Black Belly Wife

Chapter 22

The next morning, when Murong Yun Shu woke up, the first thing she saw was a pair of saddened eyes.

"Miss, you finally woke up," said the feeble Lu'er.

"Mmm," Murong Yun Shu sat up. The next thing she saw was Nie Qing sitting not too far away staring at her with some sort of mystifying coldness as though she's an nemesis of his. Coolly she asked, "Is Master Nie hungry or just didn't sleep well?"

"What. Are. We. Going. To. Do. With. Feng. Ling?" asked Nie Qing one word at a time through his gritted teeth.

"You haven't gone to get her back yet?" Murong Yun Shu frowned. She seemed quite displeased at the way he was treating her fiance's "friend"'s sister.

"Didn't you say you are the one who's in charge?" growled Nie Qing.

Murong Yun Shu looked like she was finally following what he was saying, "She's still in the room."

"Which room?"

Murong Yun Shu cast him a look as though she didn't even want to bother answering his question. She tucked on the clothes that she was wearing then turned to Lu'er, "Get some hot water, I need to bathe and change."

Nie Qing was immediately embarrassed, he blushed and reluctantly got up and headed toward the door while mumbling something to the effect of "this woman is ridiculous."

Murong Yun Shu pretended she didn't hear anything, with a hair clasp she wrapped her hair up, looking like a married woman.

Lu'er looked at her wordlessly, there were towels that she could use, yet everytime when miss bathe she always wrap her hair up like a married woman.... maybe she's just dying to get married.

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Nonetheless, there's a more serious problem right now.

"Miss, our baggage was gone and this town is so remote, what are you going to change into?"

"Go look under the bed."

Lu'er blinked cluelessly, but followed her words and looked under the bed. Shortly she exclaimed in excitement, "Miss! It's really under the bed!"

"Mmm, now go get hot water."

Lu'er held the baggage in her chest and looked at Murong Yun Shu hesitantly. Finally she swallowed all the questions that she has and left to get water.

*

An hour or so later, Murong Yun Shu finished bathing and changed into an outfit that's so white it made her seemed out of this world. A golden ornamental hairpin helped holding up her girly bun, her thick and water fall like black hair flawlessly flowing down her back; there were barely any make up on her oval-shaped face but her elegance came innately. Her look was peaceful and her pace flawless. She looked like a other worldly fairy.

She walked straight toward the table where Nie Qing and company were seated. None of the diners in the hall were able to take their eyes off of her.

"Murong, you are so pretty today!" praised Feng Ling.

Lu'er nodded vigorously in agreement. She has always said that white is the best color on miss.

Nie Qing just kept on drinking his tea without ever looking up.

"We leave in 15 minutes," said Murong and headed toward outside.

"Wait, miss, don't you want to have breakfast?"

Murong Yun Shu frowned lightly, and answered her question with another question, "You seriously have appetite?"

Lu'er blinked, why wouldn't I? Then she suddenly remembered all the snakes from yesterday, the content in her stomach started to roil, " I am done." Now even the steam buns looked like snakes....

Nie Qing abruptly stood up, indicating that he's done eating.

Feng Ling was clueless about what was going on. Her stomach was growling. She slept all night long under the bed and missed dinner. Now she's starving, "Wait! I haven't even started yet! We are going to be in the carriage for hours, what say we sit here for a little bit and let me finish my breakfast? Please, Murong?"

Murong Yun Shu cast her a glance, "I'll be waiting outside." Even the smell of food made her nauseated.

Lu'er and Nie Qing followed her out, leaving Feng Ling there stuffing her face with steam buns and porridge.

When the three of them stepped outside the inn, the coachman was already waiting outside with the carriage. Murong Yun Shu was just about to step onto the carriage when Lu'er asked, "Miss, did you really summon those snaked yesterday?"

***

"MmHmm."

"How, how did you do that?" Lu'er felt that her mistress is so omnipotent, she could even control animals as scary as snakes. No wonder she's the head of the Murong House.

"Back when I lost my appetite for three days after seeing a snack, I started researching on how to summon them."

Lu'er suddenly recalled when her mistress was 10 year old, she'd bring a stack of strange books with her to the bamboo forest everyday and knocked and banged on things. She even spent a sizable amount of money to have someone build her an ancient zither that wouldn't produce any sound. Master Murong was so angry when he found out he almost fired the person who got this done, luckily mistress spoke in his favor....

Suddenly it all clicked, "That ancient zither.... earring.... it's just like the ancient zither that couldn't make any sound...." and it's all coming back to her, what mistress said back then wasn't that the zither "can't make any sound, it's just that dad can't hear the sound that it makes." So that was what she meant -- humans couldn't hear it, but snakes could!

Lu'er was getting more and more frightened, how... how could miss have turned something so deadly into earrings and wore them everyday...

"You are getting smarter," Murong Yun Shu was very happy that she didn't need to spent time and effort in explaining any further. Actually when she was researching for the method to tame the snakes she merely wanted to show off in front of the snakes, to avenge for "not being able to eat for three days." Later on she had someone make her this pair of earrings for self-defense purposes -- she didn't want to be bullied by snakes again. She didn't think it'd end up saving her like they did yesterday. Frankly speaking, if it wasn't the last resort, she would not have done it. Even with her eyes closed, just visualizing the scene with many snakes slivering at the same time was enough to make her loose her appetite in days to come.

"Then how did you know Feng Ling was in her room?" Nie Qing was going to ask about the snakes first, but once Lu'er brought up earrings, ancient zither, and it all made sense after looking at the earrings. His look turned into fear. From now on, no matter what happened, never offend the Murong woman...

Murong Yun Shu turned around, just in time to see Nie Qing shuddered. Baffled, she asked, "Master Nie is cold?"

Nie Qing gritted his teeth, "A little."

Murong Yun Shu's eyes flickered, pretending she had accepted Nie Qing's explanation. She continued, "If I was the intended target of Jiang Zhou Four Odds, they wouldn't be so stupid to kidnap Feng Ling ahead of time to alarm us....1" She noticed Nie Qing had shuddered again and realized why his look was so peculiar. She carried on, "Besides, one side of Feng Ling's room was connected to the cliff and the other side to the hallway. The kidnappers couldn't have escaped through the window, nor could they carry her out the front door, so she must be still inside the room."

"They have nothing to gain, why did they bother?"

"As I have said, to alert us......." and she saw Nie Qing shuddered again, finally she couldn't contain herself anymore, "If I'm not scare, why should a man like you be afraid of snake...."

And Nie Qing shuddered again.

Murong Yun Shu patiently cast him a very subtle supercilious look and continued on with what she was saying, "They purposefully kidnapped Feng Ling and took away my baggage, just to alert..... 2 us that we are in danger."

"So what you were saying was, these individuals are on our side?"

Murong Yun Shu seemingly mindlessly glanced over at a particular table in the inn and said, "Hard to say."

While they were chatting, Feng Ling had finished her breakfast and skipped outside with a bright smile, "Okay, I'm ready to go!"

Everybody piled into the carriage and slowly headed toward their next stop, the town of Qing Yuan.

Back in the inn, the table in the middle sat three

***

1. Took me a while to figure this one out. But the Chinese idiom "beat the grass and startle the snakes" means "accidentally alarming someone by some rash actions". In the story Nie Qing shuddered every time he heard the word "snake." :D

2. This time Murong Yun Shu purposefully omit the word "snake" in her conversation. ^__^