Before even getting close, Shen Qingwan noticed a little maid standing guard in the courtyard.

With a glance, she immediately recognized her as Su Ruoyun’s personal maid.

With a flick of her silver needle, the maid immediately collapsed, and Shen Qingwan walked toward the entrance confidently.

Just as she reached the door, she heard discordant sounds from inside.

The voice of a woman and a man’s light laughter were distinctly audible.

She had thought that Su Ruoyun and Lu Wenzhao’s relationship was unbreakable, but it turned out that Lu Wenzhao had only been disabled for a short while, and Su Ruoyun could no longer bear the loneliness.

Shen Qingwan regretted killing Lu Wenzhao so quickly.

She should have let him witness the grand play first, perhaps not even needing to take action herself—the anger alone might have killed him.

“Cousin, Lu Wenzhao is now a cripple. Why continue to follow him? Come with me instead, I’ll take care of you from now on,” the man coaxed the beautiful woman in his arms, his voice full of satisfaction.

If it hadn’t been for Minister Su’s disdain for him being unlearned, he wouldn’t have ended up with his cousin married to that pretty boy Lu Wenzhao.

Now, after everything, his cousin was still his, despite having had a child.

Su Ruoyun’s figure remained alluring, enough to entice him to meet her every day.

“Father said I should keep him for now; I still have use for him, so I can’t make a fuss yet. You can come when I need you. Don’t talk nonsense,” she replied.

If Lu Wenzhao hadn’t been crippled, she would have never looked at her unlearned cousin Zhao Yu.

Although Lu Wenzhao was disabled, apart from his incapacity in one area, everything else about him was fine.

Her cousin Zhao Yu, however, was useless in every way except that one.

So, Su Ruoyun could never truly leave Lu Wenzhao for him.

“Cousin, don’t be upset, let me take good care of you,” Zhao Yu said, pushing her down again.

Shen Qingwan, listening to the noises inside, was utterly disgusted.

It was all so greasy. Since the two were having so much fun, she decided to add some fuel to the fire.

Shen Qingwan took several jars of wine from her space and poured them into the room.

The strong smell of alcohol startled the two on the bed.

“What’s with this strong alcohol smell? Did we knock over the wine jars?”

Zhao Yu began to get up to investigate, but before he could reach the bed, flames suddenly lit up outside the door, and the raging fire quickly engulfed the entire house.

The two inside had no time to get dressed, grabbing their blankets as they rushed out, but the door had already caught fire, and they couldn’t get close.

“How could there be a fire? What’s going on?” Su Ruoyun cried out in panic.

But Zhao Yu had no time to care for her.

The fire kept growing, and even the bed had caught flames.

Su Ruoyun, wrapped in her blanket, was already being scorched by the intense heat, and Zhao Yu was even more in pain.

He grabbed the blanket off Su Ruoyun’s body and wrapped it around himself.

Su Ruoyun, naked underneath, was instantly burned when the blanket was taken away.

Her skin bubbled from the intense heat.

“Ah, Zhao Yu, you bastard! Give me back my blanket!”

Su Ruoyun desperately tried to grab it back, but Zhao Yu kicked her aside. “Get off, you bitch! If you hadn’t seduced me here, how could we end up being burned alive? It must have been Lu Wenzhao. He must have found out something and set the fire to kill us!”

Su Ruoyun, though in agony from the burns, could no longer think straight.

She screamed in pain and lunged at Zhao Yu. He was so frightened that he quickly dodged, but in doing so, he accidentally touched the fire wall behind him, and the blanket caught fire immediately.

Zhao Yu couldn’t throw it off in time and was engulfed by the flames.

Shen Qingwan watched the towering fire at the Lu family’s residence and smiled. “Old man Lu, do you see this? I avenged you. Such a beast doesn’t deserve to be your son, let alone the father of two children.”

The Lu family was completely burned to the ground in one night.

The officials from the minister’s residence and the capital’s chief worked tirelessly to put out the fire but were unsuccessful.

Fortunately, the fire had been discovered early, so there were few casualties. However, Lu Wenzhao and his wife both perished in the flames.

Many people believed it was divine retribution for their evil deeds.

There was one more strange thing, though. In the master bedroom, there was only one male corpse, confirmed to be Lu Wenzhao’s.

In another room, there were two more bodies: one female, identified as Su Ruoyun, and the other male, whose identity remained unknown and wasn’t a servant of the Lu family.

People began to speculate that Su Ruoyun might have arranged to meet a man in the room.

As for what happened, it was clear to everyone what went on in the middle of the night between a lone man and woman, though no one dared to speak openly.

The matter was quickly suppressed by the Su family, as Minister Su did not want people to gossip about his daughter after her death.

With the deaths of Lu Wenzhao and his wife, Shen Qingwan’s grudge with them was settled. If Minister Su was wise, she wouldn’t bother him further.

But if he insisted on targeting her, she wouldn’t mind killing one more person.

With the Lu couple taken care of, it was time to deal with Ye Lingxue and her hypocritical mother and daughter.

The two had been pretending to pack for days, yet hadn’t made any move to leave.

Since they weren’t leaving, they shouldn’t think they could just walk away.

“Wanwan, your aunt and Lingxue say they want to leave today and asked if we could have one last meal together.”

Early in the morning, Ye Minglan came to inform Shen Qingwan of Ye Minghui’s plan. Shen Qingwan looked at her mother, asking, “Mother, Aunt hasn’t finished handing over the accounts yet. Why are they leaving now?”

Ye Minglan didn’t know there were any problems with the accounts, as she hadn’t managed the household finances in years. “What could be wrong with the accounts?”

Shen Qingwan’s lips curled slightly. “The problem is huge. Though Father hasn’t been in the capital these years, he sent plenty of wealth and received many rewards from the palace. But there’s nothing in the treasury now.

Old Madam Li, sent by Grandmother to help organize the accounts, says that the general’s treasury only has a thousand taels of silver and some shop and land properties. Even Mother’s dowry is left with only some worthless items. Aunt’s been managing the estate for years, but she’s emptied out the whole general’s house.”

Ye Minglan was shocked and furious, unable to believe it. “How could this happen? The Ye family made its fortune from business, with a large and prosperous family. When your aunt married, her dowry was quite generous. How could she be greedy for the general’s things?”

Shen Qingwan shrugged. “Who doesn’t like money?”

After talking for a while, Shen Qingwan asked Old Madam Li to bring the estate’s accounts to Ye Minghui’s mother and daughter.