Chapter 353: Chapter 354

Before Song Yixiao asked her, Wei Mengying handed a visiting card to Song Yixiao and said, “Look at this!”

Song Yixiao took the visiting card with a puzzled look. It was from Madam Mu inviting Wei Mengying to the Wei Family’s mansion for a meeting. The wording was polite but vaguely threatening!

“Aunt misses you?” Song Yixiao was suspicious in her heart, but she said without changing her face, “It makes sense. You haven’t been back to the Wei Family’s mansion in a while.”

“Why do you pretend to be confused to set me up?” Wei Mengying snorted and said, “Your aunt and I used to be very close. But ever since her daughter’s accident in Prince of Hengshan’s mansion, there has been a gap between us! Now that she has sent this invitation to me. How can she have a good intention?”

Song Yixiao said indifferently, “You can’t say what happened to Wei Chan was an accident. After all, you are her aunt. It’s only natural that she trusts you, isn’t it?”

“It’s very unfair for you to blame me for what has happened to her.” Wei Mengying shook her head and said in a calm tone, “I didn’t force her. She was greedy for riches. But she had a bad fate. So how can you blame me? She gets all the benefits, but I face all the danger. Who does she think she is to me? Even my own daughter doesn’t get this treatment! Let alone a niece!”

“Why exactly does Aunt invite you this time?” Song Yixiao didn’t want to argue with her, so she sighed and asked, “From what I can see, it probably has something to do with Lu Chai’er’s affair.”

Hearing this, Wei Mengying laughed coldly and said, “These two are really feeling guilty! It’s true that old birds are not to be caught with chaff. This time, I don’t answer blows with blows. But I never expect that your aunt thinks that I am easy to bully! That’s why sometimes people are really forced to be vicious!”

At this point, she said in an indifferent tone, “I had something to do with your father’s death!”

“What?” Song Yixiao had thought of all the possibilities, but she never thought that the news of Lu Chai’er’s, Wei Chan’s and Cao Lianxiu’s incidents after the boat had capsized would be linked to Song Yuan’s death. When she heard the news, she was dumbfounded!

“Your father wanted to kill me. I don’t know what he used to bribe the Wei Family and Lu Chai’er.” Wei Mengying plucked her silver dangling ornament at her temples and said leisurely, “First, he took advantage of the fact that I was planning a marriage for Lu Guanqun and persuaded me to make Lu Guanqun marry Cao Lianxiu, so that she could take the place of Lu Chai’er, who would soon be married, and act as an inside contact.”

Wei Mengying married Song Yuan, who was of a higher position, and she cajoled him so well. Therefore, after she got married, her parents and siblings could only flatter her.

Even though she had screwed her maternal family over the matter of Wei Chan’s, she didn’t think that they would screw her in return. After all, she thought after Lu Guanlun had been adopted by others, it was only a matter of time before she and her son would be in charge of Prince of Hengshan’s mansion!

Even though there was still a legitimate son, Lu Guanqun, to whom Princess Consort Cui gave birth, he was never loved by Prince of Hengshan. And he didn’t even have a legitimate son. Even his own grandmother, Dowager Consort of Hengshan, had no intention to support him to be the successor to the throne. As long as Lu Guanyun was alive, by no means could he be the heir. Even though Cao Lianxiu had been married into this family, with such a husband, how much good could she bring to the Cao Family and the Wei Family?

For the sake of the members’ future, the Wei Family could only continue to flatter Wei Mengying!

But the Wei Family was very serious this time. After Wei Mengying had been coaxed to make Lu Guanqun marry Cao Lianxiu, this niece, whom she hadn’t had much contact with in the past, was always sweet-talking and flattering her, saying, “I am counting on you to lead my life. I am willing to do anything to repay you for your kindness.”

When they arrived at Cuihua Mountain for the summer, Cao Lianxiu proposed a trip to the lake to meet more people. Wei Mengying, who was usually very happy to be flattered by her, gave her face on purpose. Wei Mengying not only got on the boat herself, but also helped invite several guests. But, when the boat reached the center of the lake, it inexplicably capsized!

“I was suspicious when Chan and Lu Chai’er rescued me ashore.” Wei Mengying didn’t hide her shrewdness in front of her eldest daughter. After all, even if she didn’t say so, Song Yixiao might still be able to figure it out. “When Chan came to rescue me, I could believe that it was for the sake of the Wei Family’s future. But Lu Chai’er actually swam to my side as soon as she found me. That was when I felt something was wrong!”

She laughed coldly and said, “My kindness to her in usual time was not so great as to make her willing to save me in a crisis. Moreover, how old was Lu Chai’er when I married Prince of Hengshan? She grew up under my nose. How could I not know what she was able to do or understand? She had never learnt to swim when she was in Prince of Hengshan’s mansion. How could she be able to swim only a few months after she got married? The same went for Chan! They should have been living in their own rooms and had no need or reason to learn to swim. But not only did they learn it, but they also coincidentally used it to save me when the boat capsized. I felt it strange as I thought about it!”

“Especially after we went ashore, these two people advised me to take shelter in a nearby valley together, lest it was not good to be seen in our wet dresses.”

“I have been to Cuihua Mountain several times. But I didn’t know that there was a valley nearby at that time. How did the two of them know it?”

Hearing this, Song Yixiao frowned and said, “If you could see the problem, why did you go with them?”

At this moment, she only guessed that Wei Mengying had met Song Yuan in the valley. It was not strange that they had an argument. Perhaps Wei Mengying pushed Song Yuan by accident, and Song Yuan fell from somewhere and broke his leg. Then as the Song Family claimed, Song Yuan was placed at the foot of the mountain to recuperate from his wounds. But in the rush to return to the imperial capital because of Emperor Xianjia’s death, his wounds deteriorated and he died!

The relationship between Song Yuan and Song Yixiao was not good. And Song Yuan had been dead for more than half a year. Although Song Yixiao had very complicated feelings when she speculated on this story, she was still able to control her emotions.

“I didn’t want to go!” Wei Mengying glanced at Song Yixiao and said with an angry face, “But I had just been rescued. My hands and feet were sore and weak. And the servants were halfway across the lake. If I didn’t go with them, what if they pushed me back into the lake, or just gagged me and dragged me away? I might as well pretend I didn’t notice anything, go along with them, and then see what happens! If they thought I was defenseless, I’ll have a better chance to escape!”

Up to this point, she was telling the truth. But as for what she experienced after entering the valley, she said, “No matter how much you sympathize with Chan, you must admit that I didn’t send those who harmed her in the first place, right?”

“What do you mean?” Song Yixiao’s face changed slightly at that, “Could it be that those people in that valley…”

“I don’t want to tell you the details. Even though you are my own daughter, there are some things that I really can’t say!” Wei Mengying was expressionless, “I can only tell you that in that valley, apart from Song Yuan and the others, there was also a cabin.”

After a pause, she burst into tears without warning, “The newly built cabin should have been made from the trees in the valley. I sent people there to check afterwards and found that it had been destroyed. But if we look under the grass at the original site, we should be able to find some foundations.”

As if she fell into the ice, Song Yixiao murmured after a long time, “Father and the others? Who else but father?”

“Do you think…” Wei Mengying didn’t stop crying, but her expression didn’t change. She said coldly, “Do you think that because I’ve remarried once, I really don’t care about my reputation at all and anyone can be my husband?”

The last several words were spoken in a light tone, but when they fell on Song Yixiao’s ears, it was like a bolt from the clear sky!

When Wei Mengying mentioned Wei Chan’s experience first, and then said that there was a cabin in the valley and that Song Yuan was not the only person there, it was hard not for Song Yixiao to think of something horrible, nasty and cruel!

The more important thing was that it was the guards of the mansion of Duke of Yan who had found Wei Mengying at that time!

The guards of the mansion of Duke of Yan went to look for her because Ms. Bo sent someone to ask them for a favor. The reason why Ms. Bo begged Song Yixiao was that she was worried that something bad had happened to Wei Mengying because she had disappeared for no apparent reason.

“I remember Yu Shiheng said that he found you outside a valley, and that he wanted to enter the valley to look for Wei Chan and Lu Chai’er. But because you deliberately stopped him, he had to stop…” Song Yixiao thought of this and felt a burning in her heart. “At that time, I wondered if you had done something bad in the valley and didn’t want anyone to know. Could it be that the reason why you didn’t let Yu Shiheng and the others enter the valley was not that you had done something bad there, but that you had experienced…”

The great fear made her not dare think any further!

But she couldn’t stop thinking about it. What had Wei Mengying, her biological mother, who had given her shelter and assistance when the Song Family had abandoned and persecuted her, experienced in that valley?

“What if I hadn’t refused the invitation and gone to the lake too?” In indescribable pain and guilt, she kept thinking, “Then I would have followed Mother all the way. And for my sake, perhaps Father would not have treated Mother…”

After a long time of muddling through, Song Yixiao was able to hold back the pain in her heart. But then she suddenly realized a problem, “You just said that you had something to do with Father’s death?”

“After all, I’m Princess Consort of Hengshan and mother of Lady of Yan.” Wei Mengying showed an extremely tired look and said indifferently, “So, they didn’t dare to kill me. And they didn’t want to kill me. After all, sometimes living is more painful than dying! Besides, how would I dare to make such a thing go public?”

She showed a smile, extremely faint but full of irony, “Your father later told everyone else to leave and he wanted to do it alone… I took the opportunity to stab him with a hairpin and threatened to bite my tongue to commit suicide. Anyway, he got scared and covered his wounds and left, leaving me there. I found some water in the cabin and barely managed to clean up myself. Fortunately, I ran into the people you sent to find me only after I left the valley. Otherwise, if I had been stuck in the cabin with no place to hide, I probably could have had no choice but to die there for real.”

“No wonder my stepmother didn’t send anyone to tell me until his mourning hall was ready, when Father had struggled for a few days in the imperial capital before he died.” Song Yixiao tightly gripped the armrests of the chair and said, “I thought she was sympathetic to me…but it turned out that she was afraid that I would figure out what had happened!”

“And Gu Tongyu said some things like the capsized boat, the valley and the plot. When I heard them yesterday, I thought you had the boat capsized on purpose and coaxed Lu Chai’er to go to the valley and harmed her! But thinking about it now, with your skills, how could you have taken so much trouble to deal with Lu Chai’er?”

“After Lu Chai’er’s madness, she only thought of these words. Just as you have said, she was being guilty!”

“As for Wei Chan and the others, maybe it was because of your revenge, or it was because they were as guilty as Lu Chai’er. But you had been harmed by them…why couldn’t you take revenge on them?”

She had believed most of Wei Mengying’s words. After all, even between the biological mother and the daughter, such a shameful matter would not be revealed until there was no other choice!

Not to mention the fact that Wei Mengying was the mother, and she was the daughter. It would be fine if a daughter asked her own mother for help after suffering such a thing. But for a mother to tell her daughter herself after suffering such a blow, what kind of humiliation would that be?

A weak and virtuous person would have preferred to die.

Of course, the more important point was that Wei Mengying’s words contained the truth and the lies. They linked together what Song Yixiao had been suspicious of before. Even though Song Yixiao knew that her mother was cunning and deep, she could not help but feel pity and guilt for her at this moment!

“Is Aunt trying to threaten you with…” Song Yixiao tried to settle down and said in a low voice, “What are you going to do, Mother?”