed over home when he got wind of the situation.
However, after hearing his wife's unending ranting and blaming he turned furious and he learned that madam Xu had sent people to cause trouble for Jiang Ying Yue, he reprimanded madam Xu harshly and scolded her for being mindless and ordered people to stop those who were on their way to cause trouble for general Jiang's daughter.
He also didn't forget to call back those who were ordered by madam Xu to intercept the people who witnessed the incident at herb hall to save her daughter from future embarrassment.
What was the use of it now, the matter had already spread far and wide in the capital? Acting now would only cause the matter to blow up further. It was better to retreat and wait for the situation to cool down.
"If you don't know what happened, then don't poke your nose in it and make this situation worse. Do you know what your precious daughter had done? She dared to offend the Countless Herb Hall and even implicated the royal family in it. Can you believe her guts? This all happened because of you, you are the one who taught her to act without qualms. You both are mindless. Now how should we handle this matter, if Countless Herb Hall decided to take action?" Minister Cheng scolded madam Xu in a single breath as his eyes oozed with anger.
Unlike mother and daughter minister Cheng was a very cunning and crafty person, besides his crafty mind, he also had a deep sense of appropriateness, he understood very well the rules of advance and retreat and this was how he managed to lift the status of Cheng residence and climb up in rank after rank in the royal court and had his current glory.
His eldest son who was three years older than Cheng Li Juan also resembled his father and didn't have a rash personality like his mother and sister.
"You both mother and daughter pair stay at home and reflect yourselves. You are not allowed to take a single step outside the residence and look for more trouble until this matter cools down." Minister Cheng declared with a solemn expression as he took a sip of his tea.
However, madam Xu refused to obey this and shouted back at her husband, "How can you speak me to me like this? Don't forget who my sister is. And before shouting at me have you seen our daughter? Her face is completely ruined and it is all because of that b*tch from Jiang's residence. As her father don't you feel anything for our daughter?"
Irked by her stubborn and stupid nature minister who had started to calm down after gulping down a few cups of tea also yelled back, "So, what do you want to do? Don't you know your daughter's reputation is in the mud now? And if you go and cause trouble for that Jiang girl whose father is now at the border leading a battle to defend this kingdom, what do you think people will think about us? Besides, did you forget that girl is a cripple? So, think about it how people will see us if we bully the miserable daughter of a general who is risking his life at the border to ensure their safety."
Taking a deep breath minster Cheng stood up to head outside not willing to waste any words on this idiot. He was obviously in a foul mood.
To be honest, he never liked madam Xu. He married her just because she was helpful to his career in court.
However, sometimes he regretted it a lot and had thought of taking in a few concubines, which man didn't like a docile coquettish woman who knows how to please men, unlike his wife who only tried to pressure him with the name of her elder sister, who was the current empress.
However, his thoughts were only allowed to be kept as thoughts as madam Xu was strictly against his idea of taking concubines. So his inner courtyard had only one mistress and that was madam Xu.
Walking up to the door Cheng Ying stopped in his track for one last time and turned his body to give a glaring warning to his stupid, impulsive wife once again, "I am warning you again, don't behave recklessly and cause more trouble, stay put and accompany our daughter at home. Tell Li'er not to worry about her face, I'll send my people to look for a beauty pill."
After saying what he wanted to say, Cheng Ying turned and left without bothering about Madam Xu's response.