Shen Yuewei's body trembled violently. The loud slam of her second brother's door as he stormed out was like a thunderbolt cleaving through her chaotic fear. That resolute figure, that resolute back, pierced her heart more than the Crown Prince's scrutinizing gaze! She knew her second brother had guessed. The second brother who always climbed over the wall to buy her snacks, who would clumsily slip her his secret stash of money, who would instinctively shield her from the Crown Prince's oppressive presence… he knew her biggest secret, and felt the anger of being deceived and… the immense disaster that might befall her!
“Mother…” She took a deep breath, the air feeling like it carried icy shards, stinging her throat. She forced herself to turn her head, looking at her mother's face, etched with terror and pain, each word clear and slow, as if reading her own death sentence:
"I... am pregnant."
"Wh...what?!" Madam Shen screamed, her voice shrill and distorted, filled with disbelief, horror, and utter despair. "Wei'er! You...what nonsense are you spouting?! You...you haven't even..." She couldn't bring herself to finish the sentence. Not even engaged, not even married! How could this be?! This was a bolt from the blue! A bolt from the blue that could plunge the entire Shen family into the deepest abyss!
“It’s true, Mother.” Shen Yuewei’s voice was unusually calm, eerily calm, as if she were stating something unrelated to herself. She looked at her mother’s face, which instantly turned ashen, and at those eyes filled with turbulent emotions. Her heart ached, but she forced herself to continue; this was her only way. “Almost…almost two months.”
"Who...who is it?!" Madam Shen lunged forward, her hands gripping her daughter's shoulders tightly, her nails almost digging into her flesh. Her voice trembled uncontrollably, filled with a near-collapse of madness, "Tell me! Which beast is it?! I'll kill him! I'll kill him!" A terrifying ferocity erupted in her eyes, the primal killing intent of a mother beast when her sore spot is violated.
“It doesn’t matter who it is, Mother.” Shen Yuewei let her mother hold her, a sharp pain shooting through her shoulder, but she felt nothing. She simply shook her head slowly and resolutely, her eyes a desolate, icy wasteland, beneath which burned a desperate, all-or-nothing flame. “What matters is this child… I must give birth to him. I must take him away!”
"Go? Go where?!" Madam Shen was almost going crazy. "You're an unmarried girl, pregnant...where can you go?! In this vast world, where can you be tolerated?! The face of the Shen family... your father's reputation... our whole family... will be drowned in spit! We'll be punished by His Majesty! We'll be...we'll be..." She dared not think any further. The immense fear and despair made her feel cold all over, as if she had fallen into an ice cave.
"Go to Jiangnan!" Shen Yuewei uttered these three words with unwavering resolve, her eyes gleaming with an almost obsessive light—the only straw she had grasped in her desperate situation. "Mother! Do you remember? The dowry house that Grandmother left you was just outside Hangzhou! The old house was very secluded, with only a few old servants who had served it for half their lives. They were tight-lipped and honest! They only told others that... it was your distant cousin, a widow with no one to rely on, who went there to recuperate and find peace!"
Madam Shen was struck dumb, frozen in place. Jiangnan… Hangzhou… that secluded house she had long forgotten in a corner… her daughter had even thought of this?! She looked at her daughter's pale yet unusually determined face, her eyes devoid of any girlish fantasy or timidity, only a kind of madness and resolve born of being forced to the edge of a cliff, with no way to retreat!
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