Chapter 138 Illegitimate daughter?
Wanqing also saw the scene on the other side and was instantly struck by lightning, freezing on the spot!
She covered her mouth, her eyes filled with disbelief, shock, and panic: "Miss... who... who is that woman? How could the Prince... how could he..."
She hurriedly turned her head to look at Shen Qingci, whose face was expressionless but whose eyes were terrifyingly cold. Her voice was extremely low with fear, carrying a last struggle: "Miss! Don't believe it! This letter today is suspicious! That...that Regent Prince on the other side might be someone else in disguise! This must be a trap set by Huo Yunzhan and Liu Ruolan!"
Just as Shen Qingci was about to speak, the door to the private room was suddenly pushed open from the outside with a loud "bang"!
Huo Yunzhan, dressed in brocade robes, barged in with a sickly pallor and a twisted sense of pleasure on his face.
"Huo Yunzhan! What do you want to do?!" Wan Qing was startled and immediately spread her arms to protect Shen Qingci behind her.
Huo Yunzhan didn't even glance at her. His gaze passed over her and stared straight at Shen Qingci. A mocking sneer curled at the corner of his lips: "Shen Qingci, I never thought that in your heart, and in the heart of this maid beside you, I, Huo Yunzhan, would be such a despicable and shameless person."
He admitted, "That's right, I asked the shopkeeper to deliver the message to you. But... I only accidentally discovered that Chu Jichen was having a secret rendezvous with his lover here, and I couldn't bear to see you kept in the dark, so I kindly informed you."
"I informed you, but it is an absolute fact that Chu Jichen secretly met with his ex-lover!"
He pointed to the private room across the street with its window still open, his voice filled with malicious incitement: "If you don't believe that's really Chu Jichen, you can rush down right now and confront him!"
"And while you're at it, ask him who that woman is! And whose child is that!"
“Or,” he laughed even more maniacally, “if you don’t dare, you can wait until he leaves Yunmeng Tower before you intercept him! You can pretend you know nothing about what happened in Yunmeng Tower, and just make sure he is really Chu Jichen.”
Shen Qingci's heart sank to the bottom in an instant.
Huo Yunzhan's certainty suggests that the person in the private room opposite must indeed be Chu Jichen.
Huo Yunzhan gave her no chance to breathe. He approached step by step, his voice like a viper's hiss, cruelly revealing a truth that was enough to destroy all her trust to her.
"I know who that woman is, and I know who that child is."
Before Shen Qingci could speak, he continued, his eyes gleaming with a morbid excitement: "That woman is the only daughter of the border garrison commander of Lancheng, named Yun Yao."
"Several years ago, when Chu Jichen was still training in the army, he met her. Later, when Chu Jichen broke his leg and became depressed, it was Yun Yao who stayed by his side and took care of him without ever leaving him."
"After that, Chu Jichen traveled to and from the border several times and always had close contact with her."
"Four years ago, Yun Yao's father died in battle. Chu Jichen put aside all his affairs in the capital and rushed to the border day and night. Ostensibly, he was there to comfort the loyal daughter of the martyr, but in reality... he lived and ate with her, inseparable from her! It wasn't until the late emperor passed away that he hurriedly returned to the capital."
"After returning, he settled Yun Yao in Lancheng and protected her with impenetrable security."
"If our people hadn't gone to great lengths to investigate his background recently, we probably still wouldn't know that he had already... kept a mistress and had such a grown illegitimate daughter!"
Huo Yunzhan looked at Shen Qingci's increasingly pale face and smiled even more smugly: "Shen Qingci, you don't really think that Chu Jichen married you because he likes you, do you?"
"Don't be naive!" he almost roared. "Right now, he's surrounded by enemies, beset by internal and external troubles! Logically speaking, he shouldn't be getting married at this time."
"After all, it's almost conceivable that if he marries, the Regent's wife, whoever she may be, will be targeted by countless people."
"But he married you at this time simply because he needed a regent's wife, a public facade, a target to draw all the fire! What's more, he also coveted the private army left behind by your Shen family!"
Shen Qingci felt that she was frighteningly calm; she could even clearly hear her own steady heartbeat.
She slowly raised her eyes, looking at the seemingly insane Huo Yunzhan with an almost indifferent gaze, and tentatively asked, "Impossible. Everyone knows that Chu Jichen... is impotent. How could he possibly have a daughter?"
"Hahaha!" Huo Yunzhan seemed to have heard the funniest joke in the world. "If he didn't say he was impotent, how could he have a legitimate reason not to consummate the marriage after marrying you?"
"You are not the one he loves, nor the one he wants to protect with all his might. If he wants to marry you, he naturally needs a legitimate reason that won't make you suspicious and that allows him to avoid intimacy with you."
"Isn't being unable to have sex due to disability... the best excuse?"
Huo Yunzhan's lips curled up: "But Chu Jichen's move was quite ruthless; he almost fooled all of us."
Shen Qingci's eyelids twitched almost imperceptibly.
She lifted her eyelids, looked at Huo Yunzhan with an indifferent expression, and then slowly let out a sneer.
"Then... what does that have to do with me?"
Huo Yunzhan's smile froze instantly.
"Even if Chu Jichen is truly in love with this Yun Yao you speak of, what does it have to do with me?" Shen Qingci's voice was calm and undisturbed. "I married him only because I was forced into a corner by your Huo family and needed a powerful ally, a status that no one would dare to easily humiliate me."
“Now, I am the Regent’s wife. My goal has been achieved. That is… enough.”
Looking into her calm, still eyes, Huo Yunzhan's carefully planned sense of revenge was instantly replaced by a strange sense of panic and loss.
He lowered his eyes, a pleading tone in his voice that he himself didn't even realize: "Aci... what happened with the Huo family before was all our fault. But... I did all that, truly for you, for us..."
Seeing that Shen Qingci remained unmoved, he gave a bitter smile: "I know you won't believe anything I say now. But... I believe that before long, the truth will be revealed."
After he finished speaking, he gave her a deep look, said nothing more, staggered around, and disappeared into the shadows of the private room.
In an instant, only Shen Qingci and Wan Qing remained in the room.
Looking at her young mistress's pale, bloodless face, Wanqing hesitated for a long time before cautiously speaking, her voice filled with unease:
"Miss... what... what should we do?"
"What Huo Yunzhan said... is it true or false?"
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