When Du Baolin established himself in Jincheng Prefecture, he brought his younger brother and sister into the city. He used money from the Nie family to buy them houses and land outside the city and settle them down. They did not live in the city, and no one notified them.
After marrying Du Baolin, Xu Xiaolan had two sons and one daughter.
The daughter is Du Jinying, who has already married the third son of the Zhou Prince's concubine's family.
This relationship is a bit complicated.
Anyway, she was just one of the Zhou King's concubines. Her family had many children, and she had seven or eight in-laws. Du Jinying married into the Gu family, which was just one of their in-laws.
The Gu family has connections with the royal family and boasts that their ancestors were once successful candidates in the imperial examinations. They have strict rules and have even consulted fortune tellers who said that Du Jinying must live in the old house in her birthplace for a year before she can get married.
Du Baolin didn't want to associate his old house with the Nie family, so the mother and daughter returned to Pingchuan County.
It was Xu Xiaolan's uncontrollable agitation upon seeing her sister-in-law from her maternal family that brought about today's trouble.
Du Baolin and Xu Xiaolan have now been reported to the government office by the Nie family for plotting to murder the mistress of the house, and they have already been arrested.
Du Jinying, who married into the Gu family, became anxious.
She was the daughter of the Nie family, and even her name was given by her maternal grandfather to remember her mother, Nie Yinyin, so she secretly changed it to Du Yunyan.
If the rumors are true, then what kind of person am I?
The Nie family is no longer just my maternal family, but also my enemy family. And that stepmother is still my biological mother. How can I accept this!
Du Jinying was angry, scared, ashamed, and annoyed, and completely lost her sense of reason.
Having received the news from the maid who had gone out shopping, Du Jinying rushed to the Nie family without consulting anyone, wanting to get to the bottom of things.
In the past, when Du Jinying came to visit, the Nie family's gatekeeper would not only come out to greet her from afar, but also go to great lengths to please the old master's darling.
But this time, when they saw her arrive, the Nie family gatekeeper simply closed the door and ignored her.
Du Jinying was the kind of person in the Nie family who would never ask for anything. She had never been treated so unfairly before. When she couldn't get the door open, she pounded on it furiously, rolled on the ground, and acted like a madwoman.
At this critical moment, the Nie family's every move is being watched by many. Her outburst at the Nie family's house attracted a huge crowd and angered the Gu family, who sent several old women to take her away from the Nie family's gate.
Gu Jia himself was of noble birth, and he had only allowed his third son to marry the merchant's daughter because he thought the cloth merchant was quite wealthy and the new bride's dowry was generous.
Now that her parents have caused such a terrible incident, instead of reflecting on their actions at home, they've gone out and made a fool of themselves.
After Du Jinying was dragged back to the Gu family, she was secretly sent to a secluded villa outside the city and confined to her quarters, forbidden from interfering in the affairs of the Du and Nie families.
If it weren't for the fact that Gu Jia needed to see what would happen next, Du Jinying would probably have been divorced back then.
Du Jinying forgot that from the day she got married, she was no longer the pampered young lady of the Du and Nie families, but the new daughter-in-law of the Gu family, and her actions had to take into account the interests and reputation of her husband's family.
Besides, with Nie Fantian as her grandson, the Nie family would never acknowledge her again, and asking would only bring her trouble.
Originally, besides Xu Xiaolan and Du Baolin, only Ma, the godmother in the family, knew about Nie Fantian's background.
But Ma Gan Niang died of illness not long after returning from Pingchuan County.
Xu Xiaolan's two sons, Du Jinyang and Du Jinxu, were already fifteen or sixteen years old. Upon hearing the news, they rushed home from the academy, but were at a loss in the face of this sudden change.
They couldn't go to the Nie family anymore. Xu Xiaolan had never allowed them to have any contact with the Nie family before, and now that the incident of plotting to murder the mistress of the house had happened, they dared not go there at all.
The two brothers went to the Gu family to find their eldest sister, Du Jinying, who had just gotten married, to ask if she was their biological sister and what was going on, but they couldn't even get into the Gu family's house.
Du Jinying had only been married into the Gu family for two months, and the two brothers didn't even recognize a single servant. The maids who accompanied their eldest sister as part of her dowry were nowhere to be found. When they tried to wait a little longer at the Gu family's gate, they were beaten and driven away.
Xu Xiaolan looked down on her uncle and aunt who lived outside the city, and rarely associated with them.
The shopkeepers in the cloth shop didn't show up, and the friends who used to call my father brothers weren't home either.
It was as if the world had collapsed overnight, and the two brothers instantly lost all their support, leaving them only to stay at home and wait foolishly.
Four days after Du Baolin and Xu Xiaolan were arrested, although there was no concrete evidence to convict Nie of the crime, the case of the murder in Qingquanwan, Pingchuan County, which Magistrate Zhang had sent several months earlier, and the presence of Xiaoman as a witness, led to Du Baolin being formally detained and imprisoned pending trial.
Xu Xiaolan is still in custody, and she will be punished for selling government slaves once the evidence is conclusive.
Nie Fantian, who had been indifferent to the matter, went to the Du family.
At this time, most of the maids and servants in the courtyard had been dismissed, and the Du family's property had been searched and confiscated. There were no government officials guarding the place.
The courtyard gate was closed, but Nie Fantian kicked it open and went straight in.
This is the third courtyard belonging to the Nie family. To show his close relationship with his wife's family, Du Baolin lived here as if he were half a son.
Twenty years have passed, and Xu Xiaolan has discarded most of the things left by the Nie family back then. Only the thousand-work bed that the Nie family spent a lot of money to build is still there, and the shameless couple still lie on the bed and have several children.
Facing these things that should rightfully belong to him, Nie Fantian acted as if no one else was around and started wildly chopping with his axe!
The servants who hadn't left the courtyard trembled with fear, and no one dared to stop them.
He smashed all the furniture in the room, and chopped the expensive bed into pieces.
Seeing this violent man enter the house and start smashing things at will, they knew without even guessing who it was.
The two brothers, who were sitting in the study, rushed to the main courtyard where their parents lived when they heard someone smashing things. They found the place in a mess and a man with a menacing aura.
"Who are you? What do you want? Get out of here!" Du Jinyang, who was slightly older, said boldly.
Nie Fantian slowly turned around and saw two boys who looked to be about fifteen or sixteen years old. Although they were wearing satin jackets, their faces were pale, their eyes were dark and gray, and they looked dazed and on the verge of collapse.
"I am Nie Fantian! I am the owner of this house!"
Nie Fantian said calmly, showing no intention of making a move against the young man who was about to become a homeless man.
Upon hearing the name Nie Fantian, the Du brothers immediately became enraged and shouted, "You bastard, don't even think about taking our family property!"
"Give us back our parents!"
The two rushed forward, intending to kill the culprit who had caused their parents' imprisonment.
Nie Fantian just stood there quietly, watching his two half-brothers approach him like madmen, and then kick them both away.
"Your parents are in prison. If they're lucky, they might see you two get married and have children!"
Du Jinyang, who had crashed heavily to the ground with blood seeping from the corner of his mouth, glared hatefully at Nie Fantian: "That's your father too, why are you so heartless?"
Nie Fantian's gaze suddenly sharpened: "Why? From the day I was born, when someone stole my identity, I hated him."
"They killed my mother, they usurped my place, all the suffering I've endured is their doing. Now I just want you to pay back what you shouldn't have had."
Glancing again at the thin jackets worn by the Du brothers, Nie Fantian sneered, "Do you know what it feels like to wear only a thin layer of clothing in the dead of winter? Do you know what it feels like to go into the water to collect snails and feed chickens on an empty stomach in winter?"
Du Jinyang was frightened by his naked gaze and retorted, "What does this have to do with us? It's other people who won't give you food, not my parents. Go find whoever made you work."
Nie Fantian stopped discussing this matter with the pampered rich young masters who had never been served, for they would soon learn what hunger and cold were like.
These farm chores were indeed forced upon me by my aunt; if I didn't do them, I wouldn't have food to eat, and I wouldn't even have water to drink.
From childhood to adulthood, my aunt has always hated me, calling me a jinx, saying that I killed my older cousin and my uncle, so why did I have to come and harm the Xu family?
At that time, I hated my mean-spirited aunt and even more my biological parents who abandoned me in Xujia Village.
Back then, I swore every day that when I grew up and learned about my parents' situation, I would make them kneel down and admit their mistakes!
Now that his father has been found and punished, Nie Fantian feels no joy at all, and even the Nie family is unwilling to face it.
For more than a decade, while they enjoyed their good life, no one knew of their existence, leaving them and the Xu family to torment and struggle against each other.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com