Chapter 239 - Even If You Are Against Me, You Won’t Have the Reason to Disgrace Me

“Just because of your groundless speculation, you are suspecting your birth mother?!” Wei Mengying gazed at her for a moment and then yelled, “Are you really my birth daughter? This is my question for you too!”

“The Dowager Consort feared you so much that she must scheme against you at the cost of her own life even if Lu Guanlun was about to be the heir!” Song Yixiao composed herself instead and then gave a bitter smile, saying, “How could she dare to let you live?”

She added, “Now the statement announced by the Prince is that Lanhui was the culprit for all charges. However, a twist of the matter came out and the truth was revealed after the Dowager Consort was dead for three days. Evidently, you are really scheming and shrewd. Besides, it also proves how obvious the loopholes left by the Dowager Consort were! Nevertheless, given that the Dowager Consort fought with you so many years, how could she be so negligent?”

Staring at Wei Mengying who was speechless, Song Yixiao finally couldn’t help shedding tears, “The Dowager Consort knew the loopholes but she didn’t conceal them! Why? Because she never intended to let Lanhui put the antidote in your tea. She wanted to get you killed directly! As long as you were dead, even if anyone proposed investigating into the Dowager Consort’s dowry and the whereabouts of Lanhui’s families, nothing could be found then!”

Because by then, the only one person who was willing to and also capable of getting to the bottom of the matter was Jian Xubai.

However, Jian Xubai was an outsider anyway, whose knowledge of the Dowager Consort and the situation in the Prince’s mansion was limited. Prince of Hengshan had a lot of ways to hide the truth from him.

Wei Mengying was the hostess in the prince’s mansion and his wife, so Prince of Hengshan couldn’t and wouldn’t deceive her then. Yet, if Jian Xubai wanted to pursue the matter, no matter what information Prince of Hengshan acquired, how could he not side with his own birth mother?

Song Yixiao became even more depressed, “On the birthday of the Dowager Consort, you talked with me about descendants for quite a while. I thought you were really worried about me, but now as I think carefully about what you said, it turns out that you were actually confirming that I was not pregnant, right?”

With tears, she choked out, “After all, if I died alone in Prince of Hengshan’s mansion, it would be rather different from me dying here pregnant. In the former case, only my husband could pursue the matter and at most my mother-in-law would do him a favor considering that I was her daughter-in-law. In the latter case, perhaps even Her Majesty the Empress Dowager would interfere!”

By then, even though Wei Mengying was the birth mother of Song Yixiao, how could she resist the Empress Dowager’s fury?

However, if Song Yixiao was not pregnant when she died, given that the Empress Dowager was currently worried about Emperor Xianjia’s health and the struggle for the throne, how could the Empress Dowager be in a mood to care about the death of a granddaughter-in-law who was married to her grandson for less than one year?

She would at most try to comfort Jian Xubai and then introduce another virtuous girl endowed with talent and beauty to Jian Xubai.

Song Yixiao wiped her tears on her cheeks, “Since I was married, I have got along well with my husband. Even if I died now and then he remarried, he would cherish the memory of me for some time! Then, as my birth mother, isn’t it easy to earn his respect and favor under the guise of losing your beloved daughter?”

“By then, as long as you slightly indicated that I liked Guanyun very much, my husband would probably help you, right?”

Speaking of that, she felt her hands and feet got cold, and couldn’t help taking a few steps backwards. She slumped on the nearby embroidered chair, “Meeting trick with trick. What a good move you took! Even if anyone guesses that you’ve noticed the Dowager Consort’s plan, as long as I die, who else can continue suspecting you? After all, I am not only your birth daughter but also Lady of Yan. It is also generally believed that you are definitely loath to lose such a daughter who is married into such a good family, isn’t it?”

“To your surprise, I survived in the end. When I asked about the ins and outs of the matter just now, you just tried so hard to explain the whole matter instead of caring about my health! You even mentioned Yuan Xuepei! It was because you are most worried that I may discover the loopholes if I have any doubts! Therefore, you just focused on giving me a reasonable explanation!”

Song Yixiao couldn’t describe how she felt at the moment, “In order to seek revenge for Zhiqin, I didn’t find a chance to deal with Cui Jianlian and Madam Jin by meeting their scheme with my own until seven years later! Regardless, without the sympathy of my mother-in-law, I wouldn’t have been able to take care of the aftermath by now!”

“However, it was recently that the Dowager Consort got sick and Yuan Xuepei’s sister got married, but you could immediately take the opportunity to turn the Dowager Consort’s trick to your own use and get rid of her radically. Plus, you even made yourself one of the victims. We adopted the same trick, but compared with the way you did it, I’m really impressed!”

“Since you said so, what else can I say?” Wei Mengying finally spoke in a dejected voice, “I heard that it was thanks to your help that your stepmother got through the difficult labor and survived with her babies. Sometimes I can’t help wondering what wrong I have done to you. Otherwise, why are you so mean to me and yet nice to everybody, even including your stepmother who you rarely meet though she has never treated you unfairly?”

She raised her sleeves to cover her face, seemingly unable to bear the sorrow in her heart, “I raised you up with beautiful dresses and nice food. Even though I meant to climb onto the social ladder with you as the stepping stone, aren’t you the one who benefits first when I do so? Just because I hoped you could be married into a good family, you just take precautions against me?”

“As a saying goes, if parents love their children, they must consider for them in the long run. How many parents are there in the world who don’t want their daughters to marry into an influential family so that they can have a meteoric rise and their babies can be born rich and honorable?”

“Lu Guanlun, Yuan Xue’e and Madam Lu… What did they give you? Some insignificant care only!” Wei Mengying suddenly put down her sleeves and said fiercely, “But the insignificant care is regarded as more important by you than my nursing to you for more than ten years, not even including the pains I have suffered from the ten months’ pregnancy for giving birth to you!”

She shed tears and took a deep breath, snapping through clenched teeth, “Lady of Yan, please tell me why!”

“Why do you always trust others more than your birth mother?”

“Why do you always suspect me first?”

“Why do you believe that I would use my daughter’s life as the leverage merely by speculation?”

The middle-aged woman who still looked attractive, with her hair scattered, sat up and stared at Song Yixiao with red eyes on her pale face, determined to get the answers.

“Because…” Song Yixiao looked at her. The memories of the previous life and this life just flashed across her mind. After a while, she finally gave a bitter smile and said drily, “Because I don’t know when you will walk out on me again.”

Wei Mengying was stunned. It took her quite a while to say with a wry smile, “Just because I didn’t bring you along when I remarried?”

She had never felt so grieved as now, “But even I was driven away from the family. How could I take you away from the Song Family with me? Afterwards, when I had the opportunity, didn’t I take you to the Prince’s mansion? Do you want me to stay in the Song’s mansion with you? You should have known what the people of that family are since seven years ago. In all conscience, do you really think that we could end well if we stayed there?”

“But I was not talking about this abandonment.” Song Yixiao thought to herself silently, “If you didn’t just leave me to death, why would I keep taking precautions against my birth mother all the time even though you attempted to use my marriage as the leverage and control my life?”

Now she couldn’t help recalling Cui Jianlian, the girl who was so ungratefully unruly and yet had a lot of families who truly loved her. However, on second thought, if it had not been for the sincere love and indulgence of the Noble Consort and her other families, Cui Jianlian wouldn’t have become like that.

She stopped pondering, looked at Wei Mengying who was still expressing her grievance, and then smiled wryly, “Mother, you are not fully recovered yet! It is not good for you to cry too harshly. How about this? If you can answer a question of mine, I will take it that I’ve wronged you and then I must apologize to you instantly with a bowl of tea. Besides, I will never dare to suspect you anymore!”

Wei Mengying wiped her face with her sleeves and said with anticipation, “Just ask me!”

“As I recall, on the Dowager Consort’s birthday, I asked you whether it was true that Fourth Commandery Princess would be engaged to Helou Duhan…” Song Yixiao just said so when Wei Mengying was already slightly shocked!

As if not noticing her mother’s facial expression, Song Yixiao continued with a plain tone, “You told me that Fourth Commandery Princess couldn’t be the wife of No. 1 Scholar! When I asked you why, you said you would tell me about it later?”

She asked in a light voice, “Now can you tell me now why Fourth Commandery Princess couldn’t be the wife of the No. 1 Scholar?”

She emphasized the word “couldn’t” in a meaningful way.

The room stayed quiet for quite a while, with no one uttering a word.

Song Yixiao was not surprised at all. She broke the stalemate drily, “If the Prince didn’t want to make Helou Duhan his son-in-law or Helou Duhan rejected the offer, you should have said it was not the case or that it didn’t work out.”

“But you didn’t reply to me that way. What you said clearly indicated that the reason why Helou Duhan and Fourth Commandery Princess couldn’t get married lay in the Commandery Princess herself!”

Staring at Wei Mengying whose face was turning purple, she smiled ironically, “Because you knew that Fourth Commandery Princess couldn’t have got through the Dowager Consort’s birthday, when I asked you whether the marriage between Helou Duhan and Fourth Commandery Princess was under discussion, you just answered me like that subconsciously. Am I right?”

“Afterwards, I asked about the reason and you said you would tell me later. Now that a few days have passed, have you come up with any good explanation?”

Wei Mengying gazed at her eldest daughter for a while and then waved her hand wearily, “Tell me. What do you want?”

By asking so, she basically acknowledged Song Yixiao’s speculation. That was, on the birthday of Dowager Consort of Hengshan, she did plan to pave for her own path with her birth daughter’s life!

With mixed feelings in her heart, Song Yixiao stayed quiet for quite a while before laughing wryly and saying, “What do I want? What can I do about you?”

She shook her head and then wiped her tears, “After all, you are my mother. I can’t blow the whistle on you anyway.”

“I know you won’t denounce me,” Wei Mengying said calmly, “Under the regulation that families mustn’t accuse each other, you will be condemned if you do. Worse still, what good does it do to you that your birth mother schemed against her mother-in-law viciously? You are a girl of a good sense of propriety, for which I am quite proud of you!”

She was even in a mood to comment, “You are my birth daughter anyway. Even if you are against me, you don’t have a reason to bring disgrace to me!”

“But I hope that you can let go of Lu Guanlun and Xue’e.” Song Yixiao knew that it would be no use talking about the mother-daughter bond, especially when they two basically had fallen out now. It would be too absurd to still talk about that, so she just cut to the chase, “My husband has asked for a few days off because I was poisoned, which shows that he really cares about me! If he knows that this is all your scheme, even if he doesn’t make a fuss of it in order to save my face, he only needs to give a hint to Her Majesty the Empress Dowager. Then as long as Her Majesty just takes a bit of action, you may not live well in the following days!”

Instead of scolding Song Yixiao for not taking her side, Wei Mengying only said indifferently, “Lu Guanlun and his wife are always obedient and filial. As long as he doesn’t get in my way, do you think I can be bothered to make trouble for him?”

“Hard to say!” Song Yixiao said coldly, “If Lu Guanlun knows the truth, how can he let go of you? You are always prudent. How can you leave such a latent problem?”

“The truth is discovered by his birth father. What does it have to do with me?” Wei Mengying knew that her daughter was pushing her to give a rock-solid guarantee. She leaned backwards and said calmly, “Moreover, he is such an honest man. How can he be able to reopen the case for the Dowager Consort? It is not that I look down upon him but that he is not capable of it.”

Seeing that Song Yixiao was still coldly staring at her, Wei Mengying rubbed her eyebrows annoyedly and then softened her tone, “Do you still expect me to let him continue being the heir? You know who I am. If he declines to be the heir, I may let go of him and Yuan Xue’e for your sake. However, if he insists on being the heir, even if I swear to you that I won’t hurt him, do you really believe it?”

Her face got sullen, “I have fought so many times with the Dowager Consort for the position of the heir of the prince! This time, I even dared to risk your life and my own! Do you really expect me to give it away just because of your threat after I’ve made so much effort?”