After transmigrating into the book, I helped my mother reconcile with her divorced husband.

Chapter 064 Portrait of the Secret Room

On the night of the Mid-Autumn Festival, Madam Ruan took the key and prepared to leave, but accidentally triggered a hidden mechanism in the steward's room. Out of curiosity about what Steward Lu had hidden in the room, Madam Ruan sneaked into the room.

She had barely entered, and before she could even look around, the door to the secret room opened again. In a panic, she hid in a corner. The secret room contained only a single, ever-burning lamp, its flame barely the size of a mung bean, insufficient to illuminate the entire space. Holding a dagger, Ruan Shi held her breath, observing the man's every move.

I thought it was the manager who came in, but it turned out to be the deputy manager.

He carried a bottle of liquor, reeking of alcohol, and staggered around the secret room before stopping in front of a painting. He first looked at the painting through his blurry, drunken eyes, then traced its outline with his fingertips, and finally stood on tiptoe and lightly kissed it.

Ruan was curious and subconsciously connected the woman in the portrait with Xu Lan, the steward's wife, and thought that the deputy steward was lusting after the steward's woman.

She felt this was a weakness she could exploit.

After the deputy steward left, she took down the painting hanging on the wall, intending to keep it as a backup plan. Little did she know, the deputy steward had already discovered her whereabouts and was lying in ambush outside the secret room. During the struggle, the painting in her hand was knocked to the ground, and she took the opportunity to snatch an ornament hanging from the deputy steward's body.

Madam Ruan looked into Xie Chaoyun's eyes: "Does Madam know who is depicted in that portrait?"

Xie Chaoyun frowned: "Isn't she Madam Xu, the manager's wife?"

Ruan shook her head, stretched out her hand, and traced Xie Chaoyun's features: "The portrait shows you dressed in the clothing of the Southern Chu people."

Xie Chaoyun was stunned: "Me? Wearing the clothes of the Southern Chu people?"

Ruan lowered her hand: "I know this is hard to believe! To be honest, at that time I did not know that you were the lady. I only felt that the woman in the portrait was somewhat similar to my savior, but in my memory you were wearing the armor of the Northern Liang people. The Northern Liang and the Southern Chu have been enemies for generations. A woman who can be a female general in the Northern Liang would never be a Southern Chu person, let alone a Southern Chu spy."

Xie Chaoyun lowered his head and thought for a while: "The person you're talking about is the deputy steward, Lu Yong? The secret room you mentioned is in the steward's room."

"You don't believe me, Madam? It's only natural that you don't." Madam Ruan smiled frankly. "I will only tell you what I know! As the owner of the estate, you should know that the room for the Lu family steward is not fixed. Each steward and deputy steward can choose freely on the estate. The room that the steward lives in originally belonged to the deputy steward."

Xie Chaoyun never interfered in these internal management matters, especially those concerning the Lu family's estate. She was only curious about the connection between this incident and Steward Lu's supposed resurrection.

"Does Madam still remember the ornament I snatched from the deputy steward?" Madam Ruan pulled something out of her bosom: "This is it. It's the ear cartilage of an animal that only exists in Southern Chu, and only the nobles of Southern Chu raise them. The nobles of Southern Chu like to take the ear cartilage of this animal when their child is one month old and make it into an ornament to hang on the child to help ward off evil spirits and bad luck."

"You mean... Lu Yong is from Southern Chu?"

Ruan did not answer, but played with the ear cartilage: "I only know that this thing is very important to him, and may become my life-saving charm."

Ruan's mission was to get close to Steward Lu and obtain the key to the Lu family's granary from him. After completing the mission, according to orders, she might continue to infiltrate the Lu family, might be sent to the capital, or might be eliminated by the organization as a useless pawn.

Regardless of the method, possessing the secrets related to Southern Chu held by the deputy steward will only bring benefits and no drawbacks.

Ruan smirked, "There's a saying in Northern Liang: the most dangerous place is the safest place. After thinking it over, the only safest place was to hide it back in that room. I found him dead when I was hiding things; his fingers were stiff. I was going to move to another place, but the deputy steward caught up with me. In a moment of panic, I could only hide this in his waistband. I figured that no matter what, the deputy steward wouldn't disturb a dead body; he still had to give Xu Lan and the Lu family an explanation."

Feeling embarrassed, Xie Chaoyun turned her face away.

Ruan touched her nose and raised her hand to swear: "I really didn't mean to. That thing must have fallen down accidentally when the coroner was examining the body. Xu Lan overlooked one thing: on the night the body came back to life, her husband, that old man, did not change his burial clothes. The burial clothes were changed in the early morning of the next day, that is, after the coffin was moved into the house."

When Madam Ruan first came to the Lu family, she wanted to take away the life-saving item before the Lu family discovered it. However, Madam Xu stopped her, and she was unable to get close to the coffin.

As night fell, she visited again, dressed in black just as she had on her mission at the estate. To ensure the plan's success, she tampered with the tea the mourner drank and also caught a mouse in the rice bin in the kitchen, placing it in her small cloth bag.

"Did you put those rat droppings and millet that the coroner found there?"

"It was an accident, purely an accident," Madam Ruan explained. "When I was tampering with the tea, I heard a noise. Following the noise, I discovered the mouse in the rice jar. My plan when catching the mouse was simple: if I was discovered, I would release the mouse and take advantage of the chaos to catch some fish."

Madam Ruan sighed and said that the first half of the plan had gone smoothly. Just as she was getting her things and preparing to leave, someone arrived, and it was heading straight for the mourning hall. In her haste, she pulled Steward Lu, who was lying in the coffin, up so that he was sitting up as others would have seen him.

The candlelight was dim, and she was dressed in night clothes, so the maid who had screamed only saw Steward Lu sitting in the coffin and didn't notice her. To cover up the truth, she put a rat in the coffin and slipped away in the chaos. Perhaps the screams in the courtyard startled the rat, or perhaps the smell of the corpse was familiar to it, it actually tore through Steward Lu's clothes and crawled inside.

The rat droppings and millet must have been left from that time, and as for the little rat, it must have escaped from the coffin after the chaos.

After Ruan finished speaking, the carriage arrived outside the estate.

Lu Yong's urgent voice came with the sound of horses' hooves: "Madam, Madam, something terrible has happened! The Marquis has been captured by those thieves!"

Ruan grabbed Xie Chaoyun's arm and shook her head: "He's lying to you. Our people have already left Linxian and headed to the capital."

The curtain was lifted, and moonlight shone into Xie Chaoyun's eyes. She saw the injured arm that Lu Yong had been covering.

His right arm was wounded, and blood soaked his entire sleeve. His face was pale, and his lips were blue, clearly showing signs of excessive blood loss. Ruan Shi pressed down on his hand, took out some wound medicine she carried, and handed it to Lu Yong: "Stop the bleeding first. Speak slowly. Do you recognize the bandits who kidnapped the Marquis? Since they released you, they must have some demands. Do you know what they want?"

"Randomization!" Lu Yong gritted his teeth. "They want 30,000 taels of silver, and they want Madam to deliver the silver notes to their designated place."

"Where?"

"Luoxia Mountain".

Lu Yong pulled out a piece of paper with three crumpled words on it.