If only my mother wasn't so sentimental!

It's really hard for me to deal with her like this!

Dou Zhao sighed deeply.

Suddenly, I began to feel some strange emotions towards my mother.

It seems like there is some heartache, some pity, and some...jealousy!

The thought came to her mind and she was shocked.

It is human nature to feel sorry for one's mother's situation and sympathize with her difficulties, but why is she jealous?

What do you envy your mother for?

The deep affection she once had? Or the straightforwardness that her mother showed in front of her father?

Dou Zhao was a little confused and bewildered.

After seeing off the Wei mother and son, she sat on the warm kang and watched Hanxiao and Shuangzhi helping her mother take off her hairpins.

My father came in.

His face looked a little ugly: "Gu Qiu, I have something important to tell you."

The mother turned around, her slender fingers wrapped around the handle of the gilded waterweed-patterned target lens with a bright red tassel hanging from it, her eyes deep as she stared at the father quietly.

The maids and daughters-in-law serving in the room retreated quietly.

The father half-knelt beside the mother: "Gu Qiu, Yingxue...she...she...is pregnant..."

Mother's fingers, which were twisting the tassels, suddenly stopped.

The father hung his head: "...I can only come to discuss this with you...I know I am sorry for you...but you want me to pretend that I have done nothing, I, I really can't do it..."

"How did you two meet?" the mother asked the father softly in a calm tone, and her fingers began to circle the tassels intermittently.

The father was in high spirits and said, "When I arrived in Kyoto, I naturally went to visit Mr. Guanlan. It just so happened that Yingxue went there to borrow ginseng..." He explained hastily, "I didn't see him at the time, but Mr. Guanlan treated me like his nephew, and the people in his family didn't avoid me on purpose. I heard from the servants in Mr. Guanlan's house that Wang Xingyi's daughter came to visit Madam, saying that her nephew was sick and needed to drink ginseng soup, and wanted Madam to help buy two ginsengs that were more than a hundred years old, but she didn't have much money. You also know that ginseng of this quality is hard to come by. Madam tried her best and even put in some of her own money, but she only helped to get a fifty-year-old ginseng. I thought of Wang Xingyi. She is the same age as my fifth brother. He is a man of steel and loyalty, while Gao is a wise and righteous woman. But they ended up like this. I couldn't help but feel sympathy for her, so I asked Gao Sheng to help buy two fifty-year-old ginsengs for her. She got the ginseng and came to thank me..." As my father spoke, his face gradually turned red. "I knew she made her money from the cotton business, so I promised to introduce her to the housekeeper at home and helped her get some other medicinal herbs... She asked me if I was married... I spoke quickly and made a joke..." His voice was as soft as a mosquito, "For my father's affairs, she often went to Kyoto with my brother to visit my father's family... She is very straightforward... She told me what fun things there are in Kyoto... We also drank some wine together..."

The mother closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and opened them for a while before asking the father, "Didn't she ask who you are?"

"No!" the father whispered, "How would I know that there is such a relationship..."

Mother slammed her hand on the mirror, and the jade bracelets on her wrists clashed and clanged, "Bah! I don't believe she doesn't know who you are! In this Zhending Prefecture, which family doesn't rely on the Dou family for their livelihood? She just doesn't know you. You said you would introduce her to the housekeeper in our family. Couldn't she guess that it was you? She has been hanging around in our house since she was a child. Doesn't she know who I married? She knows nothing about you, but she dares to go to bed with you just because of two ginseng plants and a promise? Isn't she afraid that she will meet a pervert..."

"Gu Qiu, Gu Qiu!" The father interrupted his mother's words with shame and embarrassment, "She really didn't know! She only remembered it afterwards... If she hadn't been pregnant, she wouldn't have come back to Zhending with me..."

"You don't believe me?" Mother's face was as gloomy as if it was about to rain.

"I believe it, I believe it!" the father said repeatedly, "No matter what, she is just a woman, and she encountered such a thing... In short, this is all my fault. Can you help me?"

"You..." Mother bit her lip, and the tassel that was originally wrapped around her finger was pulled straight.

"Gu Qiu, Gu Qiu, don't be angry!" said his father anxiously, "If this matter gets out, I will be ashamed to face everyone... Please help me get through this difficult time for the sake of our marriage! Gu Qiu, Gu Qiu..." He looked at his mother with sad eyes.

"Okay!" said the mother with a smile, but that smile was full of misery. "Let Wang Yingxue sign the contract to sell her, and I'll let her in."

"How can this be possible!" the father shouted anxiously, "How can the Wang family live like this? You are going too far! No, no!"

"Then what do you say we should do?" the mother asked calmly, with a tired look on her face.

My father was a little embarrassed: "We should give more betrothal gifts and not ask for the Wang family's dowry... I saw that when Feng Baoshan took a concubine... Feng Baoshan said that this was the same as buying a concubine, but in order to save face, it became a betrothal gift... If you regret it, the betrothal gift must be returned in full..."

"Isn't that the same as those business families taking concubines?"

My father was stunned for a while before he murmured, "How is this? You live together, and everyone in the Dou family knows who is the elder and who is the younger..."

"You have thought everything through!" Mother smiled, but the smile did not reach her eyes. "Didn't your father-in-law ban you from walking? You should go back early! I will discuss this matter with my eldest sister-in-law and the others."

The father jumped up with joy, took the mother's hand and said, "Gu Qiu, so you agreed!" like a child who finally got candy.

"I agree." Mother's lips curled up, she held father's hand with her backhand, lowered her head and kissed it gently, "Go back quickly! Be careful that father-in-law will call you in and give you a lecture again!"

The father smiled at the mother and stroked her temples tenderly: "Gu Qiu, you are so kind to me!"

The mother giggled until tears came out of her eyes.

My father left happily.

Mother was still smiling, but her smile gradually became fainter and her tears flowed more and more.

"Mom!" Dou Zhao threw himself into his mother's arms.

Mother stroked her head slowly and whispered, "Wang Yingxue did it on purpose... maybe not at first, but at least she did it later... Shougu, your father doesn't believe me, do you, believe mother's words?"

"I believe it, I believe it!" Dou Zhao nodded continuously, his eyes moist.

"But what's the use of believing?" The mother laughed, tears hanging on her flawless white cheeks like morning dew. "You little rascal, you know nothing!" She pinched her little nose affectionately.

I know, I know!

I know everything!

Dou Zhao couldn't hold back his tears.

She wasn't really a two-year-old.

Since my father had revealed Wang Yingxue's pregnancy, it was obvious that he had been forced into a corner and was ready to go all out.

"Xidou" had few descendants, so doing so might make Wang Yingxue bear the reputation of not being a matchmaker. However, if her mother insisted on not letting Wang Yingxue in, the elders of the Dou family would have complaints about her, and she might even be labeled as unvirtuous. Moreover, this reputation of not being a matchmaker was only in the minds of a few elders of the Dou family. For the sake of the Dou family's face, the people of the Dou family would never tell anyone about it. Not only would they not tell anyone, but they would also defend Wang Yingxue if they heard any rumors. What effect would such a bad reputation have on Wang Yingxue?

Wang Yingxue used tricks to plot against my father. It was so obvious, but my father, who was smart, turned a blind eye to it. It was obvious that his heart had long been biased. Wang Yingxue had such a good trick, but once she got married, there was no telling what would happen. If my mother had to explain everything like this, what would be the meaning of life?

In order to get Wang Yingxue to come in, my father first threatened my mother to divorce her, and then half-knelt beside my mother to beg for mercy...

How much humiliation is waiting for her in the future!

The boy under the magnolia tree is the dream in his mother's heart.

The dream is broken, should I wake up or sink into despair?

Dou Zhao was shocked.

So, mother chose to die!

She raised her head and looked at her mother in shock.

The mother smiled and shed tears.

His gaze passed through layers of emptiness and landed on an unknown place.

"Shou-gu, mother is tired and needs to rest for a while." She said in a low voice, "Go play with Nanny Yu!"

"Mother! Mother!" Dou Zhao hugged his mother's legs and burst into tears.

She would never leave her mother again.

“Good child!” Mother kissed her cheek, tears falling on her neck like ice, so cold that she shivered. “No wonder sister-in-law said you are smart… It is true that mother and child are connected by heart… Only you know how much pain I feel in my heart… But I really have no strength left… If you want to blame someone, blame your mother for being useless… cowardly and incompetent… Mom is gone, but you still have your uncle…” She trembled and said, “Maybe it’s better this way… They will pay you back what they owe to mom… Otherwise we will torture each other every day and wipe out all the kindness we have… and make both of us look hideous…”

"No, no..." Dou Zhao shouted incoherently, "As long as you are alive, there is hope, as long as you are alive..."

Her mother hugged her tightly, as if she wanted to hold her in her arms. After a while, she gradually let go of her and shouted "Madame Yu" loudly.

Dou Zhao burst into tears and screamed loudly, "Mother, I won't die. Mother, I won't die."

Nanny Yu was stunned, then she knelt down beside her mother crying: "Why don't you take a pair of scissors and let me do it first..."

“Mammy, Mammy…” Mother hugged Mammy Yu’s shoulders, “I really can’t stand it anymore… I’m pretending to be a loving couple in front of Sister Tian… My heart feels like it’s bleeding…”

"A child without a mother is like a weed," Nanny Yu said, hugging Dou Zhao. "If you were gone, what would happen to the Fourth Miss? No matter how close others are to you, it's still through the belly. The old lady passed away early, do you want the Fourth Miss to be like you?"

"Mother, please don't go, I'll be obedient!" Dou Zhao cried out loudly, "Please don't go..."

"Aunt Shou, Aunt Shou..." Mother was very sad.

The three of them cried like a tearful person.

The lights in the Dou family were lit one after another.

Grandfather and father were both shocked.