Chapter 63

At first, Wei Chang Mi followed Wei Luo to the rear courtyard’s octagonal pavilion. Later, he saw that Wei Luo was speaking to other people and ignoring him. Bored by himself, he ran away from the area.

Originally, he was only playing at the edge of the bamboo forest and Bai Lan was following a few steps behind him. However, he unknowingly walked farther and farther away from the octagonal pavilion and towards the lotus pond behind the bamboo forest. It wasn’t the time to see the lotus flowers in the pond yet. There were only fishes swimming underneath the water. Wei Chang Mi stood at the side of the pond to look. He was so focused that he didn’t notice someone else passing by the pond.

Li Xiang had just come here from the front courtyard. She had gone there to look for her older brother Li Song. She had looked everywhere once, but didn’t find him. She didn’t know where he went and could only give up and return to the rear courtyard by herself.

As she passed by the lotus pond, she saw a beautiful five or six year old child. She didn’t know what he was jabbering to the pond. He seemed a bit familiar to her. She had seen him recently in the reception pavilion and knew that he was Wei Luo’s younger brother. She couldn’t resist frowning in disgust and loathing. She didn’t have the slightest positive feeling towards any member of House Wei.

Just as she desired to walk past him, Li Xiang’s thoughts changed and she suddenly stopped. She turned around and looked at Wei Chang Mi again. Seeing that the child was focused on watching the fishes and wasn’t paying attention to her, she called out, “Wei Chang Mi?”

Wei Chang Mi looked in the direction of the sound. He didn’t recognize her. He blinked his bright, dark eyes and curiously asked, “Older sister, do you know me?”

Li Xiang walked back to his side. She smiled and meaningfully said, “I’ve heard of you.”

His only reaction was thoughtfully saying, “Oh.” Then, he crouched down, gathered the purslane grass on the ground, and sprinkled it on the water to feed the fish. One after another, the fish swam over and boldly ate the grass that he had sprinkled. The splashes of the water from the swimming fish sprayed onto his face. He didn’t care and only wiped his face with his sleeve. He continued immersing himself in pulling the grass to feed the fish.

Li Xiang wasn’t able to get another response from him. Seeing that he wasn’t interested in her, she couldn’t resist asking him another question. This was a question that would attract his attention. “Why are you here by yourself? Where’s your older sister?”

The tips of his shoes had been splashed wet by the fishes. He was wiping them with his little hands. He looked up and politely replied, “Ah Luo is over there talking. I’m here playing by myself and not bothering her.” As he said this, he stretched his hand to point towards the octagonal pavilion.n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

Li Xiang raised her eyebrows. Soon after, she asked in astonishment, “I didn’t mean your older sister Wei Luo. I meant Wei Zheng. Where’s your older sister Wei Zheng?”

At the mention of Wei Zheng, Wei Chang Mi’s young and tender face wrinkled. He pouted and said, “I don’t like her… I don’t play with her.”

Wei Zheng’s face turned ugly and fierce as soon as she saw him. She wished that she could stare a hole into his body. Although he was young, he could differentiate between who liked him and who disliked him. Wei Zheng was full of malice towards him. He was scared of her and would subconsciously avoid her. Although Wei Luo always said he was annoying, her annoyance towards him wasn’t the same as Wei Zheng’s.

Every time she went outside, she would bring back small pastries and snacks for him. Although she said it was for Qin-shi, the majority of the pastries all went into his stomach. He knew that Wei Luo didn’t truly dislike him. Wei Luo was the only older sister that he liked.

Hearing these words, Li Xiang was stunned for a moment. Then she used her silk handkerchief to hide her laugher. Her laughter sounded crisp with a bit of ridicule. Not only did her laugher sound unpleasant, it was also a bit harsh and ear piercing.

Wei Chang Mi wrinkled his white bun face. He clutched his ear and asked, “Older sister, why are you laughing?”

After a while, Li Xiang finally laughed enough. She put down her handkerchief and said, “I’m laughing at you.”

He looked confused, “Laughing at me?”

“Right, I’m laughing at you.” Li Xiang curved up her lips and looked at him up and down again as if she was looking at novel goods. Wei Chang Mi didn’t like the way that she was looking at him. It made his entire body feel uncomfortable. She finally saw enough and slowly said, “I’m laughing at you for your ignorance and pitifulness. You don’t even know that you’ve been lied to. What did Wei Luo tell you? Did she tell you that you’re Qin-shi‘s son? Did she use sweet words to deceive you? Let me tell you the truth. You’re not Qin-shi‘s son. Your mother is fifth madam. Wei Zheng is your actual older sister!”

——–

It wasn’t a secret that Qin-shi was fostering fifth branch’s son. Any family that had relatively close dealings with Duke Ying’s family knew this. After all, at the time, Qin-shi didn’t have any signs of pregnancy. It would have been difficult to explain to outsiders how this new son appeared out of thin air, so only the truth could be told. Although they didn’t say to outsiders that Du-shi had done something wrong that year, discerning people knew that if she hadn’t committed a serious crime, why would someone else raise her son?

This was obvious in everyone’s mind, but no one mentioned it.

Although Li Xiang didn’t know the entire story, she could guess most of the untold parts from the gossip that she had heard. She had deliberately said these words to Wei Chang Mi to try to drive a wedge between his relationship with Wei Luo.

Back at the reception pavilion, he had been so close with Wei Luo. When he had sweetly called out “Older sister Ah Luo”, Wei Zheng’s face had been very ugly. If he knew that Wei Zheng was his actual older sister and that House Wei had locked up his mother, what would his reaction be?

Who would have thought that Wei Chang Mi wouldn’t have any reaction after hearing this? He calmly looked at her and said, “Oh, I already knew this.”

Li Xiang’s smiling expression froze. She looked at him incredulously, “You already knew?”

He nodded. He didn’t want to continue talking about this topic and went back to crouching down at the lotus pond and feeding the fishes, “But mother has said, older sister Ah Luo is also my older sister…”

He had always known that he had two mothers. One mother lived in fourth branch’s Plum Courtyard. The other mother lived in Gingko Courtyard. He was very afraid of the mother that lived in Gingko Courtyard. He wanted to run away every time he saw her. When he was younger, this mother would cry every time she saw him. Later, when he grew older, she wanted to be nice to him. But, he didn’t like the things that she tried to give him to eat. As soon as he refused, she would become very scary. Without saying a word, she would break the dishes on the table. Then, she would hold his shoulder and only ask him, “Did Qin-shi teach you these words?” After that, she would hold him in her arms, occasionally stroke his hair, and repeat these words, “Chang Mi, you’re my son. Chang Mi…”

Deep down, Wei Chang Mi didn’t consider her as his mother and didn’t have any affection towards her. He only felt that she was very pitiful. His heart had only identified Qin-shi as his mother.

Li Xiang hadn’t expected this result. Blocked, her tone became impatient, “Are you a fool? You recognize someone else as your mother and recognize Wei Luo as an older sister. Wei Luo isn’t a good person. Don’t be fooled by her.”

On the side, Bai Lan finally couldn’t continue only listening and walked forward to remind her, “Miss Li, please don’t speak about my family’s Miss this way.”

Li Xiang turned her head to look at her. She raised her eyebrow and objected, “Did I say something wrong? How did my older brother get his injury? Was it not related to her? You probably participated with the letter that she wrote, right? You must have a clear understanding of her character. Why pretend like this in front of me…”

Angrily, Wei Chang Mi blew out his cheeks and lifted his fist to firmly hit Li Xiang’s arm, “Shut up! You’re not allowed to say bad words about older sister Ah Luo.”

Li Xiang frowned and said in dissatisfaction, “Are my words wrong? You can’t even tell who your real sister is and you have the nerve to hit me?”

Wei Chang Mi was very upset. Drop by drop, tears fell from his face as he hit her with his fists, “It’s not true. You words aren’t true…”

Li Xiang was annoyed by his actions. Although a young child’s strength was small and his fists didn’t hurt much, she couldn’t tolerate another person being rude to her. She lifted her head, reflexively pushed him away, and warned him, “Stop before you go too far!”

Wei Chang Mi wasn’t able to put up his guard in time and repeatedly recoiled a few steps. In the moment when he was about to fall to the ground, a pair of hands came out from behind him, caught him, and held him in her arms.

Wei Luo’s hands were guarding Wei Chang Mi. She lifted her eyes to look at Li Xiang and coldly said, “Li Xiang, you’re the one that should stop before you go to far.”

——–

When Jin Lu has said Wei Chang Mi was here and had met Li Xiang, she knew that something would happen and had hurried over here. As expected, she saw this type of scene. How could Li Xiang not even let go of a six-year-old child? She was more despicable than she had imagined.

Liang Yu Rong and Zhao Jie were also here with Wei Luo. When Wei Chang Mi had originally disappeared, Liang Yu Rong had also helped with looking for him and had come here when she heard about Wei Chang Mi’s location. Seeing Li Xiang bully a six-year-old child, she felt contempt for her.

However, Li Xiang didn’t feel guilty. She looked at Wei Luo, then she looked at Wei Chang Mi, who was in her arms. She smiled and said, “You all just saw that I hadn’t done anything. He hit me, so I pushed him.”

Hearing these words, Wei Chang Mi turned around and cried into Wei Luo’s chest, “She’s a bad person… I only hit her because she said bad words about older sister Ah Luo…”

The sound of a child’s crying sounded extremely pitiful.

Li Xiang lightly laughed instead of showing panic from hearing these words. Confident that justice was on her side, she asked, “I only told him the truth about his birth. That’s probably not a secret, right? Should the truth be hidden from him?”

Wei Luo pursed her lips and glared at her without saying a word.

She had always thought that Li Xiang was shameless, but now she knew that she could be shameless to this degree. Li Xiang was one of a kind.

Wei Luo handed Wei Chang Mi over to Liang Yu Rong and walked forward to stand right in front of Li Xiang. She was one year older than Li Xiang and was also a bit taller than Li Xiang. When she looked at her, her eyes would be looking down at her from above as if she was occupying the higher ground. The corners of Wei Luo’s lips were simply curved up into a smile, “You’re right. This isn’t a secret.”

Li Xiang’s face showed that she was proud of herself as she said, “Oh.”

Shortly after, Wei Luo said, “Since you know so much, you can probably guess what I’m going to do next.”

Li Xiang lifted her lips to object, “How could I know…”

The next moment, without waiting for her to finish her words, Wei Luo raised her hand and severely slapped Li Xiang!

The sound of the slap was heavy and loud.

Li Xiang was stunned for a long time. When she recovered her senses, she was ashamed and angry. She angrily glared at Wei Luo and raised her hand to slap her back!

Unfortunately for her, her arm was intercepted by someone in mid-air and she couldn’t return the slap. Zhao Jie was in front of her. He held her arm and coldly and sternly said, “Li Xiang, stop.”

His favoritism was too obvious. Wei Luo had clearly slapped Li Xiang, but he didn’t show the slightest intention to admonish Wei Luo. In contrast, when Li Xiang raised her arm, before she even slapped Wei Luo, he hadn’t been able to continue only watching.

Filled with anger and hate, Li Xiang stared at the two people and gritted her teeth.

Zhao Jie was her older cousin. They were related by blood, so how could he goes against reason and help Wei Luo instead of her at this time?

Until the celebration ended, Li Xiang stayed at the lotus pond. She didn’t dare to go out and meet other people. There was a clear slap mark on her face. She didn’t want other people to see and laugh at her.

She hid there until most of the guests had left, then she left this place.

Elder Princess Gao Yang had been anxiously waiting for her at the Duke Ding’s residence entrance for a long time. She had ordered people to look for her two or three times before Li Xiang came out of the residence.

Li Xiang entered her family’s carriage. Without any warning, she rushed into Elder Princess Gao Yang’s arms and loudly cried. She complained about the grievances she had suffered today and narrated the Wei Luo’s actions one by one. She lifted up her small face to show Elder Princess Gao Yang her face, “Mother, look, it’s still swollen…”

Elder Princess Gao Yang carefully looked. Although it wasn’t obvious, there was a slap mark. Her heart ached from seeing a mark on her daughter’s flower-like face, “Why did Wei Luo hit you? Did you two have a falling out?”

Li Xiang grievously cried. Her tears continuously flowed, but she didn’t forget to invert right and wrong. “She was completely unreasonable. After we had two words of disagreement, she threatened to teach me a lesson…”

This wasn’t the first time that Elder Princess Gao Yang heard malicious words about Wei Luo from Li Xiang. From the time that Li Xiang returned from Jing He Villa, her hatred of Wei Luo had sunk into her bones. Last time, they had injured Wei Chang Hong. Now, Wei Luo had hit Li Xiang. The feeling that you had when someone else’s child was injured was naturally different then when your own child was hurt. Elder Princess Gao Yang’s heart ached and felt displeased. She wanted to scold Wei Luo. However, after the hunting ceremony, Prince Ru Yang’s and Duke Ying’s families were in sharp opposition. The two families were like fire and water and couldn’t co-exist. Since they were in the wrong first, even though they suffered a loss this time, it wouldn’t be good for her to speak.

Elder Princess Gao Yang sighed. Just as she was about to speak, a person outside hurriedly lifted the carriage’s curtain. With a face full of panic, he said, “Elder Princess, young master’s arm was broken by someone and he’s also suffering other serious injuries!”

Elder Princess Gao Yang only felt her body becoming weak and the scene in front of her darkening. With a trembling voice, she asked, “What did you say?”

Song-er was injured? How could this be possible? He was skilled in martial art. A normal person couldn’t even injure him. How could he be seriously injured?!

That servant responded, “This servant couldn’t find young master, so I borrowed people from Duke Ding’s residence to look for him together. Later, I found young master at the side of the bamboo forest. Not only was young master’s wrist broken, his body also has other serious and minor injuries.”

As if she had heard thunder on a clear sky, Elder Princesses was too shocked to speak. The scene in front of her felt hazy and her limbs felt cold.

Soon, three people carried Li Song onto the black, flat roofed carriage. They placed him onto a cotton-padded mattress and retreated. There was only paleness on Li Song’s face. However, when Elder Princess Gao Yang opened his sky blue robes, she saw green and purple bruises on his chest, even his back had bruises. Some were serious and some were light. The most serious injury was his left wrist. It had been bent into an odd curvature.

In the end, Zhu Geng had shown him a little bit of kindness. He hadn’t been utterly ruthless. He had only broken one wrist instead of both of them.

Li Xiang forgot about crying. Aghast, she called out, “Older brother!”

Elder Princess Gao Yang saw her seriously injured son and her heartache couldn’t be increased any further. She covered her mouth and bent down to weep. She quickly ordered the driver to hurry back to Prince Ru Yang’s residence.

When they arrived at Prince Ru Yang’s residence, Li Song was carefully carried inside.

The servants hurriedly went to invite a doctor to the residence. Elder Princess Gao Yang asked the doctor to examine and treat Li Song’s injuries. This torment took two hours. After the doctor looked over Li Song’s injuries, applied the medicine and bandaged his wounds, and added a board to Li Song’s left wrist before bandaging to set his bone, and stroked his own beard, he finally said, “Properly tend to his healing. It will take about a hundred days for his bone to knit and his tendons to heal. During the next three month, he can’t move his wrist. If he does, it’ll hinder his healing.”

In addition, the doctor also wrote two prescriptions. One was for external injuries. The other was to nurse his internal injuries.

Elder Princess Gao Yang sadly wiped her tears. After she thanked the doctor, she ordered the servants to thank him with large monetary gift before sending him off.

She didn’t know who had such a deep hatred of Li Song to and would want to hurt him this badly.

Li Zhi Liang had already brought people with him to Duke Ding’s residence to search that bamboo forest. No matter what, the culprit had to be found. Once the culprit was found, she definitely wouldn’t let that person off!

It was probably because she had cried too much. Elder Princess Gao Yang’s body felt weak and she fainted soon after.

Li Xiang hurriedly had the servants bring her mother back to her room so she could have a good rest.

After she had sent off Elder Princess Gao Yang, there was only her and Li Song left in the room. Li Song’s eyes were closed as he lied on the bed. His handsome eyebrows were wrinkled. He wasn’t sleeping peacefully. Perhaps, it was because of the pain.

Li Xiang stood next to his bed for a while, then she leaned over to tuck in his blanket. As she was lifting his uninjured arm to put inside his blanket, she suddenly paused. She felt that there was something inside his hand. She lifted up his sleeve, lowered her head to look, and saw that his hand was holding a golden hairpin. There were emeralds inlayed in the hairpin. It looked expensive. A single glance told her that it was belonged to a wealth family’s daughter.

She gasped in surprise. And also curiously wondered, why did her older brother have this item?

She reached out her hand to bring it towards her for a closer look. However, despite her attempts at pulling, she couldn’t pull it out.

Li Song was tightly holding the hairpin and she couldn’t loosen his grip on it.