Wanchu couldn't have learned the truth overnight just by guessing or from Shi Luohan's skeptical instigations.
Someone had carefully set up a trap, deliberately tearing open the bloody truth on the night before the grand wedding.
In an instant, countless suspicious figures flashed through his mind: the crown prince, the eldest princess, Yu Jingnian, Liang Yuchuan...
Everyone had a motive, but each only knew part of the truth.
The person who could make Wanchu believe whole - heartedly must have been an eyewitness to that bloody battle.
Liang Yuzhou thought of Han Cheng, whose body was missing during the burial.
The remains of the thousand soldiers who died at Pingsha Pass had all been brought back, only Han Cheng's was missing.
He had suspected at that time that Han Cheng was not dead. He had been searching for news for three years, but to no avail.
Han Cheng had become a sword hanging over his head.
He had already guessed that the reason he couldn't find any trace of Han Cheng was that someone had deliberately hidden him.
Just waiting for the right moment to release him, to become the sharpest knife stabbing at him.
That person had succeeded.
His wife was more distant and cold towards him than ever before. Her eyes were filled with grief, indignation and hatred.
Such a look was one he didn't dare to meet.
"Why did you hide it from me, Liang Yuzhou? That was my father!"
Song Wanchu questioned sharply. All the complex emotions she had once had for Liang Yuzhou - joy, expectation, resentment, astonishment, entanglement and relief - all turned into bubbles at this moment.
The overwhelming hatred rushed into her heart like a tide.
She had been fooled for three whole years. She had been affectionate towards the son of her father's murderer and had been heart - broken because of his coldness.
Suddenly, she remembered what Yu Rongbai had said before his death -
If your father could see you lying in Liang Yuzhou's arms every night, how heart - broken he would be!
Her heart felt as if it had been dug out and thrown into a frying pan, fried over and over again.
After a long silence, Liang Yuzhou slowly raised his eyes. The red robe made his handsome face look even more serene and otherworldly, like an immortal exiled to the mortal world.
He was so calm, showing no loss of grace and no panic after being exposed.
In contrast, Song Wanchu's excitement seemed more like a mess and hysteria.
- He never regretted hiding the truth from me. This was Song Wanchu's first impression.
She laughed out of anger, finding it extremely ironic.
Who was Liang Yuzhou? In terms of resourcefulness and cunning, who could match him?
He could act for three years, playing everyone like puppets.
It was as easy for him to deceive her as it was to deceive a child.
"Say something, Liang Yuzhou!"
Song Wanchu was impatient. All kinds of emotions were colliding violently in her chest. She roared, not caring about her image.
"What will you do if I tell you?" Liang Yuzhou lowered his eyes and asked rhetorically.
Song Wanchu was stunned for a moment. Looking into his bottomless black eyes, she sneered, "Don't tell me you're afraid of losing me."
Liang Yuzhou had already tasted the benefits of being straightforward and said bluntly, "I'm afraid of losing you."
A moment of astonishment.
"Ha."
This single word fully demonstrated her ridicule.
"Liang Yuzhou, don't use your so - called deep love to cover up the fact that you've been hiding the truth from me and fooling me!"
The man who was only three steps away from her turned slightly pale. The hand hanging by his side suddenly tightened.
He closed his eyes tightly. He knew that no matter how he explained, he couldn't make up for this cruel truth.
Wanchu was extremely emotional. She only thought about how her father, Song Hengyi, had died miserably at the hands of the old lord.
She needed to vent her emotions.
"Wanchu, I admit that I'm dark - hearted and despicable. I did whatever it took to keep you. You have every reason to hate me and be angry with me. I won't shirk what I should bear. But you should also know that your father in heaven doesn't want to see you collapse because of the truth and be filled with hatred from then on. He hopes you can live happily."
Liang Yuzhou's words hit the softest part of her heart, and her tears welled up uncontrollably.
"My father was dedicated to his duty. He fought to the death to protect the man who sent him to hell!"
Until the moment of his death in battle, her father still tightly held the fire - tipped spear in his hand.
When he was buried, he still maintained the fighting posture.
Just thinking about her father's bloody body, Song Wanchu felt as if her heart had been cut open. It hurt so much, a hundred times more painful than the stab when she had offered her heart's blood to Liang Yuzhou.
She had actually offered her heart's blood to the son of her enemy!
"Your father sacrificed himself to preserve the overall situation and defend the territory of the Great Zhou!"
Song Wanchu's pain was reflected in Liang Yuzhou's eyes. How could he not be heart - broken, as if he were being slowly cut into pieces!
But he was still sober. "Your father fought to the death to save my father because he knew that the army couldn't be leaderless. He also knew that my father had been deceived by the enemy. My father can't escape the blame for your father's death, but he definitely didn't mean to kill your father!"
To Song Wanchu, these words sounded like an attempt to excuse the old lord.
"Is Lord Liang trying to shift my hatred?"
Liang Yuzhou's face darkened.
The two people in wedding clothes should have been walking hand in hand into the bridal chamber, intimate with each other.
Wanchu called him Lord Liang. This kind of politeness and distance at this moment was a great mockery of him.
"You have every reason to hate, but what you know is only part of the truth -"
"Enough, Liang Yuzhou, that's enough!"
Song Wanchu roared hoarsely.
Liang Yuzhou's lips trembled and turned white bit by bit.
Once, in the eldest princess's mansion, Yu Huiyan had slandered Wanchu, saying that her maid, Su Yue, had pushed Yu Huiyan into the water under her instructions.
Later, when the truth was cleared up and Wanchu wanted justice, he had to pretend to care more about Yu Huiyan and wanted to calm things down. In a fit of impatience, he had shouted at Wanchu without thinking, "Song Wanchu, that's enough!"
The memory of his voice gradually overlapped with Song Wanchu's roar, shaking his heart.
So this was how it felt to be scolded by the one you loved. It hurt so much that his heart went numb and sore, a pain that was indescribable.
Song Wanchu didn't know what he was thinking. She dragged her tired body forward two steps.
She raised her head and looked into Liang Yuzhou's eyes with blurred tears.
So this was the man she loved, who had fooled her like an ignorant clown.
Treating her like this, how was she different from Yu Huiyan?
"Do you know what I care about the most?" Her voice was hoarse. She no longer had the strength to roar, and her tone was abnormally calm.
"I know. I shouldn't have hidden it from you."
"No, you don't know."
Song Wanchu suddenly laughed. "Liang Yuzhou, there are so many things you don't know. You said you went on an expedition with your father to suppress bandits to gain merit for me. But you don't know that I worried about you day and night. Every day before dawn, I would go to the Taoist temple in the north of the city to pray for you.
There are 3,999 steps up the mountain. You were gone for three months, and I climbed up and down the mountain for three months. I was afraid that the gods would think I was insincere. Even when my aunt sent a sedan chair after me, I didn't look back. After three months of walking, my calves became three times thicker, and I wore out more than twenty pairs of shoes..."
Liang Yuzhou's breathing tightened. His eyes were so red that it seemed as if blood was about to drip out.
He really didn't know.
He had thought that when that little girl had stuffed the antipyretic medicine into his tent back then, it was just out of her natural kindness.
But no one would be so kind - hearted as to go up the mountain to pray for an irrelevant person for three months.
Unless...
There was an involuntary tremor in his breath.
"Liang Yuzhou, I, Song Wanchu, have been so infatuated. I actually fell in love with a man who lies and fools people! I'll never love you again, Liang Yuzhou. I won't love you in this life, the next life, or the life after that!"
Song Wanchu's tears fell silently, but her words were like a thunderbolt, shattering the most solid belief in Liang Yuzhou's heart.
Wanchu loved him. Wanchu had loved him. Wanchu didn't love Shi Luohan.
It was him.