Reborn As The Wicked Little Sister-in-Law - Chapter 9

Chapter 9: Repeated Defeats

In a single day, strange things happened one after another.

First, she bumped into her rival, Wei Chengyan, everywhere she went; now, she was being fed by that same rival.

Has Wei Chengyan lost her mind, or did she pick up the wrong script? Lü Guiyan racked her brain but couldn’t fathom why Wei Chengyan would do this.

Beside her, the maid Xiaotan asked, “Are you going to eat this food?”

Lü Guiyan looked down at the delicacies. Her stomach, quite ambitiously, let out a loud gurgle.

“I… I won’t eat it. What if she’s laced it with some slow-acting poison?”

Xiaotan nodded vigorously. “I agree. You can’t eat it.”

The stomach growled again.

“Can you find me something else to eat?”

She was truly starving.

Xiaotan looked troubled. “Little Mistress, you provoked the Heir at noon and the Marquis struck her. To show her authority as the ‘Lady’ of the household, Auntie Lan ordered that you be skipped for a meal. We aren’t allowed to give you anything.”

Hearing this, Lü Guiyan collapsed onto the couch, powerless. This long-forgotten sensation of hunger made her realize how cruel being human could be.

Xiaotan comforted her, “Ninth Mistress, just bear with it. Dinner is only an hour away.”

An hour. That was two hours in modern time. She was practically starving to death; she didn’t know if she could last that long.

Worst of all, the aroma of the food Wei Chengyan sent kept drifting into her nose, making the torture even worse. She lay there for a while, unable to take it anymore. She picked up the chopsticks to take a bite, only to be met by Xiaotan’s intense stare.

“Ninth Mistress, you can’t. If Auntie Lan finds out you ate the Heir’s food, what will she think?”

Lü Guiyan had forgotten that Xiaotan was Auntie Lan’s person. She would always think from Auntie Lan’s perspective, not Lü Guiyan’s predicament.

She dropped the chopsticks and slumped back onto the couch like a puddle of mud. She decided not to move to conserve energy while waiting for dinner.

“Xiaotan, take Wei Chengyan’s food out of here. The smell is driving me crazy.”

“Alright, I’ll go discard it quietly.”

Yanyan, this is a great chance to strike a blow to Wei Chengyan. She delivered herself to your door; don’t let it go to waste.

Hearing Qi Yun’s mental message, Lü Guiyan felt a bit helpless. Sorry, Wei Chengyan, we were never in the same boat to begin with.

“Xiaotan, don’t throw it away quietly. Do it with great fanfare. Make sure the people on Wei Chengyan’s side see it.”

“Understood!” Xiaotan efficiently packed everything up.

Alone in the tent, Lü Guiyan sighed and closed her eyes to nap. But before fifteen minutes had passed, Xiaotan came running back, clutching her face and sobbing, waking Lü Guiyan up.

“Ninth Mistress, the Fifth Mistress and the others bullied me!”

Lü Guiyan, half-asleep, asked raspy-voiced, “What did they do?”

It turned out that when Xiaotan went to dump the food, she intended to throw it outside Wei Chengyan’s tent. However, she ran into the Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Concubines. They were already in a foul mood and weren’t about to let someone from Auntie Lan and Lü Guiyan’s side go easily.

When they found out the food was from Wei Chengyan and that Xiaotan was throwing it away, they forced Xiaotan to eat it. At first, Xiaotan refused even under the threat of death, so the Fifth Mistress’s maid slapped her. Xiaotan was forced to eat the food through her tears.

After understanding the situation, Lü Guiyan didn’t plan to seek justice for Xiaotan. Instead, she wanted to win over the Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Concubines.

These three were self-important and stuck together because their IQs were equally matched; the other concubines looked down on them. If she could pull them to her side and use them to annoy Wei Chengyan, it would be perfect.

Lü Guiyan quickly made up her mind. “Xiaotan, do you know what those three like?”

“They like a lot of things. Money, bracelets, silk… things like that.”

Right, Lü Guiyan understood. They liked “stuff.”

“I mean, do they have a shared hobby?”

Xiaotan thought for a moment, then whispered, “They love playing Leaf Cards (Yezi Xi). But they’re terrible at it and have bad sportsmanship. They cheat or throw tantrums when they lose. Even the nannies in the manor won’t play with them.”

“Oh? Is that so?”

Now she knew how to reel them in.

Seeing Lü Guiyan’s confident look, Xiaotan cheered up. “Have you thought of a way to prank them?”

“Uh…”

“You’re so good to me! Even though I know you’re technically offending them for my sake, you’re my mistress—I’ll listen to whatever you say.”

Lü Guiyan didn’t have the heart to tell her the truth. This girl wouldn’t even find her a snack and was spying on her for Auntie Lan; she wasn’t about to go on a revenge mission just for Xiaotan. But if Xiaotan knew her true thoughts, she’d surely go tattle to Auntie Lan.

“Insulting you is insulting me. Don’t worry, I’ll make sure they lose so badly it’s embarrassing.”

Xiaotan was moved to tears. “You’re so good to me… I feel so bad that I told Auntie Lan about your secret savings before and got you punished. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s fine.” Anyway, it wasn’t the current ‘me’ who got punished.

“By the way, do you know how to play Leaf Cards?”

Lü Guiyan had always been a “model citizen”—she didn’t gamble or do drugs. Forget Leaf Cards, she didn’t even know how to play Fight the Landlord. She’d have to learn on the fly. However, she was confident her “superior intelligence” would help her pick it up quickly.

The mistress and servant played for nearly an hour. Lü Guiyan didn’t win a single time.

After dinner, she dragged Xiaotan to keep playing. She lost repeatedly. Finally, Xiaotan, wanting to sleep, intentionally let her win seven or eight times to end the long, boring lesson.

Because she won at the end, Lü Guiyan believed she had mastered the game and went to sleep happy.

The next day, fearing she’d run into Wei Chengyan again, she sent Xiaotan to invite the Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Concubines for a game. Xiaotan knew Lü Guiyan’s skills were abysmal, but seeing her so excited, she couldn’t bring herself to say she had let her win.

“Ninth Mistress, maybe you should practice more before playing with outsiders?” Embarrassing yourself in front of your own people is one thing, but don’t do it in front of them.

Lü Guiyan, brimming with confidence, missed the point. She waved her hand. “Don’t worry. I’ll take it easy on them. I won’t let them lose too much face—after all, we’re family.”

Xiaotan regretted letting her win the night before. “Actually, I…”

“I know you’re worried they’ll be upset if I win too much. I’ve got this. Go invite them before they head out to look at flowers.”

Unable to stop her, Xiaotan could only pray the three concubines were as bad as Lü Guiyan.

Xiaotan nervously explained the invitation. As soon as the three heard “Leaf Cards,” they forgot everything else and happily came over.

Outside, the grass was growing and birds were flying; the flowers were in bloom. Inside a small, inconspicuous tent in the northern suburbs, Lü Guiyan was a bundle of nerves, sitting as if on a bed of nails.

She tremblingly played a card and cautiously flipped the cards on the table.

Not a match. No points.

Then the Fifth Mistress played. A match. Points.

“I have the most points! Sister Nine, you have the least again!”

After a whole morning of playing, Lü Guiyan had lost all her belongings. Even her jade hairpin now belonged to someone else. Across from her, the three concubines were in high spirits.

“Want to keep playing?”

Lü Guiyan shook her head like a wooden chicken. Play what? I don’t even have any stakes left.

Feeling depressed, she locked herself in the tent and told everyone that no one was to enter except for meals.

When Wei Chengyan heard about Lü Guiyan’s morning record, she felt deeply satisfied.

“It seems the Ninth Mistress has agreed to cooperate with me.”

Her maid, Heyu, was confused. “How can you tell?”

“Yesterday, she returned the empty dishes to my tent. She knows those three are in my camp, so she intentionally lost money to them. This series of actions is her hint to me: she no longer wants to be controlled by her cousin and wants to defect to my side.”

Heyu shook her head. “This servant doesn’t think so. I think she’s using a scheme to sow discord.”