Hi! I'm starting this threat because there's none about this novel. https://www.novelupdates.com/series/revenge-of-the-sixth-young-lady/ After reading The Devious First Daughter, I browsed for more novels of this author, Lian Shuang, because I find her style crazy but enhancing and interesting. This novel's synopsis is the one that draw more my attention from the other 3 that are listed in this site. Wei Yuewu is the main character, the female lead, and it starts with her escaping a robbery/assassination attempt that involves her finacée! If anyone has read it and has spoilers to share please post them here. I'll try to post about this novel and its characters like I usually do when I am reading novels and its spoilers threat is either unexistent or I believe I can add more info or reflections from its plot and protagonists. Characters on the Marquees of Huayan Manor: Old Madam/Dowager Wei Luowen (Marquees, First Branch) Wei Luowu (Second Master) Wei Luoli (Third Master) Qin Xinrui (deceased, Marquees' main wife, mother of FL) Li shi (Second Lady, wife of Luowu) Zhang shi (Third Lady, wife of Luoli) Aunt Huang (concubine of Luowu, Second Master) Aunt Dong (concubine of Luowen, the Marquees) Wei Ziyang (Luowu's son, the heir of the Marquees) Wei Fengyao (Eldest Sister, daughter of Luowu & Li shi) Wei Yan (Second Sister, daughter of Luowu & Li shi) Wei Yuejiao (Third Sister, concubine born from Aunt Dong, FL's step-sister) Wei Qiufu (Fourth Sister, di daughter of Luoli & Zhang) Wei Qiuju (Fifth Sister, not sure if she's from the 3rd Branch) Wei Yuewu (Sixth Miss, FL, di daughter of the Marquees & Qin Xinrui) Royal Family: Emperor (barely appears) Empress Tu Tu Zhaoyi (Emperor's highly favored concubine) Crown Prince, Wen Tianyao Second Prince (sickly Prince) Third Prince (he used be taken care by Qin Xinrui's, FL's mother) Fourth Prince (Son of Tu Zhaoyi) Third Princess (I think she's the biological sister of the Fourth Prince) Fourth Princess ("Biological" sister of the CP, daughter of Empress Tu) Others: Yan Huaijing (ML, son of the Duke of Yandi, a vassal State) Mo Huating, Marquees of Jing Yuan (FL's ex) Lu's heir apparent (From Lu's State) Chu's heir apparent (From Chu's State) Chen Nanshian (cousin of Mo Huating) Xie Qingzhao (a scholar, Champion of the Imperial Examination, who is in love with Wei Qiufu) Jing Wenyan (daughter of the fallen Duke of Jingdi) Yang Yuyan (di daugher of an official who helps scheme against FL) Li Yu'er (Wei Yan & Fengyao's maternal cousin) Tu shi (FL's maternal Uncle's wife, the one who helped raise her)
Post for the fiancée, Mo Huating, the Marquees of Jing Yuan: He is said to be a talent. Probably he wanted to kill the FL for secret reasons but, for now, it is thought he killed her because she's rumored to be a plain-looking untalented girl so it'd be a bad match for him. OK, one of the reasons could be him prefering the second miss of the Marquees Hua Yang (FL's cousin) and also taking advantage to gain reputation from the death of the FL, because he says he's going to guard her (not marry or arrange another bethrotal) for a year. Pretty much confirmed that he has an affair with her cousin, because the cousin's maid is with him and she's the one that helped them to set up the ambush by leaking the route of the carriage and also she was supposed to identify the corpse. Confirmed there's some secret concerning the FL and the reason why Mo Huating cannot break the engagement, so he prefers to kill her. Everything indicates that he expects to sit on the throne in a near future and, this secret is the key to gain the throne. After a couple of failed schemes by the hand of Li shi and Wei Yan (the Second Lady and Second Young Lady of the Marquees of Hua Yang's Manor), Mo Huating sets up a trap suggested by his cousin, Chen Nianshan, so Wei Yuewu fails to break the engagement. She's come accompanied by her Aunt, Lady Tu, and the Dowager to break it off. He bought a starved wolf-dog and her cousin was supposed to get FL clothes stained with smelly broth and lead her into the courtyard the dog was hiding. They planned to frighten her and hurt her, but have Mo Huating play the hero. He'd get to claim to marry her anyway (after being crippled) and eventually kill her. However, Mo Huating now has a clever maid from Prince Yan, and both discovered this beforehand, and they just knocked out the maid leading her into that courtyard, and fooled Mo Huating so he'd be beaten instead. She's also, somehow, managed to have Wei Yan secretly come into the Manor and end up fighting with Chen Nianshan. FL sets them up so when Mo Huating arrives with Lady Tu and the Dowager, she exposes he has an affair with both of them and Chen Nianshan also tried to kill her with the wolf-dog. He still wants to stop the mess, claiming he has no affair with any of them and only wants to marry FL, but Wei Yuewu tells him that if he refuses, then she'll take the matter to the court. Lady Tu, and even the Dowager (after seeing herself driven into a corner) use the arguments of being able to find enough evidence to proove he tried to murder FL if they bring this to the court, so Mo Huating agrees to cancell it but he demands for FL's father to come and do it himself. So he's just stalling ¬¬ He tries to scheme against Wei Yuewu around chapters 70~79, trying to get her raped in the Palace, but she isn't stupid and can sense something is wrong so the one who gets up being raped is Wei Yan, and his plan to set fire on the courtyard to emerge with Wei Yuewu who was just frolicking inside with a man as his savior, backfires, because the one he ends up "saving" from the fire is Wei Yan (This is explained in Wei Yan's spoilers). Despite he desperately tries to play the hero and the righteous man by telling the Empress he only wants to marry Wei Yuewu (FL), he doesn't succeed and is forced to cancel his marriage agreement with her to accept Wei Yan. However, later Wei Yan causes more trouble and the Fourth Princess punishes her and complains to the Empress that she doesn't deserve to be a main wife, so they send a message to the Marquees Manor saying that when she marries she must be carried in a small sedan (meaning she can only be a concubine). Is during this incident that Mo Huating starts pondering more and more about Wei Yuewu's true nature, and wonders whether he took the wrong decision when he wanted to murder her, because he is starting to be fascinated by her and the way she always calmly handles the situation whenever she is in trouble. In Chapter 100, Yan Huaijing tells Yuewu that Mo Huating is conspiring with her Second Uncle, Wei Luowu, to raise a private army to revolt. Yuweu then starts seeing some things clearly, especially because everytime Wei Yan messes up, the one who is desperate is Li shi, but her father seems to not be distressed by her daughter's misdeeds and misfortunes. You can rejoice a little in Chapter 647 Spoiler seeing Mo Huating regret all what he did for Wei Yan as wei Yuewu enters Yan Huaijing's Manor (marriage) However, this is not the end of him, as the novel still has many chapters to go. *It'll be hard to anticipate more spoilers about this character because, like this author's usual villains, it takes a loooooong time for him and a looooooot of schemes (it seems) to fall. I am currently looking ONLY for those spoilers that concern the initial mysteries surrounding the FL and the assassination attempt from the first chapter, rather than schemes that go along the novel (unless those are related to this past events)*
Post for Wei Yan. She is the daughter of FL's Uncle. She has an affair with Mo Huating and wants FL dead. She sends a coachman to startle FL's horse so her carriage falls into the river, crashing... however FL is in a different carriage and her entourage (now people from ML aka Prince Yan's) manages to expose the matter that the coachman purposefully crashed the carriage to make the passenger inside drown, and then FL gets out and ends up exposing the fact this coachman comes from the Marquees of Hua Yang's manor, then the maid accompanying her identifies how a maid from that same Manor seems to be trying to escape in a rush, and because the crowd is smart, they all start connecting dots and soon rumors that the Second Miss might had tried to kill female lead again, spread around She just keeps trying to either kill or ruin FL's reputation. After her scheme designed by her eldest sister, Wei Fenyao, fails (she tried to anger the Fourth Princess by forcing FL to wear a similar dress, but FL played her back and even got her fall into the pond); She had prepared men to ruin FL's reputation while resting on her underclothes... however, it was Wei Yan the one who ended up falling and drenched so, despite everyone knew it was her and her sister had aborted the rest of the plan, FL got her maid intercept the staff responsible for the next stage and tell that woman it was FL the one drenched in the room... so Mo Huating brought in some noble men in the room and they caught Wei Yan in her underclothes, ruining her reputation. After that, she still tries to contact Mo Huating again, plotting to get FL married as a concubine and Wei Yan as the main wife, and she also wants to sterelize FL. FL intercepts her letter and she is preparing some counter-scheme, using the things she's asking to Mo Huating. Chapter 64 Spoiler After a couple of schemes she has others to carry for her, but that backfire hard; Wei Yan tries to set Wei Yuewu up to wear a phoenix hairpin that obviously is against Palace protocol. I think is because it has 9 strings of beads and that would be the same as it had 9 tails? Meaning only Empresses are meant to wear those. She is the true white lotus LOL. Anytime her schemes fail, she rants violently, then she comes with a smiling hypocrite face to try to fool FL into doing things, wearing things or going to places that will cause her harm. FL is well aware of what's wrong with the hairpin. Wei Yan is using a similar one to make sure FL is fooled to wear it, with the excuse they'd look affectionate wearing pairing hairpins. However, FL's maid (who was lent by ML and is proficient in martial arts) is skilled enough to exchange jewelry boxes (and hairpins, they just put those in a box with the intention to pass through the Palace gates first). Around Chapter 69-70 she falls into a trap Mo Huaiting has setted, instead. Spoiler Wei Yuewu gets injured in purpose to avoid the Third Princess' little scheme to make her play the qin in front of ML (Yan Huaijing), so she goes back to the Palace from the place they went to watch how Yan Huajing arrived to offer prisoners (he captured) to the Emperor (to the Crown Prince in Emperor's stead). The Third Princess accompanies her, but she just leaves her at an area for female relatives of the Imperial Family, and Wei Yuewu quickly knows something isn't right with the servant who brings her to a room to rest and the smell of the incense burning in there, so she instructs her maid to leave the place and just press her cut bloody sleeve into that door. They both go to hide into a nearby rockery platform first, and then to a different room to rest. Yuweu can see how her "fiancée", Mo Huaiting, seems to be planning something and, later, her sister Wei Yan rushing to "find" her. Wei Yan panicked thinking Yuewu was close to the Third Princess, but after knowing she was sent to that place and not the Princess' Palace, she relaxes but she also gets anxious to force Yuewu to attend the banquet so her scheme with the Phoenix hairpin succeeds. Little she knows that Mo Huating has arranged an "Imperial Physician" to "tend to her injury"... which is obviously a rape attempt set up for Yuewu but that ends up affecting Wei Yan. The man won't just break up the engagement, but he won't stop trying to either kill her or ruin her reputation. I know he doesn't want to end the engagement officially because he is looking for something... but can't he pretend he likes the girl? He is so obstinated into destroying her, he won't stop harming others and self-destroying his own reputation in the way. The thing doesn't stop here with the rape, he actually gets that room set on fire! He wanted to play the hero, so he rushed into the room to "save" the people in it, fully convinced Wei Yuewu was the one fornicating inside. He was so convinced his plan worked, he didn't recognize Wei Yan despite he clearly saw her when he entered the room and took her to "save" her. This author always manage to make soapy plots be spectacular. As always, Wei Yuewu has a crowd, even thought this time she didn't counter-scheme much, she just flew the place on time and hid herself, the rest was just the wishful actions of her enemies. In the end, despite Mo Huating tries desperately to play the righteous and affectionate fiancée by not wanting to cancel his marriage to Yuewu, the Empress judges that he must marry Wei Yan instead. Everybody knows Wei Yan was the one probably fornicating in that room, that Physician doesn't get saved so he burns to death, and people can also see that whoever plotted this, he meant to harm Wei Yuewu but got Wei Yan instead. She still insists on her Phoenix hairpin scheme, but that also backfires. Spoiler Yuewu is prepared to face it. She deliberately gets her maid stop Wei Yan's maid when she is sent to remind her to wear the hairpin at the banquet, so a few other ladies hear the whole conversation between maids so, when Wei Yan's Li cousin attempts to expose her in front of everyone, Wei Yuewu clearly says that the hairpin she is wearing was given by her Second Sister, and it isn't hard to verify the story. She's also switched both hairpins, the one she is wearing now is the fake one, while Wei Yan unknowinlgy has the real one that is a taboo for non-royals... luckily, she doesn't get to be forced to show it, because the Third and Fourth Princess don't push the matter further when she tries to excuse herself saying it may be lost. But all the ladies present just grasp what her intention was, an her reputation just sinks deeper and deeper. Wei Yuewu plays onto the Fourth Sister's jealousy and frustation towards everyone prefering her eldest sister who is a shu daughter, so the Princess reacts to her subtle provocation when the Third Princess points out the matter should be put to rest because, in the end, they're sisters, and she orders Wei Yan to be punished. This last scheme of the hairpin backfiring may cost her the main wife position once she gets to marry her "sweetheart" Spoiler Chapter 80, while Old Madam is arguing with Li shi (Wei Yan's mother) because she tried to kill Yuewu AGAIN. It seems she'll become a nun instead. Chapter 80: Spoiler After a scheme where Xie Qingzhao, a scholar that's bein used by the Fourth Sister, Wei Qiufu, to try to ruin Wei Yuweu (FL) and make her become a concubine, ends up being pointed at Wei Yan; she ends up becoming a nameless concubine for Mo Huating. Wei Yan's father is in cahoots with Mo Huating for preparing to steal the throne, so he convinces him to accept Wei Yan after they fake her death (she "committed suicide"). While Wei Yuewu and Wei Qiufu are at Meihua Temple with the Princesses and the Princes, someone tells Wei Yuewu that Mo Huating recently accepted a concubine and there would still be room for her to become his wife. Wei Yuewu then guesses that Wei Yan may fake her death to become that concubine, as she has no way out since she was ordered to become a nun and later Wei Qiuju pinned her the blame for stealing Xie Qingzhao's clothes. In Chapter 158, when she returns to the Manor, Wei Yuewu is told that Wei Yan committed sucide, and she immediately knows she's with Mo Huating now.
The offensive entrance of Wei Yuewu This is a charging female lead. She doesn't wait for traps to be set by playing weak, she just charges ahead with the pure truth and twists people into the situation so they have no escape. After two murder attempts she conveniently got people to witness and understand, she managed to enter the Marquees Manor despite the Second Sister (a cousin, Wei Yan) tried to imped her to enter. She threatened a few times with walking to the yamen to report the murder attempts and her cousin's affair with her own fiancée, till she was granted the entrance through the main door. Then Wei Yan (the villainess second sister) tried to claim she was a fake, and FL just kept charging ahead, even after she was brought to the Dowager, claiming her Second Sister had an affair with her fiancée and they both had tried to kill her TWICE. Because she made sure to have witnesses, Prince Yan's support and even sent a letter to her maternal grand mother, she kept charging with confidence while Wei Yan kept claiming she was a fake and making things up, until Lady Tu, FL's maternal aunt, appeared at the door and helped her suppress Wei Yan and Li Shi (her cousin's mother). Is not like she accused the Second Sister of murder, but she did accuse Mo Huating (the fiancée) and used the fact Wei Yan's maid was with him to say the Second Sister is improper and had a shamless maid to strip a little power from Li shi, who happens to be managing the whole house. It is expected that with the help of her aunt, the FL will succesfully ditch this engagement. Her maternal family is a powerful one, and they even have a Consort or so in the Palace. As a Female Lead, she is sort of unique, because she isn't reborn nor transmigrated. She does has memory loss regarding a period of her childhood, but she is the original daughter of the Marquees and not a transmigrated or reincarnated soul. She can go along the way because she is reasonable and she quickly realizes some things are off. Is not just the assassination attempt of her fiancée; is the way the Old Madam treats her as a granddaughter (and a di one, to be precise) and the way she is estrangled from her father, it makes her walk carefully and be wary of everyone in her household, because she knows there must be more into it that what the eyes can see and the ears can hear.
Post for Chen Nanshian, she is Mo Huating's maternal cousin, she lives with him since her parents died, and she is also in love with him. She fakes to support her cousin's relationship with Wei Yan, but she secretly wishes it fails so she can be with him. ----- Space for Jing Wenyan, She is a lady from a fallen State or Fiefdom, that Yan Huaijing invaded. Her father was made a prisoner by him and she seems to be obsessed with the ML so much, she tries to scheme aginst Wei Yuewu quite a few times. The Empress Tu tries to use her to get Mrs. Lin (the fake "wife" of ML) kill Wei Yuewu on her marriage night, so they can get rid of both. She is convinced that Yan Huaijing only loves her and can't accept the fact he only seems lo be gentle and warm to Wei Yuewu.
Post of the Dowager of the Marquees Hua Yang, She isn't a good woman, she's calculating too much to raise Wei Yan as a phoenix, but her plans get ruined when Wei Yuewu (FL) arrives and all the murder schemes get exposed by her. She is disappointed with her favorite granddaughter, and she has no room to no give some justice to FL, however, she's not too harsh with the perpetrators, because she's still biased. She isn't that bad, either... because she considers FL's status, she won't dare to harm her... however, she tries to persuade her from cancelling her engagement almost up till the very end, and she laments that she was raised by the maternal family, because she can't tame her now, hence, she can't exploit her as a beauty. It seems that FL's mother dead is a mystery, and that enraged the Marquees... so, perhaps, FL is not unloved, but her father left her alone to protect her? Second Lady already implied she did try to kill her years ago, before she left the Manor to live with her mother's family. This Dowager's favourite son is the Third One, her little son. She even dared to brush off the dirty things she did in the past and push those onto FL's father (see spoilers about Wei Fengyao). However, she is somehow afraid of Wei Luowen, the Marquees and eldest son. And she's well aware she's touched his bottom line a few times in the past. It seems a lot of the things concerning the neglect of the FL and her unexistent relationship with her father, are related to this Dowager that didn't seem to like FL's mother at all. Later in the story, she's always biased against the FL whenever someone schemes to frame her of anything. Spoiler When Li shi dies due to her failed calculations and Wei Yan's hand, she won't stop trying to send FL to the Palace so the Empress can judge her (FL knows Empress Tu wants her dead), unfortunately for her, her sons Luowen (FL's father) and Luoli (3rd Master) saw everything from a nice spot, but they just waited for the whole show to happen, so Luowen entered at the end and confronted his mother, asking her why she is so bad to the people he loves. Why would se care for a granddaughter of unkown origin (yup, it seems Wei Yan was picked up!) than her true blood-related granddaughter. And why she is always so bad to her and his deceased wife. It seems the Dowager played a bigger role into snatching FL's brother from her mother than Wei Luowen did. . Around chapters 60-62 Spoiler when the scheme of trying to get Wei Yuewu fall into the water during a home banquet and get a man to rescue her and claim they were entangled from before fails, the Old Madam still wants to protect Wei Yan, trying to scold her but not adress the fact she did everything on purpose, only implying she overlooked the preparations and didn't realize the railing of the Pavillion had been sawn off. Because Wei Yan still tries to push this to FL, saying it was her responsability to check the Pavillion's curtains and she overlooked it (her plan all along was to blame the accident on FL herself), FL counter-attacks claiming she didn't know she'd been given this task and puts her assigned mama in trouble (she wanted to speak agains FL but FL smartly tosses the hot potato on her & she can't frame FL on this because she'd lack evidence) and she gets fed up and starts threatening to get back to her maternal home again, to press the Old Madam to take some action against Wei Yan (it doesn't work much, though). She again implies that her cousin won't stop until she gets the marriage to Mo Huating cancelled so Wei Yan can marry him herself. The Madam only panicks whenever FL mentions going back to her maternal home, because that would make her family loose face. She's really not a good person for this and other matters spoiled on the Marquees' post. At some point, around the first 100 chapters of the novel, she has to start behaving differently towards Wei Yuewu, because too many incidents had happened that were directed towards her, where the goal was either to ruin her reputation or to kill her. Because Wei Yuewu knows how to stand her ground, Old Madam fears that Wei Luowen will be mad if anything happens to the daughter of the woman he was so madly in love with and that will lead him to start suspecting about the events of the past. She just starts being not biased against Yuewu anytime an incident happens and she has to be the judge, however, she still protects Wei Yan's name at all costs, even when she is no longer there and is disguised as a concubine at Mo Huaiting's Manor, having "died of an illness" (they say she committed suicide, but for outsiders that she died of an illness). In Chapter 265, after the last attempt to kill, and later to ruin Yuewu's innocence has happened, she reflects on this fact:
Post of the Prince of Yan or Duke of Yan, Yan Huaijing: He is the ML, the usual cold-hearted with a secret agenda ML that starts being amused by the FL and not long after becomes obsessed with her. His title is the one of a Duke in FL's country, but he is a Prince, since he is the son of the ruler of a state that pays tribute to FL's country. He helps FL from the very beginning, but he always ask her why he should help her, bargaining with her. Well, he is definitely black bellied and he is cruel. Once he's at Beijing, the Empress sent him two court ladies to become bed-warmers, but he just got them executed with the excuse they dared to look at his face dumbfounded and he sent back their heads in a case. U_U" Despite his being a vassal state, he dares to attack and conquere other territories, swallowing those to his Yan State. He is like an idol LOL, anytime he has a public appearence there's an uproar of young ladies gathering and causing tumults (they even got FL's carriage almost pushed to a river once). When they meet again in the Capital, he takes advantadge of her situation (she was separated from her entourage after her carriage was blocked and almost falling to the river) to use her into a sort of meeting he's having with other Heir-Apparents from vassal states and the Crown Prince, who is also accompanied by the Third Princess. He acts like he's intimate with the FL, and Wei Yuewu is super aware of it and doesn't know how to stop it. She can see everybody's attention is on her and the Third Princess is immediately hating her for that. Spoiler For what I can see for now, he ends up obsessed falling for the FL (well, he is interested since the very beginning because he finds her too clever for being 13), and he ends up marrying her. But, for reasons I yet need to find, she is not the first but the secon wife of this Prince (not sure if the first wife died, but I'm almost sure the MTL doesn't mean side or secondary wife, but main wife). This author likes to paint Male Leads that are almost sociopaths. LOL. Everybody is usually afraid of them. In this occasion, the Male Lead, Yan Huaijing, doesn't hesitate to decapitate pretty maids that are sent to him by the Empress (reminder that he is the heir apparent of a vassal Estate). They meet again at a Palace banquet. By then, the Third Princess is already weary of Wei Yuewu and, since she accidentally enters the tent the Third Princess and the Crown Prince where in, she tries to set Yuewu up to play the qin, so her reputation will plummet the moment Yan Huaijing enters the scene. The plan is people will think Yuewu is shameless to try to catch ML's eye by playing the qin for him, but Yuewu is smarter and can see it is no good to perform in such an event (also, being treated like a servant), so she gots herself injured while walking towards the qin's table, and avoids playing. The Third Princess is forced to play instead -since she suggested it, the Crown Prince can only salvage the situation this way-. Yan Huajing pays no glance at the Third Princess, but he also pretends not to be interested much in Yuewu, even though he is obviously already obsessed with her. The next time they meet is around the end of chapter 85, when Wei Yuewu goes to Meihua temple to talk to Mama Han about her mother's death. On her way up to the Temple, Wei Yuewu witnessed how Imperial Guards carried a man down in a prisoner's carriage and a young miss was following crying and calling the man "father". Yan Huaijing seems to be talking to that young miss, who probably is a young miss he previously talked about, when trying to make the minions of the Empress believe he was infatuated by her, but ended up saying her head would look nice exposed at his mansion (it was the time he beheaded to court ladies who dared to stare at him). During that encounter, Yan Huajing tells Wei Yuewu that the guards that Mo Huating sent to kill her weren't just guards but private soldiers, hinting at the fact the man is raising a private army, possibly to revolt. He then uses this oportunity to force Wei Yuewu to find evidence for him to prove that Mo Huating is plotting to revolt. She is scared of him so, of course, she has no choice but to agree to help him. *To update later, but since I've read here and there some chapters ahead: It seems the way he tricks the royal family into decreeing for Wei Yuewu to marry him as his legal wife is lying about her health and saying she will die (I'm sure there's some incident involved that makes the Empress feel forced to reward her this way). The thing is, very up till almost the end of the novel, the Empress is still waiting to marry (she vouches for the Fourth) one of the two Princesses to Yan Huaijing. He also earlier seemed to lie saying that his mother already arranged a marriage for him, but I yet have to read more about this and how he used it to procastinate getting any of the Princesses into his Manor. Actually, Yan Huajing made this Mrs Lin from Yandi up, making everybody at his home Country go crazy trying to figure out who she was (even the people from the Lin clan), and is an excuse to barren the door for the Princesses to ever enter his backyard. On the day of the wedding, he even carefully stages Mrs. Lin getting angered by the entrance of a wife. She is supposedly staying at his manor but have to be wed first. The idea is that she'll be wed as soon as Wei Yuewu dies and, after that, the chosen Princess (3rd or 4th, still to decide) will marry in as the legal wife. Empress Tu is counting on the fact this Mrs. Lin will be against Wei Yuewu for getting rid of both using this "rivalry". Just the day after their wedding, the Empress Tu sents to Yuewu two court ladies that are, obviously, meant to be bedwarmers for the Prince, with the excuse her marriage was so imminent (due to her poor health) that her family didn't prepare any dowry bedwarmers for her husband. Chapter 655 Spoiler The nerve... XD These two court ladies can't put Yuewu in their eyes, and they believe they can easily climb over her head. When Yuewu goes to "Mrs. Lin" courtyard to confront her (because Yan Huaijing went there on their first day married), they try to follow in but are stopped by the guards and then they try to use the name of the Empress Tu, thinking that will open all the doors to them and that gives them a better backer than Yuewu. They also say they were sent to serve Yan Huaijing, when is not true, as the decree said they were sent to Yuewu to be her "common room" (bedwarmers for the husband but managed by the wife). When Yuewu tells Huaijing about them, he says that they can't stay in there. He doesn't want any spies from the Empress, even though he laughs saying that "if she wants to see what's happening at his backyard, let her have a look". They are tricked into believing Yan Huaijing is drunk and, of course, their first reaction is to rape him, so they can climb his bed and be raised. When they're about to start, somebody yells that there's an assassin and they get slaughtered on the spot, only left a last breath so they can explain what happened when afterwards they are sent back to the Palace. The Empress gets furious, but it's obvious she didn't learn anything from the time she sent 2 other beauties that ended beheaded. This is something that will only cause her trouble, for doing it without the Emperor's consent, but also because Yan Huaijing deliberately twisted the facts saying the ladies tried to assassinate him. It is after this incident that Empress Tu asks Wen Tianyao to kill Wei Yuewu (read the spoilers of the Crown Prince).
Post of Li shi, the Second Lady of the Marquees of Hua Yang's Manor: She relies on the fact her first daughter is married to the Heir Apparent of Prince of Nan'an, the brother of the current Emperor. Her husband is Wei Luowu, the Second Master. The man doesn't seem to be any better, but is not like he is the one to scheme. He just comes in in time to save his wife's and daughter's faces from being too hardly slapped (usually, getting the Dowager not to punish them too hard). Later on, he even starts trying to quickly cover their schemes up when those are being unfolded by the FL Spoiler like at chapter 553, when a presumably illegitimate daughter of the Marquees appears, but FL questions her and exposes her loopholes in her story. Wei Luowu wants to quickly get rid of her, because she can reveal Wei Fengyao and Li shi are behind this. I don't know if it was mockery from Lady Tu, but she implied Wei Yan wasn't her biological daughter (to confirm later?). She backs her second daughter (Wei Yan, whether she's biological or taken from a concubine) into every evil deed, even planning to take over FL's courtyard and marriage. Her son is most likely to succeed the Marquees on the title, because Wei Luowen (FL's father) doesn't have any sons himself. That is also the reason why this First Young Master was sort of raised beside the Marquees (or he followed his education closesly. Since he's at the border, not in the Capital). She is suspected (almost confirmed, but FL still needs to do a lot of investigation) that she collided with Aunt Dong (former maid of the Dowager, later tongfang of Wei Luowen, now concubine) to feed fetal medicine to FL's mother to induce her premature labour and cause the death of mother and child. However, the FL discovers way later that it was her mother the one to induce her own labour Spoiler For fear of having her son snatched away, again. She already got the first son robbed and smuggled into the Palace. Anyway, she did collide with Aunt Dong to take advantage of the chaos, hoping she'd die in childbirth. Her goal is clearly to become either the Dowager of the Marquees Manor (getting rid of the first branch after securing the title), she already holds the stewardess power when the novel starts, however, because she tries to fight FL when she arrives into the family, she gets her power cut to half and has to share it with the Third Madam. The Third Madam isn't necessarily a good person either, she also covets the power of managing the mansion. But FL uses her a little to cut to half Li shi's power and secure some of her loyal servants will be removed. Li shi tries to set up FL's courtyard with servants that will neglect her and mistreat her. But from the first night, FL gets them all punished, later most of them removed, and she ends up picking her own servants from a tooth woman that comes the next day. To ensure her goals and that Wei Yan can marry Mo Huating, she gets her first daughter into the game. As she can actually be the one to manage the Manor (before loosing half the power) due to the fact this eldest daughter is married to the heir of a Prince that's the Emperor's brother. However, FL is always observing her and Wei Yan, so she can quickly sort of guess this other daughter's schemes, and those always backfire. She does many things against Wei Yuewu (that are already explained in other posts, as those regard the use of other characters), Wei Yuewu knows she needs to get rid of her as soon as she starts getting more information about how she colluded with Aunt Dong to cause her birth mother's death (4 years after Yuewu was born is when she died). She uses the concubine on the Second Branch, Aunt Huang, provoking her to ask for a doctor who isn't Dr. Ming, the one raised at the Manor and that Yuewu can perfectly see he had a lot to do with her mother's death. The doctor Aunt Huang seeks outside tries to find out why this concubine has never got pregnant and, in the end, he determines is the Second Master, Wei Luowu, the one who was sterilized or prevented to get people pregnant. When Luowu heards this, he is determined to divorce Li shi, however, in the end, she is only put under house arrest in the Family Temple, where her daughter Wei Yan already is. After a few more schemes, she is sent back to her maiden's home to "recuperate", They use that time to fake Wei Yan's death and smuggle her into Mo Huating's backyard. In Chapters 268~269 she is trying to get Yuewu raped *AGAIN* during a banquet at her maiden's house, but Yuewu is prepared for it. Spoiler Luowu lies saying that his wife fainted. When Li shi wakes up, she finds out her leg is broken and she is mad because her plan failed. She drugged Yuewu's tea but, somehow, Yuewu got the cups switched, that's how she managed to escape while Li shi ended up being the one raped and misunderstood as having an affair by his fishy husband, Luowu. This only angers this man, who has serious inferiority complex, more. Remember that he is plotting with Mo Huating to steal the throne. Li shi's end Spoiler She dies after trying to push FL into the water of a pond/river. The plan was to do so or, if it failed, throw herself into the water and claim FL wanted to kill her. However, she's so busy framing FL yelling at the water, FL's maid is handling her a bamboo stick but she only manages to stab her and Li shi drowns and dies. Of course, Wei Yan tries to frame FL for this dead, saying she calculated to murder her mother. But the truth is Wei Yan fed her medicine that helped her drown faster.
Post of Wei Fengyao, the former eldest Young Miss of the Marquees of Hua Yang's Manor, and daughter of Li shi: She's married to the Heir-Apparent of Prince of Nan'an, the brother of the current Emperor. Her husband is a lecherous man, who constantly visits the brothel. She's plotting with Li shi before she makes her appearence, by sending a fishy volt of cloth that's supposed to harm FL after she wears a dress made with it. FL has long seen something's up with it, so let's see what she's able to do. Indeed, the cloth is badly dyed, so the color comes off if it gets wet and, after FL goes to ask to one of her maternal family's clothes shop if she can find a similar cloth, she learns that all noble ladies are avoiding fabrics with this color because everybody knows the Fourth Princess will wear a dress with this color in the next social gathering (which is the banquet at Prince of Nan'an where they want FL to wear such clothes). She has a similar dress made with similar cloth, but has the cloth died in red (but cheap dye so it cames off if it gets wet) and tricks the Second Young Lady (Wei Yan) into buying it, thinking she has snatched FL's wanted dress LOL. I don't know what FL will do with the original dress, though. If she wears it, she may be in trouble for offending the Fourth Princess. So she ends up wearing it, and the Fourth Princess is enraged... but Wei Yan doesn't let anybody speak and just keeps dragging FL towards the Princess, saying she already warned her not to chose such clothes and to appologize, when what she's trying to do is to get the Fourth Princess mad and throw her to the pond (so the dye will come off and also embarrass FL). However, before she succeeds, FL says that it wasn't her but Wei Yan the one who chose the dress, and the Princess hears her but she doesn't have much time to react because Wei Yan was trying to provoke her to bump and throw FL to the pont, but FL's maid made it so Wei Yan was thrown instead. When Wei Yan comes out of the water, her dress is revealed to be identical to the one of the Princess. In Chapter 174 she almost succeeds into killing Wei Yuewu (FL) while she is at the stage on her father's (Fengyao's, Wei Luowu) birthday. It is not much clear how FL fall for her trick, as she is trying to counter-scheme her vicious shu sister, Wei Yuejiao, who planned to lock her in a room with a man and get her reputation ruined. At the time she almost dies, she has finished dancing and interrupted the people who were claiming she was in a room with a man, by revealing she had been dancing there all along. Yuewu is shocked when she saw the stage collapse and sees Fengyao's complacent face, understanding she fell for her trap. What it's unclear is, Lu Luowu seemed to be behind this scheme, as he requested for someone to replace the dancer who suposedly injured herself right before the show, and why they manage to get Yuewu to dance when Yuejiao wanted here somewhere else... Yan Huajing realized the moment he saw Luowu's face when the "dancer" entered the stage, that he had something bad planned. But Yuewu just couldn't anticipate this one. Around the chapters 180aprox.~200 Fengyao keeps plotting to harm Yuewu (and I'm sure Yuejiao is in cahoots too) trying to use the Fifth Sister Qiuju. However, Yuewu can see some things are off and she won't stop trying to figure out what's going on. Spoiler The girls in the Manor first get puppies gifted by Fengyao and her husband, then there's also Qiuju (5th Sister) trying to trick Yuewu into accepting a pen that's from Xie Qingzhao, since she fails, she sneaks it in an exchange of gifts, due to her inferiority complex and Yuewu always trying to comply just to see what they're trying to do. Eventually, Yuewu figures out her puppy has been trained to become mad due to, possibly, that pen from Xie Qingzhao's smell. The thing is, I read these chapters half-heartedly, because aside from this, it seems Fengyao or her husband are trying to scheme to ruin Yuewu's reputation to make her a concubine, but Yuewu already anticipated their plan and the blame switches to Qiuju whom she carefully previously instigated to be eager to accept. Then, her puppy that has been brought to Fengyao's Manor, wakes up and goes crazy and scratches Fengyao's face. So it was all a part of the same plan. Only that Yuewu immeditaly knew what was wrong about accepting a man's pen, so she refused. When Qiuju sneaked it into her things, she tried to get rid of it but, while figuring out, she discovered the puppy kept knocking the pen case over and making a mess in her room. They wanted not just to frame her about the Fourth Prince's talisman that was "robbed" but also accuse her of having an affair either with Xie Qingzhao (who is in Qiufu's, 4th Miss, hands) or an unkown man. In Chapter 250, during a banquet at Jing Wenyan's manor (the daughter of a Duke from a fallen vassal State) she tries to set up her own husband, Wen Ruoming to rape Wei Yuewu. Of coruse, Jing Wenyan's helping her, because the woman is obsessed with Yan Huaijing and can see that he treats Yuewu differently. Spoiler Wei Yuewu can see that the maid who is so insistent into bringing her around is up to no good. Thankfully, Jing Ling (the maid Yan Huaijing gave her at the beginning of the story), is proficient in understanding her lady's voice and eyes signals, and she quickly finds out what's the scheme. Chapter 251: Wei Fengyao uses the discovery of this "affair" (note she doesn't know if the woman laying there is Yuewu, yet) to vent out all the scandals the house of Prince Nan'an has been suppressing, especifically the fact he declared he had an affair with her Fifth Sister, Qiuju, and she started crying about the fact he won't stop looking for other women while she has to be filial to his parents and such. Clearly, her plan is to be painted as a victim while getting rid of Yuewu and getting her lecherous husband punished... but she is trully stupid to think this won't backfire, when her mother-in-law is quite powerful and already quite fed up with her, since she knows all the previous incidents that were directed at Wei Yuewu, were her doing, and those only brought harm to Prince Nan'an's household. Funny thing is, instead of a woman, turns out that the one who is lying beside Fengyao's husband is a man! Chapter 252 When Fengyao sees Yuewu is fine, then she tries to make the man that was caught with her husband to pin the blame on Yuewu, saying that she was the one to invite him there. Again, the ruffian doesn't know the lady questioning him is the one he is talking about, so Yuewu can dismantle his lies flawlessly. Too bad that he claimed he had an affair with Miss Sixth from the Huayang Marquees Mansion, because this exposes, once more, the fact Yuewu's being schemed against. Because the man claims he knows the appearence of this Miss Sixth because she looks like her older sister, the wife of the heir apparent from Prince of Nan'an, Fengyao's husband gets mad, suspecting his wife is putting a green hat on him with that man. Around chapter 552-559 Spoiler When FL's father is already back, Wei Fengyao's lecherous husband brings back a woman from the brothel to serve him, and Wei Fengyao uses this woman to make her claim in front of a crowd of guests, during a gathering, that she is the Marquees of Hua Yang's illegitimate daughter, and that she only wants from the Marquees to give her the portrait he still holds of her deceased mother. FL (Wei Yuewu) stops this nonsense by sensibly but sharply interrogating this woman, and exposing the fact she doesn't look like a maid from the Prince of Nan'an's Manor, as she claims to be (her story is that she got to be recognized by Fengyao XD due to her similarities with the Marquee's features). This woman, Mei'er, claims to be the daughter of Qiong'er, a former maid of the Dowager at the Marquees Manor, that she sent to serve Wei Luowen during a time he had a fight with FL's mother. However, he didn't want to sleep with her, he was fed aphrodisiac, but this maid failed to rape him, as he stopped her. It seems the maid claimed later that she was pregnant with Wei Luowen's son, but he denied it so firmly, in the end the Dowager simply gave her money and kicked her out. Because this Mei'er keeps causing trouble and claiming she's Wei Luowen's daughter, FL suggests a blood test. Then she realizes that her Third Uncle, Wei Luoli seems to be too anxious, while her Second Uncle, Wei Luowu has a gloomy face. Obviously, the Second Uncle knows this is a scheme of his wife and eldest daughter, but the Third Uncle may be the real father of Mei'er, and that's why that maid, Qiong'er tried to plant it on FL's father. FL tricks them with the blood test, for a moment, this Mei'er is proud to proof she is the Marquee's daughter but, unfortunately, when everyone is asking them to recognize her, FL reveals that the blood in the bowl is not her father's but a male servant's XD so she tells this Mei'er if she also wants to recognize this man as a father. Then she quickly tells her if she wants to test it with her Third Uncle (seeing where this is headed?). Because they start talking about whether to send this girl to the yamen or not, and everyone involved wants to try to avoid disaster, FL keeps pushing until she has Wei Luoli confess: He confessed because Mei'er has an envelope with some tokens and banknotes, and that can be traced back from its origins (that would point to the Third Master). The Dowager plays the fool and feels bad because this third son is her favourite. The old hag knew back then he was the one to impregnate the maid, but still played dumb and pretended to push the matter into the eldest son (FL's father). But... after Wei Qiufu, the daughter of Wei Luoli, requests to have another blood test with her father's blood, it is revealed that she isn't her daughter either. FL just keeps twisting the matter until the arrow points to the Second Master. However, the new tests also ends up being negative. The girl that insisted she was a daughter from the Marquees Manor, turned out to be not related at all. Wei Fengyao wanted to ruin FL's father reputation, but it all ended up in a mess and putting all the Masters from her maiden's home in a bad situation, attempting to relate them to a brothel girl. When they were about to ask her for an explanation, her mother Li shi appeared to save her and brush the matter off, just claiming to throw this Mei'er into the woodshell. Despite everything, it seems this Mei'er is really Wei Luowu's daughter, only that he was prepared with some grass rubbed in his arm, so the blood-test would fail (revealed at chapter 595, because FL still suspects it and Li shi has Mei'er captive).
Post for the mystery behind Wei Yuewu's mother, Qin Xinrui, and her death & Aunt Dong's schemes: Well, the mother was said to be one of the first beauties back then. It seems her life after marriage ended in tragedy, as FL's grandmother (maternal) always seem to lament it, but she's never explicitly explained anything to Wei Yuewu. There's some mysterious connection of FL's deceased mother and the current Crown Prince. Spoiler The Crown Prince, Wen Tianyao is her biological son (and the Marquees' too). Her son was taken away by Empress Tu, because she couldn't give birth at the time and needed to compete with another favored Tu Lady in the Palace. Chapter 558-559 That must be another reason to want her death. The Empress Tu also tries to have Wen Tianyao kill the FL later. She fed herself inducing medicine to give birth to FL, taking advantadge of a time her husband wasn't at home, for fear of having the child snatched again. She also became dissatisfied with her husband, because she believed it was his doing or he had agreed to fool her. It seems she died a few days after giving birth to FL... FL knows everything about the Marquees Manor is a mystery, but she starts suspecting her mother's death was fishy when she sees an old maidservant doing menial work but suspiciously always appearing in front of her (as she had something to say to FL), and after she fakes illness to conteurattack Wei Yan (after they're back from Prince Nan'an's banquet) and the physician of the house, Doctor Ming, has a suspiciously worried and stunned face after seeing her complexion (she's put some medical powder on her face to look sick). FL thinks this doctor seems to recall something when seeing her and she immediately suspects her mother's death must not be from illness after childbirth. Around chapter 80 Wei Yuweu (FL) starts unfolding a plan to get a hold of the servant that used to be one of her mother's, Mama Han, but is placed now at the Old Madam's courtyard doing tasks such as sweeping and being isolated. She gets her own maids to fake an illness, using medicated powder, that looks like an infectuos disease that "coincidentally" spreads to this old servant, who not much later "dies" at Chapter 82. She hides Mama Han into a secluded courtyard in a Temple, so she can investigate her mother's death better. After this Mama's death, the Old Madam still wants to instruct her minion to get rid of her remaining family, but Wei Yuewu is always one step ahead, and she's already sent one of her "sick" maids to keep them safe somewhere else. (Chapter 85) It seems the Second Madam conspired with FL's father Concubine, Aunt Dong, to cause chaos during childbirth, so FL's mother would die and so the baby. They were afraid she would give birth to a son. This Aunt Dong is the concubine that accompanied all these years FL's father (Marquees Hua Yang) to the border, and she has a duaghter, who is the 3rd Miss of the Family. It is also suspicious that this Aunt Dong was allowed to give birth before her. Spoiler Well, that's because FL's mother first gave birth but her son was snatched. Anyway, Aunt Dong still shouldn't had been allowed to give birth when that son never existed officially. Also, Wei Luowen is not a bad man, but he was too stupid to allow that to happen to his main wife and he was also stupid to allow the Dowager to push Aunt Dong to him but, anyway, it took him to see how the FL unmasked her and her daughter to realize his concubine was a vicious woman. It also seems that the Dowager was fully aware of this, and she gladly turned a blind eye because she never liked Wei Yuewu's mother. In Chapter 79, after Li (the Second Branch's main wife) tries to kill Yuewu AGAIN and is caught in the act by the Old Madam, she actually hints at it: Then, again in Chapter 85, Mama Han tells what happened when Wei Yuweu was born: Both women faked to have a fight so they would distress the Madam that was in the delivery room, while the Old Madam turned a blind eye, because she prefered Wei Yuewu's mother to be gone. It seems she wasn't the wife the Dowager wanted for her son and it was the Marquees who insisted on marrying her instead of the one the Dowager had prepared. This Aunt Dong was a tongfang of the Marquees from before he married. So we have the plot of destroying the wife in hopes of stealing her position, again. I still need to see where the Marquees stands in all this mess. It is quite sad that she wasn't raised by his side while he got to live happily with the concubine that killed FL's mother and her shu daughter (Well, FL is despising the father at the moment, because she thinks he isn't innocent and she feels he abandoned her for this concubine and that other daughter, because she wasn't a son). When Mama Han tells Wei Yuewu about all she knows, she also has the belief that the Marquees is cold-hearted and not a good father to her: Meaning that he knew what happened that day, yet he still took the woma with him to the border while abandoning his di daughter into her maternal grandparents' home. Mama Han also recalls that during all those years, her father never contacted Wei Yuewu and the only one sending gifts, once in a while, was Li shi (the Second Madam) using every one of these times as an excuse to spread rumors about Wei Yuewu being ugly and untalented, so the Old Madam and her own father wouldn't want to bring her back. Wei Yuewu can't see her father in a good light. Aside from this incident, she also inquires why there is an elder shu sister, how come a concubine was allowed to give birth before the legal wife, and Mama Han also concludes that from all their scheming, the one who benefited the most is Aunt Dong, and that she couldn't understand why Wei Yuewu's mother always seemed to be distant to her father. There was a high interest for Wei Yuewu's mother to never give birth to a son that would become the heir. This Aunt Dong also schemed to have her daughter, Wei Yuejiao try to kill the FL when they were little, by pushing her to the river. She also is the one behind the Marquees leaving the FL all these years at her maternal grandparents' house. Spoiler In Chapter 624-625, after her scheme to ruin FL's reputation fails, Wei Luowen discovers she's also behind the assassination attempt back then, so she is demoted to a lowly concubine and exiled into a hamlet. The problem is that she's still pregnant, presumably, with a son. She really was counting on Old Madam's support to become the main wife at some point. In Chapter 102, Old Madam brings the topic of how hard she's worked to serve her father (Marquees) during all these years at the border and then says that the Marquees should find a new main wife, only to ask for Wei Yuewu's approval, however, Yuewu plays a fool and talks about looking through the different noble houses to find a lady, meaning she refuses to acknowledge Aunt Dong and her raise to the main room. They really are shameless and Wei Yuewu just keeps getting more determined to stop them and uncover the truth. In Chapter 245, with the help of Li shi, she tries to kill Yuewu in a carriage accident on the way to Jing Wenyan's banquet (possible she is also involved, as they all seem to be in cahoots). Spoiler Aunt Dong changes the carriages, but Yuewu discovers it the day before and decides to go out that day with the carriage, and see what they do when she takes the new -and surely tampered with- carriage one they previous to their scheme. Then, she goes out the next day to that banquet and in a snow drift -man made- the carriage slides and loses a wheel and she almost crashes, but her maid Jing Lin is prepared to save her, since they were aware something would be off with that carriage and their journey. Not only they try to kill her, the coachman tries to put the blame of the collision into her, and they even have helpers between the crowd to frame her and say she has a bad character and that is why the horse got scared and the accident happened. However, they didn't expect her to be alive... Jin Ling knows this is Li shi's signature, that Aunt Dong couldn't have done it all by herself. Again, despite their plan to make the public opinion believe Yuewu was the cause of the accident, it is easy for Yuewu and her maid to change to situation and secure the crowd will connect the dots and see she was being framed and almost killed. People in this novel always have a good memory, and are able to see right from wrong pretty quick, despite the villains will forever try to mislead them. Unfortunately, we never get to see the villains get reported to the yamen, as an arrow procures to kill the coachman when Yuewu is saying she'll bring him there. The arrow they use to kill the coachman is identified by Yan Huajing (who coincidentally happens to witness the incident) as an army arrow. After this, the archs were the purpose of Aunt Dong's given brocade and hairpin are revealed play at the Palace. Yuewu goes there with Qiufu to participate in a praying from the Third Princess, which is nothing but a final selection for the Crown Prince's and other princes' concubines & wives. Spoiler More or less, both were materials related to Empress Tu that would anger her. In fact, officially those are the things that Miss Tu Er (the lady they said had an engagement with Wei Luowen, when in reality it was the Empress) gave to the Marquees Manor or related to her "relationship with the Marquees" (just a failed engagement). Since that lady did die from illness... that awakes Empress Tu anger (Tu Er actually committed suicide out of guilt). Fortunately, Yuewu knows how to counter-scheme every bit, since she has been investigating and watching her enemies for quite a long time. Around, the plot about Aunt Dong using a Feng Shui Master to instigate Old Madam so she burns Qin Xinrui's yard and gets rid of all her things starts. This plot last for long and it has Yuewu inside the Palace, almost unable to do anything about it. Spoiler Yuewu manages to use the Third Princess and Zhaoyi Tu into sending a miss from their home, Miss Tu Nine, to stop the nonsense... however, the Feng Shui Master almost succeeds into having Old Madam seal that yard by building a wall. They also wanted to paint some talismans using an ink that would eventually kill Yuewu -when she went there to pray for her mother- and that would reinforce the idea that Qin Xinrui was an evil lone-star that would kill her own daughter. This is a very angsty arch, it is in between other archs, and it is desperate the feeling that causes... however, the ending is satisfactory, because Yuewu gets to counter-scheme by exposing the posion used in the ink first and the instigation of the Feng Shui Master; then she confronts them all about trying to hide from her what they were doing with her mother's yard (more on Luowen's spoilers). Aunt Dong, obviously, tried to get all of Qin Xinrui's dowry, is not just a matter of a screen that was "given" to her daughter Wei Yuejiao (I'm still looking for when FL reclaims that item). At Chapter 427 she starts getting back by exposing how she is trying to steal the shops that are from her mother's dowry, hence hers now. Spoiler Chapter 428, after the shopkeepers thought they had fooled her by saying the shops were a ruin. This matte actually goes through too many chapters... Qin Xinrui's dowry was stolen thanks to Luowen's carelessness and not only Aunt Dong took things. Almost everybody in the house did! Old Madam had some of her fine porcelains as well as 3 shops, Li shi alsot took some items, even gave some to Wei Yan... Wei Qiufu dared to steal a few guqin scores, until she was afraid she couldn't play those in public for fear her uncle would recognize the music... There is another scheme from Aunt Dong to try make believe Wei Luowen that Yuewu is not his daughter. Chapter 478 Spoiler Yuewu finds out (I think, I've skeemed a lot now through the remaining chapters) through Aunt Yang (she is one of the many women those princes from vassal States sent) that she was planning to use some old men's clothes with a note to against her. She took those clothes to the Cold Mother (that old servant from Qin Xinrui, her mother) she has still hidden in Meihua Temple, and she recognized those to be some clothes her deceased mother made for her cousin whom she used to have a bethrotal with. But that was way before she got engaged to the Marquees, Wei Luowen had once seen those clothes, and Old Madam had ordered those to be burnt. The note implies that Yuewu is that cousin's daughter, but the Cold Mother quickly recognizes this is not Xinrui's hand-writting. In Chapter 481, it is revealed exactly how she wanted to use those clothes, as Aunt Dong still believes her scheme will succeed. This is something she actually prepared for when Qin Xinrui was still alive, but couldn't get to use because she died. The woman still believes she can escalate to the main wife position and nobody will oppose! When it's been clearly shown that if they dared, the first one to put a stop into it would be the people in the Palace. The senior servant even dares to still frame and defame the deceased Qin Xinrui: Yuewu is right on the spot. All of this happened because Old Madam tolerated it, instigated it and then she played the fool by pretending she didn't see what was happening in the backyard. Yuewu was right to turn the tables by switching the clothes for ones that had new stitch marks (which indicated this was fabricated to frame someone), and not men's but kid's clothes. She just loves to serve the villains first, to make them believe they've succeeded, just so she can later build a strong case against them. Even if she can't prove who is behind these defamations or assassination attempts, she raises doubts and people can put together the pieces in their brains, which will cause a disruption of trust. Luowen got trully furious when he saw the clothes were fabricated, he kicked the maid who dared defame his deceased wife. However, at that moment it is reported that Aunt Yang (the abandoned concubine from the Second Master) is missing, and someone recognizes her as the one who just now "tried to cause a miscarriage" by bumping into Aunt Dong. Then the vicious woman tries to take advantage of the situation to try to frame Yuewu, saying she was the one to direct Aunt Yang to try to provoke her lose the fetus in her belly. And this is one of the things I like most from this author's FLs. She knows how to make them dominate the situation by letting others get confident and think they have the upper hand, being sure of having done something that later turns out, didn't go as they expected because someone took care of it. But, despite of this power, her FLs don't come out as OP, they do have their flaws (like a few times when Yuewu has been trully in danger and Yan Huajing or even Wen Tianyao have saved her). She also can do this because she investigates things carefully and slowly, and she is wary of everyone surrounding her, which doesn't make the character too unrealistic. This is just the perfect piece of Yuewu's counter-scheme. Which will make definitely Luowen believe that his "beloved" Aunt Dong is behind this. Even though... unfortunately, it will take a lot more than this for him to actually see her real face. Chapter 484, From this moment onwards, we will only see Yuewu start to be more open about pointing her finger to Aunt Dong whenever a new incident happens, especifically highlighting the fact she believes she is the one who is behind everything related to her and her deceased mother. From this same Chapter 484: Spoiler: more from this aftermath, Wei Luowen's wrath Aw... Wei Luowen, Wei Luowen... his ability to discern the victim-act from the real viciousness of his concubine is still too weak. Chapter 485, Like, really, how could he even think about making this woman the main wife after going back to the Capital, when Yuewu didn't even know her, she had a daughter older than his di sister (which would had probably hindered Yuewu's status), and he had been pretending not to care about Yuewu for years which made her an easy target for bullies and evil-intended people? Is he an idiot? Where is his common sense? How can a former maid become a Marchioness? This is one of things why I can't reconcile with Wei Luowen's character. He is so negligent, being a general in the border, it is something unthinkable how stupid he is regarding his own beloved ones, he is unable to see who wants to harm them. But also, the lack of common sense about making a low-born concubine the main wife while still having a di daughter whose life pretty much depends on her status. It is infuriating the only small hint at him considering about it, let alone knowing he actually decided and even hinted as a sort of promise to Aunt Dong that she would, indeed, be sealed as the main wife once they returned to the Capital. Around chapter 497~500 she even sets a plan so she can be recognized as a lost daughter of the Tu Family, so she can finally be sealed as the main wife. Spoiler She uses some pastries that get recognized by Tu Jiulin, a master from the Tu Family. Of course, she just believes she's succeeded, but wei Yuewu quickly dismantles her plot by refuting the "facts" of this "lost miss" story, when falling inside her carriage from a cliff how she managed to save the porcelain molds of the pastries that kickstarted this scheme so she would be found by his "brother". That woman thought that because she happened to be pregnant, she would quickly fool everyone with this story. I just can't believe FL's father kept sleeping with her after he arrived at the Capital and saw how she treated Wei Yuewu. Here we also get some hints at why Wei Luowen didn't do anything when his first-born son was smuggled into the palace (meaning he agreed to it): Since he isn't the real son of the Marquees (that's also in other spoilers), he can't trully have an heir, and that is why he groomed the son of the Second Branch and wasn't even counting on a possible son from Aunt Dong. Chapter 504, after Wei Yuewu is made a Princess by the Empress Tu's decree, she expresses to her father her opposition to Aunt Dong possibly becoming the main wife, as well as express she believes she had something to do with her mother having "dystocia" when she was born. Spoiler Well, it wasn't like that as Qin Xinrui provocked her own labor, but Aunt Dong did try to cause her death along with Li shi, by creating a ruckuss at the door of the delivery room. The words of Yuewu make Wei Luowen finally start wondering whether Aunt Dong had something to do with his wife's death (even though she died 4 years after, because of an "illness", that would've been caused for that "dystocia"). In Chapter 649, during wei Yuewu's wedding, Spoiler She gets to tell her father (due to her previously fainting, presumably, out of anger) that the one who provided the medicine bottle that would be the same as the ones Dr. Ming from their Manor would prescribe, so Mrs. Tu Er (Second Lady from the Tu Family) would pass in the poison to kill her mother, was Aunt Dong. Hope man is feeling guilty, becaue (as I said on Wei Luowen's spoilers) he's been following that mysterious nun's plan all these years, while he was trully negligent to FL and her mother but affectionate to the woman who caused them harm and her daughter.
Post of Wei Qiufu: She is the di daughter of the Third Branch (Marquees Hua Yang's third brother). She hates Wei Yan and she also dislikes FL, because she wants to be the best and would desire the position of First Daughter the FL has. While the ranks are according to age and birth, the First Daughter position belongs to the eldest daughter of the Marquees, who is the patriarch of the main branch, and that is the FL's title. After the scheme to get FL loose her reputation & anger the Fourth Princess fails, Wei Qiufu leaves to pray to the temple to safe herself the trouble of what's coming next plus the incident that provoked Wei Yan to be seen by several noble young men's aftermath. Later on, around Chapter 83, Wei Yuewu encounters a young scholar who is a Tanhua (champion from the Imperial Examination) while going to Meihua Temple for some bussiness. She can see that the carriages collusion that brought them to meet was deliberate as there was some oil stain on the ground and, after she's solved the situation, the coachman driving her lets her know that this man, Xie Qianzhao already knew he was the coachman of the Marquees' Manor young ladies, because the day they were awarded at the Palace, he saw him driving the 3 young misses (Wei Yan, Wei Qiufu and Wei Qiuju). It is then (Chapter 84) when Wei Yuewu gets to know more about Qiufu's true character: In Chapter 101 ML (Yan Huaijing) tells Yuewu that her Fourth Sister is in love with the Crown Prince, Wen Tianyao. This surprises Yuewu who till now thought the girl was in love with Xie Qingzhao and that is why she dared to use him against her. Yan Huajing wants Yuweu to trick Qiufu into something regarding the Crown Prince. In Chapter 122, Wei Qiufu sets Yuewu up into a stay with the Princesses at Meihua Temple and tries to get her killed during an assassination attempt on the Crown Prince while playing the victim, as if Wei Yuewu tried to push her to be killed instead. Wei Yuewu manages to have her name cleared, but Qiufu still retains her "good girl" reputation by playing the white lotus, when someone point out another girl, Yang Yuyan, pushed Yuewu forward and that's why the assassin's sword almost killed her. In Chapter 126, the aftermath of this incident, Yan Huaijing gives wei Yuewu more information regarding this Fourth Sister. She used the name of the Third Princess (who wasn't aware of the scheme), whom she seems to be close with. Not only that, Yan Huajing reveals that she was also behind the assassination attempt from the beginning of the story: Spoiler The motivation of this sister is clear, she wants to be the last "man" standing, having her path to become the next Empress cleared. At Chapter 157, she has set another trap to kill Yuewu. Luckily, FL remembers the "encounter" with Xie Qingzhou, and she anticipates her sister who, suspiciously, managed to leave the Meihua Temple ahead of her (the ending of the stay was sudden, as the CP took the Princesses back due to a dispute). Wei Yuewu stops before the intersection she collided with that other carriage (Xie's) before and finds another pattern of oil. She lets her small carriage go down on its own and smash Qiufu's carriage down. The appears to her Fourth Sister, who has been caught but plays the fool, and manages to obligue her to lend her staff to help clean the oil stains.
Post of Wen Tianyao, the Crown Prince: Well, he is connected to FL's mother. He meets the FL early, when she gets her carriage knocked out almost falling into the river and she gets separated from her entourage. She finds shelter under a tea house entrance and Wen Tianyao happens to be there waiting for ML. Then he ends up getting introduced, along with the Third Princess. He is close to the Third Princess (not sure yet, but from what I skipped through, he is sort of in love with this "sister") when his "biological" sister is supposed to be the Fourth Princess. Both Princesses are not good seeds LOL, they will become jealous of FL due to their obsession with ML, and Wei Tianyao will be conflicted between them and FL. Spoiler First he seems to want to marry FL (suggesting to switch his engagement). Then he wants to kill FL, because she's married to Yan Huajing and that obstructs his "sister"s happiness. Even though he is thinking about the Third Princess, whom he is closer with, Empress Tu orders him to kill Wei Yuewu so his "biological" sister, the Fourth Princess, can marry Yan Huaijing. In Chapter 659 is when the Empress orders it to him, after her attempt of sending two court ladies to seduce Yan Huaijing and spy on FL and the mysterios "Mrs. Lin" (she is a fake wife ML made up) fails. Then his Third Brother (Third Prince) reveals him that he is FL's biological brother (He already suspected it, because he seemed to be investigating something). Empress Tu was originally the bethroted of Wei Luowen, but since he isnsited on marrying Qin Xinrui, he sort of ruined her reputation. However, she managed to become Empress, the only problem was that one of her clan sisters also married in as a Zhaoyi (which was supposedly against the rules) and she was much favored by the Emperor. So she used her pity party tale to convince the Marquees to snatch his wife's first-born son for her, so she could "give birth to the first son" for the Emperor. Cruel and idiotic -from the part of Wei Luowen- as it seems, in fact this was all probably ordered by the mysterious nun at Meihua Temple, whom seems to be the one commanding or even pulling all the strings, so the bloodline of Concubine Xu (?) is the one to succeed to the throne. That mysterious nun appears a few times before this but is in Chapter 646 when we see Wei Luowen secretly talk to her and be actually mad at her instructions. Read at your own risk! This is related to the end of the novel Spoiler Despite not being son of the current Emperor and Empress, he is still from royal blood! The Marquees of Hua Yang is later revealed to be a Prince that had to hide in the Marquees Manor as his eldest son, because his brother presumably attempted to rebel. Consort Xian from the former Emperor is the mother of Wei Luowen, Wen Tianyao's father and FL's father (they're both children of the main wife). In the end, he becomes Emperor with the help of ML (Yan Prince), who has been scheming for a long time. He also ends up in good terms with FL and his real father. He really falls for Wei Yuewu and becomes a little obsessed with her, tries to hint at her first then openly suggest her to enter his East Palace, saying he is willing to make her the main wife and all but, that won't happen. First, Yuewu doesn't want to, second, when he tries to ask for it to his "Mother Empress" in Chapters 494-495, Empress Tu strongly refuses to let him marry Wei Yuewu in any way. Wen Tianyao can't understand why, so Empress Tu emphasizes the fact Wei Luowen doesn't want his only di daughter to end up in the East Palace nor become anyone's concubine but, because Wen Tianyao keeps insisting, she pulls out the card that Yan Huaijing seems to be interested in her and that they seem to have a close relationship, which makes Wen Tianyao recall the first time he met Yuewu she already seem too acquainted with Yan Huaijing. Of course, Spoiler: Empress Tu Empress Tu is another one of this novel's villains. Even though she doesn't intervene too much, she is the one who's behind Qin Xinrui's (FL's mother) death, and she is still bitter about the fact she stole her marriage. It seems the woman was quite obsessed with marrying Wei Luowen, not even Qin Xinrui's daughter she wants to let go: Chapter 495 ____ The Third Princess isn't exactly a white lotus, she is supposed to be of good nature, selfless and is more dignified than her di sister, the Fourth Princess, but she knows how to be schemmy when someone is in her way and she does become a little bit of a white lotus the moment FL appears and she can see Yan Huaijing is interested in her. She used to be close to Wei Qiufu, because she also played a similar role of being filial daughter and "good" person (I think she's the biggest white lotus in the novel), but when the incident at the Meihua Temple happens, when they invited several noble ladies but Wei Yuewu almost gets killed on an assassination attempt, the Third Princess ends up disliking Wei Qiufu as her mask starts to fall off when Wei Yuewu deliberately exposes her using what happened on that incident. She is the one that seems more interested into marrying Yan Huaijing. The plan of the royal family is to marry their princesses to the sons of the vassal States and have other noble ladies acompany them as dowry (to become concubines). That is why the arch of the Meihua Temple takes quite a few chapters. The Princesses invite several noble ladies with the intention to choose a candidate for marrying the Crown Prince and the rest are supposed to be concubines for him and the vassal States princes (heir apparents). Wei Yuewu has a hard time trying to get herself out of this mess (not becoming anyone's concubine). This is from Chapter 155, when the Fourth Princess finds her at Yan Huajing's quarters at the Temple, because she fainted due to a fever. Wei Yuewu clearly explains what happened, but it's obvious every other girl in there thinks she is a threat. _________ The Fourth Princess has an inferiority complex because, despite she is the di daughter, everybody prefers the Third Princess and constantly compare them, pointing out her older sister is so good and noble. _______________ There's a Third Prince born to a low-ranked concubine who died young and was close to Wei Yuewu's mother, because he hadn't a mother the Emperor would let him visit her at the Marquees Manor. He remembers her a lot, and he is the one to be trully nice to Wei Yuewu and try to open Wen Tianyao's eyes: Spoiler He is the one who reveals the truth of Wen Tianyao being Wei Yuewu's brother and he also talks in her favor when he wants to kill her because the Empress Tu ordered him to do it.
Post of Wei Yuejiao: She is the shu daughter of Marquees Hua Yang, her mother is Aunt Dong. She appears later in the story and, of course, she's been spoiled during all these years she monopolized her father's favor. Aunt Dong is scheming to become the main wife and the Marchioness. When they were little, before the Marquees abandoned FL, she tried to kill the FL by drowning her into the river (I'll update later when I have more details). It seems this matter's aftermath was either twisted (make it look like FL tried to kill her) or used as an excuse to leave FL in the protection of her mother's family. Before she even appears in the story, her shadow is already big. At a certain point, after Wei Yuewu has already dealt enough times with Li shi, Wei Yan, Wei Qiuju and even Wei Qiufu; the news of her imminent arrival, along with her birth mother Aunt Dong, let FL know that this shu daughter seems to be the most cherished by the Old Madam and has benefitted the most since she got to grow up with the Marquees. Wei Weijiao and Aunt Dong's information will only give more reasons to Wei Yuewu tu dislike her own father, for not protecting her mother well and spending her childhood away with the people that were responsible for her mother's death. Spoiler: even though Even though the true culprit of Wei Yuewu's mother death are Empress Tu and that Second Lady Tu from her family, Aunt Dong and Li shi paid an important role into making sure she would die so she could eventually ascend to the main wife's position. She even tried to kill FL once as a kid. From the moment she arrives, she's trouble. Around chapters 161-163 she is just meeting Wei Yuewu for the first time and is already trying to provoke her. She even got the kitchen not to serve her lunch, just to let her know her power and make her wait for her (delayed in purpose) arrival. However, Yuweu knows how to turn the situation around, and she also ends up using the occasion to make a statement regarding her Aunt Dong's aspirations of becoming the main wife. Not only she exposes Yuejiao's rudeness and improper behavior in front of the di daughter and real First Miss, she also draws a line making clear her birth mother is not to be disrespected like this. Over all (from my skipping of chapters), she has a sense of self-entitlement that is beyond imagination, considering she is a concubine-born daughter and, part of it, is due to Wei Luowen treating her too well and allowing Aunt Dong to behave as she was the real mistress (legal wife) when they lived at the border. Not just that, but the fact it seems he never verbally corrected people when everybody thinks (and this means they say it out loud) that Wei Yuewu (FL) is an abandoned daughter. The man never bothered to contact her nor send her gifts, which is atrocious, considering he claims he was so in love with his wife and he loves his di daughter so much. Mostly all her schemes end up backfiring because of that. Yuewu knows how to bear with her povocations and consequently put her in her place, reminding her that Aunt Dong is a concubine and voicing out she is against her becoming a legal wife. Despite the Old Madam is so in favor of it, and she is disappointed when she sees her attempts at catering to Yuewu to put a good name for Aunt Dong go nowhere, she can't do nothing about it as it does matter what Yuewu thinks. It is not due to the fact she is the First Daughter, but the fact she still has a maternal family that legally would have a say on who becomes the new main wife if this must be from a low status. Her usual tantrums are all about Yuewu being the outsider who came to break her family of 3 and, like everyone else against her, always calling her a "cheap B*", thinking herself above the di daughter of the Main Branch, just because she was raised believing she was loved by her elders but Yuewu wasn't. This "reality" shatters because Yuewu stood her graund and didn't let anyone disrespect her, fighting all the schemes from Li shi and others, knowing how to use her status and the back-up of her maternal home. She also relies too much on the fact Wei Yuweu was born prematurely and has a congenital deficiency, thinking she should had died already. This is a problem for her because: 1. She shouldn't know this. She only knows because her mother (Aunt Dong) was behind Wei Yuewu's weak body. Despite being born prematurely due to Qin Xinrui's anxiousness, Aunt Dong and Li shi made sure the delivery wouldn't go smoothly, which affected Yuewu's health, as well as she tried to get her killed drowing her on the lake, which weakened more her body as a child. 2. It only reminds Wu Luowen how much wrong he's done to Wei Yuweu and her mother. Even thought it isn't until Wei Yuejiao & Aunt Dong had been sent to a hamlet that she confronts her father about the incident that made her mother panic and never trust Wei Luowen again, he can see how much his decisions and actions affected his di daughter and their relationship. Around Chapters 172~173 she sets a scheme to ruin Wei Yuweu's reputation, by tricking her during the banquet for the Second Master (Wei Luowu) birthday. However, Wei Yuweu is prepared. Yuejiao has someone come screaming that Yuewu is in a room with some man, but she is actually dancing under cover at the stage and after they all (Wei Fengyao, the eldest married sister is also there fawning the flames) has said its all, insisting that they saw her being in a room with a man; Wei Yuewu asks from the stage being where did they saw her, revealing that she has been on the stage dancing all this time. However, Wei Fengyao tampered with the stage and, while they are all waiting for Wei Yuejiao -suspecting she was behind trying to ruin FL's reputation-, the pillar on the stage falls, the stage collapses and Yuewu almost dies knowing she avoided Yuejiao's scheme but ended up falling into Fenyao's. Yan Huajing manages to save her, though. On the same banquet, later in Chapter 177, this delusional self-entitled T-at tries to "fall" into Yan Huajing's arms, but ends up bumping into the Fourth Prince instead ans scolds hims -which backfires-. Is funny because, much later in the story she'll desperately scheme to marry the Fourth Prince when her choices are all done and she's almost force to marry the sickly Second Prince after another one of her schemes backfires. From all the villains against FL, she is one of the stupidest. Perhaps, the Fifth Sister Qiuju is even more stupid, but she doesn't commit as many backfiring schemes as she does due to her delusional head. After the banquet at Prince Nan'an (around chapter 200), she tries to approach Yan Huaijing while accusing Wei Yuewu of having caused Wei Fengyao's face to be ruined, but Yan Huaijing despises her and actually points his sword to her neck, LOL. From then onwards, she says to Yuewu that she shouldn't get close to that person and that she will tell her father not to let her have any relations with Yan Huaijing, but Yuewu refutes her. The next arch, around chapter 209 starts is when they are preparing to recieve Wei Luowen (the Marquees) and Aunt Dong and the scheme her mother has on her sleeves. She tries to make Yuewu dress ostentaitously while making Yuejiao dress plain, so the Marquees will be displeased with his di daughter for her arrogance when he sees her. But Yuewu knows how to play the white lotus with this sister, and tricks her hard into switching clothes as well as have her so warmed up and provocked about the fact she is concubine born, that she gets everyone waiting at the City gates' hear how shameless Yuejiao is. Chapter 212, Spoiler Notice that, at this point of the story, Yuewu is still hurt and mad at her father, thinking he is undeserving of her love and respect. She is planning only to make him see how his beloved concubine caused her mother's death and the fact that she was abandoned by him while he lived happily with her and her shu daughter at the border. The white lotus of her mother thinks she has everything under control because, not only she has Old Madam's back-up, she does have some control over the Manor's staff (as it's been seen on the previous 100-ish chapters). However, little does she expect that Yuewu can also play her game: She is deliberate with her words, she carefully only mentions Yuejiao all the time, trusting that because all those years she was the only daughter raised beside Wei Luowen, she is the only one that the Marquees values and loves, taking for granted Wei Yuewu as an abandoned daughter her father doesn't even want to see. In Chapter 460 he says again (now to Aunt Dong) that she wants to marry Yan Huajing... it seems she forgot the fright he gave her when he pointed his blade to her neck. Then a few chapters later, she insists into going to a Palace Banquet she hasn't actually been authorized (by the Old Madam) to go, and tries to scheme agains Yuewu -as well as defame her by saying she is ill and will die soon-, but Yuewu has her knocked out and the Second Prince finds her. Chapter 465: Spoiler I know this ends up being a scandal but Yuejiao later tries to calculate the Fourth Prince desperately to not marry the sickly Second Prince. However, this incident is a new blow into Luowen's trusts towards this couple of mother and daughter. Yuejiao also spoke ill of Yuewu's mother at the banquet, saying that Aunt Dong would soon become the new wife. This is actually one of the most karmik sequences in the novel, as Yuejiao is about to fall due to her own blabbery and delusional talk about being the Marquees' favourite daughter and Yuewu being talentless and a country bumpling that was abandoned by her father. Of course, Luowen is 99% responsible for this because, if it wasn't for him, Yuejiao would think any of this. Please, bear with my posts because I am not reading the novel normally at the moment. I'm skipping through chapters seeking for clues, and rewinding to the point I am actually following the story from beginning to the end.
Please post all your spoiler under one post. If needed, edit them . Otherwise, there's a chance of being reported for spamming. It would save space as well as you get saved from getting a card from the moderators.
I just made separate posts for the different characters. I usually keep editing all posts. It is impossible to put everything in one post, because I end up posting a lot about the novel's characters, plot, etc. It wouldn't even fit in one page! I appreciate the warning, but I don't think it can be considered spam, when I am simply putting order by, at least, separating the different characters and its schemes or plot stories. If you'd seen any of my previous posts on other forums, I can spend days editing a post by updating or upgrading information on a certain arch or character.