A Vicious Female Supporting Character Is Meant to Become The Female Lead’s Wife (Futa) - Chapter 2

By the time Song Qingji left the great hall, rain was indeed pouring from the sky.

The assembled officials avoided her as though she were a venomous snake, taking detours to keep their distance. Holding an oil-paper umbrella alone, Song Qingji descended the white marble steps.

The Grand Princess’s carriage was waiting outside the palace gates. Eight saber-wielding guards in straw rain capes stood in two rows on either side, their hands resting on their hilts. Rain hammered against the brims of their bamboo hats, and murderous intent radiated from them.

Song Qingji did not slow down. She walked straight toward the carriage and stopped three paces away.

“Please inform Her Highness,” Song Qingji said. Her voice was not loud, yet it carried clearly through the rain. “This humble official is about to search Wang Huai’s residence for evidence. Officers from the Court of Judicial Review and the Ministry of Justice are already on their way. If this humble official dies a violent death along the road, His Majesty will most likely have no choice but to place the blame on Your Highness.”

There was no response from inside the carriage.

After a long moment, the curtain was lifted a fraction.

“Get lost,” Jiang Yan said coldly.

The carriage rumbled away, its wheels splashing muddy water across the road and staining the hem of Song Qingji’s teal official robe.

At the Grand Princess’s residence, several newly admitted male favorites knelt below the main hall, trembling uncontrollably.

Jiang Yan sat in the seat of honor while a maid removed her half-soaked cloak.

She swept her gaze across the powdered and rouged men below. Every one of them shook like a quail. Despite their handsome faces, the slightest test was enough to expose their ingratiating smiles.

The sight of these idiots turned Jiang Yan’s stomach. She no longer even felt inclined to make use of them.

“Useless fools. Drag them all out.”

Jiang Yan kicked aside a male favorite who tried to clutch the hem of her skirt and beg for mercy.

She wanted vicious hounds capable of biting—not worthless creatures that only knew how to wag their tails.

“Song Qingji…” Jiang Yan ground out the three syllables through clenched teeth.

The old emperor treated her as a blade, and that woman surnamed Song had truly dared to throw herself against its edge.

“Chief Secretary.” Jiang Yan raised her eyes. “What kind of man is the legitimate son of the Song family?”

The chief secretary stepped forward with a bow.

“Your Highness, Song Qingwu is a complete and utter fool. He has accomplished nothing in either scholarship or martial arts. His days are spent indulging in cockfights, racing dogs, and frequenting brothels.”

Jiang Yan smiled.

A self-proclaimed saint like Song Qingji actually had a worthless good-for-nothing for an older brother.

“Isn’t the Imperial Dowager Consort holding a flower-viewing banquet at the Southern Garden tomorrow? Send an invitation to the Song family. Prepare the drug and make the dose strong.”

A malicious chill filled Jiang Yan’s eyes.

“This princess would like to see whether Censor Song can maintain that lofty composure of hers after the Song family’s legitimate son turns into a rutting dog in full view of everyone.”

That evening, at the Song residence, the gold-stamped invitation was intercepted and brought to the study.

Song Qingwu was still making crickets fight in the rear courtyard, entirely unaware that he had already narrowly escaped a trip through the gates of hell.

Only a single candle burned inside the study.

Song Qingji stared silently at the words Southern Garden written on the invitation.

Jiang Yan intended to strike at the Song family’s very foundation and shatter its backbone.

Once Song Qingwu disgraced himself at an imperial banquet, the Song family’s reputation as three generations of upright officials would be destroyed. Song Qingji herself would become the laughingstock of the imperial court, with no place left for her there.

She did not care about her reputation, but she needed her position.

The imperial court was already rotten to its core. If she were stripped of her official robes, what would she have left to protect the wronged souls lying on the Court of Judicial Review’s autopsy tables? How could she purge corruption from the government?

Without power in her hands, her benevolent desire to protect the people beneath heaven would amount to nothing more than an empty joke.

Song Qingji’s gaze returned to the invitation, and she released a nearly inaudible sigh.

She could see through Jiang Yan’s madness.

Although Great Chu had inherited the legacy of the Martial Empress, making it commonplace for women to serve as officials, the imperial princes had continuously eroded the influence of female officials under the pretext of upholding “ancestral rites and tradition.” By the current reign, the splendor of the Martial Empress’s era—when women had held up half the realm—was long gone.

As a woman, Jiang Yan had to be more ruthless than every imperial prince if she wanted to emerge victorious from this bloodthirsty struggle.

She had no path of retreat. If she lost and a new emperor ascended the throne, the Grand Princess would either be sent to some barbarous land as part of a political marriage or bestowed with a cup of poisoned wine and a length of white silk with which to hang herself.

Jiang Yan was wading through blood to carve a path out of a desperate situation.

But she had chosen the wrong path.

Song Qingji often recalled Jiang Yan’s fate in the original novel—death by a thousand cuts. Someone so proud and dazzling should never have met such a ruinous end.

She did not want to stand by and watch as Jiang Yan destroyed every possible route of escape.

“So be it.”

Song Qingji rose, untied her official uniform, and slipped off the teal outer robe.

Her thin inner garment clung to the contours of her body, outlining a well-proportioned, upright figure. Although she was a civil official, she had practiced the Six Arts of the Gentleman for years. Drawing a bow and riding a horse posed no difficulty for her.

Her body was not frail. Instead, it possessed a resilient strength.

Song Qingji’s gaze swept over her flat lower abdomen, her expression calm.

Between her legs were the sexual characteristics of a dual-sexed body: a soft, pale-pink penis hanging limply.

Medical care in this era was primitive, and surgically removing it would carry a serious risk of infection. Besides, this body was naturally free of lust. The penis had been with her for twenty-two years and had never once become erect, so she had simply left it alone.

She retrieved one of Song Qingwu’s usual dark brocade robes from the cabinet and changed into it before binding her hair and fastening a jade ornament at her waist.

When she stood before the bronze mirror again, she had deliberately suppressed some of the aloofness around her eyes. In build and demeanor, she now bore a seventy-to-eighty-percent resemblance to Song Qingwu.

Jiang Yan’s methods were vicious. Tomorrow’s banquet at the Southern Garden was clearly an inescapable trap aimed at the Song family.

Whether they intended to frame Song Qingwu for treason or plant evidence of embezzlement on him, that brainless fool was certain to fall for it if he attended. He would die without ever understanding how it had happened.

Song Qingji had to go in his place and intercept every hidden arrow aimed at him.

The following day, at the Southern Garden, the Imperial Dowager Consort’s flower-viewing banquet was held in a waterside pavilion.

The capital’s most powerful and influential families had gathered there. It was supposedly a banquet for admiring flowers, but in reality, it was a game in which the various factions secretly tested one another and forged alliances.

Song Qingwu had always possessed a handsome face. Ordinarily, however, his wandering gaze made him appear frivolous.

Today, with Song Qingji playing his role, her innate dignity and uprightness combined with her languid peach-blossom eyes and deliberately rakish manner. The result drew frequent glances from many of the noble young ladies at the banquet.

From across the water, the daughter of the Minister of Rites tossed over a half-bloomed peony. It landed squarely in Song Qingji’s arms.

Song Qingji paused.

When she looked up, the young lady on the opposite bank had half-hidden her face behind a round silk fan, but the look in her eyes was direct and passionate.

Song Qingji did not wish to throw the flower back and humiliate her. She merely placed it on the table and raised her wine cup toward the young lady from afar, preserving the other woman’s dignity.

She then lowered her eyes and ignored every flirtatious glance sent her way.

Before the formal banquet began, the area outside abruptly fell silent.

“The Grand Princess has arrived—”

The aristocratic young men who had been playing pitch-pot and drinking games instantly went pale. They hurriedly restrained their behavior, rose, and bowed.

Jiang Yan wore a vivid red palace gown embroidered with gold. The dangling ornaments of her hairpin swayed gently as she walked at an unhurried pace.

She paid no attention to the officials’ family members bowing and scraping before her. Instead, she went straight to the principal seat beside the Imperial Dowager Consort and sat down as though it naturally belonged to her.

The Imperial Dowager Consort was a senior member of the imperial family. Displeasure appeared on her face when she saw Jiang Yan, a guest, brazenly usurping the host’s place. Nevertheless, she forcibly swallowed her anger and did not dare utter a word.

One male relative of a newly appointed provincial official was unfamiliar with the rules. As he moved aside, his sleeve accidentally swept the teacup from Jiang Yan’s table.

Shards of porcelain scattered across the floor, and tea splashed onto the hem of Jiang Yan’s dress.

The man was so terrified that he immediately dropped to his knees and kowtowed, begging for mercy.

Jiang Yan did not even lift her eyelids. The guard behind her stepped forward and slapped the man hard enough to draw blood.

“Drag him away,” Jiang Yan said casually. “Get this blind fool out of this princess’s sight.”

A deathly silence fell over the banquet. Everyone suppressed even the sound of their breathing, and no one dared plead for the man.

This was Jiang Yan.

Whenever she wanted to humiliate someone or make an example of them, she never bothered concealing it.

Thus, when a palace maid carrying a flask of Autumn Dew White wine walked straight toward Song Qingji’s table, Song Qingji immediately understood.

“Young Master Song, this is a gift from the Imperial Dowager Consort,” the palace maid said with her head lowered.