Untie the ropes binding them and bring them into the food court.
Xie Zhaozhao did not invite them in together, but instead told them to wait in the outer room and come in one by one to ask questions.
The first person to enter was a very old woman, who looked to be over sixty years old.
Her clothes were fairly neat, probably because her family hadn't been in trouble for too long. She was still somewhat unaccustomed to her current status, and her tone unconsciously carried the sense of superiority of an old lady from a large family.
"Greetings, Madam. May I ask what brings you here?" She glanced at Xie Zhaozhao, who was seated at the head of the table, and asked calmly.
Xie Zhaozhao readily agreed, calling Manman to her side and asking, "Take a close look, have you seen her before?"
It was lunchtime, and although it was winter, the light was not dim. After looking at her for a while, Old Madam Yu asked in confusion, "Who are you?"
With a smile, Manman said, "Grandpa, my name is Manman. Have you seen me before?"
A flicker of surprise crossed Madam Yu's eyes: "You look somewhat like my eldest daughter-in-law when she was young. Is your surname Tang?"
Looking at Xie Zhaozhao's powerful aura and imposing presence, she guessed that she must be an extremely wealthy person. If she was from the in-laws' side, it would be great if she could buy all the women of the Yu family and let them go.
Before Manman could answer, Xie Zhaozhao asked, "Can the old man be sure she's a relative of the Yu family?"
"Well, I can't really explain it, it's just that she looks a bit like my eldest daughter-in-law."
Is your eldest daughter-in-law in the line outside?
"She...she is no longer a member of the Yu family."
"Oh, your eldest daughter-in-law has never given birth to a daughter, or lost one?"
"She gave birth to a daughter, but she fell into the river when she was one year old and died."
The old lady clearly remembered that the second wife, Cai Ping'er, cried uncontrollably, saying that her eldest granddaughter was being carried by a servant to see the lanterns when she was jostled by the crowd, slipped, and fell into the Jing River and was swept away.
The servant was beaten to death, and the eldest granddaughter also perished.
From that day on, the eldest daughter-in-law handed over the management of the household to the second wife and went to a temple to practice Buddhism. How many years has it been? I don't even know if she's still alive.
Thinking of this, the old lady shook her head again: "Gone, dead."
Xie Zhaozhao told her to go out first, but she went out through a different door.
Another woman was called in. She looked at Xie Zhaozhao with wide eyes and thought to herself, "This person must come from a very wealthy family. Just look at that child. Others may not know, but the child is not wearing an ordinary cotton robe. It is a piece of brocade that is priceless, extremely soft and silky."
The woman begged Xie Zhaozhao to buy her.
"Madam, please buy me and my daughter! I can do everything: embroidery, sewing, cooking, playing the zither, singing and dancing... Please, Madam, buy me!"
Xie Zhaozhao asked, "What is your relationship to the Yu family?"
"This servant is the fourth young master of the Yu family, but my husband is a son of a concubine and is not considered a master in the Yu family, so this servant can do anything."
"Look at her?" Xie Zhaozhao pointed at Manman. "Have you seen her before?"
The woman stared for a long while, then said in surprise, "She does look somewhat like the First Madam, but the First Madam hasn't returned to the manor for many years, so I don't remember her very well..."
After the fourth wife left, another concubine from the first wife's household came in. She said that when she entered, the first wife had gone to the temple to practice Buddhism, and she had never seen the first wife.
Xie Zhaozhao asked her where the temple where the First Madam practiced her religion was.
It is said that she is not in Lizhou, but in a nunnery on Jianmen Mountain in Jianzhou, where she is practicing.
Jianmen Mountain in Jianzhou is about four or five hundred miles away from here.
After questioning all the women and sending them away, Xie Zhaozhao asked Manman, "Do you want to find your family?"
She slowly shook her head: "It's too difficult, I have no recollection of it at all."
"If you ever have the chance to contact them, will you?"
"If possible, I would naturally like to know who they are, and I must know where my roots are."
Xie Zhaozhao smiled softly and pointed to the slaves outside the window: "What if it were them?"
"The Yu family?" Manman finally realized that her master had been interrogating those women for so long to help her find her family!
Her feelings were very complicated: "Master, perhaps we shouldn't admit it..."
From the time she could remember, she and Yuanyuan stayed by Xie Zhaozhao's side. As for her family, she knew nothing about them. She only remembered that she followed a kidnapper and was always hungry and cold before being sold to the Xie family.
She never thought about having family.
What if the Yu family is her relative? Will His Majesty Emperor An release them or not?
She would never cause His Majesty any trouble.
"My lady, I don't want to look for my family. Twenty years have passed. Let them just assume I'm long dead!"
Xie Zhaozhao said, "Don't worry, finding people is one thing, and the law is another. I will not bend the law for personal gain."
He said to Hao Yonggan, the chief steward of Lizhou who had been following him discreetly, "Lord Hao, send someone to the nunnery on Jianmen Mountain to find this lady... Manman, you go with Lord Hao as well."
Filled with gratitude, he knelt down and kowtowed to Xie Zhaozhao: "Thank you for your great kindness, Your Majesty."
"Don't reveal your identity when you get there; just observe her attitude."
"Yes, Master, rest assured." We absolutely cannot accept relatives arbitrarily!
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