Chapter 567.1: beat him to the punch
“The warm jade bed will ease your symptoms, and may even allow you to fully recover given enough time.” Du Ling spoke in a comforting tone before nodding at Pei Qianhao and leaving the room.
Pei Qianhao reached into the blanket to hold Su Xi-er’s hands. After drinking a bowl of medicine and undergoing the fuming treatment, her pallid appearance had been replaced with a warm and rosy glow.
Pei Qianhao heaved a sigh of relief when he felt the warmth of her hands.
“Xi-er, I met the Rong Family’s steward when they brought some goods to the capital of Beimin. The steward was Aunt Rong’s personal guard, and he was shocked to see the resemblance between myself and Rong Qing. I talked to him for a while, and that was how I found out about all this.” Pei Qianhao then continued to explain that he had met the steward after taking over Xie Yun’s troops, and he never saw the caretaker again after that, but he was very sure that news of their meeting would’ve been shared with Aunt Rong.
“You never knew that the Pei family was a prominent merchant family in Jiangnan, but you remembered meeting Shi Mo.” Su Xi-er repeated the information to herself in an analytical manner.
Pei Qianhao caressed her hand as he continued. “When I was born, the Pei family had already fallen to ruin. As a result, we travelled to a tiny village to continue our lives. Shi Mo had already been living with the JIangnan Pei Family before that, and my parents did not abandon him to my knowledge. However, I only remember meeting him once; I never saw him again afterwards.””
“Is Rong Qing really your younger brother? Twin brother? Your parents wouldn’t have abandoned him.” Su Xi-er frowned as she asked.
“Xi-er, you’ve just gotten your voice back, so let me do the talking. My parents didn’t abandon Shi Mo no matter how tough the going was, so how would they have left their biological son behind? My younger brother might have gotten lost by accident, or it might even have been Shi Mo pulling the strings in the background.”
Su Xi-er’s eyes widened at this. How could Shi Mo, who was only a child at the time, cause another boy of similar age to disappear like that? And to do something like this to his adoptive parents…
While she was still deep in thought, Pei Qianhao continued. “From the very day we were born, Shi Mo had been planning to get rid of my younger brother. My parents might have thought that it was an accident, but they also suspected Shi Mo once they found out what really happened a few years later, and Shi Mo might have harboured resentment against them for this. In the end though, this is all just speculation.”
“That doesn’t make sense. You need to talk to Shi Mo about this. Why would a child want to get rid of his adoptive parents’ son if he didn’t have anything against your family? And why did he only target one of you?” Su Xi-er could not wrap her head around this.
Pei Qianhao hugged her. “Xi-er, be good and try not to talk so much when you’ve just recovered. All of this is just speculation, and Shi Mo will meet his maker when the time comes.”
Su Xi-er stowed away the suspicion in her mind for now before moving to a different subject. “That will make Aunt Rong someone who helped you, since she took your brother in.”
“I’ll make a trip to the Rong Residence to thank them in person and bring my brother back to live with us.” Pei Qianhao found out from the steward that his brother was sickly, and that he had to take medicine regularly.
Su Xi-er turned serious. “What about Zhen Yu? Are you going to tell her that Brother Hu is still alive and that he’s already married?”