Chapter 2 Barely Escaping with Her Life

“Whip! Whip her to death!” With hair disheveled and eyes red, Qiu Yuqing hysterically urged the old maidservants who were punishing Qiu Yelan, “Whip her till her flesh was torn to shreds and see if she still dares to not admit how she murdered my poor Jinzhang!”

Four or five old maidservants who were strong and merciless waved the whip as she ordered. “Crack!” “Crack!” With a few sounds of whipping, Qiu Yelan hanging from the beam of the room made a weak cry. She dropped her head. It seemed that she would like to struggle, but she did not have strength.

“I thought that since this body has been engaged to the nephew of Duke of Guangyang, Qiu Family would not be too ruthless.” Feeling the burning pain of whipping more and more numbness, Qiu Yelan, who was at the gate of death, sighed in her heart, “If I had knew earlier that this Aunt Qiu is so lawless, I should have escaped according to the order of the body’s mother, Princess Ruan. I should not have been back here, even though that house was buried in the avalanche and I had no money to seek refuge with that aunt thousands of miles away…”

Finally getting rid of the end of world in the previous life, she did not expect that the second life would be worse than the last days! At least, she had never been beaten like this in the past life!

Seeing Qiu Yelan’s breath getting weaker and weaker, Princess Yang, the Duchess of Xihe, frowned slightly and said, “Sister, it is enough. We’d better let her off now.”

Qiu Yelan heard these words when she was on the verge of shock, and she thought, “In my memory, although the Duchess of Xihe doesn’t like me, she much more hates that Aunt Qiu wants to take over the right of the Prince’s Mansion with the favor of Madame Lu… It seems that Aunt Qiu did not ask Princess Yang’s opinion when ordering to hang me here and beat me as soon as I came back today. And it hurt Princess Yang the hostess’s face.”

Thinking of this, Qiu Yelan used her last strength to say with a weak voice, “Aunt Qiu, I am a member of the Qiu Family anyway. Even if I have done something wrong, my First Aunt is here, though my mother passed away. As you hit me like this, do you really follow the rule of Qiu Family?”

…When Princess Ruan was still here, she lived behind closed doors, indifferent to the right and wrong of the Prince’s Mansion. Both Princess Yang and Aunt Qiu counted on Princess Ruan and sometimes they even cooperated. Now that their common goal, Princess Ruan was gone, and it would be strange if they two did not fight each other directly!

“Rules?!” Qiu Yuqing was deeply sad for the death of her only son. At this moment, being like an angry lioness, she went over and gave Qiu Yelan a slap upon hearing the words! She angrily shouted, “In this Prince’s Mansion, I am the rule!”

“Enough!” Sure enough, when Qiu Yuqing just finished her words, Princess Yang, who couldn’t hold back anymore, stood up and said furiously. “Qiu Yuqing, you have got married. Prince took you back to live here for thinking that you cannot get along well with your husband Kang’s family, and it would be not easy for you, a widow, to live with two children. But now you even regard yourself as the rule of Prince’s Mansion!? Where do you place Prince and me, and the Madame? Or in your mind, the Prince’s Mansion of Xihe now has belonged to the Kang Family?!”

And then Princess Yang excitedly said to Madame Lu, who was taking tears with the handkerchief and whispering about her poor grandson, “Mother! Please judge for us! Does this Prince’s Mansion of Xihe on earth belong to which family? The Qiu Family or the Kang Family? If it belongs to the Kang Family, as the daughter-in-law, I would not dare to occupy the sister-in-law’s place with my children!”

Madame Lu put down her handkerchief and glanced at Qiu Yelan coldly, “A bad junior provoked you two with her words, and both of you should really be provoked? Are you idiots?”

“Doesn’t Princess Yang understand this?” Qiu Yelan closed her eyes, making her breath weaker and more obscured, sneering in her heart, “But she still stands up immediately. ‒ Can she not stand up? Just now I almost spoke out in public that she, the real hostess of the Prince’s Mansion, was standing back. If she still didn’t come out yet to say something, then Qiu Yuqing would surely take over the right in the Prince’s Mansion! By then, she, the princess, would indeed be a joke!”

An angry expression flashed on Princess Yang’s face, “Mother! It cannot be said in this way. A state has its laws, and a family has its rules. Yelan is a member of our Qiu Family, and she is even the Commandery Princess Ningyi conferred formally! Even if you want to ask her about Jinzhang’s death, you should ask in a proper way, instead of directly torturing her!”

Madame Lu said coldly, “You are a fair person! Then according to your words, you are the Duchess of Xihe conferred formally, while I am an old woman without any title! When I meet you, should I kowtow to you as a greeting?!”

It was known to all over the Prince’s Mansion of Xihe that what Madame Lu hated most was that she still had no status and no title even though her son had become the Duke of Xihe. In the past, she, as the concubine of old Duke of Xihe, had been formally kicked out of the house by the old Princess.

But when Princess Yang heard these words, instead of immediately kneeling down to apologize, she said in a same cold voice, “How dare me? Mother, you are over thinking!”

“This Princess Yang…” With only one breath left, Qiu Yelan was still sober and insisted on listening, with her ears up. Something hit her slightly, “She just spoke out on purpose? She was just waiting for me to say those words, so that she could take this opportunity to fight with Qiu Yuqing? Otherwise, since Madame Lu’s words are so serious, Princess Yang should have yielded… I don’t know if she contradicts Lu now, how can she explain to Duke of Xihe later?”

In her memory, her First Uncle, Duke of Xihe, was a filial son. ‒ So even though Madame Lu favored her own daughter Qiu Yuqing, Princess Yang could only see the husband’s sister come back to the family as a widow and scramble for power…

Thinking of this, Qiu Yelan tilted her head over her shoulder, pretending to faint!

Princess Yang glanced at her and said, “Put the Commandery Princess