Miss Wu said nothing. She simply held Su Ninglan’s arm with both hands and pulled Su Ninglan out of the quarters before she said softly to her, “Don’t you find Wan Xia’s quarters particularly cold?”

Su Ninglan was at a loss, but she reached her head out and briefly checked out the quarters.

“Perhaps the lighting in the quarters is bad.”

Su Ninglan’s response was simply unconstructive, but Miss Wu didn’t say it out loud. Instead, she pointed at the doors and reminded Su Ninglan, “Look at it again. Are her quarters the same as yours? Is it located in the north and faces the south? Is light able to get into the quarters easily?”

Su Ninglan looked in the direction Miss Wu was pointing. Sure enough, Wan Xia’s quarters resembled hers.

This was strange. Su Ninglan recalled that her room had a lot of light. Even on rainy days, there was far more light compared to Wan Xia’s quarters.

Miss Wu noticed that Su Ninglan had caught on to something, so she said profoundly as she pointed at Wan Xia’s quarters, “Ninglan, do you notice something wrong now?”

Su Ninglan inexplicably found the atmosphere eerie, but she could not put her finger on it.

She did not want to keep thinking about it, so she pulled Miss Wu and quickly left.

“Her quarters simply has bad lighting. What could be possibly wrong with it? Let’s go!”

Su Ninglan did not want to get nosy. Also, Xiao Qin had just passed away yesterday. Perhaps that was the reason Wan Xia’s quarters felt particularly cold…

Despite this, Su Ninglan kept her thoughts to herself.

Miss Wu looked at Su Ninglan. Since Su Ninglan didn’t want to talk about it, Miss Wu swallowed the words at the tip of her tongue and went quiet.

Judging from Su Ninglan’s reaction and her temperament, she was destined to have little success in life.

Miss Wu thought about Wan Xia and felt she was much smarter than Su Ninglan. The lion cat adored her and she was also popular with the maids and servants.

Even though these seemed like minor irrelevant details, they were crucial.

The lion cat was Chu Yunshen’s cat. If Wan Xia could make the cat happy, it was as good as making Chu Yunshen happy. As for the maids and servants, they served as her intelligence network and could help her at the snap of her finger.

She was certainly a scheming woman!

Miss Wu had to admit that Wan Xia was an intelligent woman. She thought about Wan Xia’s sprained ankle with a profound knowing look on her face.

She was the only person who knew Wan Xia did not sprain her ankle!

Fortunately, Miss Wu had never shown her medical skills in front of Wan Xia. Otherwise, Wan Xia might have attempted to get rid of Miss Wu so that things could go as planned for her.

Wan Xia’s ankle was perfectly fine, but she pretended to be hurt for the sake of gaining pity.

Wan Xia was undoubtedly a cunning woman!

Miss Wu ambiguously glanced at Wan Xia’s chilly quarters one last time before hurriedly leaving and following behind Su Ninglan until they were out of sight.

“Qingqing, did you hear what they said?”

After Su Ninglan and Miss Wu had gone afar, a few other silhouettes appeared from the quarters. It was none other than Wang Qingqing, Li Hongxiu, and the other ladies.

“Didn’t you hear it loud and clear? They were saying that Wan Xia’s quarters has a lot of Yin energy.”

Even though Wang Qingqing despised Li Hongxiu for asking the obvious, she explained huffily, “All of us come from average families, some of us are even slightly worse off than average. Su Ninglan and Wan Xia are different. One of them is a county princess while the other is imperial consort Su’s distant cousin, so neither of them is an easy target.”

Li Hongxiu seemed to be pondering deeply about their statuses. She wanted to figure out whose status was the highest. Wang Qingqing interrupted her thoughts, “His Highness cannot afford to make things look bad for them because of their statuses, so the two of them get to use the best.”

The moment Li Hongxiu heard this, she was enlightened. She thought about the posh decoration inside Wan Xia’s quarters and Su Ninglan’s stunning clothing and instantly felt jealous of them.

More importantly, she hated Wang Qingqing for openly telling her they were poles apart from Wan Xia and Su Ninglan.

If Wang Qingqing didn’t bring this up, Li Hongxiu could continue turning a blind eye to this. Now that Li Hongxiu had heard it with her own ears, it was impossible for things to ever go back to normal. She was already blazing with jealousy inside.

However, Li Hongxiu had to act calm, so she contemplated before she pretended to ask Wang Qingqing humbly.

“What do you mean, Qingqing?”

“In my opinion, there must be something dirty in these quarters. Otherwise, the atmosphere in there wouldn’t feel so strange,” said Wang Qingqing as she frowned and pointed at the quarters behind her and covered her nose in disdain.

“Qingqing, you should mind your words. His Highness won’t be happy if he catches wind of it.”

Li Hongxiu acted meek and concerned as she pretentiously told Wang Qingqing to watch her tongue. However, an imperceptible evil smile appeared on her face.

“What’s there to be afraid of? His Highness didn’t check on her after what happened yesterday. It is clear that he doesn’t favor her. That makes her no different from us.”

Wang Qingqing got triggered easily whenever she was challenged. The moment she heard what Li Hongxiu said, the louder Wang Qingqing spoke. She didn’t care that she was still at the entrance and Wan Xia might hear it from inside her quarters.

Li Hongxiu was hoping for Wang Qingqing to be even louder. If Wan Xia could hear it from inside and come out angrily, it would be even better. Li Hongxiu could get to enjoy some good drama when the time came. After all, Chu Yunshen did not like the women in his residence to make trouble.

“Qingqing, stop it. Wan Xia can now freely enter His Highness’ quarters, so things are different for her.”

Li Hongxiu pretentiously continued to help Wang Qingqing calm down, but she was ambiguously reminding Wang Qingqing that Wan Xia’s status had changed.

“She is just the lion cat’s maid, so she is no different than a servant. Didn’t she even bow to Butler Liu previously?”

Wang Qingqing spoke even more audaciously. She knew the people inside must have heard her by now, considering the commotion, but she did not care.

Since Wan Xia had a meek personality, she was under Wang Qingqing’s control. If Wan Xia had genuinely gained Chu Yunshen’s favor, she would not have obediently sent her chicken soup to him previously.

Li Hongxiu cursed Wang Qingqing for being an idiot in her heart as she anxiously waited for Wan Xia to show up.

Did she not hear them? That was impossible.

Li Hongxiu and Wang Qingqing had been standing outside Wan Xia’s quarters for some time and did not deliberately keep their voices down. Even if Wan Xia didn’t understand what they were talking about at first, she ought to have exploded by now.

Li Hongxiu kept waiting for Wan Xia to come out and say something, but nothing happened. Since this wasn’t working out, she decided to ask Wang Qingqing about the superstitious bullshit she was saying.

“Qingqing, what did you mean when you said there was something dirty in the quarters?”

Wang Qingqing was happily halfway through ridiculing Wan Xia when Li Hongxiu suddenly interrupted her, so she was forced to stop. Since Wang Qingqing did not have enough of scolding Wan Xia, she felt so pent up that she had trouble gathering her thoughts.

After Wang Qingqing had finally suppressed her anger, she gathered her thoughts and recalled what she said earlier.

“Don’t you know about this even?”

Li Hongxiu straightened her hairpin as she spoke to Li Hongxiu nonchalantly.

Li Hongxiu looked at Wang Qingqing innocently. From the looks of it, she had no opinion.

Wang Qingqing didn’t catch on to Li Hongxiu’s attitude, and simply retreated slightly and walked into the sun before she said, “Every time we visit for quarters, we go back sick. I merely stayed a few minutes longer the last time I was here, but I was bedridden for a few days when I got back to my room.”

Now that Wang Qingqing had brought this up to Li Hongxiu, all the other ladies felt the same way. Each time they went to Wan Xia’s quarters, they would suffer from backaches and colds. Sometimes, they were completely bedridden when things got serious.

Li Hongxiu had previously felt suspicious about this as well. However, she did not connect the dots and realize she was sick because Wan Xia’s quarters were haunted. There was no such thing as ghosts. It was all in their heads.

Li Hongxiu sneered and laughed, “I agree. What does this have to do with something dirty?”

Wang Qingqing glared at Li Hongxiu huffily and gave Li Hongxiu a light shove.

“Are you an idiot? Don’t you get it? I suspect this place is haunted. Otherwise, why would the atmosphere be so strange? Why would we end up falling sick every time we visit?”

For some reason, Li Hongxiu felt goosebumps on her body when she heard Wang Qingqing say this. Li Hongxiu suddenly felt inexplicably cold standing there and even trembled.

She reached her hands out to rub her arms as she hurriedly went close to Wang Qingqing.

The moment Wang Qingqing saw how afraid Li Hongxiu was, she wanted to scare her. She went close to Li Hongxiu and blew on her neck before she said spookily, “I suspect Xiao Qin was possessed by ghosts… When she first got here, only her head got grazed. Why did she fail to recover and keep getting worse? Yesterday, she jumped into the lake altogether… Why would she have done it if she wasn’t possessed?”

Li Hongxiu thought about Xiao Qin jumping into the lake like a lunatic and got so scared when Wang Qingqing blew on her neck that she screamed as she took off.

“Hahahahaha…!”

Wang Qingqing stood where she was and belted out laughing. She didn’t expect Li Hongxiu to be such a coward and would run off after she scared Li Hongxiu.

A cold eerie wind blew Wang Qingqing from behind on her head faintly as though someone was blowing on her making her feel tickled.

“Stop messing with me!”

Wang Qingqing thought it was some other lady, but she turned her head and noticed there was no one else around her. She was the only person standing in front of Wan Xia’s tightly closed doors.

The other women had unknowingly left leaving only Wang Qingqing behind.

Could it really be…?

No way!

Wang Qingqing did not want to scare herself or fall for the nonsense about ghosts that she had just told Li Hongxiu.

Then again, she heard that people had yet to recover Xiao Qin’s corpse. Even though the lake was rather small and so many people were helping, it was impossible to find her body.

The damp spooky wind blew from behind and Wang Qingqing could feel it behind her head. Wang Qingqing was no longer able to stay calm. She ran off on the stone-paved path as though she had seen a ghost and her life depended on it.

Xiao Yue and Wan Xia stood inside the quarters at the corner of the wall secretly listening to them.

Even after Wang Qingqing had gone afar and no sound could be heard outside, Xiao Yue and Wan Xia stood where they were without budging.

“Don’t go. Don’t go…”