After Teasing the Villain and Running Away - Chapter 12

Ruan Xin’s slender feet rested lightly on the arm of the sofa, the pale skin of her instep revealing faint traces of sickly blue veins. Now, they were wrapped in layer upon layer of white bandages, the edges of her soles stained with iodine, the heavy scent of medicine lingering in the air.

Her lips were pressed tightly together, her fingertips trembling from the pain as she leaned weakly against the sofa, looking like a fragile lark that had fallen from the clouds, its wings injured, left with no choice but to curl up and heal.

Jiang Ruosheng’s expression was grim, the image of Ruan Xin’s bloodied feet seared into her mind. Her heart ached with both pity and guilt.

The person had been right under her nose, yet she had still allowed her to be hurt.

The indifferent yet surprised attitude of the maids who had rushed over earlier was proof enough of the cold treatment Ruan Xin had endured in the Jiang household. This kind of thing had likely happened more than once.

“You should all know my temper. If you don’t step forward now, by the time I find out myself, it’ll be too late for explanations.”

Her icy, sharp words seemed to grind out from between her teeth, reverberating through the room.

The maids didn’t dare meet Jiang Ruosheng’s gaze, lowering their heads silently, their expressions tense. Yet none of them had the courage to speak up.

Ruan Xin forced herself to sit up despite the pain, her dark eyes fixed unwaveringly on Jiang Ruosheng. Her lips, bitten too hard earlier, were now split in one spot.

Apart from that initial cry of pain, she hadn’t uttered a single complaint the entire time.

Jiang Ruosheng felt her cheeks burn under that impossible-to-ignore gaze. She thought gloomily—could Ruan Xin believe she had orchestrated this?

The air was thick with tension, the suffocating silence stretching on. Under Jiang Ruosheng’s increasingly oppressive stare, every second felt like torture.

In the Jiang household, everyone knew one thing for certain—no matter who you offended, you never crossed Jiang Ruosheng.

Her temper was unpredictable, her moods shifting like the wind. The number of maids who had cared for her since childhood had already exceeded twenty, yet not a single one had lasted long.

Once, in her most capricious moment, she had replaced every chef in the Jiang household simply because the soup had been a little too sweet.

Casually dismissing people was nothing out of the ordinary for her.

Finally, after a moment, one maid couldn’t hold back any longer. “Miss, there was originally a glass vase on the shoe cabinet… This morning, while cleaning, I accidentally… knocked it over and broke it. But I cleaned it up right away. The housekeeper, Jiang, knows about this.”

“It was something Madam bought. I apologized, and Madam said… she wouldn’t hold it against me.”

Jiang Ruosheng crossed her arms and slowly walked over to the maid. “Are you sure you’re not lying?”

“I—I really didn’t… The broken glass was all swept into the trash. How was I supposed to know it would end up in… Miss Ruan’s shoe?” The maid glanced at Ruan Xin, who sat composedly on the sofa, her palms clenching slightly, a trace of barely concealed resentment flashing in her eyes.

“Miss, if the vase broke, it’s only natural that some shards might have fallen into the shoes… Chen Hui was careless with her cleaning, but Aunt Jiang already scolded her for it. Could you… let it go this time?”

Another maid, friendly with Chen Hui, suddenly spoke up in her defense.

Jiang Ruosheng’s lips curved slightly, her gray-brown eyes darkening. “Is that so…?”

She then turned to the others, her tone unexpectedly softening. “And what do the rest of you think?”

Seeing this, some of them exchanged glances, seeming to relax slightly.

Just as I thought, the young miss has always disliked Ruan Xin. She’d be delighted to see Ruan Xin get hurt—why would she ever stand up for her?

When something like this happens, she still has to put on a show of reprimanding them on the surface, lest Ruan Xin goes and tattles out of spite.

“Chen Hui has been with the Jiang family for over five years and has always been diligent. Even if she made a small mistake occasionally, it wasn’t intentional.”

“Something like this has never happened in our household before. How could glass shards only end up in her… Miss Ruan’s shoes?”

“Besides, Miss Ruan specifically instructed that no one was to touch her personal belongings, so how would we dare to go near them?”

“That’s right, none of us touched anything. Young miss, you must believe us!”

Jiang Ruosheng brushed her hair aside, secretly amused as she watched them scramble to explain themselves, every word dripping with accusations against Ruan Xin.

Were they implying that Ruan Xin had planted the glass shards in her own shoes to injure herself?

Ruan Xin curled her lips disdainfully at their antics, her fragile yet aloof demeanor intertwining like elegant purple bamboo—pure and selfless.

This was indeed her oversight. In her past life, neither last night’s incident nor what just happened had occurred, likely because back then, she had chosen to stay at home and hadn’t returned to the Jiang residence last night.

Different choices had altered the course of the future.

“Good, very good.” Jiang Ruosheng nodded, suddenly raising a finger to count them off one by one. “One, two… five. The five of you who just spoke.”

“You’re all fired.”

“What?!” The bombshell left them dizzy with disbelief as they stared at Jiang Ruosheng in shock.

“Too noisy. Do I need to repeat myself?”

“How can this be? Young miss…” Their faces turned ashen with fear, panic spreading through them.

Just then, Aunt Jiang approached with a tablet in hand.

Their eyes lit up with hope as they began weeping and pleading.

Tears welled in Chen Hui’s eyes. “Aunt Jiang, I’ve served by Madam’s side for over five years. Now the young miss wants to fire me—please help me! Madam can’t do without me.”

Aunt Jiang shot her a glance, paying her no mind as she walked over to Jiang Ruosheng and pulled up the surveillance footage on the tablet.

“The hallway cameras show that only Chen Hui and Miss Ruan passed through the entryway this morning. The glass shards must have been planted by her.”

“That’s not true! She must have done it herself!” Chen Hui vehemently denied. “She… she just wants to gain Madam’s sympathy. Ever since she came to the Jiang household, all sorts of incidents have been happening.”

“Young miss, you know this too—Madam has been completely fooled by her act of playing the victim, blindly believing everything she says.”

Gain sympathy? Would Ruan Xin really be stupid enough to resort to self-harm for sympathy?

If she wanted sympathy, she could have just told Madam Jiang about all the times Jiang Ruosheng bullied her. That would have killed two birds with one stone—exposing this troublemaker’s true colors.

“There’s one more thing—last night,” Aunt Jiang continued. “Chen Hui was on night duty. Someone saw her loitering around the third floor.”

With the truth coming to light, there’s no way you can keep framing me now.

Jiang Ruosheng shot Ruan Xin a meaningful look, only for her to turn her head away in avoidance.

“Young miss, if you don’t kick her out, how will you ever have a say in this household again? You… you hate her too, don’t you? I… I was only trying to…”

Jiang Ruosheng stepped forward with a faint smirk, and in the next second, Chen Hui’s scream echoed through the room.

Her left foot was crushed mercilessly under Jiang Ruosheng’s shoe, the excruciating pain from her toes making her scalp tingle. The sensation of her bones being slowly ground was unbearable, and she couldn’t suppress her cries as she desperately tried to pull her foot free.

“Does it hurt?” Jiang Ruosheng asked softly. “You have to pay the price for doing bad things, don’t you?”

Chen Hui, drenched in sweat from the pain, begged for mercy. “I was wrong, Miss! Those… were just pranks… Ah… Ah…”

“If those were just pranks, then they went too far, didn’t they?” Jiang Ruosheng’s voice was like a whisper from hell, the murmur of a demon.

Listening to the agonized screams, no one dared to speak up in her defense this time.

After a while, Jiang Ruosheng slowly lifted her foot. “Debts must be repaid. You broke it, so you’ll compensate for it properly. Aunt Jiang, that glass bottle was bought by my mother—make sure she pays the full price.”

Chen Hui collapsed to the floor, clutching her foot, her face twitching unnaturally at the mention of compensation.

Jiang Ruosheng pointed at five people and said to Aunt Jiang, “I’m firing them now. I assume I have the authority?”

Aunt Jiang didn’t hesitate. “Of course!”

Ding—Villain’s Corruption Index has dropped to 60%. Keep up the good work, Host.

Hearing the notification, Jiang Ruosheng first felt a surge of joy—finally, that damn index had gone down. A cause for celebration.

But then she frowned slightly, her teeth aching in frustration. Why is it still so high? Every time it rises, it jumps by double digits, but when it falls, it’s only single digits.

Will I really be able to complete the mission and survive this…?

“Madam… I’ll tell Madam…” Chen Hui seemed determined to drag Jiang’s mother into this, but before she could finish, Butler Jiang clamped a hand over her mouth while gripping the back of her neck with the other.

With a slight squeeze, Chen Hui’s eyes filled with terror.

Butler Jiang lowered his voice. “Some unpleasant matters shouldn’t reach Madam’s ears—it would ruin her mood. As for her side, don’t worry, someone more suitable will replace you.”

Seeing that even Chen Hui, the most senior among them, had ended up like this, the others didn’t dare make another move.

Jiang Ruosheng then turned to the remaining staff and warned, “Ruan Xin is now part of the Jiang family, no different from me. The way you treat me is how you’ll treat her.”

“If I catch wind of anything like this again, you’ve already seen the consequences.”

After a few more stern warnings, Jiang Ruosheng dismissed them to return to work.

The farce had finally come to an end.

Jiang Ruosheng walked over to the sofa and sat down beside Ruan Xin, feeling as exhausted as if she’d just fought a battle.

“Feeling better?” she asked Ruan Xin.

Ruan Xin: “Fine.”

Jiang Ruosheng: “Don’t move your left foot for a while—be careful not to reopen the wound. If you need anything, just tell me…”

She cleared her throat awkwardly. “It’s not like you have any friends, and your social standing isn’t great. If your foot doesn’t heal properly and leaves lasting damage, people will mock the Jiangs for not even being able to take care of their own.”

Then, as if remembering something, she added, “Aside from those earlier, has anyone else in the Jiang family bullied you? They spend their days stirring up trouble instead of doing their jobs properly—I won’t keep people like that around.”

Ruan Xin: “You.”

Jiang Ruosheng froze, then let out an awkward laugh. “Other than me, other than me.”

Ruan Xin narrowed her eyes slightly and looked at her calmly. “I think the most urgent matter right now is to hurry to school.”

“Because we’re going to be late.”

They had already wasted some time earlier. If they didn’t leave now, they would miss morning self-study.

Ruan Xin’s gaze shifted to Jiang Ruosheng’s injured left foot, her delicate brows furrowing. In this condition, even walking had become a problem.

Jiang Ruosheng noticed her concern and resignedly stood up, turning her back to Ruan Xin before crouching down.

This is all for the sake of completing the mission better!

Jiang Ruosheng repeated silently to herself.

“Come on, I’ll carry you on my back.”