Chapter 73

As she spoke, Mu Zhaoshi's voice trembled with a hint of tears: "Your personality is different from your sister's. You are just like your mother. You only know how to cry when something happens. Your mother is always afraid that you will suffer losses, so I added so much private money to your dowry list."

“Even your mother didn’t expect that you would be the next one to get married after your sister. Your mother always thought that you could stay with me for another two years... But you also know your father’s temper. He always means what he says.”

"You only have three to five months left to stay by your mother's side, and I really can't bear to part with you."

Mu Wanyi's eyes also reddened, and she bent down and threw herself into Mu Zhaoshi's arms. The mother and daughter hugged each other and cried for a while. Then, Mu Zhaoshi took out a stack of thin pieces of paper from her sleeve.

Judging from the color and texture of the paper, it is clearly a bank note from a money exchange. A stack of such notes would be worth at least a thousand taels.

She stuffed all the silver notes into Mu Wanyi's hand, saying, "Keep these close to your body, at the bottom of your trunk. Never let anyone see them, especially not your sister. With her temper, she'll definitely make a scene if she sees them, and then there will be chaos again."

It had started raining outside the corridor at some point, and a few raindrops fell on Mu Yulu's arm, stinging like needles.

In fact, she had known for a long time that her mother was biased. Mu Zhaoshi had long built an invisible high wall in her heart. She was outside the wall, while Mu Wanyi was inside.

She had already accepted the fact, but hearing these words before her wedding still made her feel very bad.

Whether it's the abundant farmland and shops, the dazzling jewelry and headdresses, or the silver notes she's accumulated one by one, these are all just external possessions, and Mu Yulu doesn't really care about them at all.

What she cared about was the high wall built from these things, each brick and tile silently telling of the tenderness she had never received. She had to bear the storms outside the wall alone, while Mu Wanyi, who was her compatriot, was firmly protected inside the wall by her mother's love.

She leaned silently against a pillar in the corridor, the words of Mu Zhaoshi, "Don't tell my sister," still echoing in her ears.

Xin Yun stayed by her side, supporting her with concern, and whispered, "Miss, I think we should go back first."

Mu Yulu shook her head silently. She seemed to have all her strength drained away, and could only lean weakly against the pillar, letting the slanting rain drift into the corridor and wet her shoulders.

After an unknown amount of time, the two figures who had been huddled together in the room finally separated. Mu Zhaoshi wiped away Mu Wanyi's tears, and the mother and daughter got up and walked side by side outside. As soon as they opened the door, they saw Mu Yulu standing dejectedly under the eaves.

Mu Zhao was startled. After seeing who was standing at the door, she felt even more guilty. She turned to look at Mu Wanyi and gestured for her to go back inside.

Mu Wanyi glanced at Mu Yulu, raised her hand to hold Mu Zhaoshi's hand, and shook her head coquettishly, "Mother promised me that she would accompany me to choose some fashionable clothes in the capital today, so please don't waste your time here."

Before Mu Zhaoshi could speak, Mu Yulu said, "I have something to say to my mother. She will come to keep you company later."

Mu Wanyi ignored her and just stomped her feet while pleading with Mu Zhaoshi: "Mother, come with me now. There's plenty of time. After we pick out the clothes, we can still have tea and snacks."

Mu Yulu walked up to her, stared into her eyes, and said, word by word, "I said I need to talk to my mother right now. Can't you understand human language?"

Seeing that the two sisters were about to start arguing again, Mu Zhao grabbed Mu Wanyi and pulled her behind her.

Then she glared at Mu Yulu with displeasure, "Speak properly if you have something to say, why are you acting so arrogant?"

Mu Wanyi muttered from behind her, "Isn't it because they think they're going to marry into the Mu family and become the Princess of Dingyuan soon that they're making such a big fuss?"

Mu Zhaoshi gently pushed Mu Wanyi, "Alright, go back to your room first. Mother will come to find you as soon as things are finished here."

Mu Wanyi nodded and left reluctantly.

After her figure disappeared at the end of the corridor, Mu Zhaoshi said to Mu Yulu, "What do you want to say? Say it now."

Such a distant tone made it seem as if the two were not mother and daughter but strangers.

Mu Yulu said directly, "I heard everything you were saying in the room just now."

Mu Zhaoshi's expression remained calm, which was within her expectations. She had guessed it when she opened the door and saw Mu Yulu's expression.

Facing Mu Yulu's gaze, which was a mixture of heartache and questioning, she simply said lightly, "So what if you heard it?"

"So you heard it, you heard it?" Mu Yulu repeated Mu Zhaoshi's words incredulously: "I am also your daughter. I call you mother. Don't you have anything to say to me?"

Mu Zhao met Mu Yulu's gaze and looked back, her eyes filled with nothing but coldness and indifference: "Didn't you think you were living a very clear-headed life? Didn't you want to sever ties with your parents? What are you questioning me about now?"

Mu Yulu raised her head slightly, trying her best not to let her tears fall. "I only have one question for you. I am also your daughter, so why do you dislike me so much? Is it because I didn't grow up by your side? But is it my fault that I wasn't by your side when I was young?"

Mu Zhao's voice also carried emotion, which Mu Yulu could hear was anger: "It's not your fault, it's my fault for leaving you at your maternal grandparents' house in the countryside. It's all my fault, it's wrong of us as parents, okay?"

Unable to hold back any longer, Mu Yulu's tears streamed down her face. "This isn't the answer I want. I want to hear what's in your heart."

Mu Zhaoshi coldly snorted: "Even if I have wronged you, I am still your mother. What kind of behavior is this? Is this how you interrogate your own mother?"

Ignoring her reproaches, Mu Yulu cried and asked repeatedly, "What did I do wrong that you treat me like this? Why are you so biased towards my daughter? You have to give me an answer today, or we'll stay here. I won't leave, and neither will you."

These words must have been something that enraged Mu Zhao Shi, because she suddenly flew into a rage: "What did you do wrong? Fine, I'll tell you what you did wrong. I shouldn't have gotten pregnant with you in the first place. Getting pregnant and giving birth to you was the biggest mistake I ever made!"

For the first time in over a decade, she finally spoke her true feelings to Mu Yulu. However, these words did not lead to reconciliation between the mother and daughter; instead, they made Mu Yulu's earlier questioning seem like a joke.

“When I first became pregnant with you, I was very young. I didn’t know anything and I didn’t know how to do anything, but I had to learn how to be a mother. No one taught me these things, no one told me what to do. I was very scared. I cried to your father, but he just laughed at me for being silly.”

“During that time, he took meticulous care of me. He was almost always responsive to my requests. Even if I suddenly wanted to eat noodles made by him in the middle of the night, he would get up and cook them for me.”

“But I know that the reason he was so good to me was because I was carrying you. I started to hate you from that moment on. The better your father treated me, the more I hated you. You can call me sick, but that’s the truth. Your appearance took away my husband’s pure love for me.”

"Later, you were born, a daughter. I could tell he was disappointed, but I never expected that he would turn around and take a concubine. At that time, I hadn't even finished my postpartum confinement. I couldn't help but hate you even more, just because you were a daughter, that he kept taking concubines on the grounds that I couldn't give birth to a son."

"He took one concubine after another, and I could only endure it time and time again, just because you are a daughter, do you understand? Just because you are a daughter!"

Mu Zhaoshi waved her hands in the air in a state of emotional breakdown, tears streaming down her face. It was clear how much damage Mu Yugang had caused her by taking a concubine right after she gave birth to her daughter, a fact that she still couldn't let go of to this day.

"Later, he was going to do business in a bigger city, and I wanted to go with him, but he made me stay and take care of you because you were too young and it would be inconvenient to take you with me. At that time, I really hated you. Because of you, he kept taking concubines, and because of you, he wouldn't allow me to stay by his side."

"The night he left with his concubines, I stayed by your bedside watching you. At that moment, I really wanted to strangle you."

“Once you’re gone, he’ll have no excuse to keep me in the old house, and I can go find him. But I also know that if I really strangle you, he’ll have a reason to divorce you and make his beloved concubine his wife.”

"Finally, I came up with a plan: I'll leave you with your maternal grandparents in the countryside so they can take care of you, and then I can go find your father."

She stopped crying and turned into an angry roar: "So you're the one who's dragging me down! Ever since you entered my womb, you've been the one dragging me down! And now you have the nerve to question me? What right do you have to question me?"

Mu Yulu was stunned after hearing so much from her. Not only her, but even Xin Yun, who was standing next to her, was dumbfounded after hearing Mu Zhao's words.

After a long while, Mu Yulu finally recovered from her shock. She looked at Mu Zhaoshi with unfamiliar eyes, as if she were looking at some other species: "You..."

She had barely uttered a single word when her throat tightened, and her mind raced, but she couldn't come up with a single word to describe it: "I..."

She hesitated for a long time, not knowing what to say, and in the end, all her words turned into a sigh: "Sigh!"

At this moment, she no longer felt anger towards Mu Zhaoshi, only regret for herself.

Why would she bother arguing with this woman?

Seeing Mu Yulu's reaction, Mu Zhaoshi became even more agitated. Then she said something that shocked Mu Yulu for eight lifetimes: "What do you know? You'll only realize after you get married that a husband is a woman's heaven! If my husband isn't by my side, I don't need to live anymore. What's the point of living if the sky has fallen?"