For the next year, I focused all my attention on making drugs.
Ever since I met Rouyao that time, she always asked me to play with her. I didn't want to entertain her, so I always said I was not feeling well. She actually told my mother about it. My mother asked a doctor to see me. The doctor took my pulse and couldn't find any poison in my body.
My master and aunt were very pleased, because when the tests found no poison in my body, I had already achieved great success.
At the age of twelve, I became a master.
The master said there was nothing more to teach me. I could cast a curse on anyone without anyone knowing.
On the day of his graduation, my aunt prepared a banquet to entertain the master, and I accompanied him.
It was then that I realized that the master was someone my aunt had known in the past. No wonder she was willing to stay in the mansion for many years just to teach me the art of witchcraft.
I toasted my master and my aunt one cup after another, and I was extremely well-behaved.
But no one knows that my heart has gradually become cold and hard as a small stone, and no one can hurt me.
The master left the next day. Before leaving, my aunt stuffed a lot of silver bills into her pocket.
After seeing the master off, my aunt called me to her side and asked me to kneel down and listen to her.
I knelt down as I was told.
She sat on the chair and looked at me with sinister eyes. "Tomorrow I will tell your father that I am in the side garden worshipping Buddha and cannot bring you with me. Let that bitch keep you in her house, and you will wait for an opportunity to cast a spell on her. I want her to die miserably, miserably."
"Yes!" I replied. There should be no expression on my face because my heart was at peace.
Before my aunt could report to my father, she fell ill.
There is no one to serve in the side garden. They were all sent away because I learned witchcraft in recent years. Therefore, I have to serve her personally.
Her mother asked a doctor to treat her, but the doctor couldn't find the cause of the disease at all. He just said that she had a deficiency of qi and blood and prescribed some medicine to regulate qi and blood.
I served her every day, and my mother suggested that she should ask a few maids to come and serve me, but I refused. I told my mother that my aunt had taken care of me for twelve years, and I hoped to serve by her side to repay her for giving birth to me.
My mother's eyes were filled with tears. She went back and told my father that I was so filial.
My aunt was ill and had a bad temper. She would always get angry for no reason, but she still drank the medicine I handed her. She always grabbed my wrist and said to me harshly, "I don't need you to serve me. Get out of the side garden and go to that bitch. I want to watch her die."
After repeating it several times, that day, the sun was shining brightly. It was just the beginning of autumn and the leaves outside the yard were dyed with a layer of gold. I opened the window and the sunlight shone through the window, and the ground seemed to be covered with a layer of gold foil.
I brought the medicine to her bedside as usual, "Aunt, it's time to take the medicine."
She had been ill for a long time and had not dressed up. Her hair was messy and her eye sockets were sunken, but her eyes were sharp and full of hatred. "Don't you understand what I said? If I tell you to get out, she will send someone to serve me. I don't need you to be filial to me. You just need to help me kill that bitch."
I stirred the medicine in the chicken bowl with a white porcelain spoon and blew on it. A smile unconsciously came to my lips, "Auntie, why are you in such a hurry? I will kill her eventually. You drink the medicine first."
"What are you laughing at?" She was furious and hit the medicine bowl in my hand, leaning her elbows on the bed, "Get out!"
The medicine was scattered all over the floor, and some of it spilled on my skirt. I reached out and swept it away, wiped my bun, and looked at her steadily, "Auntie, have you ever thought about why you suddenly got sick?"
She was stunned for a moment, and then I saw the muscles on her face twitching rapidly, and her eyes were filled with horror. "What did you say?"
I still looked at her steadily, "Auntie, I have something to tell you. You will definitely be very happy. My master has taught me witchcraft for many years. I finally tried it and succeeded."
She finally understood, leaned back slightly, and moved her hand. I knew she was going to hit me, so I leaned forward and said, "Go ahead."
She was trembling all over. "You... you actually murdered your mother?"
I smiled and shook my head, "No, Auntie is not my mother. You said that I was just a replacement of my mother, and you gave birth to a son that day."
"Little bitch!" She tried to pounce on me like crazy, but I didn't move. I just sat on the stool beside the bed and let her slap me in the face.
I'm used to it, so I don't resist.
She burst into tears, then screamed hysterically, and finally stopped.
I adjusted my hair, my red and swollen face aching and numb, then I stood up and said, "Auntie, today is your end. Although you didn't give birth to me, you raised me for many years. We have the relationship of mother and daughter. I am bidding farewell here!"
I knelt down and kowtowed to her nine times in a row.
"Little bitch, little bitch!"
Her vocabulary has been limited. In the past, when she grabbed my hair and scolded me, she could scold me for half an hour without repeating herself, but now she only knows how to say this sentence.
She cried, crying hysterically. I didn't say anything, just stood by the bed and watched her cry quietly.
How happy it is to be able to cry like this.
I sighed softly.
She probably has forgotten that when I was beaten, I hid under the bed, biting my wrist and crying, but dared not make the slightest sound, because she was guarding the door, and as long as I cried, she would come in and beat me up.
"Aunt, cry. You've had a hard life, and you've made me suffer too."
She raised her head, her face full of tear marks. After going crazy, she calmed down a lot. She looked at me eagerly and sobbed, "I am your mother."
I shook my head. “It’s really not.”
From the day you disowned me, I disowned you.
If you really gave birth to me, I would have paid off what I owed you.
If you had not given birth to me, then I would be eating the food of the Sun Mansion, and you still owe me.
But never mind, we're even now.
I walked out and sat at the door.
I heard her cursing and crying like crazy. She was reluctant to die. I knew that at least she didn't kill her mother, so she was reluctant to die.
If, I were a son, then the eldest son of a concubine, her position in this mansion would be secure.
The sound gradually died down. I still sat at the door, watching the fallen leaves in the yard. The autumn wind came at the right time.
I didn't cry on the day of my aunt's funeral.
I don't know how to cry anymore.
The maids in the mansion were talking about me, saying that I was too sad and had become a little mad.
After the burial, Rouyao pulled me to kneel in front of my mother and begged her to take me into the house to live with her.
My mother felt sorry for me for my filial piety that day, so she comforted me and held my hand and said to me with tears in her eyes: "Although your aunt is a little stubborn, she is also a kind person. You took care of her before she died. This is considered to be sending her off and fulfilling your filial piety. Don't be sad in the future. Although you are not my child, I will treat you the same as other girls."
I nodded timidly, "Thank you, mother!"
(End of this chapter)