Old Things
"What's that noise?"
Suxi asked.
"Firecrackers celebrating Shen Wenzhao's appointment as an official."
Suxi choked and saw the boy's face suddenly darken, and his tone was also terribly gloomy: "Xiaoxi, let's go, accompany me to the main courtyard."
"Why?"
"There are some things I want to ask my mother in person."
-
In front of the Shen Mansion, a carriage decorated with red ribbons slowly drove away, the firecrackers stopped, the crowd at the door dispersed, and several servants took brooms to sweep away the red ash left by the firecrackers in front of the door. Lin was still standing by the door, looking up slightly at Shen Pingchang's rosy face, and a bit of joy surged in her heart, but she saw that Shen Pingchang was still standing at the door looking out for a long time. He was wearing a green official uniform, a cloak on his shoulders, and a high-tiara on his head that could be seen through the black gauze on his head. He looked heroic and upright. Although he was over forty years old, he still looked handsome.
Lin stared blankly for a long while, then cautiously reminded him, "Master, you should go to the government office. It's a little late today..."
When Shen Pingchang glanced at her, Lin immediately shut up. She saw the man next to her flick his sleeves and get on the carriage waiting at the door without even looking back. The driver whipped his horse whip, and Lin felt particularly lonely for a moment. She then went into the house and waved, and immediately a little maid came trotting over.
"Madam, what do you want?"
"Xiao Cui, how many concubines did the young master take away from his room?"
"Madam, the eldest young master has brought two with him, and there are a few more living in Nanyuan. Why don't we send them all away?"
"No need, keep it." Lin said, "Zhao'er will be back for the New Year anyway, so it would be appropriate to keep it there to serve. Also, you have to clean the eldest young master's room every day to make sure it doesn't get dusty or infested with insects."
"yes."
The little maid left as she was told, and Lin felt relieved. She walked back to the main courtyard and pushed open the door, only to see several little maids standing there trembling with fear and lowering their heads. The window frames in the house were wide open, blowing away the hot air from the silver charcoal. A little maid with an unfamiliar face was standing by the window, with a wheelchair next to her and a young man sitting in the wheelchair with his back to the door.
"Madam, the young master said he wanted to see you and insisted on coming in. We didn't dare to stop him!"
The little maidservant spoke with great fear and trepidation, but Mrs. Lin ignored her and simply waved her hand to dismiss all the servants in the room, then walked closer in a daze.
"Yunqiu?"
Hearing this, Shen Yunqiu turned around and looked at the woman in front of him, who was dressed in gorgeous clothes and gold and silver, with scrutiny. He saw the barely perceptible warmth in her eyes flash away, and then turned into surprise, and a bit of coldness hidden in her eyes.
Shen Yunqiu couldn't help but curl the corners of his mouth.
It seems that his brother seemed to have misunderstood something.
"Yunqiu, why are you here?" Lin looked at him for a while, and was shocked to see that Chen Yunqiu's complexion had become much rosier and his hair had grown back into a full head of black hair. "Yunqiu, are you feeling better? You look good. Why don't you ask a doctor to check it out?"
"No." Shen Yunqiu said in a cold tone, "If it's not getting better, my son will die when it's time to die. He won't live any longer to be a nuisance to his mother."
"You..." Lin clutched her chest, stunned for a moment, but her eyes didn't reveal much sadness. "If you came here just to say something angry, then go away and go back to recuperate."
"My son will leave, but before I go, there is one thing I want to ask my mother."
"Tell me, what's the matter?"
"Mother, my brother is not your biological son, right?"
After the words fell, Shen Yunqiu saw Lin's expression crack for a moment, and then returned to normal in an instant.
"How is that possible? Zhao'er and you are from the same mother..."
"If mother doesn't tell the truth, I will ask father. Then father will blame mother. Mother, please don't say that your son..."
"etc!"
Lin suddenly grasped the wheelchair armrest, with an expression of fear that was difficult to conceal.
"How do you know? Who told you that?"
"My brother said it himself yesterday."
"Zhao'er? How could Zhao'er know..."
Before she could finish her words, someone brushed Lin's hand that was on the wheelchair away. Her heart trembled, and when she came back to her senses, she saw that the boy was looking at her with a look full of mockery and sarcasm, as well as a scrutiny that seemed to be able to see through everything.
"Mother, stop pretending. Your acting skills are really not that great." Shen Yunqiu scoffed. Facing Lin's lingering gaze, she continued, "If you really didn't know that my brother knew about this, how could you let him poison me?"
“No, no...I don’t know...”
"Or is it that my mother hates me as much as my brother does and wants me to die soon?"
"How is that possible! Yunqiu, what nonsense are you talking about?"
Lin became more and more anxious, and could hardly control the cold sweat that was beading on her forehead.
"Don't worry, mother. I know you're thinking about me, and it was just a joke," Chen Yunqiu said, then changed the subject. "It's just that I used to think you favored my brother, just like I did with my father and grandmother. It wasn't until yesterday that I finally understood why. You've always relied on my father for your livelihood, and you didn't dare to anger him, so you asked my brother to get close to me to make up for the tiny bit of guilt you felt. Later, I broke my leg and was poisoned. You knew it was my brother's fault, but you still didn't dare to offend my father, let alone treat his beloved concubine harshly. So you had no choice but to give up on me, your biological son whose time was running out. Is that right?"
After he finished speaking, Suxi saw that Lin's face had turned pale, and she fell to the ground as if she had lost all her strength. Suddenly, she covered her face and sobbed.
It was the first time Su Xi had seen Lin, a woman who had always been respectable, so out of control. He was momentarily dazed, and Shen Yunqiu just sat there, not trying to comfort or support her. He just watched. When Lin's crying gradually subsided, he spoke slowly, "Mother, aren't you going to explain everything to me?"
"Things of the past..."
Lin leaned against the table, staring blankly into the distance, as if recalling something. When she spoke, it seemed as if she was talking to herself.
"In the past, I was the youngest daughter of the Lin family cloth shop. I was doted on since I was a child. After my brother succeeded me, one day when I was out for a walk, I fell in love with a poor scholar and begged my brother to marry him. At that time, Shen Pingchang's family was penniless and he didn't even have money to study. So my brother asked him to marry into his family, set a date for the wedding, and got married. After the marriage, Shen Pingchang treated me well and I lived a comfortable life. However, he had no fame or official position. He took the imperial examinations several times before he barely passed the exam and became a juren. He became a small county magistrate in Pingchuan County. My brother was always dissatisfied with him and never had a good face. I didn't think it was a big deal. Later, all my sisters married good husbands, but I was always compared to them. Over time, I began to quarrel with Shen Pingchang every day, and even fought. Later..."
Lin paused, and her brows couldn't help but frowned.
"Then one day, I discovered that Shen Pingchang had a concubine named Yunniang. She was his childhood sweetheart, whom I had separated from him. Now, she was being married to me without a matchmaker and even had a child. I had just become pregnant at the time, and when I heard about this, I was furious. I immediately rushed over and had someone tie up the concubine and beat her to death. If Shen Pingchang hadn't rushed over to stop me, I would have beaten the bastard to death as well. That day, Shen Pingchang and I had a complete falling out, and he even told me to wait and see. I wanted to divorce, but not long after, Lin Bu When something went wrong, all the Lin family members were beheaded except me, the daughter who married out. Not a single one was spared. However, Shen Pingchang used the money he earned from reporting the Lin family and killing his relatives for the sake of justice to buy the position of governor of Qingzhou. At that time, I wanted to eat his blood and flesh, but if I killed him, I would be arrested by the government. I didn't want to die, and I didn't want to leave and live a poor life like the lower class. Therefore, I could only obey his mood in everything, raise his illegitimate children for him, and even fear that he would blame me, so I didn't dare to get close to my own biological son...
After Lin finished speaking, she seemed to have suddenly remembered something and crawled to Shen Yunqiu's side, staring straight into the boy's bloodshot eyes: "Yunqiu, Yunqiu, I have wronged you all these years and made you suffer. But I have no choice, no way... Can you forgive me?"
"No choice? How ridiculous." Shen Yunqiu sneered and shook off Lin's hand. The bitterness in his heart gradually overflowed, making it difficult for him to breathe.
For a long time, looking at the woman crawling at his feet, Shen Yunqiu wanted to question and curse hysterically, saying that she was not worthy of being a mother at all, and even wanted to tear off the hypocritical mask of this woman. But in the end, he couldn't say a word, and just retracted his gaze and stopped looking.
"Xiaoxi, let's go."
"Yunqiu..."
“Don’t worry, I won’t tell Shen Pingchang a word of what I said today, you don’t have to worry about being beaten or scolded by him.”
With that, Suxi pushed Shen Yunqiu away without looking back, leaving Lin lying on the ground crying and saying sorry over and over again at the top of her lungs. Until they returned to Xiyuan, the creaking sound of the wheelchair on the gravel road was gradually mixed with other sounds, which sounded like sobbing. Suxi paused and slowly stopped. The sound of the wheel marks disappeared, but the intermittent sobbing became clearer and clearer.
Su Xi finally figured out the source of the sound. He lowered his head and saw the boy's thin shoulders shaking. The front of the fox fur coat around his neck was already wet, and tiny water droplets were still falling down and gathering on the stiff fox fur, like a small lake.
For a moment, his already mixed emotions were like an overturned jar of seasoning. Suxi walked around to the front and squatted down, seeing that the boy's eyelashes and cheeks were already wet with tears, and his nose tip was red like a carrot.
Looking at her like this, she looked as if she had put on some red makeup, with an inexplicable otherworldly beauty, even prettier than a girl in the boudoir. Suxi couldn't help but want to laugh, but she couldn't. For a moment, the boy seemed embarrassed, pouting and turning his head away, no longer looking at her, as if he was angry.
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