Marriage of the Di Daughter

Chapter 74 Part 1: Riding and Archery

The day of the music examination ended with everyone’s sighs.

Please, read this at BloomingTranslation blog. We spend a lot of time and effort to bring you the best quality translations we can provide, so please show us respect by reading from our site instead of aggregators that steal our work.

No matter what, the song that Jiang Li played today, 《Eighteen Songs of a Nomad Flute》, had become the hot topic everyone in Yanjing were discussing. As for the doubt from the previous three exams, it dissipated in a moment. In addition, Jiang Li’s display of qin skill made many people begin to re-examine the bet between Jiang second miss and the daughter of the Meng family. So much so that In the gambling den, a portion of the people started to bet on Jiang Li’s victory.  

These changes were bit by bit but persistent. It seemed that overnight, everyone reached a consensus: Jiang Li wasn’t worse compared to the other noble daughters in Yanjing. 

This was naturally a good transformation for Jiang Li, but not for some people. Not mentioning the other female students of Ming Yi Hall that were stepped on, even the other party making the wager, Meng Hong Jin, wasn’t able to sit still at the moment.

Meng family, Meng You De had not yet returned to the residence and mother Meng was sitting in the living room moaning and groaning. Meng Hong Jin shut herself in her boudoir, in a fit of anger she overthrew all the papers and pens on the table. Her face looked irritable, and with a careful look, there was a trace of fear inside. 

Without realizing, things had already reached this degree. As Meng Hong Jin remembered, she still felt everything was just like a dream. She still did not understand how a sure matter could now turn into the current situation. She heard the private chat of the people below, regarding the bet between her and Jiang Li, nowadays there were people in major gambling dens who started to bet on Jiang Li. What did this imply? This implied that at the very least, in the eyes of people outside, there’s a probability that she would lose to Jiang Li.

In fact, it’s not just people outside that thought so, even Meng Hong Jin thought the same. The confidence at the beginning had long ago vanished. Meng Hong Jin realized that she was probably deceived by Jiang Li. The so-called inability to do anything, unable to understand a word, was nothing but false words Jiang Li weaved to deceive her. Probably Jiang Li had the thought of making her lose face from the start, then dug a trap and indirectly forced herself to jump in. When in actuality, Jiang Li knew everything. 

But the words were already spoken, the entire Yanjing already knew the bet between Jiang Li and her. Wanting to revoke the bet now was too late. 

The servant girl beside her consoled: “Miss doesn’t need to be too anxious. Tomorrow’s exam is the two things miss is an expert in, equestrian archery. As long as the first position is grasped in these two things, the Jiang family’s miss will no longer be the first.”

“Not being the first, I will still lose.” Meng Hong Jin said coldly. In Jiang Li’s wager, if Jiang Li wasn’t at the bottom of Ming Yi Hall’s list, she had to kneel and apologize to her. If Jiang Li was more outstanding than her, she had to kneel and apologize to Jiang Li at the Imperial College’s gate. If Jiang Li was not just more outstanding than her, but still placed first in the exams, she had to take off her outer layer of clothing and apologize to her in the Imperial College gate. 

Three gambles, each one was more malicious than the other. Currently Jiang Li was placed first in the four exams, she was naturally not placed at the bottom. Not only that, Jiang Li was clearly more outstanding than her. Even if she got first place in equestrian archery, at most Jiang Li wouldn’t be able to win first place. According to the bet, Meng Hong Jin still had to kneel and apologize to Jiang Li at the Imperial College’s gate.

No matter what, Meng Hong Jin was unable to accept that she would end up in that sort of circumstances.  

If she didn’t want her reputation to reach the bottom, she had to quickly look for a reason to renege on the wager. If this happened, then she wouldn’t become the laughingstock in the entire Yanjing. 

She definitely must stop this from happening!

Suddenly, the previous dark idea drilled into Meng Hong Jin’s mind. 

In the riding and archery venue, the knife and arrow had no eyes. There was once a woman who was thrown down from the horse’s back while riding in the exam venue. The injury wasn’t too serious, she just received a bit of a fright and got better after recuperating in the house for a few days. But if Jiang Li’s luck wasn’t good and was thrown off the horse’s back in the exam field, then no need to mention falling down and breaking her neck and dying, perhaps breaking her leg, being disabled throughout her life or perhaps getting disfigured by a cut from a sharp stone on the ground? There’s also the arrow method, just in case someone “accidentally” injured Jiang Li in the chaos by another’s arrow, it was also a good thing ah.    

In this way, Jiang Li wouldn’t be able to appear in front of everyone for a period of time. Then no one would mention the wager. The person was crippled already, who would still care about the bet?