sbdcsierra Chapter 267 is all fake.
Chapter 267 is all fake.
Lu Yangyang almost got her hand burned by the flames.
She stiffly turned her face to look at Li Duan, who still had her head down and her eyes were red.
Li Duan recalled her absent-minded appearance at the banquet two days ago, and her sudden, seemingly drastic change in temperament as she compromised. She had initially thought that Li Duan simply knew about His Majesty's intention to arrange a marriage alliance...
“I always thought that my mother had lived a glamorous life all these years because His Majesty and the Empress Dowager doted on her. But it turns out that’s not the case. She had just been enduring it all along. The so-called dignity was just a little charity that person gave her to cover up their own depravity.”
"Do you know, there are rumors that my mother kept many male lovers in the mansion, but that's not true. I've thought about who my father is more than once, but I didn't want to think about it too much because my mother loved me too much. But at that moment, I understood everything. I am the illegitimate daughter born after that man forced my mother to have sex with me."
"Xiao Li!" Lu Yangyang grabbed her arm and said in a stern tone, "Your mother loves you so much, how could she bear to hear you talk about yourself like that!"
"She suffered so much for me all these years. How much hatred must she have felt? But she never once, not even once, directed her hatred at me. Clearly, she should hate me. If only I didn't exist..."
Even knowing that her mother and that man weren't related by blood, they grew up together and were nominally siblings. And her mother clearly had a lover; she could have raised the child alone after he left. It was that man's coercion that destroyed everything she had.
She couldn't accept it when she saw it that day, and she still can't accept it now.
Unable to accept that all these years, she had actually existed as a tool used to threaten her mother, and that all the apparent love she received was fake.
It's all fake.
She would rather she had never existed than have her mother suffered so much pain for her sake.
“Yangyang, what do you think my mother was thinking when she passed away? Was she thinking that she was finally free?” Li Duan shook her head, her voice choked with emotion: “No, she was definitely thinking, what will happen to me now that she’s gone…”
"How could she love someone like me so much? That person ruined her life, and I was the accomplice."
“No, no,” Lu Yangyang gently patted her back and said urgently, “Think about the days you spent with your mother. Perhaps that was her greatest comfort and her hope to live. The person she misses the most is you. Without you, how lonely she would have been all these years.”
Lu Yangyang pulled her into his arms and let her lean on his shoulder. "Xiaoli, I don't really know how to comfort you. When I was little, I thought countless times about what kind of person my mother would be. When I lived in the village, my friends would have their mothers calling them home for meals. Those people who struggled to make a living all day didn't know how to express love or how to communicate. Disciplining their children meant chasing them all over the village with a tree branch. When I was little, my strongest impression of the word 'mother' was coming home for meals and chasing her all over the village to discipline her children."
"Before I came to the Duke's Mansion, I was already capable of living on my own. I could earn money with my own hands to support myself. The reason I still wanted to come, besides settling scores with Sheng Yunzhu, was actually more to see what my parents were like."
Lu Yangyang stared at the flickering flames, recalling the past. She both believed and didn't believe in that dream, because her life experiences since childhood had taught her that everything was up to human effort. So even knowing that she had gained nothing in the dream, she still came to the capital without hesitation.
“When I first came back, the Duke of Sheng disliked me from the first moment he saw me. The way he looked at me was as if I had stained his favorite painting, and he wanted to remove it but couldn’t, so he was struggling with whether or not to throw the painting away. Therefore, he always favored Sheng Yunzhu, trying to suppress me in a way that made me a silent object to be manipulated. That was my only value in his eyes.”
"As for my mother, she raised Sheng Yunzhu for more than ten years, living together day and night. At that time, when she saw me, her feelings were divided into many parts. I may have had one part, but that part was mostly guilt. So at the beginning, no matter how she tried to be nice to me, I couldn't convince myself to forgive her, because what I wanted was not guilt at all."
"Later, when I met the Princess, the first thing I saw was the joy in her eyes when she looked at you. I suddenly understood that what I had always wanted was that kind of joy from the bottom of my heart."
"I think what the Princess would want to see from heaven is always the best version of you in her eyes, no matter what you look like."
Li Duan leaned on Lu Yangyang's shoulder, listening to her tell these words in detail. At first, she only sobbed softly, but later she couldn't help but burst into tears.
Since that day in the palace, she had been like a soulless walking corpse for the past two days. Tomorrow, she would be sending her mother to be buried. Only then did she finally wake up. Her mother had really left her. She would no longer look at her with disgust when she was covered in mud, nor would she hold her and drink with her when she was sad, nor would she climb into her bed to hug her, nor would she stand behind her and watch her stumble and fall, sheltering her from the wind and rain.
Li Duan recalled the night before her birthday, when her mother said she would come back to find her as her daughter in the next life. The next life... the next life is too far away. In this life, she has already received the best love in the world. She will carry this love with her and, when they meet again in the next life, she can happily say, "Mother, I'm doing very well. You've been waiting for a long time, haven't you?"
……
Dali Temple Criminal Court.
There were a total of seven people from Xianyin Pavilion who participated in the performance that day. In addition to Mingruo and Bo Zi'an, there were five other people. After two days of severe torture, two of them confessed that they had planned the assassination with Bo Zi'an.
Both of them were family members of those who followed Crown Prince Chongwen northward.
When Crown Prince Chongwen went north as a hostage, he was accompanied by a total of 130 people. By the time they arrived in Northern Yan, only more than 90 people remained.
Over the years, those who died from illness or other causes have been reduced to less than twenty people still alive.
They have been forgotten by most people, and some have even been forgotten by their families. However, some people still remember them and have transferred their hatred to the current emperor.
Both of those who followed Bo Zi'an were like this.
The remaining three people were all members of the Xianyin Pavilion opera troupe. One of them died from excessive fright because he could not withstand the torture.
When the Crown Prince arrived, Ying Xun, the Vice Minister of the Court of Judicial Review in charge of the matter, hurriedly provided information to the Crown Prince. The Court of Judicial Review had been extremely busy these past few days. In addition to this case, there was also the Northwest Smallpox case, which the Minister of the Court of Judicial Review had personally handled with a Vice Minister. That's why the assassination case was assigned to Ying Xun.
The Crown Prince glanced at the statement. "What did that Young Master Ming say?"
Ying Xun hurriedly shook his head: "Your Highness, I have already sent people to investigate his background and found no suspicious points. However, he has recently been frequently visiting the residences of powerful and influential people in the capital. He has been to the residence of the Eldest Princess and the residence of Princess Lu. He said he was there to see a doctor."
"I will personally interrogate him. You and your men wait outside."