In the courtyard, the woman affectionately wrapped her arm around Ye Wanmian. Her eyes were as pure as a child's, and the smile on her face could be described as "innocent."
"Miao Miao?"
Ye Wanmian smiled, bent down slightly, and tidied the woman's disheveled hair. She said softly, "I'm sorry. I've been really busy lately and haven't been able to visit you for quite some time."
The woman tilted her head slightly. Not understanding what Ye Wanmian was saying, she could only make the urgent "miao miao" sounds.
Ye Wanmian led the woman to sit down beside her. She took off the bamboo basket behind her and took out an oil-paper packet from it. When the woman saw the oil-paper packet, her expression became extremely happy. Clapping her hands, she said,
"Delicious food! Miao Miao brought me delicious food!"
Inside were the desserts Ye Wanmian had bought on her way here. She picked up one and handed it to the woman. The woman immediately ate it happily. While eating, she looked up at Ye Wanmian and smiled foolishly.
Taking this opportunity, Ye Wanmian lifted the woman's clothes to check her body.
Normally, the woman strongly resisted others getting close to or touching her body. But when facing Ye Wanmian, she had no defense at all. As a result, Ye Wanmian saw several new wounds hidden on her body.
Ye Wanmian's finger accidentally touched a wound. The woman gasped in pain and shrank back. Holding the pastry, she looked at Ye Wanmian pitifully and said, "Miao Miao, it hurts so much..."
Even so, she didn't push Ye Wanmian away, which showed that she trusted Ye Wanmian very much.
Anger flashed across Ye Wanmian's face, and she clenched her fists tightly.
"Did they beat you again?"
The woman lowered her head. Tears welled up in her eyes and fell one by one. Sniffling, she said, "I was disobedient. They beat me and didn't give me food. I'm so hungry."
Ye Wanmian's chest heaved violently a few times. She tried hard to suppress the anger in her chest, raised her hand, and gently stroked the woman's hair, coaxing her, "Don't be afraid. I brought you a lot of food today. Just eat as much as you like."
The woman immediately beamed with joy. Nodding vigorously, she leaned forward and kissed Ye Wanmian on the cheek, saying, "Miao Miao is the best."
Ye Wanmian's eyes welled up with tears. She sniffled, found the wound medicine she had brought, and applied it to the woman bit by bit.
Most of the woman's wounds were internal injuries. There were no broken skin or bleeding, obviously caused by whippings. One could imagine what a hard life she had been living.
After applying the medicine, Ye Wanmian took out a comb and carefully and seriously combed the woman's hair. The woman was holding a pillow wrapped in an old cassock in her arms and softly coaxing it as if it were a sleeping baby.
"Baby, be good. Mommy is here. Don't cry, don't cry~"
Looking at the woman's face, which was extremely similar to her own, and her gaze falling on the pillow carefully protected in her arms, Ye Wanmian felt a pang of sadness in her heart.
Ye Wanmian learned about her own background when she was sixteen.
On her sixteenth birthday, Ye Zhongcheng brought back a girl from outside and told her that sixteen years ago, there was a great flood in Cangzhou. Pregnant Mrs. Ye was forced to evacuate to a temple with other villagers in a hurry to avoid the disaster.
Who would have thought that that night, there was thunder and lightning. Mrs. Ye, who was still a month away from giving birth, suddenly went into labor. She and a pregnant woman who had a miscarriage gave birth to two baby girls one after another.
Since the babies were born in the temple, the monks in the temple used cassocks to make swaddling clothes for the two children. The newly born babies looked almost the same, and the swaddling clothes were also very similar. After the rain stopped, Mrs. Ye was in a hurry to leave and accidentally took the wrong baby.
That wrongly taken baby was Ye Wanmian.
Many years later, Ye Zhongcheng was ordered to inspect Cangzhou again. By chance, he met Ye Wanxing and found that this child looked very much like him. After some secret investigations, the matter of taking the wrong baby was finally exposed.
Ye Wanxing was the real bloodline of the Ye family. Naturally, Ye Zhongcheng would not let her stay outside. He immediately took her back.
Logically speaking, since the pearl of the Ye family had returned, Ye Wanmian should have been sent away. However, Ye Wanmian's biological parents had already passed away when Ye Wanxing was fourteen.
Mrs. Ye pitied Ye Wanmian for suddenly becoming an orphan. Considering the years of upbringing, she let Ye Wanmian continue to stay in the Ye family.
What she never expected was that just because of the prince's ridicule, all the affection she had with the Ye family in the past no longer counted. The adoptive parents she had always respected sold her without hesitation.
Even more hateful was that after she escaped from Xuanzhou and came to Dongli Town, trying to find the tombs of her deceased parents to offer incense, she found that she had been deceived by the Ye family.
The Ye family's claim that her parents were dead and she had become an orphan was not true.
It was true that she no longer had a father, but her mother was still alive. This silly woman in front of her was her biological mother. Her name was Jiang Zhiqing, and she lived with her elder brother and sister-in-law, Ye Wanmian's uncle and aunt.
Ye Wanxing had never been adopted by the Jiang family and had never even appeared in Dongli Town.
Everyone in the town knew that Jiang Zhiqing, the younger sister of Jiang Dalang of the Jiang family in Jishui Alley, had secretly become pregnant with someone seventeen years ago and was then abandoned by the man. She was kindly taken in by her elder brother and sister-in-law.
But Jiang Zhiqing was unlucky. When she was close to giving birth, there was a great flood in Cangzhou. She and her elder brother and sister-in-law went to an old temple to avoid the disaster. But accidentally, she had a miscarriage and gave birth to a baby in the temple.
But that baby was said to have died as soon as it was born.
When Jiang Zhiqing woke up and learned the news of her baby's premature death, she went crazy. Since then, she had become stupid and couldn't recognize anyone. She was locked in this small courtyard by her elder brother and sister-in-law all day long and couldn't even go out.
All this was completely different from what the Ye family had told her.
She never thought that her own background would be a carefully woven deception from beginning to end.
Suddenly, someone tugged at her sleeve. Ye Wanmian came back to her senses. Jiang Zhiqing stuffed the pillow in her hand into Ye Wanmian's arms with a smile and said, "Miao Miao, hold it. The baby is very good."
Although Jiang Zhiqing was already in her thirties, perhaps because of the damage to her mind, she still looked as innocent as a young girl. Her face was as bright as a lotus and as delicate as a begonia. One could imagine what a charming woman she would be if she weren't crazy.
This was her mother, the one who had carried her in her womb for ten months and gave birth to her!
But her mother, because of her madness, was locked up like a prisoner by her uncle and aunt. They often beat and scolded her and didn't even give her food. It was simply beastly behavior!
Ye Wanmian had thought about protecting her mother openly under her wings, but her uncle Jiang Yu and aunt Zhao were not easy to get along with.
These two people were notoriously selfish in the town.
If they knew her identity, they would surely catch her and send her back to the capital to Xuanzhou for a reward.
Helplessly, she could only come to visit Jiang Zhiqing from time to time and take care of her as much as she could to make her life better.
The reason why she agreed to learn medicine from Doctor Wang was also for Jiang Zhiqing.
She wanted to cure Jiang Zhiqing's madness with what she had learned. Then, they mother and daughter could be reunited.
"The baby is very good," Ye Wanmian said, holding back her tears and smiling at Jiang Zhiqing. "I heard her talking. She's calling you."
"Mommy."