"Why?" Qin Wanru stared in shock at the old man in front of her, whose hair was neatly combed. He looked exactly the same as usual, but now he seemed so unfamiliar.
Hong Zhong also sighed deeply: "I'm so sorry, Madam, you shouldn't have come here."
"Why?" Qin Wanru stared at him, her eyes filled with anger. She had considered countless possibilities, but she had never imagined that Hong Zhong would betray her.
She was also filled with doubt: why would Hong Zhong betray her?
At this moment, she was poisoned and restrained. She knew that everything was over, and her only thought now was to find out what was going on.
“I had no choice but to do this…” Hong Zhong then shook his head, “There’s no point in talking about it now.”
“But I want to know,” Qin Wanru said coldly, “the Chu family has treated you well, and Zhongtian and I have always considered you a friend. What can you gain by siding with Chu Tiesheng? Can he give you anything more than everything we have given you?”
“Chu Tiesheng…” Hong Zhong’s lips curled into a sneer. “This guy is completely unreliable. If I hadn’t transferred the guards away from the outer perimeter for him, his affair in your room would have been discovered long ago.”
"So it was you!" Qin Wanru suddenly realized. No wonder no one came over despite the commotion. "Since it wasn't Chu Tiesheng, then you must have been bribed by Sang Hong. But I don't understand. We can give you anything that Sang Hong can give you, and based on my understanding of you, I really don't understand what else could possibly bribe you with."
As she spoke, a sudden inspiration struck her, and a name slipped out: "Hong Xingying!"
A hint of bitterness appeared between Hong Zhong's brows: "Madam, you know that I had a son late in life, and I don't have any hobbies. The only thing I can't let go of is my good-for-nothing son."
Qin Wanru couldn't help but say, "Hong Xing should be a good kid. He has worked hard in the Chu family all these years, and the Chu family has treated him well. What could make you betray the vow and honor you have upheld for a lifetime for him?"
Hong Zhong sighed: "Does Madam really know nothing at all? Madam should know a little about why Hong Xingying has worked so hard all these years."
Qin Wanru bit her lip tightly: "I know he has liked Chu Yan since he was a child. He originally thought this child was good and planned to take him as his son-in-law. However, Chu Yan chose Zu An herself, and there was nothing I could do about it."
She paused, then continued, "And now it seems that Chu Yan has a much better eye than I do."
“Beauty has always been a source of trouble, and Miss is no exception,” Hong Zhong said, as if lost in painful memories. “Xing Ying loved Miss, but he could only watch helplessly as the woman he loved married another man.”
"If he had married someone better than him, it would have been fine, but he ended up marrying a street thug who was inferior to him in every way. So it's easy for his mentality to become unbalanced, and he's easily swayed by outsiders to do wrong things. Many things, once you take a wrong step, there's no going back."
"What could be so wrong that there's no going back?" Qin Wanru suddenly felt a chill. "Was he the one who destroyed the Spirit Spring before?"
So much happened that night. First, the spiritual spring was destroyed; then Zu An ran into Chu Huanzhao's bed on their wedding night; and during that time, the Chu family was robbed. The whole night was chaotic.
The root cause of all this is the unrest caused by the destruction of the sacred spring.
Hong Zhong said in a deep voice, "Of course he doesn't want the young lady to actually have a wedding night with Zu An, so he will definitely try to sabotage everything. Of course, he's not the only one eyeing the Spirit Spring; he just happened to be there."
Qin Wanru wanted to ask who else was damaging the spiritual spring, but considering the current situation, those questions no longer mattered: "But even if they damaged the spiritual spring, given your contributions to the Chu family, even if the matter is exposed, we won't punish them much. Is it really impossible to turn back because of this?"
Hong Zhong shook his head: "Once something starts the first time, it will happen again. Madam, do you remember the time our caravan was robbed and killed halfway through the journey?"
Qin Wanru was startled: "Could that also be Hong Xingying...?"
Hong Zhong revealed a sad expression: "That's right, someone encouraged him to take advantage of the caravan's accident to lure the young lady over to investigate, so that he would have a chance to be alone with her... That silly boy had no idea that he had fallen into someone else's trap. The brothers of that caravan were all killed or injured, and he really couldn't turn back."
Qin Wanru remained silent. Chu Zhongtian was always kind, but he had a few particularly strict family rules, namely that anyone who betrayed a comrade and caused the comrade's death must pay with their own life.
Therefore, although the matter of the spirit spring is serious, it will most likely be dropped due to the Hong family's contributions; however, the deaths of so many family members in the caravan cannot be offset even by the Hong family's contributions.
Hong Zhong stared intently at her: "At my age, I only have such a precious son now that I'm old. His mother died in childbirth. How could I just stand by and watch him go? Do you understand my predicament now, Madam?"
Despite the strange sensations emanating from her body, Qin Wanru managed to maintain her last shred of rationality and said, "What's the point of saying all this now? It just means that my husband and I trusted the wrong person."
Hong Zhong also noticed her abnormality and said in a deep voice, "Madam has been poisoned by 'Bull's Milk,' a poison that is extremely wicked and evil. In order to repay the kindness of the master and madam over the years, I will personally send Madam on her way to prevent her from falling into the hands of that villain Chu Tiesheng and being defiled."
A relieved smile finally appeared on Qin Wanru's flushed face: "Thank you!"
She knew that defeat was inevitable, and to die with her innocence intact was the most perfect ending.
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