Chapter 188: Chapter 188 - They Treat You with Sincerity. What About Me?

Just a few days before the imperial feast of the Lantern Festival, Song Yixiao consummated the marriage with her husband. Thus, of course she couldn’t be pregnant now.

She didn’t know that Yuan Xuepei was speculating about her idea up her sleeve. Even if she did, she couldn’t tell him!

Over the past years, she and Yuan Xue’e had been real friends but their friendship was not so deep that she could forget what Zhiqin had suffered. Now Song Yixiao was blowing her stack, “I’m fine that You Qingchun and her child have been taken away but how can they take away Ms. Zhao too? Are you all dead? I got up before noon. Why did you tell me now?”

Of course, she was furious!

She took no action against You Qingchun before surely to slacken Cui Jianlian’s vigilance. Now that she had confessed the whole plan to her mother-in-law, how could she not talk with You Qingchun?

Song Yixiao could ignore her but she cared about her foster nurse. Therefore, she had been thinking about how to talk since she got up.

During her rumination, Jiang Muting’s visit and Jian Xubai’s return just kept her distracted.

Finally, Jian Xubai left for Yuan Xuepei. What he said was no big deal but since he mentioned Su Shaoge, Song Yixiao had to rethink about the severity of the problem.

When she finally thought things through and learnt that Jian Xubai wouldn’t come back until late at night, she could make time to prepare for the talk with You Qingchun. Then she ordered Jinxun to beckon Ms. Zhao and her daughter. To her disappointment, the maid didn’t falter until now, “Last night, the maids from the imperial palace took away Ms. Zhao and her daughter along with You Qingchun’s son!”

Song Yixiao thought the foster nurse didn’t show up in front of her just out of guilt but as she learnt about the truth, she was too furious to speak, “Am I the mistress of the mansion or not? How can you hide it from me? What about letting you be Lady of Yan?”

“Please punish me! I won’t say a word!” Jinxun just knelt down and held her legs, crying, “I only hope that you won’t risk your life for Ms. Zhao again!”

“Nonsense! How dare you tell me what to do?” Song Yixiao laughed out of anger and lifted her chin, gazing at her tearful eyes and saying coldly, “Seemingly, I’ve spoiled you so much that you dare to mess around behind me over and over again. I thought you only lost your head for the moment. Unexpectedly, I give you an inch, and you just swim all over me! Do you really think that I cannot manage you?”

Jinxun was often criticized by her for acting abruptly but it was her first time that she heard such serious criticism. Grieved and frightened, she still wouldn’t let go of her hands and sobbed, “As long as you can stay out of this, I can die for my fault!”

“Do you think that I cannot bear to hit you?” As a glimmer of fierceness crossed her eyes, Song Yixiao gave Jinxun two slaps in the face!

This was the first time that she hit her close maids. After being slapped, Jinxun couldn’t hold back anymore and finally shed tears. Song Yixiao resisted her sorrow and shouted, “Will you let go or not?”

“No!” Jinxun still choked out.

“Slap!”

“I will never let go! Your Highness! Please! Please don’t go! Even your own life is in danger now. How can you take risk for only a maid as Ms. Zhao…”

“Slap!” Song Yixiao slapped her again and shed tears at Jinxun’s swollen cheeks, “What do you know? What do you know? If it were not for my foster nurse, I would… I would… How dare you say that she is only a maid? Do you know that she treats me nicely like a mother?”

Before Jinxun responded, Song Yixiao slumped on the ground like losing all the strength and buried her face into her knees to burst out crying, “What wrong have I done? I just hope that they can live well! I only wish that I could repay them! But now one is disabled and the other is taken into the imperial palace! Why is this happening?”

She never admitted that she had found the problems with her Diyi (official wear of a titled lady). It was not only to cover her counterplot but also to protect You Qingchun.

No matter how ungrateful You Qingchun was, considering the feelings of Ms. Zhao, Song Yixiao couldn’t be too harsh on her!

However, out of her expectation, not only You Qingchun but also Ms. Zhao was detained!

By now, these three persons were kept in the imperial palace for one day and night!

Song Yixiao couldn’t imagine what her foster nurse had suffered amidst being detained!

She even didn’t dare to guess whether her foster nurse was still alive!

Even though she was always scheming, she was flurried at the moment, “It is because I’m ill-fated that my wealth must be gained at the cost of my beloved’s happiness and safety?”

Jinxun was stunned by her cry.

After a while, she tried to let go of her hands and found that Song Yixiao didn’t mean to leave. After feeling relieved, she got even more worried. Luckily, Qiaoqin was waiting outside to coordinate with her. Upon hearing Song Yixiao’s cries, she kept craning her neck to peer. Jinxun gestured at her, and then she slightly nodded and left quietly!

Song Yixiao became sadder and sadder, immersed in grievance.

Eventually, she got tired from crying for a long time and fetched the towel to wipe her face. Then she finally saw clearly that it was not Jinxun but Jian Xubai who wrung out the towel and caressed her back!

She was a mess now so she had no idea what to say to her husband. Hence, she just hedged and asked in a hoarse voice, “Why are you here?”

“Ms. Zhao and Zhiqin.” Jian Xubai sat on the opposite to her, who happened to block the candles on the table. Under the dim light, his face looked a bit vague but his eyes were still as bright as stars in the winter nights. He didn’t answer his wife’s question but asked, “They are so important to you?”

“Very, very important!” Song Yixiao didn’t expect the question. She was in a daze for a moment and then said bitterly, “They are the only people who treat me with sincerity to me in the world. Of course they are important!”

Jian Xubai asked calmly, “What about me?”

“You are different from them.” Song Yixiao believed that Jian Xubai was no match for Ms. Zhao and Zhiqin. These two persons had never left her since the previous life but it remained unknown whether Jian Xubai’s affection for Song Yixiao was true love or just temporary obsession since they were only married for a couple of months.

But she wouldn’t tell honestly. After thinking for a while, she said in a low voice, “You and I are husband and wife but they are family to me!”

Speaking of family, Song Yixiao felt heartache all of a sudden!

“Do you know what kind of life I led due to Madam Liu before?” She suddenly asked.

Before her husband answered, she sneered, “She didn’t let me eat well. In summer, she ordered the servants to feed me with spoiled food, saying that I would eat it if I was starving and that it would be the best that I just died of eating it! If Ms. Zhao hadn’t bought food with her own money and bribed the guard into passing it to me in secret, I would have been dead as she wished! After all, I am always quite weak!”

“In winter she cut me off the beddings! Do you know how I got through the winter? Ms. Zhao pieced together her bedding and Zhiqin’s, and then let me sleep in the middle. However, despite that, I still couldn’t stand it for I was used to sleeping on brocade quilts with heater!”

“Therefore, I had to wear a lot of clothes in sleep throughout the whole winter!”

“Even so, I often woke up for being chilled to bone!”

“Back then I was too young so I could only cry because of the unbearable coldness.”

“While I was crying, I miss my father, my mother. I hope to have a little pity from my grandmother. I wish that Madam Liu could show mercy for me…”

“But it was my wishful thinking only. It was Ms. Zhao who held me in her arms and comforted me kindly!”

She raised her sleeves to cover her face, “Cursing, hitting and mocking were part of my everyday life at that time. My parents and grandmother never showed any concern for me! It was always Ms. Zhao and Zhiqin who helped me out, interceded for me and protected me by all means!”

The bitter memories that she had gradually forgot suddenly flashed through her mind.

They stuck together and helped each other in the face of Madam Liu’s oppression.

In the previous life, when Song Yixiao was old enough to get married, Ms. Zhao gave her a reminder, “Your Ladyship, it is about time that you should get married. As long as you are married, you will belong to another family. Even your maiden parents cannot control you! You just hold on for a little while. Given the threshold of the Song Family, no matter how Madam Liu dislikes you, she must marry you to a man of an officer’s family. Even if the officer doesn’t hold a high position, you won’t be maltreated anyway!”

When Madam Liu distorted the truth for the sake of Liu Zhiyin, Song Yixiao and Zhiqin tried to defend but Song Yuan just wouldn’t listen to them. He only ordered, “Such a shameless thing is not eligible to be my daughter! Have her detained and I shall punish her after I go to the ancestral hall and report this to the ancestors!”

While Ms. Wu dragged Zhiqin away forcibly, Zhiqin sobbed, “Your Ladyship, I cannot protect you anymore. Please be safe!”

With her forehead still bleeding, Ms. Zhao staggered with a desperate look, mumbling, “Her Highness the Princess Consort sent words to me that Her Highness is not feeling well these days, so she doesn’t want to interfere with trifles…”

Now Song Yixiao had a chance to start over.

“Rest assured! I will help you out and stop Madam Liu from maltreating you anymore, even at the cost of my life!” Ms. Zhao was a bit surprised to hear out Song Yixiao’s plan but soon she was determined, “I will go back home with an excuse! By then I will be away for four hours. You and Zhiqin must be careful!”

Zhiqin, covered with sweat, tried her best to push her onto the branch and shouted anxiously, “They won’t bite you if you climb up there!”

She reminisced over the scene when Zhiqin fell in the blood.

Song Yixiao put down her sleeves and looked at her quiet husband tearfully, “Your father dislikes you indeed but your mother, the Empress Dowager, the Emperor, the Empress, the Crown Prince… Putting aside your father and distant uncle, almost all your seniors like you! You are immersed in so much love. How can you understand the loneliness and helplessness I’ve been suffering in the days when I had no one to depend on?”

“I told Jinxun just now that Ms. Zhao was a mother to me!”

“Actually, it was not correct. In my eyes, the foster nurse treats me much better than my birth mother!”

“After all, after my birth mother abandoned me, it is her whole-hearted care that helped me survive!”

“You know what?” Song Yixiao just let Jian Xubai wipe tears for her with his fingers, saying with a poker face, “It was not my mother’s idea but mine to cause Madam Liu’s death. Ms. Zhao helped me with it!”

Jian Xubai’s fingers stiffened a bit.

Song Yixiao continued talking coldly, as if she didn’t feel it, “All I want for this life is that me, Ms. Zhao and Zhiqin can live a good life!”

“If Zhiqin’s injuries were treatable, I would be okay with Cui Jianlian’s arrogance and sneering. After all, the troubles she makes are nothing compared with those by Madam Liu!”

Tears just sprang out of her eyes, “But her whimsical prank ruined Zhiqin’s life! Since she doesn’t want to live peacefully or let others live in peace, she deserves to rot in hell with Madam Liu!”

“She should have been dead seven years ago!”

“So I did so even though I know it might ruin your prospect. I cannot wait for the next chance! I cannot stand her living in the world any longer!”

The room was quiet for a moment. Song Yixiao wiped her face again and adjusted her mood. Then she looked up at her husband with an indifferent look, “What else do you want to know then?”