The Devious First-Daughter (Web Novel)
chapter-247

After taking a sip of tea quietly, she nodded slightly and then put down the tea cup. Lanning stood behind her again.

After a while, Ning Xueyan suddenly stood up and was about to leave, as if she felt so boring. Ning Ziyan’s eyes rolled and immediately shouted in a loud voice, “Fifth Sister, are you going out for a walk? Wait for me for a moment!”

With that, she walked over to Ning Xueyan, and before Ning Xueyan could say anything, she had grabbed her by the hand. Ning Qingshan moved a little, as if she wanted to go following Ning Ziyan. However, after thinking it for a while, she gave up the idea.

“Eldest Sister, loose your hand. It hurts!” Ning Xueyan stopped walking and said to Ning Ziyan, who was grabbing her hand firmly, in a soft voice.

Ning Xueyan’s voice was not loud, but since the room was quiet, everyone’s attention was attracted by her.

Ning Ziyan’s hand trembled and she immediately let go of Ning Xueyan. Seeing that everyone was watching her, she explained awkwardly, “I just wanted to go for a walk with Fifth Sister. I was afraid that she might go without waiting for me, so I applied a little more strength when I held her hand. Fifth Sister, I am sorry I hurt your hand!”

She deliberately bowed to Ning Xueyan, showing no panic on her face. It would make people think that Ning Xueyan was making a fuss.

“It doesn’t matter. Eldest Sister, why are you in such a hurry to go out? Are you going to handle something?” Ning Xueyan shifted the topic with a smile and shook her hand slightly. Ao Mingwan immediately saw a red mark on Ning Xueyan’s fair wrist from where he was. After grabbing her hand for such a short moment, Ning Ziyan had made her wrist red, so obviously, Ning Ziyan had applied much strength to pinch her.

“Fifth Young Lady’s hand is so red. Eldest Young Lady, it seems you are not going to take a walk with her, but fight her!” Ao Mingwan smiled at Ning Ziyan and spoke for Ning Xueyan.

Hearing that, everyone shifted their gaze to Ning Xueyan’s hand as she was trying to hide it behind her back. The hand had been in Ning Xueyan’s sleeve just now, but she had shaken it slightly and caused a part of her sleeve rolling us and exposed her wrist in front of people. Now everyone saw the red mark on it. “Eldest Young Lady must have applied great force to pinch her! The red mark does not seem to be left due to a casual grab!”

It reminded the two princes of the rumors. It was said that Fifth Young Lady was unfavored in the manor. She had been bullied by her sisters since her childhood and became very timid. She had been hiding herself at Bright Frost Garden for years, and had only recently begun to show up in public. Although they did not believe the rumors before, what was happening provided a piece of strong evidence for it. It seemed that the rumors were real!

Ning Ziyan had not thought that what she had deliberately done did not catch anyone’s eye, but drew everyone’s attention to the red mark on Ning Xueyan’s wrist instead. She began to panic.

Of course she had pinched Ning Xueyan on purpose. Both Third Prince and Fourth Prince were present, she did not believe that Ning Xueyan would be so shameless to roll her sleeve to check her injury in front of the two princes. She had thought that without evidence, Ning Xueyan could not blame her and would give a cry of pain at most. And if she behaved at ease, nobody would think that she had really hurt Ning Xueyan’s wrist.

“Sorry! Sorry, Fifth Sister! I was in a hurry and injured your wrist by accident. Fifth Sister, go with me and apply some medicine to your wound!” Ning Ziyan really wanted to slap Ning Xueyan in the face, but she knew that she should not let the others get the goods on her, so she squeezed out a smile.

“Don’t bother. Eldest Sister, it is not serious and will recover soon.” Ning Xueyan waved her hand with a smile, as if she did not care about it at all. However, plus her pale face, it made everyone feel that she was holding back great pain.

“Fifth Young Lady, your hand was injured badly. Do you want the imperial physician to check it for you?” Ao Mingwan did not want to waste such an opportunity to court his beloved woman. He was not in the mood for the go game anymore and threw all the pieces into the go basket. Then he walked over to Ning Xueyan.

“It’s unnecessary! I’m okay! Fourth Prince, thank you!” Ning Xueyan waved her hand and said naturally, “I have some medicines for traumatic injuries and I’m going back to Bright Frost Garden to apply it to my wound.”

“Those medicines were not prescribed by the physician attending to such injuries, so you should be careful before using them. I will ask the imperial physician to come!” Ao Mingwan said, trying to persuade her.

Ning Xueyan took a step backward, as if she was scared by Ao Mingwan’s enthusiasm. “Don’t bother, Fourth Prince! Those medicines are very effective. I used them before and a few days after applying some of them, my wound would have recovered,” she said, waving her hand.

It was abnormal that a noble Young Lady had prepared such medicines in her room, and it was even stranger that she had used them before. Since Eldest Young Lady, who had always been gentle, had injured her ‘by accident’ so easily, it was normal that Fifth Young Lady had prepared some medicines for injury at Bright Frost Garden!

Not only Ao Mingwan turned his head and shot Ning Ziyan a glare, even Ao Mingyu was also looking at Ning Ziyan coldly.

“Fifth Sister, I will go with you and help you with the medicine. Anyway, I should be blamed for your injury. I haven’t seen you for a long time, so I was so excited just now that I grabbed your hard in a hurry.” Under everyone’s gaze, Ning Ziyan only wanted to leave here as soon as possible. She turned to her husband, hoping he would help her out, but only found that he was looking at her with a complicated look. Since even her husband did not speak for her, Ning Ziyan became more flustered.

She had been pretending to be a gentle, graceful noble lady in front of Xia Yuhang, and the only time she had lost her temper to his face was because she had a conflict with Chen Hexiang at the Lord Protector’s Manor. However, that was a very special case. Besides, she had lost her baby because of this and made Xia Yuhang a little guilty for her.

But this time, everyone had clearly seen the pinch mark on Ning Xueyan’s wrist. A gentle noble lady and a wedded wife of a noble family would never do such a thing!

At this point, Ning Xueyan helped her out of her embarrassment. She reached out and held Ning Ziyan’s hand gently. “Okay. Eldest Sister, please accompany me to go back to Bright Frost Garden. We can just take a walk together by the way,” Ning Xueyan said in a soft voice.

“Okay! Okay! Let’s go to have your wound treated,” Ning Ziyan immediately answered. She then pulled Ning Xueyan outward, holding her hand. This time, she did not dare to apply too much strength to her hand anymore.

Ning Xueyan waved good-bye to everyone and turned to leave with Ning Ziyan.

Rolling her eyes with a frown, Ning Qingshan lifted her foot, as if she wanted to join them. However, after glancing at Third Prince beside her, she put her foot down. For her, the most important thing was to dispel Third Prince’s prejudice against her. She did not think that Ning Xueyan would stir any trouble for the moment. Ning Ziyan was eager to leave now, so she did not notice Ning Qingshan’s movements.

Ning Qingshan had no plan to frame Ning Xueyan today and she only wanted to create an opportunity to have Ning Xueyan and Xia Yudong meet privately so that Xia Yudong could impress Ning Xueyan more. Having Ning Ziyan around just made it less convenient for Xia Yudong to get in touch with Ning Xueyan. However, since Xia Yudong was so smart, he should know what he could say and what he could not. Anyway, Madam Ling had arranged for everything, so she was sure that nothing unexpected would happen.

Thinking about this, Ning Qingshan felt assured and gave up the idea to go with them.

Ning Xueyan and Ning Ziyan walked out Madam Dowager’s courtyard hand in hand, but as soon as they stepped out the courtyard, they let go of each other’s hands at the same time.

“Eldest Sister, you don’t have to go to my courtyard with me. After applying medicine to my wound, I will be back soon.” Ning Xueyan smiled slightly.

“That won’t do! After all, you got injured. Fifth Sister, if I am not there when you apply medicine to your wound, the others will think that I’m bullying you!” Ning Ziyan looked at Ning Xueyan from the corner of her eyes and said resentfully. If Ning Xueyan had not screamed just now, Third Prince and Fourth Prince would not have found that she was injured.

“Eldest Sister, so you are serious that you will go with me and watch me put the medicine on my wound?” The smile on Ning Xueyan’s lips turned to a sneer. She deliberately waved her injured wrist in front of Ning Ziyan and made Ning Ziyan more depressed.

“You were injured badly, weren’t you? Why are you still wasting time here?” Ning Ziyan strode a few steps forward, but soon, she stopped walking. “Okay! I won’t go to Bright Frost Garden. I will wait for you at the waterside pavilion in front of Bright Frost Garden. Let’s come back after you have your wound treated. Be quick!”

She did not want to help Ning Xueyan with the medicine at all. “That b*tch is so hypocritical! I just applied a little more strength on her wrist and pinched her slightly. How could she be injured badly and need to apply medicine to her wound? After all, I am the Eldest Young Lady of the Lord Protector’s Manor and the daughter of the Lord Protector’s wedded wife. How can I help Ning Xueyan, the b*tch, to treat her wound?”

“It won’t take long before my mother finds a way to deal with this little b*tch!” she thought.

Ning Ziyan felt that Madam Ling was too soft-hearted to Ning Xueyan. If she had the last word, she would let people spread rumors that the b*tch had an affair with someone and then throw her into the lotus pool. She was sure that her grandmother and father would not speak for the b*tch. Once, her second sister had bullied Ning Xueyan and almost caused her death, but nobody had blamed her for it.

After a while, she would meet her mother privately. She would advise her to get rid of Ning Xueyan in the same way they had killed Ning Ziying.

With this on her mind, she walked toward the courtyard between Lucky Garden and Bright Frost Garden alone before Ning Xueyan could answer.

Anyway, no outsiders would see that she did not accompany Ning Xueyan to treat her wound. Besides, people of the manor did not dare to offend her at all. Therefore, after Ning Xueyan had her wound treated, she would go with her back to Lucky Garden. “How does that b*tch deserve my service? She will be more unlucky if she dares to accept my help!”

She had walked for a short while with Ning Xueyan because she did not want anyone who came out from Lucky Garden to find out that she did not accompany with Ning Xueyan go back to her courtyard. They were walking on the way to Bright Frost Garden and there was only one place to rest on the way. Although normally, very few people would come to that courtyard, it was still be cleaned every day. It was a good place to rest.

Lord Protector’s Manor was very big. It was said that it used to be a previous dynasty’s prince’s residence. Ning Zu’an did not have many concubines and he had only a son. Although he had four daughters, there were still several courtyards being unoccupied. The servants cleaned the courtyards every day. If the female members of the family came, they could rest there. The courtyard Ning Ziyan was heading for was one of these courtyards.

Watching Ning Ziyan walking forward without talking to her, Ning Xueyan stopped walking. She narrowed her charming eyes with a sneer. She had been thinking about how to make Ning Ziyan come out with her just now, but to her surprise, she had offered to go with her. That was great! It just so happened that she spared herself some effort.

Thinking about her miserable death in her last life and what she had suffered in her current life, she could not hold back her anger anymore. The lewd woman robbed her fiancé and murdered her. She would definitely let the vicious couple pay the price!

A cold wind skimmed over her exposed eyes, but with a bloodthirsty look in them, her eyes became even colder than the wind. “Ning Ziyan, it’s your turn to swallow the bitterness in silence!”