Chapter 04
“The taste is a bit strange,” Jiang Yan muttered, smacking her lips. She continued to siphon Shen Peirongâs fortune, knowing that doing so not only shortened Shen Peirongâs lifespan but also made her more obedient.
Seizing the opportunity, Jiang Wei snatched the jade pendant back and flashed into her space.
Ding! A notification popped up in the Transmigrator Alliance group. [Sleeping with Pretty Boys in Ancient Times @Weiwei Qingcheng: Sis, hurry into the group to grab the welfare! It won’t last.]
Jiang Weiâs fingers flew, and she managed to snag the very last red envelope. Member “Weiwei Qingcheng” has obtained one “Dream Thief Space.”
[Sleeping with Pretty Boys in Ancient Times: Sis, you’re lucky! With this, you can enter your lover’s dream to practice martial arts, or even disguise yourself as other people. The process is absolutely explosive… “lecherous emoji”]
[Weiwei Qingcheng: Disguise myself as other people to enter someone else’s dream?] She was already formulating how to use the “Dream Thief Space.”
[Sleeping with Pretty Boys in Ancient Times: Oh, sis, you have diverse interests!] [Weiwei Qingcheng: Goodbye.]
Jiang Wei stepped out of the space. Jiang Yan had already finished siphoning the fortune and had left, heading toward the Second Concubineâs West Court. Jiang Wei used the “Dream Thief Space” to enter Shen Peirongâs dream.
Following the trail of the dream, Jiang Wei arrived at the old Shen family manor. Walking down a long corridor, a bronze ancient door came into view. Pushing it open, she found a bright stone chamber containing three washbasin-sized iron trunks.
Shen Peirong opened the trunks. Inside were piles of golden yellow barsâat least 300 catties worth by visual estimate.
“Tomorrow, I’ll take three bars to use as a dowry for Wei girl. Sheâs tough and coarse-skinned, so itâs inconvenient for her to carry too much gold to the countryside. The rest will be left for Xiaoyan; sheâs physically weak, so she needs the best of everything.”
“You unfilial daughter!” Jiang Wei transformed herself into the original ownerâs maternal grandfather, Shen Zhennan.
“Father!” Seeing her elderly father, Shen Peirongâs eyes welled up with tears. “Father, Rong’er misses you so much.”
“Unfilial daughter! To think I was murdered by Jiang Dahai, yet you use my money to support him and the daughter of his concubine!”
“Father, Dahai is a good man, how could he harm you? It happened on the day you were going to pick up Wei girl; itâs all because Wei girl is a jinx to the family.”
“Bah! How is my Wei girl a jinx? Let me tell you, she is my legitimate granddaughter, whereas Jiang Yan is an imposter born to Jiang Dahai and Chen Xiaolian!”
“Thatâs impossible!”
“Do you really think a fool like you knows more than a ghost like me?” Shen Zhennan snarled and gnashed his teeth.
Shen Peirong was so terrified that she shut her mouth. She had always been afraid of her father since she was a child. Partly because he had a fierce appearance and an eccentric temper, but also because when she was young, she accidentally lost her younger sister, and later, when her father found out she had sent Jiang Wei to the countryside, he was so furious that he had completely cut ties with her.
“Unfilial daughter, youâll see if Iâm telling the truth tomorrow. Tomorrow, Jiang Dahai and that imposter Jiang Yan will fake a robbery to make you hand over the assets I left you. Pretend to refuse at first, then you will see the assets being transferred away. Oh no, I have to turn into a vengeful spirit now…”
As soon as he finished speaking, Shen Zhennanâs facial features twisted as he lunged at Shen Peirong and gave her a sound beating.
“Father, stop hitting me, Iâm dying!” Strangely, she could feel the pain deeply in her dream.
“Pain? The pain you feel now is nothing compared to the suffering Wei girl endured in the countryside.” Thinking of the scenes where the original owner was abused by her foster family and forced to eat clay just to survive, Jiang Wei struck even harder.
The original ownerâs swollen body wasn’t fatâit was edema from starvation, and the bloated stomach was caused by the undigested clay inside her. Luckily, after taking the beauty pill, the edema and the clay had finally been purged.
“Mother, why didn’t you come to pick me up? Theyâre beating me to death, sob, sob…” In the final part of the dream, Shen Peirong saw a vision of Jiang Wei, covered in blood, tied up in a woodshed.
“Ah! Mother was wrong.” She woke up with a start. What a realistic dream. Could it be… did Jiang Dahai really murder her father? And why would her father say that Xiaoyan was the Second Concubineâs daughter?
Recalling Jiang Wei saying earlier that day that Yunhe looked like her, Shen Peirong felt a chill run down her spine. Impossibleâhow could words in a dream be real? Besides, Xiaoyanâs features resembled her entirely. If anyone didn’t look like her, it was that fat, ugly Jiang Wei. Shen Peirong didn’t realize that while Jiang Yan had been siphoning Jiang Weiâs fortune, she had also siphoned away her facial features.
When Jiang Wei emerged from the dream, the invisibility effect had worn off. Jiang Yan was still deep in conversation with the Second Concubine. Jiang Wei turned and slipped into Jiang Yunheâs room.
Jiang Yunhe wasn’t asleep; he was hunched in the corner of his bed, drawing circles. His eyes lit up when he saw Jiang Wei. “Second Sister, eat candy.” Although his mind was only five years old, he knew that the only person in the house who was nice to him was the Second Sister who had just returnedâshe didn’t yell at him and gave him candy. In his outstretched hand was the maltose Jiang Wei had given him earlier. He had eaten half, and the other half was sticky and clutched in his palm.
“Delicious.” Jiang Wei didn’t mind.
Jiang Yunhe was very happy. “Second Sister eats candy, I like it.”
Jiang Wei gestured to him, “Come here, close your eyes. Iâm going to perform a magic trick. Don’t open them until I tell you.”
“Alrighty.” The tall and sturdy Jiang Yunhe squatted in front of Jiang Wei and obediently kept his eyes shut tight. Jiang Wei pulled out an embroidery needle, pricked his fingertip, and quickly dripped the blood onto the jade pendant.
“You can open your eyes now. Next, I want you to take a few deep breaths toward the top of my head.” She was testing whether Jiang Yunhe could learn how to siphon fortune like Jiang Yan.
Jiang Yunheâs eyes sparkled. Was this a new game invented by Second Sister? He puffed forcefully at Jiang Weiâs head, and the force was so strong that it actually made the hair on top of her head stand straight up.
But soon, his handsome face crumpled, looking deeply aggrieved, and golden teardrops fell.
“Whatâs wrong?” Jiang Wei frowned, seeing that he was still as simple-minded as ever. Could it be… that Jiang Yan had already drained all of the original ownerâs fortune?
“Second Sister, head smells stinky.”
“Fine, youâre too good for this. Goodbye!” A stubborn Jiang Wei returned to her space, scrubbed her body for three hours until even her toes smelled fragrant, and then crawled into bed to sleep.
The moment she left, Jiang Yunhe clutched his head, rolling on the floor with a pale face. “Pain, pain, pain! It feels like Iâm going to grow a brain.”
“Ah! Thieves! There are thieves! The Eldest Miss’s room has been robbed! The thief took everything, even the Eldest Miss’s undergarments!”
The noise was chaotic outside. Inside the room, Jiang Wei opened the alliance group. [Sleeping with Pretty Boys in Ancient Times: Today’s welfare @Weiwei Qingcheng] He sent five photos of pretty men performing a striptease. [Weiwei Qingcheng: That was really unnecessary.]
Ding! “Sleeping with Pretty Boys in Ancient Times” has gifted the host one Beauty Pill. [Weiwei Qingcheng: Bow to the little fairy!] [Apocalypse Overlord is Always Staring at My Hook: @Weiwei Qingcheng, he’s a man.]
Jiang Weiâs mouth twitched as she crushed the Beauty Pill and swallowed it. [Weiwei Qingcheng: Of all the pretty men in the group, you are the coolest.] [Sleeping with Pretty Boys in Ancient Times: Heh, sis, want to take a mission?]
Jiang Wei remembered the system said she could only do one mission a day, so she replied: Iâm going to go torment the scum first.
BANG! Just after she replied, the fragile door was kicked open from the outside. Jiang Dahai stood there, fuming. “Did you take the things from Xiaoyanâs room?”
