Zhao Cong had not experienced unexpected unease for many years.
Shen Xu said, "The Jiang family wants to marry Jiang Yanwan to the Hu family to prove that the rumors outside are false, so that His Majesty will not be angry with them."
"The Prime Minister's residence caught fire early this morning."
Zhao Cong curled his fingers. "Is the fire under control?"
Shen Xu's expression darkened, and Zhao Cong knew what was going on.
"Send the patrol battalion to put out the fire!"
"Yes!" Shen Xu could only see the Crown Prince's profile, but the terrifying murderous aura gave him the illusion of returning to the battlefield.
Zhao Cong mounted his horse and said, "Take the Imperial Guards with you; everyone from the Prime Minister's residence should be imprisoned."
Shen Xu: "The fire is very big, you can't go."
"I will definitely bring Miss Qingwan out safely."
Zhao Cong seemed not to hear, and with a flick of his whip, he rode off into the distance.
The Prime Minister's Residence, Huaguang Courtyard.
The matchmaker who was welcoming the bride was mocking Jiang Yanwan as a fallen phoenix one second ago, and the next second she was locked in a side room.
Before they could even utter a few curses, thick smoke began to seep in through the cracks in the doors and windows, and the fire spread like wildfire.
"Help!"
"The Prime Minister's residence was set on fire in broad daylight!"
Jiang Yanwan, dressed in a gorgeous wedding gown, looked eerily bright in the firelight. She held a torch in her hand and set all the straw piled up in the garden ablaze.
As the shouts and curses inside gradually turned into desperate cries for help, she laughed cruelly, "I'll burn you all."
The betrothal gifts brought in by the Hu family amounted to two loads of pots, pans, and dishes. What did they take her for?
She's going to burn all this disgusting stuff to the ground!
The fire spread rapidly, and with the wind picking up, it soon reached Lan Garden and Ningsi Garden. The maids and servants took advantage of the chaos to escape, and few people were truly dedicated to fighting the fire.
Jiang Zhenlin rescued Lin Shi immediately. "Qin Ma, take your mother out first."
"quick!"
Lin coughed from the choking, and held her son tightly, saying, "Ah Lin, you come with me too."
Jiang Zhenlin: "Neither my older sister nor Lin Qingwan have come out. I'll go find them."
"Young Master, it was Miss who started the fire!"
"She wanted to burn us to death, why did you save her!" Qin Ma slapped her thigh, her dark face full of indignation.
Jiang Zhenlin's lips tightened, a complex expression flashing between his brows and eyes. "She just doesn't want to marry into the Hu family."
“I brought her out so she could escape in the chaos.”
Upon hearing this, Madam Lin exclaimed in alarm, "Ah Lin, this is too dangerous!"
"You can't afford to make any mistakes."
"Otherwise, I won't be able to face your father and the ancestors of the Jiang family."
Jiang Zhenlin smiled wryly, “Mother, you don’t need to worry about this. Father is in prison; it’s his business to explain things to our ancestors.”
Lin's tears flowed even more freely, her ten fingers gripping her son tightly, "No, no..."
"Mother, are you not going to care about Qingwan either?"
"We already owe her, how can we let her perish in the fire?"
Lin trembled. "There are people in her yard. They're far away, so the fire isn't this big there."
"Ah Lin!"
Unable to stop him, Madam Lin watched helplessly as her son ran back into the inner courtyard, shouting at the top of her lungs, "Quickly, someone protect the young master!"
"Please, protect my Ah Lin."
But where were there any servants left for her to command? Apart from a few maids and servants around her, everyone else had long since scattered like birds.
Madam Lin was devastated. Between sobs, she heard someone shout from Huaguang Courtyard, "The young lady is still breathing!"
Lin's fingernails dug into the mud, her eyes icy cold. "I raised her for fifteen years, I mistreated Qingwan, I'm sorry to my husband... and she even tried to burn me alive."
Lin took a deep breath and stumbled toward Huaguang Courtyard.
Jiang Yanwan was held in Xia Yan's arms, and he wiped her mouth and nose repeatedly with a wet handkerchief, finally allowing her to lift her heavy eyelids.
"Young Miss!" Xia Yan's eyes were red.
Jiang Yanwan felt excruciating pain in her chest and throat with every breath. "Are they... dead?"
Xia Yan knew she was referring to the old women from the Hu family. "They didn't come out. I guess they're not going to make it."
Jiang Yanwan chuckled, "It's good that he's dead."
"No one can mock me. Even if I am not Miss Jiang and do not become Princess Jing, those few wretches will not be allowed to laugh at me."
Xia Yan sobbed, "Miss, why are you doing this to yourself?"
"And what about... Lin Qingwan?"
"I didn't hear anything." Xia Yan silently wiped away the blood that was welling up from the corner of Jiang Yanwan's lips with a handkerchief.
"She has to die with me."
"I...I still won."
"If I can't become Miss Jiang, then the Jiang family will never have a Miss Jiang."
Before she could finish speaking, Madam Lin pushed Xia Yan away, yelling, "You heartless, ungrateful wretch!"
Jiang Yanwan's head hit the floor tiles, and the shock almost made her unable to breathe. She then vomited blood.
Lin grabbed her collar and shook her, yelling, "Why don't you just die! You're a madwoman!"
Jiang Yanwan was unable to speak and kept spitting out blood.
Looking at her mother, who hated her to the core, and recalling the times she had been with her when she was a child, her heart ached again.
The first word she wrote was taught to her by her mother, and the first flower she embroidered was also taught to her by her mother.
When the embroidery needle pricked her fingertip, her mother was in even more pain than she was. She helped stop the bleeding while crying, and blamed herself for not taking good care of her.
When she was sick, she couldn't take her medicine, so her mother held her and comforted her day and night, staying up until her eyes were red and swollen, but she still wouldn't leave.
Jiang Yanwan could only manage to touch a corner of her mother's clothes with great effort. Despite the burning smell all around, she could smell a gentle, sweet scent emanating from her mother.
The mother she had relied on for fifteen years.
She has such a good mother, why would she care about a birth mother she's never met? She's never lacked love, so why would she want a birth mother?
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