"I didn't know he still had descendants in the world. If I had known earlier, I would surely have come to find you!" Xie Lingyun raised her red - rimmed eyes and looked at Fu Zhen. "Don't blame your father. If he were still alive, and there was even the slightest possibility, he would never have left you in that mountain village to suffer."
"By the way, he also gave me this," Xie Lingyun said, then looked at the maid she had brought with her. The maid stepped forward, opened a box, and presented it to her.
Inside was a green jade pendant.
At the sight of it, Fu Zhen felt as if a sledgehammer had struck her head hard. It made her dizzy and caused a sharp pain deep inside her.
This jade pendant was exactly the same as the one her mother had given her on her deathbed.
She reached out her trembling hand, picked it up, and stared at it intently, as if she could bore a hole through it.
Chen Tingfeng immediately grabbed her, his face full of anxiety. "Zhenzhen!"
All the color drained from Fu Zhen's face in an instant.
After a long while, she suddenly burst into tears, as if she were crying out all the sufferings of these years, and also as if she were mourning all the fateful mistakes in this world.
Crying for all those who had been toyed with by fate.
She had never known any of this. If she hadn't been reborn, would all these things have been completely buried under the sand with the passing of the old?
Even the official history books would not have recorded his name.
Such a brilliant man had died without leaving even the slightest trace in this world.
Even after his death, she didn't know if anyone had ever shed tears for him.
Xie Qi'an.
His life was just like his name; he had spent his whole life praying for peace.
But he died with regret.
She suddenly remembered what her mother had said to her before she died: "In the future, when you're looking for a husband, keep your eyes open. Don't make the same mistake as I did and end up a tragic life."
Until her death, Chen Peizhu never knew that the man she had been longing for had died quietly in some corner of the world.
Did she hate him?
Fu Zhen didn't know.
Maybe she did. During those long days and nights waiting for him in a strange land, from sunrise to the dead of night, there might have been a moment when she hated him.
But she never regretted it.
The main courtyard was in chaos. Chen Tingfeng carried the fainted Fu Zhen quickly into the inner room, his face full of anxiety.
Fu Zhen had a dream. In the dream, she returned to that village and the shabby house.
She seemed to have become a little girl again, walking into the house in a daze. Suddenly, she heard a gentle call: "Zhenzhen, come here quickly."
She turned around sharply and saw Chen Peizhu standing in the sun, waving to her with a gentle smile.
Tears welled up in Fu Zhen's eyes. "Mother!"
She threw herself into Chen Peizhu's arms and almost sobbed as she scolded her. "Don't you miss me? Are you that busy? For all these years, you've never come to find me, not even once!"
She wailed loudly, as if she wanted to pour out all her grievances of these years.
At this moment, she was neither the noble lady in the capital nor the scheming cousin. She was just Fu Zhen.
The daughter of her mother.
Chen Peizhu just gently stroked her hair, like a gentle breeze caressing the top of her head.
"Do you miss me?" Fu Zhen sobbed and looked up at her stubbornly. "Do you miss me?"
Chen Peizhu looked down at her, just as gently as before. "My Zhenzhen has suffered. Mother knows it all."
Tears welled up in an instant.
Fu Zhen buried her face in her mother's arms and cried bitterly, as if she was going to shed all the tears of her life. "Why did you leave so early? Do you know that without you, I was bullied by those people. They all bullied me..."
They all bullied her because she was a child without parents and no one to love her.
Her mother's embrace was always as vast as the sky and the earth. She seemed to be omnipotent, able to soothe all the uneasiness and pain in the world.
In her arms, Fu Zhen could always be a child.
She didn't have to learn to read people's faces or to please others.
She just needed to smile.
Chen Peizhu held her and gently patted her back, just as she had done when she was a child, patting her back and singing a gentle lullaby to coax her to sleep.
After a long time, Fu Zhen finally lifted her head from her mother's arms. She wiped away her tears and asked, "Are you doing well now?"
"I've burned paper money for you during festivals. I'm always worried that you don't have enough money, but then I think that you, such a thrifty person, must have saved a lot of silver every month," Fu Zhen rambled on. "I've brought you back from the village. Can you feel it? I've brought you back to the Marquis Mansion. You always had trouble sleeping. Now that you're home, you should be able to sleep well."
"Do you hate Father?" After talking so much that her tongue was dry, she suddenly asked this question.
She raised her red eyes and looked at Chen Peizhu, whose face seemed a bit blurred in the sunlight. "Do you know his name is Xie Qi'an?"
Chen Peizhu remained silent. Just when Fu Zhen thought she wouldn't say anything, she heard her say softly, "I don't hate Xie Qi'an."
She lowered her eyes, and her cold hand gently stroked Fu Zhen's face. "I don't hate him."
"Xie Qi'an never lied to me. He took on Fu Mingde's identity in order to return to the capital. It was me who took a fancy to him at first sight and pestered him all day long."
After Xie Zhao came to power, he somehow learned that Xie Qi'an was still alive and secretly sent assassins to hunt him down. At first, Xie Qi'an didn't want to get involved with Chen Peizhu, but he didn't expect things to happen so quickly, and Chen Peizhu was also targeted.
At a banquet, Chen Peizhu pestered him to show her the poems he had written. Suddenly, several people emerged from the corner and tried to assassinate him. He originally wanted to throw Chen Peizhu out of the encirclement, but the next moment, a hidden arrow from an assassin was heading straight for Chen Peizhu.
They were under Xie Zhao's order to kill anyone who got involved with Xie Qi'an.
Xie Qi'an had no choice but to run away with Chen Peizhu.
But he didn't expect that this escape would completely deprive him of the chance to send Chen Peizhu back.
This was the truth behind their elopement.
Fu Zhen was stunned. "So, you were together with him?"
"Yes," Chen Peizhu said softly. "At that time, I couldn't go back. I had become a wanted person just like Xie Qi'an. If I had returned to the Marquis Mansion at that time, I might even have brought disaster to the mansion."
So she couldn't go back, and she didn't dare to.
"Xie Qi'an never lied to me. After we were together, he told me everything. I also saw his true face," Chen Peizhu said with a faint smile on her face as she recalled the past. "Your father was very handsome. Even that scar couldn't hide his good looks."
If there had been no pursuers, they would have been a perfect match.
But unfortunately, fate played a cruel joke on them.
"The number of pursuers was increasing, while the people behind Xie Qi'an were getting fewer and fewer. It was almost a hopeless situation. And then, I found out that I was pregnant," Fu Zhen was stunned again. Chen Peizhu stroked her face gently. "That was you."
"Your father didn't want you at first because he thought this child would kill me, but I disagreed," she said. "You were your father's only descendant. He had already been erased from the palace. If you were gone too, then the only connection he had with this world would be gone."
"I couldn't bear it."
"After that, he left me at Fu Mingde's house and threatened and bribed him to treat me well. He said that if he didn't, he would come back as a ghost to haunt him," Chen Peizhu's voice suddenly became sad. "But as time passed, your father never came to find me. Fu Mingde always said that he was dead, and his attitude gradually became more and more arrogant and cruel. I just refused to believe this outcome and always believed that he was still alive."
"Not until I was dying did I finally realize that Xie Qi'an would never come back."
"He was dead."
Completely and utterly dead.
No one in this world would remember him anymore.