Chapter 60 Tell a Story
The surroundings were silent, with only an oil lamp in the room with a flickering flame. As the flame swayed, the shadows in the room also swayed slightly. Mrs. Xue opened her eyes tiredly, and saw Xie Rongying sitting calmly on a pear blossom chair not far from her. She suddenly perked up and wanted to get up, but when she struggled, she found that her hands and feet were tied.
Xie Rongying heard the noise and looked towards Madam Xue, who was tied to the chair. She put down the teacup in her hand and asked, "Awake?"
"Xie Rongying!" Madam Xue screamed, struggling so hard that her wrists and ankles felt the pain clearly. "Do you know what you are doing? How dare you do this to me!?"
Xie Rongying looked at Madam Xue, who was still so arrogant at this moment, and chuckled softly: "Of course I know what I am doing, but it seems that you, Madam, don't realize the situation you have fallen into."
Upon hearing this, Madam Xue stopped struggling and stared at Xie Rongying coldly: "Did you deliberately spread those rumors about Yunwu Manor in order to lure me to find you?"
Xie Rongying pretended to be surprised: "Is he really the only one who survived in the Xue family? He even knows this."
"Thank you, Rongying!" Madam Xue gritted her teeth. "What is your motive? My Zhang family has no grudge against you. Why would you be so cruel as to destroy Ruru and ruin the reputation of the Duke of Ying's Mansion?"
Xie Rongying leaned back in her chair, her eyes piercing with coldness. "You also said that we have no grudges against each other, so why did you help the Jiang family put me to death?"
Mrs. Xue's pupils shrank. Thinking of everything that happened in Kaibao Temple, Zhang Ruru's provocation, and her inexplicable hostility towards Xie Rongying, she had never reflected on it. She only believed that anything or anyone that made her uncomfortable should be destroyed.
"Madam Xue, if I hadn't taken the initiative at Kaibao Temple, I would have ended up in a worse situation than Zhang Ruru. The Xie family's reputation would have been ruined, my father would have been ridiculed in the court, and my dowry would have fallen into the hands of the Jiang family. I would have been a rotting corpse by now."
Xie Rongying said it nonchalantly, as if she was talking about someone else: "If you didn't want to watch the show, if you didn't know that Zhang Ruru was targeting me and relied on your status as a member of the Duke of Ying's Mansion to let Zhang Ruru bully me, would things have turned out like this?"
Madam Xue's anger surged in her chest. She stared at Xie Rongying intently and said fiercely, "Then you shouldn't have ruined Ruru's innocence. She's not the culprit. The culprits are your mother-in-law, your husband, and the entire Yongyi Marquis Mansion!"
Xie Rongying chuckled softly, "When Jiang Wang invited you to Kaibao Temple, I doubt she didn't tell you the purpose of going there. I guess you wanted to get something from the Jiang family, so you wanted to give them some face."
"Really, Mrs. Xue?"
Madam Xue gritted her teeth and said coldly, "I told you that it was your mother-in-law and your husband who wanted to harm you, and you shouldn't have come to deal with me. Even if you did, what would be the point? Jiang Shi will still not let you go. After all, Jiang Yin is dead."
Xie Rongying slowly stood up and walked towards Madam Xue. When she reached Madam Xue, she placed one hand on her shoulder and said, "Don't worry, take them one by one. They will eventually fall into my hands like you."
"Stop bragging! Do you think you can get away with it every time?" Madam Xue sneered, "You're not that lucky. No matter how well you plan, there will always be times when you're ambushed."
Xie Rongying walked past Madam Xue, leaning slightly to look at her profile. "I know it's easier to avoid an attack than to defend against one from behind, but that's not what you should be concerned about. Why don't we talk about why the Xue family was massacred?"
Sure enough, when Mrs. Xue heard the word "Xue family", her expression became unnatural for a moment.
"Madam Xue, do you really believe that there are such things as perfect in this world?" Xie Rongying whispered softly in Madam Xue's ear, then stood up and walked towards the pear blossom chair she had just sat on. After sitting down, she saw Madam Xue staring at her with sharp eyes. She smiled faintly, "Even when a wild goose passes, it leaves traces. The Kaifeng Prefecture was unable to investigate the case back then because they were suppressed by powerful forces. Is the massacre of the Xue family really an unsolved case?"
Mrs. Xue stared at Xie Rongying intently. At this moment, only she knew how horrified she was inside.
She thought that no one would ever mention this secret again in her life. Looking at Xie Rongying who looked like she knew everything, she felt a panic in her heart, the despair of having her hidden things discovered.
"What do you know?" Mrs. Xue's voice was surprisingly calm.
Xie Rongying chuckled, picked up the teacup and gently pinched the lid, her eyes half-closed, as if brushing the tea leaves on the surface of the tea. She sighed softly, "How about I tell you a story first?"
Mrs. Xue's whole body trembled slightly. Xie Rongying could mention the massacre of the Xue family so calmly, she must know something.
"During the Jingyou era, the wife of the Duke of Ying spent years recuperating at the manor. Worried about her daughter staying at the Duke's residence, she brought her along. Unfortunately, her daughter, like the wife, was frail. She was supposed to be recuperating at the manor, but she couldn't make it and died there at her coming-of-age age."
Xie Rongying took a sip of tea as she spoke, then put the teacup down and looked up at the pale-faced Madam Xue. With a sneer, she continued, "The Duke's wife missed her daughter so much, and coupled with her congenital illness and longing for her daughter, her health deteriorated day by day. At that time, the Duke of Ying was only just over thirty years old."
"In order to help his wife recover, the Duke found a girl who looked 90% like his daughter. After seeing her, the Duke's wife's health improved day by day. The girl also began to regard herself as the legitimate daughter of the Duke of England."
"I don't know if it was because the Duke's wife knew that a fake was always a fake. When the Duke thought she was slowly recovering, she suddenly passed away."
"At the time, the entire Duke's Mansion was in chaos. The Duke of Ying and his wife were a young couple, childhood sweethearts. The Duke was naturally devastated. He investigated his wife's death and found nothing unusual; she simply died of depression due to an unresolved emotional issue."
"While the entire Duke of Ying's mansion was immersed in the sorrow of his wife's passing, the girl who considered herself the Duke of Ying's legitimate daughter stayed by his side day and night."
"At that time, the girl was exactly sixteen years old." Xie Rongying stared at Madam Xue with a faint smile. "Sixteen years old, it's the prime of life. But this girl's background is not clean. She came from a place of prostitution, and she knew how to please men from a young age."
"Stop talking!" Mrs. Xue shouted angrily, staring at Xie Rongying with wide eyes.
Xie Rongying slowly covered the teacup and continued lightly, "Ying Jung is in his prime and has just lost his beloved wife. Coincidentally, a girl who looks like his wife in her youth is by his side, and he has turned all his thoughts to that girl."
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