Chapter 643: Chapter 260 My Mother-in-law is a Loyal Servant (Part 4)
He Tiantian closed her eyes and began to merge with the original host’s memories.
In fact, He Tiantian was familiar with the plot and had deeply analyzed the original host, so she had a good understanding of "Gu Xiuniang."
She merged memories merely to precisely determine the time-travel node and some details of daily life.
After a moment, He Tiantian opened her eyes.
Indeed, she hadn’t guessed wrong; the point in time she had traveled to happened to be when Marquis Pingnan’s entire household was being escorted to the Capital City.
And Wei Yuanniang had already been whipped across the face by the escorting soldiers for the sake of Mrs. Zhang, and since there was no doctor or medicine available, her face was utterly ruined.
Everything that was supposed to happen had already occurred, making it very difficult to save the situation or clear her name later on.
He Tiantian... Even though she really wanted to curse at the system, she knew that this time it truly wasn’t the system’s fault.
He Tiantian had no proof, but she was certain that this incident was related to Wei Yuanniang’s Awakening and descent into darkness.
The disfigurement was likely Wei Yuanniang’s Heart Demon.
After the second writer failed, Wei Yuanniang turned to the dark side.
Although she was just an inconspicuous character, she was involved in the "child exchange," and this plotline played a crucial role in the entire book.
Otherwise, the author could have completely removed or directly changed Wei Yuanniang’s character.
The system was probably frustrated, knowing that if Wei Yuanniang was going to Awaken, it wouldn’t have asked a writer to make modifications for a perfect work.
It would’ve been easier to have the original author modify certain details directly.
But now, with Wei Yuanniang’s Awakening, it affected the stability of the entire Small World, making it impossible for the author to delete her, and a writer had to be brought in to mend things.
If He Tiantian also failed, then this novel world, even if it did not collapse, would hold no value for "rescue."
The whole book would become abnormal, and the reading experience for readers would be very unpleasant.
"Xiuniang? Xiuniang?! What are you thinking about?"
Not getting a response, the dark and thin man, Zhongliang, called out several more times.
"...Husband, I am wondering, did we do something wrong this morning?"
He Tiantian deliberately put on a thoughtful expression, her tone hesitant.
"This morning?" Zhongliang didn’t catch on immediately and asked, "What about this morning?"
Suddenly, a lightbulb went off in Zhongliang’s mind, and he realized, "Oh, are you talking about the incident where the lady almost got hurt?"
"Alas, it was an unavoidable situation, even though we didn’t reveal our identities, those soldiers all knew we were from Marquis Pingnan’s Mansion."
"How much silver have I stuffed into that surname Qian’s pockets along the way?"
"He doesn’t say it out loud, but he is well aware that we are accompanying the Marquis Mansion’s people, and that’s why he has been following us!"
"However, they are greedy, and we have only been following, without doing anything untoward, so the soldiers turned a blind eye."
Marquis Pingnan’s Mansion was implicated, and the whole household was ordered by Emperor Chengtai to be escorted to the Capital City.
As the Marchioness, Mrs. Zhang naturally was among those being escorted. Nanny Zhao was also by her side, attending to her needs.
Originally, the soldiers even pretended to put the female prisoners in cangues and chains.
It was Zhongliang who had come forward, talked them down with some silver notes, and then the men gave up.
Even without the fetters, a noblewoman used to luxury like Mrs. Zhang could scarcely bear the journey on foot, exposed to the elements.
It was Zhongliang who arranged everything along the way, whether it was the post houses or inns; he always prepared food and medicine in advance.
Of course, the lavish food had to be offered to those soldiers.
But being able to provide Mrs. Zhang, Nanny Zhao, and the others with fine grain to eat and a bowl of hot soup was quite good as well.
It was thanks to Zhongliang’s hard work along the way that Mrs. Zhang and the other female family members managed to barely survive the journey of over a thousand miles.
Otherwise, they might have died from illness or hunger, or been unable to bear the hardship and taken their own lives.
Unfortunately, despite Zhongliang’s spending a lot of money to take care of things, some things were unavoidable.
Like this morning, when a soldier who didn’t know what came over him started to molest a concubine.
If it were any other concubine, Mrs. Zhang would have pretended not to see.
Although she had willingly brought many concubines to her husband, she herself greatly detested those women who tried to steal her man.
This time, as the Marquis Mansion fell into trouble, those concubines were within the scope of being escorted.
On the road, in order to please the soldiers and protect the chastity of the noble women, Mrs. Zhang would even take the initiative to offer the concubines to the soldiers for their enjoyment.