Chapter Twenty-Three: How Can One Be a Concubine?
Upon hearing this, Li Wan'er's heart trembled. She stopped her tears and quickly looked up timidly to steal a glance at Gu Jingxi. The man was tall and slender, with a handsome face and a noble temperament. He looked to be only twenty-three or twenty-four years old. She was surprised, not expecting that Lord Gu would look so young.
With a gentle smile on her face, Meng Jinyao nodded and replied, "Husband, rest assured, I will definitely educate Xiuming well in the future and treat him as my own son."
Gu Xiuming looked at her and felt a sense of déjà vu of a wicked stepmother. She appeared gentle on the surface, but in reality, she was plotting how to get revenge on him. She must have married his father because he had run away from the wedding and she couldn't marry him. In this way, she could use her status as an elder to control him and also be the glamorous Lady of Changxing. Meanwhile, his usually wise father had made a mistake at the crucial moment.
He angrily questioned, "Father, she is my fiancée, how can you marry her?"
Gu Jingxi frowned, her sharp gaze falling on him, and asked in a deep voice, "When you abandoned her on your wedding day and eloped with another girl, why didn't you think of her as your fiancée?"
Gu Xiuming choked. He knew he was in the wrong. Meeting his father's sharp gaze, he lowered his head guiltily and stammered, "It shouldn't be you who married her. My second brother and fourth brother are not married. Even if I'm not here, it should be them."
Hearing his matter-of-fact words, Meng Jinyao couldn't help but chuckle, saying sarcastically, "He shouldn't have married me, so should you have run away from the wedding? If you hadn't run away, why would he have needed to clean up your mess? What makes you think that because you ran away, the Second Young Master Gu and the Fourth Young Master Gu should be the ones to suffer the consequences, and that one of them should have to take responsibility for your mistake? If Gu Jingxi weren't your father, he wouldn't even bother cleaning up this mess for you."
As she spoke, she glanced at Gu Xiuming, and seeing that he was speechless, she added, "By the way, there's something you've got wrong. It's your father and I, the victims, who should be the ones to confront and demand an explanation. What you should be doing is apologizing to us and asking for our forgiveness."
The two elders?
Gu Jingxi glanced at his young wife beside him and saw that her still somewhat childish face was tense. He thought to himself: She's still a child, yet she's already being called "two old men" by him.
He raised an eyebrow almost imperceptibly, but said in agreement, "Your mother is right, Xiuming. I thought that since you have studied the classics, you should know how to respect your elders. She is my wife and your mother. If you don't respect her, you are not respecting me. In the Gu family, juniors who violate the family rules and disrespect their elders will be punished according to the family rules."
Gu Xiuming panicked: "Father!"
Gu Jingxi showed no mercy, making a decisive statement that left no room for argument: "Besides disrespecting your elders, you also committed the absurd act of eloping, breaking your promise and disregarding the family's reputation. This has had a significant impact. You will be punished for multiple crimes with twenty lashes, confined to the ancestral hall to reflect on your mistakes in front of the ancestral tablets for a month, and copying the ancestral family rules a hundred times."
Upon hearing this, Gu Xiuming's face turned ashen. As the young master, being punished with twenty lashes was bad enough, but being confined to the ancestral hall for a month to reflect on his mistakes and having his family rules copied was even worse. Where was his dignity? The servants in the mansion would laugh at him, let alone outsiders.
He quickly admitted his mistake and begged for forgiveness: "Father, I know I was wrong, please have mercy!"
Gu Jingxi looked at him intently, unwavering, and said in a deep voice, "Xiuming, you are the heir of the Marquis's mansion and will inherit the title in the future. You should set a good example, but you knowingly committed the crime. Considering it is your first offense, we have already given you a lenient punishment. If there is a next time, it will not be as lenient as it is today."
Knowing there was no room for maneuver, Gu Xiuming lowered his eyes, a hint of hatred flashing in them. He subtly tugged at the corners of his mouth, thinking resentfully, "Is this what you call lenient punishment? He's not their biological son, so they won't go easy on him. If he were their biological son, why would they do this? Twenty lashes in the Gu family's punishment is enough to kill half a person, and those with weak constitutions could even die from it."
Seeing her beloved's pale face, Li Wan'er trembled with panic. If even the Marquis's heir was being treated like this, how could she possibly fare any better? Her brother Xiuming was barely able to protect himself; how could he possibly protect her?
Meng Jinyao glanced at the couple sitting on the ground, still snuggling together, then looked at the man beside her and asked, "Husband, what should we do about this Miss Wan'er? I don't know whose daughter she is. If her parents find out that she did such a thing, they will be furious. Although eloping is a matter of mutual consent, it still needs to be handled properly."
Just moments before, Li Wan'er was worried about her impending doom. Now, Meng Jinyao suddenly brought her up, and her heart leaped into her throat. Tears blurred her vision again as she looked at the couple with fear in her eyes.
Gu Jingxi looked Li Wan'er up and down, his brows furrowing slightly. The girl who could make him, an unfilial son, disregard the family's reputation and elope with her was quite pretty. Although her appearance was not stunning, she was still elegant and graceful.
At this moment, the girl was teary-eyed, leaning against her unfilial son as if she had no bones. To put it nicely, she was weak and unable to take care of herself; to put it bluntly, she was unpresentable, with no manners and frivolous behavior.
How could a girl like that compare to the young woman beside him? They're not even in the same league. He's been blinded by greed, picking up the fish eye and losing the pearl.
He withdrew his gaze and said, "The men I sent out have found out that she is a girl from a scholar's family surnamed Li in the east of the city. Her parents are both dead, and she lives with her grandfather. Now that her grandfather has passed away, she is all alone. What do you think should be done with her, Madam?"
After hearing this, Meng Jinyao understood. No wonder she dared to disregard her reputation and elope with someone else's fiancé. It turned out that she had no parents or relatives and was all alone, so she was not afraid of anything. If she won the gamble, she would be rich and powerful, and if she lost, she would just consider it bad luck. But Gu Xiuming would never abandon her. Even if she became his mistress, he would still provide her with a life of luxury.
Seeing the fear in Li Wan'er's eyes and her pleading expression as if she wanted to be spared, Meng Jinyao didn't make things difficult for her. She handled the matter officially and said calmly, "Since Xiuming likes her, then let's wait until Xiuming marries his principal wife and then choose an auspicious day to bring Miss Wan'er into the manor."
The meaning of "taking a wife and concubines" is quite clear: it means making Li Wan'er a concubine.
Li Wan'er was stunned. She was extremely relieved that she hadn't been punished with whipping or anything like that, but this wasn't the result she wanted either. Being the young master's concubine and being the young master's wife were worlds apart.
Being the Crown Prince's wife is already miserable enough, with a mother-in-law like Meng Jinyao above her. As a concubine, not only is she being suppressed by an elder like Meng Jinyao, but she will also be suppressed by the Crown Prince's wife, the principal wife, in the future. No principal wife likes her husband's concubine. When the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law join forces against her, she will only be bullied.
Besides Li Wan'er, Gu Xiuming was also dissatisfied with the result. His eyes were filled with anger as he glared fiercely at Meng Jinyao and said hatefully, "Meng Jinyao, you poisonous woman, you are using your position to settle personal scores while pretending to be virtuous. Wan'er and I are in love. If it weren't for you standing between us, she would be the Crown Prince's wife, not a concubine."
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