The Second Young Madam was dumbfounded. “It, it could also be one that circulated out from before…”
By this point, she had actually started to catch on. When Kui Ya had first appeared, her mother had introduced her as a distant relative of the family. She had even pressed for details. Their family was a typical upstart household, with most relatives concentrated in their small hometown city. She had never heard of any family there having a daughter like this.
Her mother had hemmed and hawed back then, unable to give a straight answer, and told her not to ask too many questions. The Second Young Madam had thought there was some inside story and hadn’t dared to pry further. Now that she thought about it, her parents’ and brother-in-law’s attitudes had indeed been very suspicious…
The Second Young Madam suddenly turned to her husband, her eyes widening. “Oh no, The Drug—”
“What medicine?” Zheng Wenbin was clueless, but his wife’s panicked demeanor still startled him, giving him a bad premonition.
Chu Yi quickly caught on. “So it was you who gave my Qi-Supplementing Pill to her. No wonder the curse’s backlash happened so quickly.”
It was like adding oil to a blazing fire. His medicine was meant to replenish qi and blood in the first place—once it encountered snake blood, how could it not flare up even faster?
The Second Young Madam looked at her husband’s ashen face. Forgetting her fear, she rushed forward and grabbed Kui Ya. “Weren’t you supposed to take the medicine for testing? Why did you eat it? That was for Master to give to Wenbin. You—you spit it out!”
She truly seemed to have a bit of that single-minded personality. The Eldest Young Madam had been so frightened by Kui Ya’s appearance that she hid far away. The Second Young Madam had clearly been scared too, yet now, for her husband’s sake, she dared to step forward and throttle Kui Ya’s neck.
Zheng Wenbin felt both anxious and touched. He had been harboring a bit of resentment toward his wife earlier, wondering if it had been right to marry such a pretty but brainless fool regardless of everything. But seeing her now desperately fighting for him, that small grievance in his heart vanished.
“Xianxian, don’t touch her—be careful of getting infected!”
Zheng Wenbin wanted to help, but he was so weak he could barely stand. If not for the quick-eyed servant beside him steadying him, he probably would have fallen.
Of course, Kui Ya couldn’t spit out the medicine. After the Second Young Madam was pulled away, one moment she was clawing and kicking at Kui Ya like a wildcat, and the next she threw herself into her husband’s arms, bursting into loud sobs. “Wah, Wenbin, what are we going to do? I’ve doomed you! If you can’t live, I don’t want to live either!”
Zheng Wenbin could only hold his wife and give a wry smile.
Old Zheng and Zheng Yongming exchanged a glance. It seemed their plan to kick out this grandson’s/daughter-in-law was off the table. Leaving aside whether Wenbin would agree, this grandson’s/daughter-in-law still had some redeeming qualities.
Of course, if she remained this muddleheaded after this and refused to cut ties with her greedy family of origin, they wouldn’t tolerate her either.
After the Second Young Madam’s outburst, everyone noticed that Kui Ya had changed again. She rapidly aged, her facial and arm skin losing elasticity, wrinkles sprouting everywhere, her hair turning white. She became a sixty-something-year-old woman.
And as she aged, the snake scales and vertical pupils on her body also vanished. Old Zheng had a hunch and immediately sent someone to check on the snakes. The person who returned reported that all the snakes had shed their Dragon Scales, curled up stiffly in heaps, and were on the verge of death.
With her hair disheveled by the Second Young Madam, Kui Ya sat on the ground like a madwoman. Unwillingly, she asked Chu Yi, “How did you figure it out? Just because of my age?”
After the afternoon disturbance, she hadn’t let down her guard entirely. She had simply been too confident in her clan’s curse—even the high monks of Nanyang couldn’t break it. How could she have known that Chu Yi had transferred the curse in such a short time!
She had risked activating the altar precisely to use the Zheng family’s worsening condition as an excuse to drive Chu Yi away, because she had sensed a threat from this young man.
Chu Yi curled his lips. “Of course. A cute little miss would usually blush and feel shy upon seeing such a handsome young man like me, not jump out to question me like you did.”
Kui Ya: “…” Wasn’t this kid a bit too confident? Did he think he was some heartthrob?
She admitted her mindset had aged, and with her vast experience, she no longer had the youthful inclination to admire handsome men. But that was no reason for him to be so shameless!
Kui Ya rallied her spirits. “Have you been to the Bannai Clan, or met Bannai Clan women?”
“Neither. I once encountered a man cursed to the point of family ruin. He devoted his life’s efforts to creating this Curse Transfer Method.” That was another tragic tale. In summary, the man had once had both parents alive, a virtuous wife, and young children around his knees. Unfortunately, he couldn’t resist the temptation of a foreign woman and ultimately lost everything he had.
Zheng Yongzhou’s expression grew even stranger upon hearing this—more so than when he had seen Kui Ya’s true face.
“Bro, bro, what’s wrong with you?” Zheng Yongqi wailed with a mournful face, thinking his brother had been scared senseless.
