Chapter 71 Cycle
Mrs. Cui hurriedly rubbed the Queen Mother's back and asked if she wanted to go back and rest. The Queen Mother shook her head again and stared at Qian Deng, determined to hear the case to the end.
Madam Dingxiang had obviously not expected that she had already known about this matter. Her feigned anger was no match for her panic, but she still gritted her teeth and denied it: "Since the county lady is making such a presumptuous assumption, then go to the west courtyard where I live and open all the boxes and boxes to thoroughly check and see if there is indeed the body you mentioned!"
"Of course not. After all, my aunt and Shi Jingning were busy that night, putting on a big show all night long, and they had already properly disposed of the body, allowing Lu Wulin to smoothly become Yang Huaijiang - or, in other words, Shi Jingning's substitute, in an attempt to put an end to this case and undo everything you did.
"After moving the body out of the backyard, while the workers were finishing their work as it was getting dark, you and Shi Jingning pretended to be possessed by a ghost, running around the yard to attract everyone's attention, while Shi Jingning pretended to look for him. The two of you carried the body parts in batches to the warehouse that was being renovated, and pieced them together under the wood to create the scene of Yang Huaijiang's death in the kitchen that day. Of course, you hid Lu Wulin's feet and replaced them with the feet that were stolen from the charity cemetery in an attempt to blackmail you, so that everyone would be sure that it was Yang Huaijiang. Afterwards, Shi Jingning went to the warehouse to splash lacquer, tied the unfinished beams and pillars with ropes, and hung one of Yang Huaijiang's heavy winter clothes on the pillars.
"When the flames started and everyone was drawn in, Shi Jingning, who was hiding behind the fire, pulled hard on the rope. The already unfinished beams and pillars naturally collapsed completely along with the wood above, crushing the clothing underneath. At the same time, Shi Jingning shouted his name from behind. As the flames rose, the shapes of everything around us became distorted. We were also far away from the fire. In the moment of collapse, how could we see if the figure being crushed inside was real?
"After the fire died down, all we found was a charred corpse, crushed by the weight of the wood and completely burned. The only evidence left was the autopsy file, which stated that there were extremely fine scratches on the joints of the charred corpse, which were difficult to distinguish. Those were the marks left by Shi Jingning's knife when he cut the body along the joints.
"After creating the illusion that Yang Huaijiang was being pursued by a wronged spirit, all you needed to do, Auntie, was act out your pain and sorrow. First, you pretended to faint and let the cemetery take the body away. Then, you pretended not to believe it and stubbornly rushed to the cemetery, because you had to put Lu Wulin's feet back on the previous body to eliminate the fatal loophole. Of course, the carriage you rushed to the cemetery must have also hidden Shi Jingning, so that he could escape the palace smoothly.
"From then on, the two cases were perfectly connected. Auntie even thoughtfully laid out the whole story for me. Shi Jingning was killed, Yang Huaijiang committed suicide, and the murderer was also taken away by the deceased. Everything came back to fruition, clearing everyone, leaving only a vast expanse of white snow, so clean. If I hadn't lifted the cold facade that covered everything and insisted on finding the truth, at this moment, Auntie, you would still be the dignified and virtuous mistress of the Yang family, and no one would know how much blood was stained on your hands."
"Nonsense! Listen to what she's saying!" Lady Dingxiang interrupted her angrily, "Bai Qiandeng, I'm your aunt, and your mother is my cousin! If my parents hadn't adopted your mother, she would have starved to death on the streets! You ungrateful thing! To wash away the accusation of being a husband-killer and to clear your Changhua Palace of any connection, you even dare to bring me up as your aunt!"
"If I wanted to clear myself of the charge of being a husband-killer and clear the palace, I could easily have accepted the fabrication you created, announcing that Yang Huaijiang had killed Shi Jingning and then committed suicide due to hysteria." Qian Deng looked at her coldly and said, "But, aunt, you poisoned your ex-husband's entire family just to marry into a wealthy family. You brutally murdered your nephew, Lü Wulin, to conceal your past crimes. You colluded with Princess Gao for your own benefit and lured me into a poisonous trap... Little did you know that the net of heaven is vast and nothing can escape it. No matter how hard you try to hide your crimes, whether twenty years ago or twenty years from now, they can never be erased!"
"What a joke! Listen to what you're saying. Does it even sound human? Who would believe your nonsense?" Lady Dingxiang clutched her chest, roaring in pain. "According to you, everything started because I poisoned my ex-husband's entire family in order to marry into a wealthy family. I was just a commoner at the time, already married. How could I have the heart to kill my husband when I first met another man? What good would it do me to be a widow? How could I be so sure he'd marry me after three years of mourning?"
"Because of your daughter." Qian Deng stared into Madam Dingxiang's eyes and spoke word by word, "You gave birth to her with great difficulty in the bitter cold of winter, and before you had the chance to hold her for a moment, she drowned in the icy river."
Lady Dingxiang was as if struck by lightning. She stared at Qiandeng, gasping for breath through her wide-open mouth, but could not utter a single word.
"Daughter-washing. My mother once said that in the countryside, some people drowned their firstborn daughter, calling it "daughter-washing," in order to ensure the birth of subsequent sons and prevent the birth of female babies. She wept bitterly when she spoke of this, empathizing with her own experience. My mother herself naturally didn't suffer from this abhorrent custom, and it didn't happen in the Changhua Palace either. So, who was the person who suffered this treatment?"
Qian Deng lowered his gaze as he looked at Madam Dingxiang, who had collapsed on the ground, and whispered, "Aunt, you once scolded me because my mother lost her unborn child, saying how could she not be sad when her child grew bigger and bigger in her belly? At that time, I thought, Aunt, you don't have any children yourself, so you probably can't understand... But then I went to Guozhou to investigate and found out that you had conceived a child, but never raised one. It seems that your first child was a daughter, who was washed away by your cruel in-laws.
"When I discovered that Sister Jiazhi was being shunned by her in-laws because she was pregnant, I saw you secretly shed tears for her. Therefore, when I discovered what you had done, I wasn't completely certain, and I had no evidence. But I decided to take a gamble. I bet the child would be in the same situation as before, that you would risk everything to save the child, that you would be willing to be disgraced and guilty, and that your humanity and conscience had not yet been obliterated by sinful desires."
She won the bet.
Lv Meixi, who had been the Lady of Dingxiang for twenty years, collapsed in front of the same glacier and the same newborn child. In the end, she used her blood-stained hands to point out the direction to find the child.
"Aunt, I once saw in the storeroom the gold necklace my mother wanted to give you but never did. It had plum branches adorned with tiny green plums. Because your name contains the character for plum, my mother once gave you a plum blossom bracelet. This necklace must have been prepared for your child. It's a pity that child never came into the world..."
"No, my child, she was born into this world..." Lady Dingxiang covered her face with her hands, tears streaming down her face. "I have a child. I got pregnant the first year after I got married. She is my first child and my only child..."
The people around were silent, watching this woman who had been resisting stubbornly when Lingling County Lady was trying to unravel the mystery, finally being completely defeated and no longer able to argue.
The Queen breathed a sigh of relief, staring at Madam Dingxiang, who had collapsed on the ground. She asked, "Madam Dingxiang, in order to curry favor with the powerful and marry into a wealthy family, you actually resorted to such cruel means as to murder your ex-husband's entire family?"
"I... I didn't know mercury was so potent, that it could harm my entire family. I just wanted to get rid of my ex-husband and be free." Lady Dingxiang prostrated herself on the ground, sobbing bitterly. "I've met my ex-husband's master. He spent his entire life working as a goldsmith, constantly exposed to mercury fumigation. His hands and feet trembled, his mind was hazy, and he was completely in a daze. But he didn't die, he just had a hard time! I, I didn't expect... I didn't expect it would kill my entire family..."
"Just because you lost your daughter, you are so resentful that you want to harm your ex-husband's entire family?"
"Yes, I hate them, and I... can't stay in that house any longer." Lady Dingxiang clutched the blue bricks in front of the Buddhist temple, her nails digging deep into the cracks. "I'm so scared! I'm afraid I'll give birth to another daughter, and another..."
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com