"You were the one who asked Wu Ma to tell Yang Qian about Zhilan and Qi Zhen. That's why Yang Qian caught Qi Zhen off guard. But I'm not entirely sure about one thing."
Liang Meng turned around, his face still smiling and calm, but the look he gave Yan Niang was as sharp as a knife.
"What?"
Yan Niang spoke timidly under Liang Meng's gaze.
"Auntie Wu, was she originally planted in the Qi Mansion by you? Or did you cast a spell on her to control her?"
"you......"
Yan Niang's eyes suddenly widened and she looked at Liang Meng in disbelief.
"You want to ask me why I know Wu Ma? And how I know about your relationship with Wu Ma, right?"
Liang Meng's insight made Yan Niang feel guilty. She looked left and right, not daring to look Liang Meng in the eye again.
He lowered his head for a long time before raising it again. However, he was a completely different person.
The cowardice, shock and doubt all disappeared, and the painted face was cold and calm.
Since the disguise has been exposed, I have no choice but to show my true face.
Liang Meng didn't look surprised at all.
How could a woman who could quietly separate two people in love, without anyone noticing, and successfully marry herself into the Qi family, be a simple person?
Even if there is, it's just her disguise.
"The Qi and Yang clans already have a deep feud. Even if I hadn't let Wu Ma tip them off, there's no way they would be together."
"Yeah?"
Liang Meng, feeling oppressed, took two steps towards Yan Niang. Looking at Yan Niang, he didn't even bother to put on that fake smile, staring at her with cold eyes full of resentment.
"If that's the case, why are you so anxious to have Aunt Wu go to the Yang Mansion to inform them?"
"It's because you heard Qi Zhen's promise to Zhilan: if he really had to, he would give up everything and run away with Zhilan."
"Qi Yi, Qi Zhen, Yang Qian, and Wu Ma all contributed to Zhilan's death. But if we were to name the main culprit, the one who started it all, it would be Yan Niang..."
Liang Meng smiled coldly when he said this.
"...Isn't this charge against you unfair?"
"I'm truly confused: After all these years, thinking of Zhilan's tragic death, watching Qi Zhen suffer the curse daily, don't you feel a trace of guilt or regret?"
Yan Niang had already burst into tears under Liang Meng's interrogation. She shook her head, her face filled with pain. The tears washed away her makeup into a sticky paste, which clung to her face, making it look extremely ugly.
"I......"
Yan Niang sobbed and opened her mouth. Her brightly painted lips trembled.
"...For so many years, I have lived in torture every day. I have never had a moment of peace in my heart."
Yanniang's voice was trembling. She seemed extremely cold, her arms tightly clasped together. Even her voice was trembling with the cold.
"I am not born cold-blooded. Zhilan's death, I, I..."
Yan Niang was hunched over, her whole body shaking from crying. Her words were filled with endless regret and pain.
"For so many years, on so many sleepless nights, I always saw a pair of blood-red eyes staring at me in the darkness. And a voice kept ringing in my ears: What you owe must be paid back."
"Do you think I have lived a peaceful and comfortable life all these years?"
Yan Niang suddenly let out a shrill cry, the despair and pain in it easy to understand.
"I suffer in agony day and night, and I can't find a moment's peace. I simply feel worse than death, worse than death!"
"Especially when I saw Brother Zhen being tortured, I wished I had been the one to die."
Her legs seemed to have lost all feeling, and suddenly they bent, and Yanniang fell to her knees on the filthy ground. Her brand new and luxurious dress was immediately stained with dust.
Liang Meng looked at Yan Niang's body shaking with tears, and the coldness in his eyes disappeared for the most part.
At least, this person is not completely heartless.
"I met Qi Zhen when I was very young."
It took Yan Niang a long time to stop crying, and her body knelt on the ground without moving.
A layer of mist appeared in the lifeless gray eyes. As Yan Niang spoke, the mist was slowly lifted layer by layer by the past.
Liang Meng turned around and continued to look at the misty mountains, but he didn't hear a word Yan Niang said.
"My mother was a concubine, gentle and not fond of fighting. The little pity my father had for my mother disappeared completely after I was born. My father wanted a son, but my mother gave birth to me."
"Without her favored concubine, her status is even lower than that of a servant. Anyone in the mansion can bully her, and no servant will obey mother's orders anymore."
"Ever since I was an adult, I've been helping mother with her work. When she was washing clothes, I'd carry water; when she was cooking, I'd help light the stove. Mother and I lived in the most secluded courtyard in the mansion. But no matter how hard life got, mother and I were always together. When mother was happy, I was happy too."
"We have already sunk to the ground, but there are still people who want to bully us. Those aunts mistreat my mother, and their children bully me."
"My mother died on a very cold, snowy day. My father didn't even come to see her; he just sent a servant."
"The servant covered his mouth and nose, looking at me kneeling on the ground and my mother lying stiff on the bed with disgust. It was as if we were some kind of filthy garbage."
"The servant covered my mother with a tattered, dirty bamboo mat and threw me and her out the door. It was snowing heavily that day, and there was not a soul on the street."
"I had only a pair of shoes with holes in them. I pulled off the rotten bamboo mat that had been covering my mother, tugged hard on her stiff arms, and dragged her onto my back. We walked, stopping and starting, through the heavy snow. My legs were frozen. Finally, when I couldn't walk any more, I buried my mother beneath a tree."
"I dug out my mother's grave bit by bit with my bare hands. I cried as I did so, and my tears froze on my face. But I no longer felt the cold. As I was digging the grave, I decided to dig it wider so that my mother and I could lie down in it together."
"Anyway.....except mother, there is no one else worth my staying."
When Yan Niang said this, her eyes, which were filled with despair due to her painful and sad past, suddenly lit up.
Although the light was weak, it had a terrifying power.
Yan Niang's appearance was ordinary to begin with, and now it was even more horrible because of the tears and makeup mixed together. But at this moment, because of the little light in her eyes, a strange and charming halo appeared.
"But at this time, I met Qi Zhen. He helped me bury my mother and brought me to the Qi Mansion."
"I love you no less than that Zhilan, why? Why can't I be the one to stay with Qi Zhen for the rest of his life?"
Yan Niang's words revealed a slightly crazy stubbornness.
Liang Meng didn't interrupt her. With a barely audible sigh, she thought, "If love were determined by how much one person loves someone unilaterally, there would be much less trouble and sorrow in this world."
"Growing up in the Qi Mansion, I'm naturally very familiar with the grudges between the Qi and Yang clans. To be honest, I'm not particularly worried or bothered by Qi Zhen and Zhilan being together. This is because I know what stands between them, an insurmountable barrier."
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