As moonlight crept over the eaves, Jiang Shu sat alone in the ancestral hall. The Jiang family motto, "Rather Die in Honor," glowed coldly on the altar. Suddenly, she tossed the Mei family marriage certificate into the brazier. As the flames swirled around the characters "Mei Weixing," she heard herself say, "This time, Mother will never let you suffer any injustice."
Jiang Shu's dark blue skirt was stained with moss from the rockery cave, and she didn't care that her earrings had caught on the stone edge. Just now, when she was eavesdropping, she almost sprained her ankle at Jiang Songyi's words about her "hermaphroditic stillborn cousin"—could this be referring to her deceased twin brother?
"Why is mother hiding here?" Jiang Qingmo shone a lantern into the cave. The firelight revealed the crooked golden phoenix in Jiang Shu's hair. "Could it be that some unfaithful man has blocked her way?"
"What nonsense!" Jiang Shu slapped her daughter's hand away, trying to cover up her embarrassment by fixing her hair. She couldn't say she was eavesdropping on her niece and ended up hearing her own secrets.
Jiang Songyi knocked on the cave wall with her fingers: "Aunt is raising poison here?" The echo startled two bats, which fluttered over Jiang Qinghe's shoulders. She was so scared that she clutched her handkerchief and hid behind her sister.
"Don't blame me, Songyi." Jiang Shu suddenly grasped her niece's wrist. "I'll give you an explanation about Yuyao." The gilded armor scratched across the red mole on Jiang Songyi's wrist, a birthmark common to all Jiang family daughters. If Hao Ren hadn't stolen the baby, she would have grown up wearing this armor.
[What's the point of explaining?] Jiang Songyi muttered to herself, [If the Yongding Marquisate really wanted to touch Jiang Yuyao, they should have done it long ago when she plotted to get her third cousin off his horse!] She suddenly fell silent because Jiang Shu was staring at her wrist, as if trying to see through the skin to the cause and effect of her past life.
Jiang Qinghe suddenly pointed at the lotus pond and exclaimed, "Look!" Floating on the water was a half-broken painting of a lady, the very thing Mei Weixing had left behind when he fled. The woman in the painting had her hair partly tilted, and her eyebrows and eyes bore a striking resemblance to Jiang Yuyao, yet her sash was embroidered with Jiang Qinghe's favorite lotus flower.
Jiang Shu picked up a bamboo pole and stirred the painting into the mud. Back then, the rouge Hao Ren bought for his mistress was also a surreptitious replacement of the black ink in her dressing table. These men always loved playing tricks like this, did they really think they were blind?
"Vacate out the west wing after we return home." She suddenly instructed the nanny, "Since Yuyao is engaged to the Fourth Prince, it's not proper for her to always live next door to Songyi." As she said this, she deliberately stroked the red mole on Jiang Songyi's wrist - the words "I'll take the throne" in her mind just now were a hundred times more shocking than Mei Weixing's broken painting.
Jiang Songyi suddenly chuckled: "Aunt, why don't you repair the ancestral hall in the east as well." She ran her fingertips across the weeping willows by the pond, "After all, when Jiang Yuyao gets married, she might be removed from the ancestral hall." The willow leaves cut into pieces the reflection on the water, just like the red pen that the clan elders broke when she was expelled from the clan in her previous life.
As the carriage returned home, it had just passed the Vermillion Bird Gate when Jiang Shu suddenly stuffed a stack of banknotes into Jiang Songyi's hand and said, "I heard that you like to read Mr. Zizhu's storybook?" She deliberately emphasized the words "Nine Clans Elimination Chamber", which frightened the coachman so much that he almost whipped him.
Jiang Songyi twisted the lotus pattern on the edge of the banknote. This was a special note made by the Jiang family bank. Jiang Yuyao had stolen this note to bribe her midwife. Now she was being blamed for the rebellion! No, the military pay for the purging of the imperial court?
"Aunt." She suddenly leaned close to Jiang Shu's ear and said, "What if His Majesty suddenly had a prince who was living among the people!" The hot air blew on Jiang Shu's new jade earrings, startling the iron lady so much that she knocked over her rouge box.
The eaves of the Imperial City passed by the car window, and Jiang Songyi narrowed her eyes as she gazed towards Chonghua Palace. In her previous life, Xinyi Zigu had ascended the throne here, and in this life, she wanted to make the Nine Dragon Chair feel the touch of a pomegranate skirt—of course, she had to first address the hidden danger of Jiang Yuyao, the "Nine Clans Elimination Game."
In the shadows cast by the vines of the rockery, Jiang Shu dug her fingertips into her palms. She looked at her daughter's demure face, her throat choked by a lump of water-soaked cotton wool. "Qinghe, if you don't like the Mei family..."
"Mother, I'm very satisfied." Jiang Qinghe smoothed the wrinkles on her sleeve, revealing the plum blossom scar on her wrist - the scar she got when she was eight years old while protecting her mother. "The Mei family has been a family of nobles for generations. The prince is diligent and ambitious. If my daughter marries him, she will be a consort of the clan."
Jiang Shu suddenly remembered the lotus seed hairpins that Madam Mei had handed her today. The Mei family crest was carved on the top of the hairpin, and now it looked like a gaping maw. Just as she was about to speak, she heard Jiang Songyi's inner voice explode like thunder.
[Mei Weixing is not Mrs. Mei's biological child at all!]
Ants scurried through the cracks in the rocks, carrying cake crumbs. A cold sweat broke out on Jiang Shu's back. Suddenly, memories from twenty years ago came back to her mind—that year, Madam Mei, pregnant, entered the palace to express her gratitude, her skirt stained with suspicious blood. At the time, she'd thought it was a sign of miscarriage, but now, thinking about it...
"Mother?" Jiang Qinghe looked at her mother in surprise as she suddenly staggered. Jiang Shu held onto the rockery, and Jiang Songyi's inner voice continued in her ears:
[Mrs. Mei gave away her biological daughter and replaced her with a baby boy, and now she wants her daughter to give birth to a child for her fake son!]
Jiang Qinghe swept her handkerchief across the back of her mother's hand. "Did you get a heatstroke?" Jiang Shu stared at the red hairpin in her daughter's hair. It was a betrothal gift from the Mei family. The tip of the hairpin flashed with a cold light, as if it was about to reveal some dirty secret.
"Madam!" the nanny suddenly exclaimed. Everyone turned around to see Madam Mei approaching with a young woman in a green dress. The girl's features bore a striking resemblance to Madam Mei's, and she wore a double lotus hairpin in her hair—the same pattern as the one Mei Weixing was wearing today.
"This is my distant niece, Nu Han." Madam Mei held the girl close and said, "Go pay your respects to the Marquis' wife."
As Wu Zihan bent his knees, the jade pendant on his waist accidentally slipped out of his clothes. Jiang Shu's pupils suddenly shrank - the jade pendant was engraved with the Mei family's ancestral precepts, and only direct descendants could wear it!
"Zi Han has just arrived in the capital, so I'll have to trouble Qing He to take care of him in the future." Madam Mei pushed Wu Zi Han towards Jiang Qing He, "Wei Xingchang said."
"Madam," Jiang Shu suddenly interrupted, "Does your ancestral temple still have the document of child exchange?"
Mrs. Mei's smile froze. Wu Zihan's round fan fell to the ground, revealing the inscription on the fan—it was actually Mei Weixing's handwriting!
Jiang Qinghe bent down to pick up the round fan, the ink of the poem "Ode to the Lotus" still wet on the silk screen. Suddenly, she remembered the twin lotus flowers on Mei Weixing's cloak today, and her gentle voice tinged with ice, "Sister Zihan and the Crown Prince seem to share similar interests."
A crimson figure suddenly emerged from behind the rockery. Princess Linchuan chuckled, shaking her gilded fan. "I didn't know there was a rule about substituting a cat for a prince in the Mei family's ancestral precepts?" Behind her, the nanny held up a yellowed account book. "Would Madam Mei like to review the midwife's confession from twenty years ago?"
When Mei Weixing arrived upon hearing the news, he saw Wu Zihan throwing herself into Madam Mei's arms, crying, "Mother!" His folding fan clattered to the ground, and the pendant dropped the birth card in the secret compartment—the year on the Geng card was three months earlier than his actual birth date!
Jiang Songyi crushed the lotus seeds on the ground with her toes: "The prince's twin lotus flowers are blooming beautifully." She deliberately kicked the broken lotus seeds towards Wu Zihan, startling him so much that he jumped and screamed.
As dusk drifted over the eaves, Jiang Qinghe sat alone in the ancestral hall. The ancestral motto, "Rather die in glory than in vain," lit the candlelight on the altar. She tossed the Mei family marriage certificate into the brazier. As the flames swirled around the three characters "Mei Weixing," Jiang Songyi's voice rang out from outside the door, "Cousin, Madam Chen sent the list of concubines."
"Come in." Jiang Qinghe stroked the scar on his wrist. "It's a good opportunity to pick a few people who can sing 'The Substitute Prince'."
Moonlight leaked through the window, illuminating the smile on her lips.
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