Transmigrated Genius: Fragile Heiress Reigns Supreme-Chapter 726 - 727: Bygone Days (5)
Everything seemed to return to the beginning, the tone was brisk, the Marquis led his troops in a direct assault into Qujing...
After this, the Grand Dowager discovered she was pregnant. The Marquis was very pleased, but the Grand Dowager’s words betrayed no joy. She secretly did many things, yet the medical conditions with the army were extremely poor back then, and even when she was four months pregnant, she went to the battlefield alone on horseback.
Such disregard for her own body?
Xiqiu was puzzled in her heart, there was a long period of blank time in between, with a passage recording the Marquis and the Grand Dowager watching the snowy mountain scene amidst falling snow.
In April of the following year, the Grand Dowager gave birth, and in between, a page was torn in half, making it impossible to see clearly...
The Grand Dowager stood by the river, looking at Xiao Yanyi, Xiao Yancheng, Fourth Master Xiao, with a face full of unbearable pain, as if suddenly becoming an old woman with hair turned silver. Xiao Yanyi looked pained and wanted to go forward to support the Grand Dowager, but she waved her hand: "Let me speak, perhaps I won’t get another chance."
Xiao Yanyi and Fourth Master Xiao exchanged a glance, then looked towards Xiao Yancheng.
"Back then, the Marquis disappeared for a year. General Chen and I almost searched the whole of Miaojiang but couldn’t find him. Then one day in the second year, I heard rumors that in the jungles of Wu Luo, someone saw a man whose stature and figure very much resembled the Marquis, so I rode there alone... right here..." The Grand Dowager started crying, choking up in despair: "I’ll always remember that day, June 12!"
As a mother, telling her sons such an embarrassing story can foresee how the Grand Dowager must have felt.
However, none of her three sons were surprised; only Xiao Yanyi and Fourth Master Xiao showed concern in their eyes. Xiao Yanyi urged: "Mother, please don’t say any more, we beg you."
"It’s alright, I’m old now, and as many years have passed since these events, I’ve grown numb from the pain." With a pause, she looked into the forest: "Later, when the Marquis returned, he told me that he had been injured and was rescued by a Miaojiang farmer. He had been comatose for half a year, and after waking, he kept searching for us... I believed him at the time."
"Soon after your father returned, not long after, I found out I was pregnant." She looked at Fourth Master Xiao: "Do you know how I felt? In that kind of environment, with only a male military doctor accompanying the troops, and such a thing happening, I couldn’t be sure if the child I was carrying was your father’s... So I tried many methods." Shaking her head: "But Fourth Master’s fate has always been tough, no matter how I tossed and turned, he stayed solidly in my belly, growing day by day."
Fourth Master Xiao’s gaze paused, recalling the words he said to the Grand Dowager the day he ran away from home: "You know in your heart whose child I am!" Saying this, he left, not even looking at the Grand Dowager’s expression.
Young and reckless, how could he control it knowing the truth.
The Grand Dowager paused, gradually drifting into memories of the day she gave birth.
"Marquis, the lady is hemorrhaging!" The only military doctor knelt before the Marquis, covered in blood.
The Marquis’ body froze for a moment, eyes closing painfully. The military doctor continued: "My skills are poor, if we cannot summon another doctor, I’m afraid the lady and child..." both will be hard to save.
There was a moment of silence, the Marquis tightly clenched his fist, and without a word, he mounted his horse. High on horseback, he looked at the military doctor: "Hold on for an hour, wait for my return, or keep your head here until then!" As soon as he finished speaking, the stallion neighed and disappeared into the forest.
The Marquis kept his word, returning in exactly an hour. As she lay hazy in bed, she saw a woman in a bright red dress tied with a green belt, adorned with small braids entering the military tent. She was beautiful, stunningly fiery...
After that, she remembered nothing, only waking up next to Fourth Master Xiao. She almost thought it would be better if he had died or if they both had perished like this. She hardly wanted to look at Fourth Master Xiao. Just then, as if sensing something, Fourth Master Xiao cried, and she listened to his prolonged cries with her eyes closed, yet did nothing.
Until the Marquis came in, delightedly holding the child beside her, he said: "Li Ying, this child looks just like me!"
She paused, eagerly looking at the baby in the swaddle... the baby’s bright eyes resembled the Marquis’ very much, just like his eldest brother years ago. The Marquis asked: "What name should we give him?"
She sighed in relief, turned over casually replying: "In such dire times, who has the mind to think of names? He is ranked third, call him Third Master." The Marquis said nothing for a long time, and as she thought the name was too perfunctory and made him upset, after pondering for a while, the Marquis said: "Let’s follow your suggestion, you both endured such suffering!" With a pause, he added: "But, he should be called Fourth Master, he... ranks fourth!"
She froze, turned to look at the Marquis. He was also looking at her, full of guilt in his eyes.
Later she realized that the year the Marquis went missing, he had met a woman from Miaojiang, the very woman who helped her with childbirth that day, named Naduo... She had a child with the Marquis.
"How could you be so foolish? If you wanted to take a concubine, I would never stand in your way, but she’s a woman from Miaojiang. If you bring such a woman back, what would the Emperor think? We have endured so much hardship, and in the end, would all our efforts go to waste because of a woman, leaving us accused of treason?"
"Li Ying." The Old Marquis was in agony: "I..." He hesitated, and later she realized the Marquis had been put under a love poison by Naduo.
"The child can stay." She glared angrily at the Marquis and Naduo: "She must leave; we cannot afford such a risk."
Naduo looked at her innocently, holding the child, tears brimming: "No, the child is mine. I won’t give him up. You can forget it!" Then she walked up to the Marquis: "Marquis, you cannot leave, I want you to stay with us mother and child forever!"
She was almost in a rage but did not act immediately. Instead, she turned and had Naduo and her child detained. During the past two years, she had come to know a local Miao Doctor and invited him to extract the poison from the Marquis, which was successfully removed.
Fearing Naduo might escape, she confined her within the military camp. Naduo, having had her vital blood taken, was like a withered flower, wilting day by day, lying on the bed barely clinging to life.
To put the Marquis at ease, she kept Xiao Yancheng by her side. As she was a woman in the military camp, ordinarily, there was avoidable caution, and since the matter involved the Marquis, no one questioned the presence of an extra child in the camp. She thought the matter ended there, but didn’t expect Naduo to not only summon Gu worms but also command venomous snakes.
Fourth Master Xiao was bitten, near death. She held him and sat at the entrance of the military camp, her heart a mix of complex emotions, hoping for his death as she was unsure if he was the Marquis’s child, yet wishing for his survival because he was her flesh and blood.
On that same day, she learned from Naduo’s mouth that the assault on her in Wu Luo’s jungle was completely orchestrated by Naduo... Naduo told her those men were mere dogs raised in the village, slaves not worthy to procreate.
Despite having confirmed that Fourth Master Xiao was indeed the Marquis’s biological child, she couldn’t stop thinking about the humiliation of that day, overwhelmed with fury, wanting nothing more than to kill Naduo immediately. But Fourth Master Xiao’s small face was already turning blue and purple, nearly devoid of life.
At this point, seeking the Miao Doctor was no longer an option. She looked at Naduo and made the most foolish decision of her life, striking a deal with her.
She would help save Fourth Master Xiao, in exchange, she would recognize Xiao Yancheng as her own and rank him as the third in the Marquis Mansion.
She even agreed to let the Marquis see Naduo one last time.
Fourth Master Xiao’s poison was cleared, and the Marquis went to see Naduo. The three of them stayed in the military camp overnight. The Grand Dowager didn’t know what happened, she only knew Fourth Master Xiao was confirmed to be the Marquis’s child...
Later she learned that on that night, Naduo had used various poisons on Xiao Yancheng and the Marquis, ensuring that as long as Xiao Yancheng died, the Marquis could not survive!
After discovering this, she used a knife to force Naduo to lift the poison from the Marquis and Xiao Yancheng. However, Naduo attempted to bite her tongue and end her life, saying: "The Marquis is mine, no one can take him away, wanting me to lift the poison is a life-long fantasy!"
Enraged beyond measure, she went mad, swinging the knife up and down, up and down... When she finally came to her senses, Naduo’s once beautiful face was now a bloody mess, her arms and legs’ tendons completely severed by her...
No regrets filled her as she squinted her eyes at the horrifically disfigured Naduo, saying: "Then wait, wait and see your son call me mother, yet unaware of you as his birth mother, wait and see my eternal love with the Marquis!"
She imprisoned Naduo in a recaptured village in Miaojiang, telling people to "take good care" of her... Unexpectedly, Naduo managed to survive for twenty years in such an environment!
The Grand Dowager’s thoughts returned from twenty-six years ago, looking at Xiao Yancheng and Fourth Master Xiao, her smile helpless and desolate: "So, your father has been innocent from beginning to end; you should not hate him!"
"Impossible, all you’re saying are lies!" Xiao Yancheng said in shock and anger: "He’s nothing but a coward, afraid of death, you don’t need to defend him!"
Why is what he knows so different from what the Grand Dowager says?
