After Dawn - Chapter 3

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When she saw Feng Yue and Xuan Yuan Chao coming back, Huo Qing Ran clearly lit up, having indescribable trust and reliance on this immortal brother, but after noticing that there was also a Xuan Yuan Chao behind her, she cowered for a moment in a spineless manner.

Feng Yue gestured to Xuan Yuan Chao to stop in front of the cell door and walked in himself.

“Shénxiān Gege.” Hearing her address, Xuan Yuan Chao, who was standing at the entrance of the cell, managed to blacken his entire face.

Feng Yue walked over and sat down again on his knees in front of her, gently combing her messy hair, and asked in a pretentious manner, “Qing Ran, do you still remember your concubine sister Huo Si Rong?”

The three words Huo Si Rong seemed like a curse, Qing Ran shrieked and broke away from Feng Yue’s hand, burying her head in her knees, and her whole body could be seen shivering.

Feng Yue and Xuan Yuan Chao glanced at each other, both of them did not expect Qing Ran to react like this, according to reason, the current Huo Qing Ran only had the memory of when she was eleven or twelve years old, that is, when she was still in the Prime Minister’s residence, Huo Si Rong, a concubine sister, in the Prime Minister’s residence, a family with many children, it was hard to say if she could remember, but they did not expect her to have a look of seeing a ghost.

Feng Yue placed her hand on her shoulder, intending to ask her what had happened, only to find that her shoulder was twitching, and she was actually crying.

“Qing Ran, what’s wrong?” Feng Yue asked, his voice seemed to carry a magical power that instantly calmed Qing Ran’s unease.

“Rong, Rong ……,” she choked out the name, “Rong is dead.”

Dead? How can that be! While Xuan Yuan Chao was the first to disbelieve, Feng Yue felt there was a ghost in there.

“When did Rong Rong die?”

“Six years ago.”

“How old were you when she died?”

”Six years old.”

Although Huo Si Rong and Huo Qing Ran were born in the same year, that is to say, the Huo Si Rong that Qing Ran spoke of was only six years old at the time of her death.

“Wha-” Qing Ran’s sudden outburst of emotion caught Feng Yue off guard, and her cries echoed throughout the cell, “Rong Rong, Rong Rong is sorry… …”

Feng Yue intuited that the crux of the matter was in this apology, and he hastily took the opportunity to ask after it, “Qing Ran, why did you say sorry to Rong Rong?”

He had once read about the God Control Technique in the collection of the Healing God Valley, and although he had not fully mastered it, it was still more than enough to guide a Qing Ran whose nerves were already on the verge of collapse.

“Rong Rong fell into the water, I couldn’t swim and by the time I called someone back to rescue her, Rong Rong had disappeared.”

Gone? How could a perfectly alright person disappear?

However, when she fell into the water at the age of six, Xuan Yuan had heard Huo Si Rong mention it. She said that she had been pushed into the lake by her first sister and Huo Si Rong had brought a group of family members to watch coldly but no one came to her rescue.

“Why did Rong Rong disappear?”

“Rong Rong is no more.” Qing Ran raised her head, her gaze vacant, tears rustling down her face, but her body was trembling uncontrollably, “I was standing on the edge of the lake and I didn’t see Rong Rong, there was only a strange woman in the lake.”

“She was dressed so strangely, like what Mother said about the prostitutes, showing her arms and thighs.”

”Shénxiān Gege, she’s a demon.” Qing Ran grabbed Feng Yue’s hand, “She swam herself out of the lake, and they called her Second Young Miss.”

“Obviously Rong Rong is the Second Young Miss.”

“Who is that woman with the right to take the place of my Rong Rong.”

“Were they all blind?”

Qing Ran was crying, at first in fear of that strange woman, but later in hatred for her, for having taken the place of Huo Si Rong, for having killed Huo Si Rong’s own mother, Aunt Ruo, in the Prime Minister’s residence.

Xuan Yuan Chao was listening with chills running down his spine.

In Huo Si Rong’s mouth, Aunt Ruo was a woman who looked soft on the outside but was in fact very poisonous. Because Huo Si Rong was a daughter, she was beaten and scolded since she was young, so that she did not enjoy the warmth of a mother for a day.

When Huo Si Rong was twelve years old, she begged the Prime Minister’s Madam to betroth Huo Si Rong to a widower in the east of the city who had killed his three wives.

At that time, he and Huo Si Rong already knew each other, so naturally he did not want to see her betrothed to a widower, so he used some tricks to have Aunt Ruo caught in an adulterous situation by the Prime Minister and eventually died in a wicker basket, and Huo Si Rong’s reputation was tarnished by her own mother’s indiscretion.

If it hadn’t been for Huo Qing Ran’s accident, Huo Si Rong would have lived peacefully until she was sixteen years old and had her sheng, waiting for Xuan Yuan to come and marry her.

“How nice Aunt Zuo is, she can do embroidery and make sweet osmanthus cakes.”

“None of them found out she was a fake Rong Rong, only Aunt Zuo found out.”

”Aunt Ruo told me to stay away from her, saying she would get me killed, but I never thought she would get Aunt Ruo killed.”

When he first did this, Xuan Yuan only felt that he had taken out a bite of anger for his beloved and let a poisonous woman get what she deserved, but he did not think that no matter how much Aunt Ruo had done to Huo Si Rong, she was after all her own mother.

As the saying goes, the bones are still attached to the tendons. When he thought back to the time when Aunt Ruo was dragged away naked and put into the pig cage by the underlings, Huo Si Rong’s expression was blank as she hid among the onlookers, Xuan Yuan Chao felt chills all over his body.

Seeing Xuan Yuan Chao’s slightly thoughtful expression, Qing Ran knew that her efforts had paid off.

Possessing Huo Si Rong, a young white-collar worker who crossed over from modern times and was sucked by the water drain while swimming, her body died on the spot and her soul crossed over to the Xuan Yuan Dynasty.

When she entered Huo Si Rong’s body, she was not given even half of the original owner’s memories, and when faced with a completely unfamiliar dynasty and a group of complete strangers, she was only able to pretend that she had fallen overboard and lost her memory. The doctor did not cast doubt on her story even after the diagnosis, only saying that it was possible that she had temporarily lost her memory due to the shock.

But no matter how a person changes, even if they lose their memory, some small subconscious habits do not change. The people around her were not very attentive, so they did not notice any difference between this Huo Si Rong and the original Second Young Miss, but Aunt Rou, who was the Second Young Miss’ own mother, had doubts in her mind.

The reason why Huo Qing Ran, a first daughter, got along well with Huo Si Rong, a concubine daughter, was that Aunt Rou played a role that could not be ignored. As she always kept a low profile in front of the Prime Minister’s wife and acted as if she was content with her daughter, she made Huo Qing Ran’s mother drop her guard.

Everything is fine with the Prime Minister’s wife as long as she does not harm her daughter, for those who know what they are doing.

Huo Qing Ran had the same sweet tooth as his father, Huo Xiang. Huo Qing Ran and Huo Si Rong played well together because Aunt Rou would prepare plenty of desserts whenever she came to play with Huo Si Rong.

The crux of the matter is that Huo Si Rong, also the daughter of Prime Minister Huo, is someone who has an aversion to sweetness, so almost all of the desserts fall into Huo Qing Ran’s mouth every time.

After she crossed over, although she disliked her timid mother, she was very happy with her dessert-making skills and often asked Aunt Rou for dessert. When Huo Qing Ran came to see her twice, she ate all the pastries prepared by Aunt Rou, or pretended that she had accidentally touched the plate containing the pastries to the ground, because she resented the fact that Huo Qing Ran was standing by the water when she woke up and failed to help her in time.

Children’s minds are the most sensitive, and although Huo Qing Ran does not have Qing Ran’s eyesight that can see into people’s souls, she can sense Huo Si Rong’s malice towards her, and naturally she is distant from Huo Si Rong.

Apart from a different taste for sweets, the original owner, although a shy and introverted little child, was not at all afraid of things like snakes, insects and rats. Although the place where Aunt Rou lived was not that bad, she was after all an aunt, and rather than being half a master, she was half a servant, and lived in a house that was only a little better than that of an ordinary servant. Moreover, she only has four maids on hand, two of which she is entitled to as an aunt, and the other two are Huo Si Rong’s as a concubine daughter. It is only because the Prime Minister’s wife has been kind enough to let her keep her own daughter with her that she is able to take advantage of Huo Si Rong’s favour and use two more maids.

With less people, cleaning is naturally not as thorough as it is in the main courtyard. Although it is unlikely that rats or anything will appear, general small insects are still a common occurrence. The little white collar grew up as a city dweller, and although her family was not very well off, the place she lived in was always clean and rarely had any insects or other things. Coming to this place from modern times, without flush toilets or internet or TV had already made her uncomfortable, and the oddly shaped small creatures she saw from time to time made her startled.

Aunt Rou was already suspicious of her and often watched her unobtrusively, and when she covered her up several times during the night, she heard her dream words. After Aunt Rou had spoken to her a few times, she gave a full account of her origins.

No one would believe such an absurd thing. Although Aunt Rou approached Huo Qing Ran only to give her daughter a good future, she had more or less gotten attached after spending a long time together, and after knowing that her daughter had been possessed by a demon, she warned Huo Qing Ran at the first opportunity.

Aunt Rou comes from a brothel and although she has some intelligence, she is after all a weak woman. She alone cannot find a way to deal with the demon that has possessed her daughter and cannot avenge her daughter’s death. After hearing that the widower in the east of the city has a great fate and has killed three wives, she thinks that this is a scheme that can cure the demon.

Even if she could not kill the demon once and for all, it would be better to marry her far away than for her to stay in the Prime Minister’s house and harm people.

How could she have imagined that before she had the chance to deal with the demon, Huo Si Rong had already dealt with her.

“What a load of nonsense, how can Rong’er be ……” Xuan Yuan Chao couldn’t say those two words, his throat was itching, as if by saying it, he was admitting to Huo Qing Ran’s words.

” Prince, please also take a step aside.”

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Inmortal brother 神仙哥哥 : The same from before, translate it like that to make the reading more easy there.

Shénxiān Gege 神仙哥哥 : Daoist immortal / supernatural entity

浸猪笼    drown sb in a wicker basket

Sheng 笙 : sheng, a free reed wind instrument with vertical bamboo pipes

Aunt 姨娘 (yíniáng) : father’s concubine