“What? You’re saying Ke’er isn’t my child?”
Hai Yunshu, propping herself up from her deathbed, gasped, “Impossible!”
Beside the bed, Cheng Zifeng looked at her with cold indifference. “Since you fell ill and became bedridden, has Ke’er served you medicine even once?”
No, he hadn’t.
“Has he come to pay his respects even once?”
Neither had he.
Cheng Zifeng sneered, “You hideous woman, even he has grown to loathe you.”
Bai Shishi brushed aside a stray lock of hair and looped her arm around Cheng Zifeng’s, offering a seductive smile. “Sister, Ke’er won’t be coming. I haven’t even had the chance to thank you for raising such a fine son—a Tanhualang—for me.”
“What did you say?”
Bai Shishi covered her cherry-red lips and giggled. “Eighteen years ago, you and I went into labor on the same day. With just a simple trick, the Marquis made my child the legitimate son. He enjoyed the prestige of the entire household and will now inherit the title of Marquis of Dongchang…”
The Leopard-Cat Swapping the Prince.
What a masterful deception.
She had been kept in the dark by this heartless man for all these years.
She had originally been one of the most renowned beauties in Wanping. It was only because of the complications from childbirth and years of medication that her body had become bloated and her face marred with sores.
Ke’er had been sickly since birth, possessed mediocre talent, and was prone to laziness. It was Hai Yunshu who had nurtured him through the sweltering summers and kept him warm through the bitter winters, laboring until he finally achieved success.
When the imperial results were posted a few months ago, Ke’er was personally appointed as the Tanhualang by the Emperor. It was such a high honor that everyone said Hai Yunshu, as his mother, had finally seen her bitterness turn to sweetness.
Yet now, Cheng Zifeng and that wench Bai Shishi were acting intimately before her very bed, flaunting their triumph.
After she had toiled in hardship for over a decade, how could they say Ke’er wasn’t her child?
“Then where is my child? What did you do to him!”
“Sister, you should know what happened to him. Cong’er—didn’t you protect him quite fiercely back then?”
Hai Yunshu’s head felt like it was exploding, and a chill surged from her spine to the crown of her head.
Cong’er was Bai Shishi’s son, or so she thought. He had been well-behaved and lovable since childhood. People in the Marquis’s manor often gossiped that this concubine-born son from the Bai Cang Pavilion was far more intelligent and clever than the Main Wife’s legitimate son.
Hai Yunshu had always assumed that Bai Shishi placed high expectations on him, which was why she disciplined him so strictly.
If Cong’er made even the slightest mistake, Bai Shishi would verbally abuse him and beat him mercilessly every time.
She always claimed a concubine-born son must never overstep his bounds. She forced Cong’er to kneel in the ancestral hall, made him do the dirtiest and most exhausting chores, and fed him nothing but leftovers and slop. Poor Cong’er, at such a young age, didn’t have a single inch of unscarred skin on his body.
Each time, it was Hai Yunshu who sent servants with hot meals, waived his punishments, and applied medicine to his wounds before Bai Shishi would relent.
Until one time, Cong’er accidentally broke a family heirloom jade pendant belonging to Ke’er.
In a fit of rage, Bai Shishi used a thorny vine to beat Cong’er to death!
Since a life had been taken, the matter should have been reported to the authorities.
But the mother-in-law stepped in, claiming the Marquis’s manor was in a period of upheaval and could not afford more trouble.
That was the only reason Bai Shishi’s life had been spared.
Thinking back now, it was a colossal joke.
The entire family had conspired to keep her dancing in the palm of their hands.
She had been sold out, stripped clean by them, and yet she had been the one counting the coins for them!
Hai Yunshu stared at the wretched couple, her eyes nearly bleeding from the strain. “Cheng Zifeng! Cong’er was your own flesh and blood! Even a tiger does not eat its cubs. To torture him like that… you are utterly devoid of conscience!”
Cheng Zifeng shoved her back onto the sickbed, his words striking like a thunderbolt.
“Whose flesh and blood? Hai Yunshu, do you really think I was the one who consummated the marriage with you that night? With your pockmarked face and lack of any feminine charm, I felt disgusted spending even a moment with you. Why would I ever want to touch you?
“That night, you got drunk and dallied with another man. You lost your virtue and your character; you should have been thrown into a Pig-cage Drowning. It was only because you gave up your dowry to help the manor that I didn’t hand you over to the officials.
“Do you think I would raise a child for that wild man? Do you think I would let a bastard become the Heir Apparent of the Dongchang Marquisate?”
Bai Shishi also hid her smile behind her hand. “Sister, you still think you’re the number one beauty of Wanping? Look in a mirror. After drinking that medicine for over a decade, your face will never recover.”
No heirs, the welcoming of a concubine, the swapping of children, the disfigurement, the theft of the title, all these past events…
She feared that even her drunken loss of virtue had been part of their scheme.
Hai Yunshu laughed manically. “Good, very good. One of you has the heart of a wolf, the other the lungs of a dog. You truly are a perfect match made in hell.”
“Are you going to sign this letter of divorce or not!”
“You want me to vacate my position for this wench? In your dreams! Cheng Zifeng, if you dare divorce me, don’t even think about touching a single cent of the Hai family’s money.”
Hai Yunshu came from a merchant family, and there was a reason she had been able to marry into a Marquis’s household.
Years ago, the Marquis of Dongchang had been ordered to manage the imperial estates, but a massive deficit was discovered, and the family’s assets were seized by the Emperor.
It was the Hai family, deceived by the Marquis’s sweet words, who had broken her engagement with the Jiang family so Hai Yunshu could bring a ten-mile-long dowry to settle her husband’s debts and save the household from ruin.
Later, when Cheng Zifeng defected to the enemy on the battlefield, it was Hai Yunshu who spent money lavishly to pull strings and smooth things over, saving the lives of the entire family.
Now that the hunt was over, the hound was being cooked. The Marquisate was now wealthy and influential, and the children had bright futures. Who would remember her past sacrifices?
“Cheng Zifeng, you and this wench treat me with such contempt. Do you really think there is no one left in my Hai family?”
He replied with a soul-crushing blow: “You don’t know yet, do you? My dear father-in-law has already been sentenced to beheading and his estate confiscated by the new Emperor.
“All thirty-two members of the family—not a single one spared. Their vast wealth has been turned over to the state.”
Cheng Zifeng’s ugly nature was fully revealed now, completely forgetting how he once begged for mercy at the Hai family’s feet like a dog.
Overnight, Hai Yunshu had lost her child, her parents, and her brothers.
Years of sacrifice had been met with a thin letter of divorce by her sickbed and the bloody heads of her kin at the execution grounds!
How could she not hate?
Anguish stifled her chest; a mouthful of blood sprayed out, and Hai Yunshu collapsed into unconsciousness.
Cheng Zifeng, filled with utter loathing, commanded, “Someone, throw this treacherous woman into the mass grave.”
It was midwinter, and heavy snow blocked the mountains.
Hai Yunshu was rolled into a tattered straw mat and dumped in the mass grave outside the city.
In her fading vision, Hai Yunshu seemed to see those two doubled over with laughter, saying, “See that? That mound of dirt is your precious son.”
The small grave was overgrown with weeds, standing lonely in the cold.
A weathered, dilapidated stone tablet stood there, with the blurred inscription—Grave of Beloved Son, Cheng Cong.
So, this was where her biological flesh and blood was buried!
A thousand arrows through the heart could not compare to this pain.
Using every ounce of her strength, Hai Yunshu dragged her broken limbs, inch by inch, toward the tombstone.
She had been forced to drink a potion by Bai Shishi that rendered her mute. She couldn’t speak clearly and could only choke out word by word: “Cong’er… Mother… is late…”
Her trembling hand reached toward the tombstone, but at the very moment of contact, her breath finally ceased.