Chapter 409 Don’t You Want This Right?
The morning light spread over the eaves of the old house, painting the glazed tiles with a layer of golden glow, but the side hall seemed to have been drained of all its warmth.
Xuanyuan Ge stood in front of a camphor wood screen. The gauze on his arm was soaked with blood. The dark red marks flowed down along the cuffs and dripped onto the bluestone slabs, leaving small blobs.
He looked at his mother sitting on the pearwood chair opposite him, and his memory suddenly went back to twenty years ago.
He had a high fever at that time, and his mother sat by his bed, feeding him medicine little by little with a silver spoon, the temperature of her fingertips as cool as jade.
"Mother."
His Adam's apple rolled, and his voice still carried lingering fatigue.
"Do you remember when I was fifteen and broke my leg in the equestrian arena? You watched over me for three days and three nights."
Jiang Shutong nodded.
She still remembers the scene.
At that time, many people were eyeing the position of the eldest grandson.
If Xuanyuan Pavilion died.
Everyone will be happy.
She said at the time, "Age is my life, no one can hurt you in the slightest."
She risked her life to save Xuanyuan Pavilion.
But now I hear Xuanyuan Pavilion say this.
Her fingers holding the teacup paused, and the ivory-white teacup gently rubbed against her palm.
Today she wore a moon-white Hangzhou silk cheongsam, with a dark gold embroidered pattern of winding branches on the collar, which made her neck look as cold as a knife. "Why bring up the past?"
"Because I was thinking," Xuanyuan Ge turned around and looked at her face with a look of almost broken confusion.
"How could the mother who used to shed tears for me kill a pregnant woman?"
He pulled a stack of documents from his briefcase, on top of which was a yellowed hospital record.
In the photo, Han Lingcui is lying on a hospital bed with thick gauze wrapped around his head and a bracelet on his wrist with "Unknown" written on it.
Below was a registration book for the orphanage. Xunxun's name was written in pencil in the corner, and the remarks column was filled in with "abandoned baby, high fever persists."
"After the car accident, Lingcui stayed in a suburban hospital for three months. When she woke up, she had forgotten her name was Su Ling.
Tell her that she is a homeless orphan who couldn’t even see her newborn baby.”
Xuanyuan Ge's voice trembled, and his fingertips pinched the registration book, his fingertips almost embedding into the pages.
"Xunxun was robbed of his food by other children in the orphanage, and was beaten and scolded by the caregivers. He always cried out 'Mom' in his dreams, but he didn't even know what his mother looked like. Mother, do you know all this?"
Jiang Shutong finally raised her eyes, a thin layer of ice forming in her eyes: "If I don't know, how can I keep you safe?"
She placed the teacup heavily on the table, causing the tea to spill over the edge. "Back then, the old man had already arranged a marriage for you with the Qin family. Who is that Su Ling?"
A poor student who relies on her looks to get close to you!
If she doesn't die, you'll have to marry her. If that happens, the Lin family will be furious, and all the Xuanyuan family's projects will fail. Do you think you can still stand here and talk to me about inheritance rights?"
Jiang Shutong was indeed a little disappointed.
She always felt that her son could understand her approach and tacitly approved of it.
Unexpectedly, this kid is still stubborn and has already done a lot of investigations in secret.
"So you ruined her life?"
Xuanyuan Ge suddenly raised his voice, and he could not care less about the servants' gasps that could be heard behind the screen.
“You sent someone to break her ribs, erased all her identity information, and dumped her like garbage in a strange city!
You even wanted Xunxun to die in the orphanage. If that prison guard hadn't gone there to do charity work, my son would have been gone long ago!"
"presumptuous!"
Jiang Shutong stood up suddenly, and the slit of her cheongsam brushed against the chair legs, making a small noise.
“I am your mother!
She is the eldest lady of the Xuanyuan family!
Everything I do is so that you can secure your position as heir!
How many times do you think Xuanyuan Qing stabbed you in the back over the years?
If I hadn't blocked it for you, you would have been trampled into the mud by him!"
She walked quickly to Xuanyuan Ge and reached out to touch his face, but he turned his head away.
The alienation at that moment was like a needle, piercing the lady's heart. Her hand froze in mid-air, and her face grew colder and colder.
"You are now turning against me because of that woman. Do you know how many eyes are staring at us outside?
Just now, when I went to pay my respects to the old man, I saw Xuanyuan Qing talking to someone from the third house in the corridor. He might be planning how to expose this matter and let the old man destroy you! "
"I don't care."
Xuanyuan Ge closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, only determination remained.
"Five years ago I was a coward and didn't dare to resist. I've regretted it every day in the past five years.
Mother, you have protected me for half my life, but this time, I want to protect them."
"Protecting them?"
The eldest lady laughed as if she had heard a huge joke, and her laughter was chilling to the bone.
"Do you know what this means?
The old man hates others challenging his authority the most. You insist on bringing an 'abandoned woman with amnesia' and a 'child of unknown origin' back to the old house, which is a slap in his face!
By then, let alone the right of succession, it will be a problem whether our lineage can gain a foothold in the Xuanyuan family!"
She lowered her voice, with a barely perceptible tremor in her tone.
"Age, listen to mother, send that woman away, and let Xunxun be raised by me. Consider this as mother begging you.
We, mother and son, can only survive in this house by working together, otherwise..."
She grabbed his arm fiercely, her nails almost digging into his flesh. "We will all be gnawed to the bone!"
Xuanyuan Ge looked at the panic in his mother's eyes. That panic was not for Han Lingcui's experience, but for the impending loss of power.
He suddenly remembered that when he was a child, his mother always held him on her lap and pointed to the family motto on the wall and said, "People of the Xuanyuan family must have a hard heart and ruthless hands."
It turns out that she has never changed over the years.
"Mom," he gently pried open her fingers, his voice as calm as a pool of stagnant water.
"When you sent someone to ram Lingcui's car, you should have expected this day to come."
He turned and walked towards the door, each step feeling like treading on broken glass.
As soon as I walked behind the screen, I heard the sound of porcelain breaking from the side hall, followed by my mother's suppressed sobs.
The crying sound hit Xuanyuan Ge's heart, and it hurt so much that he could hardly move his legs, but he didn't look back in the end.
The breeze from the corridor carried the coolness of the morning dew, causing the wound on his arm to ache.
Behind a rockery not far away, a servant was looking at this side furtively. When he saw him looking at him, he hurriedly shrank back.
Xuanyuan Ge recognized that it was the person next to Xuanyuan Qing, and thought that the conversation just now had been transmitted word for word.
He looked up at the sky. The morning light shone through the clouds, but it could not illuminate the darkness deep in the old house.
He knew that from this moment on, he not only had to protect Han Lingcui and Xunxun, but also had to face his mother's resentment, Xuanyuan Qing's calculations, and the oppression of the entire Xuanyuan family.
He must win this battle, even if the price is a complete break with his closest relatives.
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