Chapter 11 The Cuckolded Prince (1)
"Are Huan'er and Xi'er my children?"
A man with thin cheeks, a dark face, and who looked like he was about to die, lay on an antique wooden bed.
The man looked at the woman standing in front of the bed, wearing gorgeous clothes and a head full of pearl hairpins, and asked weakly.
The woman smiled sweetly, her tone soft and gentle, "If it weren't for Huan'er and Xi'er, why would I have taken the initiative to show my affection to you when you inspected Zhuangzi that year? To tell you the truth, every night I slept with you since returning from Zhuangzi has made me extremely sick."
Muyan suddenly opened her eyes, "Wan Zi, do you want to scrap it?" The task was interrupted halfway through, and she wanted to kill this useless system.
Wanzai hurriedly explained carefully, "Boss, I had a glitch just now. I didn't mean to interrupt the transmission midway. I will re-transmit it to you right away."
"If you interrupt again, you'll be waiting for me," Mu Yan threatened sternly.
Maruzai's head shook so fast that it made a creaking sound. "Boss, it won't happen again. Don't worry."
Muyan closed her eyes impatiently and accepted the task again.
The original owner was named Jiang An. Due to his numerous military exploits, he was granted the title of a prince of a different surname by the emperor. When he returned victorious from the war, the emperor gave him two concubines.
Concubine Liu was gentle and sensible, while Concubine Wen was weak and well-behaved.
When the two concubines first entered the mansion, he treated them equally and was not partial to either of them.
As time went by, Wen's soft and coquettish nature won Jiang An's favor, and he loved her much more than his concubine Liu.
Three months after entering the mansion, concubine Wen became pregnant first. This was Jiang An's first child, so he naturally attached great importance to it.
Although everyone in the palace was very careful, Wen still lost the baby after three months of pregnancy.
Afterwards, Wen insisted that it was Liu who caused the death of her child. With the servants testifying, Jiang An was furious and sent the concubine to the cold garden of the palace, forcing her to copy scriptures every day to pray for the child.
Wen was dissatisfied with Jiang An's treatment and did not want to stay in the palace any longer, so she asked to go to the farm to pray for the child.
Seeing that she had made up her mind, Jiang An no longer tried to keep her and granted her wish.
Two years later, Jiang An went to the village to inspect and saw Wen again. Wen told him all about her longing for him for the past two years.
A month later, Zhuangzi sent a message to the palace that Wen was pregnant.
Jiang An ignored his family's objections and took her back to the palace with the ceremony of a princess.
Seven months later, Wen gave birth to a premature baby, a boy and a girl. Jiang An loved the two children very much and loved Wen even more than before.
It was not until four years later that the newly appointed person in charge of Zhuangzi came to the palace to report the accounts and met Wen and Jiang Cheng in the palace.
Jiang An then realized that during the two years that Wen had been at the farm, she had been secretly having an affair with his half-brother Jiang Cheng.
Jiang Cheng's biological mother was the maid that Jiang An's mother brought as a dowry when she got married. When Jiang An's mother was pregnant, she sent her to serve Jiang An's father.
Later, she died of complications during childbirth, and Jiang Cheng was raised by Jiang An's mother since birth.
Jiang An's mother treated him like her own son.
Jiang An couldn't believe that his brother, whom he had loved since childhood, would actually hook up with his concubine.
Only then did he understand why Wen Shi took the initiative to show goodwill to him.
When he went to inspect Zhuangzi, Jiang Cheng was sent by the emperor to suppress the bandits. When the two sides were fighting, Jiang Cheng accidentally fell off a cliff and no one found him alive or dead.
Soon the news of Jiang Cheng's death reached the capital. Jiang An thought that it was because Wen Shi heard about Jiang Cheng's death and realized that she would have no one to rely on in the future that she took the initiative to make peace with him.
Thinking about it this way, the reason she left the palace wasn't entirely because of the lost child, it should have been related to Jiang Cheng as well.
Then Jiang An was furious and expelled Jiang Cheng from the palace and sent him to a cold and harsh borderland as a soldier.
As for Wen Shi, Jiang An only punished her by confining her to the cold garden because she was the biological mother of two children.
Jiang An had followed his father to war since he was young and had numerous old illnesses. The incest between Jiang Cheng and the concubine caused a relapse of his old illnesses and his body became increasingly weak.
As the two children grew up, Jiang An had an idea in his mind that he had never had before and kept him awake at night.
When the incident between Wen and Jiang Cheng broke out, he never thought that the two children were not his.
But now, as the two children grow older, they look more and more like Jiang Cheng.
He didn't dare to think about it.
The child he cherished for so many years was not his.
When Jiang An was bedridden and unable to get up, he called Wen.
Although Wen was under house arrest, her food was still ate according to the standards for a concubine. Her appearance had hardly changed during these years of house arrest.
She saw Jiang Cheng unable to get up, and the hatred in her eyes was not concealed. "Prince, do you think this is your retribution?"
"You exiled your brother to the frontier and let him die miserably in the bitter cold. This is God's punishment for you for killing your brothers. Hahahaha."
A ferocious smile appeared on Wen's face, and he looked a little more crazy.
Jiang An coughed a few times at Wen's words. "He deserved it. He seduced his brother and his wife, violating human ethics. I'm showing him mercy by sparing his life."
For a long while, Wen remained silent, his dazed eyes seeming to be lost in some memories.
The huge bedroom was so quiet that only Jiang An's occasional coughing could be heard.
"Do you know," Wen Shi said softly, "when I first entered the palace and met Jiang Cheng for the first time, he said in front of the maids that my skin was as white as cream and my hands were as soft as catkins."
Wen chuckled, "At the time, I just thought he was a playboy and ignored him. The next few times we met, he was still the same."
Wen suddenly let out a vicious smile. "That child, do you think it was Liu who caused me to fall?" She asked herself and answered, "No, I was walking in the garden with her, and I didn't stand firmly and accidentally fell down the stone steps. I was afraid you would blame me, so I bribed the servants and said it was Liu who caused me to fall."
Wen saw the question in Jiang An's eyes, "You want to know why Liu didn't refute it." She suddenly laughed loudly.
"Because she doesn't want to marry you at all. She was forced to marry you out of helplessness. She has a childhood sweetheart, and her parents dislike his low social status and don't allow them to be together."
"Do you know who that person is?" Wen continued to ask herself, "It was the current Grand Tutor He Zhizhou. When her parents found out he had become the top scholar, they must have felt so regretful they wanted to bang their heads against the wall. I remember that was when you banished her to the cold courtyard."
In the bedroom, Jiang An's coughing became louder and louder, but Wen Shi showed no sign of stopping.
"After the child died, I couldn't sleep well every night. I was afraid that you would know the truth and banish me to the cold courtyard. Jiang Cheng noticed my anxiety and comforted me and stayed with me. Later, I found that I had feelings for her, and I wanted to leave the palace."
"Jiang Cheng saw what I was thinking and offered to elope with me. Then we made a plan together. We planned to live in the manor. After a few years, when you had forgotten me, we would have the manor report that I had died of illness. Then, we could go to a place where no one knew us and start over."
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