Shen Xiao said, "Your Majesty, what do you mean?"
Xuanyuan Hao said, "I don't know what you and your daughter are up to. You're beating the drum and talking nonsense. Since you're an old minister, Chen Yu will kneel outside the palace gate for two hours."
After saying that, he stood up and was about to leave.
Shen Xiao said, "Your Majesty, I am confused. Did you just say that Wu Jiacai is Zhong Qin?"
Xuanyuan Hao said: "Of course, when I was a child, I often went to the Zhong family to play. I never knew that they would later rebel against my father."
Xuanyuan Hao suddenly seemed to understand something, and said to Chen Yu: "Your mother Yu Mei told you that she was Zhong Qin?
If she were Zhong Qin, how could you not know that the late emperor had already pardoned Zhong Qin, and why did you think this was a serious crime and were trying to make trouble for her?
Did your mother impersonate Zhong Qin's identity? This is interesting, the fake dance appeared in front of the real one.
Then he said to Chen Xiao, “The Emperor personally arranged a new name and identity for Zhong Qin, and granted you marriage according to her wishes, thus completing the marriage between the two families.
Your wife, Wu Jia, is a true bell qin. When I was little, I used to call her "big sister" and "little aunt."
Shen Xiao stood there stiffly, his face pale: "She, why doesn't she say anything?"
Xuanyuan Hao said: "Interesting, but the old marquis and his family have been at the border, so it's right that they don't know each other.
Go back and take care of your family affairs." He pointed at Chen Yu and said, "Go kneel outside the palace gate for a sufficient amount of time, then go home."
After saying this, he no longer paid any attention to the two of them and left in a hurry. Naturally, palace servants led the two away separately.
Chen Xiao's heart was in turmoil, and many details suddenly popped out from his memory. It turned out that the people he had been corresponding with for five years were Zhong Qin and Wu Jia, not Yu Mei.
Shen Xiao returned to the Marquis' Mansion and looked at Shen Zhaoshu who was still checking the accounts. He asked, "Did your mother tell you who she was?"
Shen Zhaoshu said: "In Yunlan Temple, before she died, she said that she was Zhong Qin, the daughter of the former Grand Marshal Zhong Ding."
Shen Xiao was silent for a long time, as if he was lost in endless memories. Then he said, "I have been corresponding with your mother for five years, but I didn't expect that we would meet without knowing each other."
Shen Zhaoshu said, "There is something I can return to my father."
Shen Zhaoshu's two maids pushed a rattan box placed in the corner of the room in front of Shen Xiao. Shen Zhaoshu said, "These are the more than 600 letters that mother received. They were also the only things she took with her when she went to Yunlan Temple."
Shen Xiao opened the box and read the letters one by one, tears streaming down his face. "Why didn't she tell me? Why didn't she tell me?"
Ren Zhaoshu said: "Maybe you think it's boring, it's good to keep a good memory.
"Father, can you give me back that letter that your mother wrote to you?"
Shen Xiao said: "No! When I die, I will take it to the underworld!"
Ren Zhaoshu said, “Alright, if I don’t return it, you’re still making a fuss.
My mother said she wanted to get it back and wanted to burn the letter she wrote to you that year, but she also said that if she couldn't get it back, it didn't matter if she didn't burn it.
Anyway, she can just pretend that those letters were written by the old Zhong Qin, not the current Wu Jia."
Chen Xiao stroked the letter and said, "Your mother's beautiful handwriting is something I remember day and night. But after she got married, I've never seen her write in that style again."
Shen Zhaoshu asked, "Is this it?" She spread out a piece of paper and wrote a poem. Shen Xiao stood up and looked at it for a long time before asking Zhaoshu, "When did she teach you?"
"I saw my mother write it once and thought it was beautiful. Later, my mother taught me in Lanyuan, the courtyard where I used to live."
Chen Xiao said absentmindedly, "I actually didn't know."
"Father rarely sets foot in my sister and me's courtyard. He still doesn't know where I moved to after Chen Yu moved into Lanyuan, right?"
Shen Xiao looked ashamed.
That day, Chen Xiao found the people he had sent to look for Zhong Qin who were still alive.
It didn't take much effort to find one of his guards, the son of his wet nurse.
Yumei was the daughter of his cousin's uncle. She had worked as a maid in the mansion of the Duke of Fuguo and was familiar with some of the rules and regulations of the circle of noble ladies.
In order to gain benefits from the Yongding Marquis Mansion, the wet nurse and her son knew that Chen Xiao was looking for Zhong Qin, and learned some details, so they asked Yu Mei to impersonate him.
Chen Xiao's wet nurse was originally a teaching nanny. After teaching Yu Mei for more than half a year, she felt that she was good enough, so she found "Zhong Qin".
After rejecting the late emperor, the real Zhong Qin expressed her desire to fulfill the original engagement and marry the son of the Marquis of Yongding.
This man had been exchanging letters with me for five years. He knew that my family had committed treason and had been executed, but he was still looking for me everywhere.
Under the arrangement of the late emperor, she married him as she wished, with great desire and expectation... but he... already had a lover named Yumei.
Her heart instantly turned cold, and she secretly laughed at her own self-righteousness and assumptions. But now that things had come to this, so be it. An orphan whose entire family had been executed, whose family was only nominal, it was best for her to stay quiet.
After the truth was revealed, Shen Xiao went to Yunlan Temple.
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