The snow continued to fall.
Meng Shaoxia pondered over the situation.
So, his father-in-law was the biological son of Eldest Princess Huiyun.
He had married Eldest Princess Huiyun's granddaughter.
His two children now had a great-grandmother who was an Eldest Princess.
For some reason, as Meng Shaoxia looked at the innocent Little Yu'er, he felt a pang in his heart.
He thought back to when he first met her, how she had nearly been kidnapped and sold.
Her clothes were so tattered, even more worn than those of his household servants.
She was actually a princess's granddaughter, yet because the kidnappers wanted to sell her without paying her parents, she had wailed and kicked, not even crying because she was being sold.
He remembered when he first saw Feng.
He had neither sword nor brush.
He used firewood as a sword, firewood as a brush.
Zi Congheng had been silently observing the drama unfold.
Now he grew even quieter.
He sorted out the relationships in his mind.
Suddenly he realized that the Eldest Princess was his great-aunt, and Mianmian's grandmother.
His father and Uncle Jiang were perhaps actually cousins.
And now he and Mianmian had truly become relatives.
In simple terms, his grandfather and Mianmian's grandmother were siblings.
Those two were probably also cousins.
Zi Congheng felt a bit of regret that his father had passed away early.
If not, he could have stayed to witness this family reunion, which would have been wonderful.
At this moment, he greatly envied Uncle Jiang.
Although he was wailing,
At least he had someone to wail for.
He didn't.
Jiang Changtian was truly weeping bitterly.
Crying uncontrollably.
He wasn't crying for the present.
He was crying for the world Jiang Wan had described.
In his previous life, he might have never found his birth mother until his death.
They had lived such miserable lives, dying so early, so unjustly.
Why, why was it so?
He had a mother, his mother was a princess.
He had a princess for a mother, yet his son, daughter, and young daughter all died in various tragic ways.
They had never lived good lives.
Had never enjoyed life.
Why?
His wife had suffered with him until her death.
Never enjoying a single day of good fortune.
She should have been a princess's daughter-in-law, able to flaunt her status, to compete with the noble ladies of the Capital City in wealth, to compare whose pearl hairpins were larger and rounder, rather than competing over who could dig up more wild vegetables or carry heavier loads...
Jiang Changtian wailed like a wounded, dying beast.
He cried, cursing the heavens for being blind.
He cried.
In his previous life, all the pleasant surprises and good fortune in this world had nothing to do with him.
There was only endless suffering.
Endless torment.
Letting him have a wife and children, learning to love, at the most difficult times.
Then taking them away one by one.
Finally leaving him alone to live in this world.
He cried.
He cried like a child.
Because he had found his mother.
"She said you wanted me dead, she said she adopted me so I could live, Mother, is that true?"
Every sentence
Was like a thousand cuts to Hui Yun's heart.
Making her feel as if she was repeatedly falling ill and regaining consciousness, the pain was so real.
"No, that's not true. They told me you had died. When I gave birth to you, they told me you were gone. I was ill, terribly ill. I shouldn't have let them take you away. It was all Mother's fault." Princess Huiyun still didn't dare to touch the child before her, fearing it was just her hallucination.
When her hand finally touched the child's head, she suddenly fainted.
Then Qin Luoxia, familiar with the situation, carried her aunt-no, mother-in-law to her room.
It was a very large room.
Last time Qin Luoxia came, she thought it was too spacious.
Now it felt just right, filled with a crowd of people, not cramped at all.
Jiang Changtian knew how to take a pulse.
Eldest Princess Huiyun's hand was slender, her pulse normal.
She had just fainted from the shock and emotional turmoil.
Mianmian wasn't very skilled at taking pulses, but she lifted her mother-in-law's eyelids to check and measured her heartbeat. It seemed to be fainting caused by palpitations and emotional distress, though there might be some other issues as well.
Meng Shaoxia huddled in the corner, watching his father-in-law who had just been wailing as if on the brink of death, now calmly taking Eldest Princess Huiyun's pulse. He trembled slightly, feeling he had seen too much.
As Jiang Changtian checked the pulse of the old lady who had fainted, there was a hint of tenderness when he touched her hand, but not much.
He cried for his mother's absence, for his own tragic life, for the injustice of the heavens.
But not for the woman before him.
His mother had become real to him; he would no longer feel an infinite longing for maternal love at the sight of any woman, because such intense emotions had disappeared many years ago.
So at this moment, he appeared almost too calm.
Tear stains were still on his face, yet he was utterly composed.
Everyone in the Jiang family present felt that Father had been through too much.
Meng Shaoxia trembled.
Zi Congheng felt that Uncle Jiang's condition seemed to have worsened a bit.
His previous illness was probably in his digestive system, but now it seemed to have entered his blood and bone marrow.
The illness wouldn't disappear, it had just transferred.
Jiang Changtian sat silently in front of the woman.
As if in a daze.
In reality, he was contemplating the current situation.
He was the son of Eldest Princess Huiyun, so who was Heir Apparent Han? Old Lady Jiang's biological son, why the switch?
What Old Lady Jiang said and what Eldest Princess Huiyun said had discrepancies.
The Prince Consort was aware of the truth, his father probably wasn't the Prince Consort, so who was he?
Whose child was so unwelcome in this world?
He felt no filial affection.
He wasn't kind.
Kindness is what we unkind people bestow upon you.
If we don't bestow it, you can't be kind at all.
He had no right to be kind.
He looked at this old woman.
An ancient temple, a lost path home, half her face scarred, half mad.
If half her life had been lived in deception.
Half her life spent trying to die.
He wondered if such a person could be happy.
It's fine.
Before he found his mother, he had imagined thousands of scenarios.
He had even wondered if his mother might be a brothel courtesan.
Or a servant in some household.
He had imagined many unsavory possibilities.
So he didn't dare to search.
He thought things were fine as they were.
If he was fine, his children would be fine.
He didn't dare to hope for better.
He feared that if he had hope, only to have it taken away, the disappointment would be doubled.
He had suffered enough in the first half of his life, he didn't need any more suffering, he had had enough.
From now on, he just wanted sweetness, sickeningly sweet, he didn't want to taste any bitterness, nor did he want his children to suffer.
But his mother was an Eldest Princess.
The most noble woman in the world.
The dream in others' mouths.
It was her.
He only felt doubled pain, doubled suffering.
It was as if I had originally thought I was just a dog, and you made me eat feces, I would think it was only natural.
But one day you tell me that I'm actually human, a noble human being, that I didn't have to eat feces at all, it's just that my parents lost me, accidentally dropped me among a pack of dogs, making me think I was a dog, and my children were puppies, only fit to eat feces.
That intense emotion wasn't excitement, wasn't gratitude, but a desire to kill.
To kill many people.
He wasn't grateful, at this moment.
All the pleasant surprises and good fortune in this world didn't exist, they could all go to hell.
This year was Jiang Changtian's zodiac year.
He had found his mother.
Eldest Princess Huiyun opened her eyes to see a man in white robes kneeling before her, his eyes red, hands and feet unsure what to do, his body frail, coughing several times in excitement, his face flushed.
Seeing her open her eyes, he exclaimed joyfully: "Mother, you're awake, that's wonderful, I was so afraid, so afraid that just as I found you, you would leave me again, Mother."
Eldest Princess Huiyun reached out and grasped his hand tightly, choking out: "Never, never again, Mother promises, I will never lose you again."
Her son looked so frail, his hands so cold, his constitution clearly ruined. She wanted to go and flay that poisonous woman alive.
On the ground, a chunk of snow that Jiang Changtian had just held slowly melted, soon disappearing without a trace.
