Qin Wanru came from this direction just now, but she didn’t know the way. After Yujie asked several servant girls about the way secretly, they finally came here.
When she stood at the entrance of the tall but deserted courtyard and looked inside, she felt the pain in her heart. As she put her hands on the door knockers feebly, the thin and tall figures in her mind seemed to appear before her eyes, merge into one, and come to her, making her faint and nearly fall.
“Miss!” Shocked, Yujie reached out her hands to support her hurriedly.
After a long while, Qin Wanru raised her pale face. Her face was usually ruddy, but it was now as white as snow, and the corners of her mouth even looked pale.
“I’m fine!” Qin Wanru’s eyes fell on the two ink buckets on the side. The ink in the big buckets was very dense, giving off ink’s special flavor.
Qin Wanru usually liked this flavor, but she detested it now.
She took a deep breath and walked in slowly. She still had a confusion, which she couldn’t think through. If she could think it through, she would become clear about many things.
When she walked into the courtyard, she only caught a glimpse of the screen wall and then moved into the main room right in front of her.
The main room’s door was tightly locked. Qin Wanru walked around it and came to a wing room on the side. Its windows were tightly shut, but she saw the name on top of the door and thought it was more like a study. When she stopped and looked around, she was even more certain this was a study.
Such a small study was usually used by the mistress, who could read light reading books or write Chinese brush calligraphy in it in normal times. This was much more spacious than placing a desk in her room.
“Yujie, can you unscrew the lock?” Qin Wanru said as she looked at the tightly closed lock.
“Let me try!” Yujie said. She had a lot of strength, but she had never unscrewed a lock. She took two steps forward and touched the top of the lock with her hand. Suddenly, she was surprised and said, “Miss, the lock is not locked! It’s the same as Mingqiu Nun’s. ”
When Mingqiu Nun was afraid others might disturb her or didn’t want to see people, she would put a lock with its chains on the doorknob. By doing so, she would make the door look like being locked.
Unexpectedly, this place was also like that, but no one knew who did this. No matter who did this, this saved Qin Wanru’s energy.
As Yujie took down the lock and pushed open the door, a stale smell rushed out.
Yujie wanted to hold Qin Wanru and let her enter the room in a short while, but she found she held nothing because Qin Wanru had stepped in.
Everything in the room seemed to have been sorted out and neatly arranged as if the study had never been used before, but she could see that it had not been cleaned for a long time.
There were rows of books on the bookshelf, and the books were covered with layers of dust.
As she stepped in, she smelt a musty smell.
Everything in the room should have been extremely elegant in the past, but now what she saw was only dust. The previous gorgeous curtain only had some dark gray colors, and its glorious past was gone.
Qin Wanru bit her lip, prevented her heart from throbbing, looked around, and walked straight to a bookshelf in the center. The bookshelf was eye-catching not because there were many books on it, but because it was closely placed before a large desk. If the owner wrote Chinese calligraphy or drew paintings in past days, she would put them on the bookshelf directly.
The desk had also been cleaned up. Brushes, ink, paper, and an inkstone were well placed as if they were new, but only because of the new dust, looking more like an illusion that others had seen.
Walking to the bookshelf, Qin Wanru raised her head and took down one scroll painting, in which there was a handsome young man with a gentle smile. At first sight, she felt a lightning bolt flashed across her mind, and some memories she seemed to have lost appeared faintly.
She was familiar with him, and the familiarity was from her heart. At this moment, her eyes reddened, her nose was aching, and her heart was so painful that a big hole seemed to appear on it.
Her childhood memories were so vague that she couldn’t remember anything, but when she saw the painting, she felt she gradually got some impressions, which were very light as if a drop of water fell on the white paper. Although they were light, they were clear and eye-catching.
“That is… father?
“Is he my father in my memory?” Qin Wanru’s tears fell drop by drop, and she took the painting in her hands a little far from herself subconsciously, for fear that her tears might fall on the paper and damage the painting.
“With two lives, have I finally found my father?”
She took a nearly greedy look at the man’s face, which was a little faintly familiar to her. Although she bit her lip tightly, she couldn’t help sobbing a little.
“Others can enjoy their parents’ love, but I never enjoyed and suffered a lot. At last, I was framed by Chu Liuyue and Shao Yanru and chopped in half.
“Initially, I didn’t think Shao Yanru and I were real enemies; although she didn’t like a widow like me, she wouldn’t care about such an unimportant person like me; with a high status as an emperor-favored concubine, she would let off a small ant like me.
“But everything was plotted a long time ago!”
“I lived a lowly life in my previous life. When I met others, I dare not raise my head or speak loudly. Even so, those people did not want to let me off, and I was already in their calculation, and death was my only choice. Even if I had not been sliced in two at the waist, I would have had to face many other ways that could kill me.
“They never wanted to let me live.
“Stupidly and fearfully, I thought I would be safe and sound as long as I didn’t often show up in public. As an emperor-favored concubine, Shao Yanru wouldn’t remember me.”
“Miss, Miss, what’s wrong with you?” Yujie was panicky and said as she saw Qin Wanru crying.
Qin Wanru shook her head, wiped the tears at the corners of her eyes. In this life, she must be sturdy-willed. A child without parental care and love must have a strong will, then she could avenge herself and her parents.
Crying? She cried a lot in her previous life!
After shaking her head, she looked down naturally and saw a bluegrass seal print, which was at the bottom signature space of the painting.
Her slightly trembling hand touched the seal print, which was very familiar to her.
“Miss, is this not your seal’s print?” Yujie couldn’t help exclaiming at this time as she also looked down along with her small trembling hand.
“Yes, it is!” Qin Wanru said slowly, her voice almost fluffy.
“This is the seal I asked Chu Liuchen to help me get from Madam Di. In my previous life, I only saw it when Qin Yuru scolded me. In this life, I got it a long time ago, and so Madam Di and her daughter cannot take away what belongs to me with the ways they used in my previous life.
“This seal is related to my origin indeed.”
She continued looking down and saw a line of smaller Chinese characters, which told the year and date. After counting, she knew it had been about 14 to 15 years since that time.
Qinghua drew for her husband!
These characters were behind the year and date. Although they were only a few characters, they had astonished Qin Wanru. “Qinghua? Infanta Qinghua, the only daughter of Rui’an Great Elder Princess, the lady who died young just after giving birth to Hao’er, and the extremely light slender figure in my memory.”
“Is she my mother?”
She felt sad uncontrollably again, but she gritted her teeth and suppressed the feeling. “If everything is true, some members of Duke Xing’s Mansion must have done the evil act silently, and the most probable suspects are the current Duke Xing and his wife.
“The two of them got the most profits. Initially, the current Duke Xing could not inherit the title of the heir of the duke, but after the Heir of Duke Xing died, he succeeded Duke Xing’s title.”
With her previous life’s memories, Qin Wanru didn’t believe Duke Xing and his wife were innocent.
In her previous life, no one knew what happened to Hao’er. After he was missing, Rui’an Great Elder Princess was excessively sad and shaved her hair and became a nun, and Qin Wanru was chopped in half in the end. Everything that happened showed that this was not simple or pure, and she didn’t believe there were no plots in it.
Her watery eyes were icy cold and nearly evil, and Yujie couldn’t help being cautious because of the blood-sucking cold air. After looking at the abnormal Qin Wanru, she dare not utter a single word and only stood still on her side.
After taking a deep breath, she suppressed the bloody anger billowing in her chest, closed her watery eyes, and opened them again after a long while, looking at the painting in her hands coldly.
Everything that happened perfectly made her know what was the truth, but only she knew the truth, and no one would believe her if she spoke of it.
All the people knew the former Heir of Duke Xing only had a son but didn’t have a daughter, but where did their daughter like her come from?
That was why Qin Yuru was well treated in Duke Xing’s Mansion in her previous life, but she didn’t change anything. After reducing her age, she should be more like the daughter of the former Heir of Duke Xing. As for her late marriage, which was in fact two years late for her real age, it was also because it seemed not late for her reduced age by two years.
In this life, Madam Di and her daughter had begun to steal the identity of the “daughter” again.
This also illustrated two of the most important issues.
Madam Di should have known Qin Wanru’s origin, or she should have guessed part of it. Possibly, this was also Madam of Duke Xing’s hint. With the help of some things’ results she knew, Madam Di finally made such a bold decision.
For Qin Yuru, reducing her age was not to stop others from gossiping but to help her act more like that identity. Today, her scar was also made to let others suspect she was not Madam Di’s biological daughter.
Everything was perfect, nearly as perfect as the truth!
More importantly, Qin Wanru also got a more important fact from Madam Di and her daughter’s plots and what Madam of Duke Xing did.
The more important fact was very important to her. As she looked at a painting before her eyes, her lips that were gradually becoming red gave a smile, looking like numerous flowers blooming at the same time, but also like heart-chilling ghosts coming out of hell…