Lin Yingxue quickly searched her memory.
The “Xue’er” Jiang Baozhen spoke of had to be her biological daughter, the male lead’s twin sister, Chen Ruixue.
Chen Ruixue rarely appeared in the book, and since Lin Yingxue had skimmed through it, her impression of the character was extremely vague.
Whether the Chen Family’s youngest daughter had wandered off or been abducted as a child, she couldn’t quite remember.
Lin Yingxue took a deep breath.
It seemed the shock of dividing the land had been too much for Jiang Baozhen, causing her to wake up from her faint and mistake Lin Yingxue for her missing daughter.
“Xue’er…”
Jiang Baozhen struggled to get out of bed and pulled Lin Yingxue into her arms.
Hearing their mother mention their little sister, Chen Gensheng and Chen Tiansheng exchanged a glance, their eyes turning red.
The youngest daughter, Chen Ruixue, was an unhealable scar for the Chen Family.
Jiang Baozhen and Chen Huaiyuan had three sons in a row.
They longed for a daughter day and night, and when they finally had one, they cherished her as the apple of their eye.
She was born during an auspicious snowfall, so they named her Chen Ruixue.
During the Lantern Festival when Chen Ruixue was three years old, Jiang Baozhen and Chen Huaiyuan took the children to the county town to see the lanterns.
The streets were packed with people.
In the brief moment Jiang Baozhen turned around to buy her daughter a candied hawthorn stick, Ruixue vanished.
The entire family searched the county town like mad, but they found absolutely no trace of her.
Jiang Baozhen fell severely ill, nearly losing her life.
In the years before the war, during the farming off-season, Jiang Baozhen would travel far and wide every year to ask about her daughter’s whereabouts.
But after all these years, there was still no news.
In the Chen Family, the name Chen Ruixue was an unspoken pain.
In Jiangya Village, if anyone dared to say that Ruixue would never be found or that she was dead, Jiang Baozhen would lunge at them and fight for her life.
The family still kept Ruixue’s lanugo hair, her tiny clothes, and her worn-out rattle.
When the flames of war reached Jiangya Village and the whole village fled into the mountains, Jiang Baozhen chose to carry fewer rations just so she could keep Ruixue’s old belongings close to her.
While taking refuge in the mountains, whenever they encountered refugees from other places, Jiang Baozhen would always rush forward to ask about Chen Ruixue’s whereabouts.
She would ask over and over, “Have you seen a little girl with big eyes, snow-white skin, and a small red mole behind her ear?”
She often muttered to Chen Huaiyuan and her sons, “As long as I draw breath, I will wait for Ruixue.
Once peace returns to the world, I’m going out to look for her again.
Ruixue must be somewhere, waiting for us to bring her home.”
Once, when she was deathly ill in the mountains, she forced herself to stay awake and made her sons kneel before her to swear that they would never give up looking for Ruixue, no matter what.
If they died, their sons would continue the search; when their sons grew old, their grandsons would keep looking.
Even if Ruixue reached an age where she would no longer be of this world, they had to find out what happened to her.
Otherwise, she would not rest in peace.
“Xue’er…
Xue’er, you’re back…”
Jiang Baozhen reached out with trembling hands to brush aside the hair at Lin Yingxue’s temples, desperately searching for the red mole from her memory.
Lin Yingxue took two steps back to avoid her.
“Baozhen, she isn’t our daughter!” Chen Huaiyuan’s heart pounded wildly as he forcefully squeezed between the two, trying to pull Jiang Baozhen away.
“Get away from me!” Like a lioness protecting her cub, Jiang Baozhen shoved Chen Huaiyuan so hard he stumbled.
“Mother, you’ve mistaken her for someone else,” Chen Gensheng said, unable to watch any longer.
He stepped forward to intervene.
“She’s Lin Yingxue, not our little sister.”
In his heart, Lin Yingxue was nothing more than a rootless child bride.
How could she possibly be compared to his sister?
“She is Xue’er…
She is my Xue’er…” Jiang Baozhen was highly agitated.
Before she could even finish her sentence, her body swayed, and she fainted once again.
Lin Yingxue was speechless.
Chen Huaiyuan quickly directed his sons to carry Jiang Baozhen back to the bed.
He took a deep breath, forcing down the panic in his chest.
After so many years, there was absolutely no way Jiang Baozhen could have discovered Lin Yingxue’s true identity.
It had to be a hallucination brought on by a series of shocks that made her mistake Lin Yingxue for Chen Ruixue.
Lin Yingxue glanced down at the silver and the box that had rolled onto the floor, only to find that Liu Yinhua had already picked them up and stuffed them under Jiang Baozhen’s quilt, likely assuming Jiang Baozhen had dropped them by accident.
Lin Yingxue sighed.
Such a perfect opportunity, gone just like that!
She knew very well that it was absolutely impossible for her to be Jiang Baozhen’s daughter.
If the original owner of this body had truly been the Chen Family’s flesh and blood, why wouldn’t the original book mention a single word about it?
Chen Ruixue…
She silently chanted the name, her mind working quickly.
If there was anyone in the Chen Family who held more weight in Jiang Baozhen’s heart than Chen Huaiyuan and Chen Tianhao, it was probably only that young, lost daughter, Chen Ruixue.
Since Jiang Baozhen was delirious and had mistaken her for Ruixue, why shouldn’t she just play along?
She could use the name “Chen Ruixue” to placate Jiang Baozhen for now.
Once she got her hands on the silver, she could find an excuse to leave the Chen Family.
This idea wasn’t entirely far-fetched.
In the original book, there was a minor, troublemaking female supporting character—a niece of Chen Huaiyuan’s.
Unwelcome in her own home, she constantly cozied up to Jiang Baozhen under the guise of “showing filial piety to Jiang Baozhen on behalf of cousin Ruixue.” This always made Jiang Baozhen shed tears and soften her heart, allowing the niece to freeload at the Chen Family’s home.
At one point, she even managed to squeeze Chen Tianhao out of his own space.
Since someone else had already proven this method viable, Lin Yingxue was fairly confident she could temporarily stabilize Jiang Baozhen and buy herself some breathing room.
But little did she know, this Jiang Baozhen was no longer the same Jiang Baozhen.
Jiang Baozhen had been reborn.
Her earlier fainting spell hadn’t been from an illness.
Instead, amidst overwhelming regret and shock, she had been forced to endure the collision of memories from her past and present lives.
The agonizing headache had made it impossible for her to stand.
Now that she had returned through rebirth, the truths Jiang Baozhen had learned right before her death in her previous life pierced her heart one by one, like poisoned needles.
She wanted nothing more than to slice Chen Huaiyuan into a thousand pieces right then and there!
As it turned out, the youngest son she had loved dearly for half her life, Chen Tianhao, was actually the spawn of Chen Huaiyuan’s first love.
Meanwhile, Lin Yingxue—the child bride she had abused and never shown a shred of kindness to—was her biological daughter, Chen Ruixue, who had been missing for so many years.
What chilled her to the bone was that her youngest daughter hadn’t just wandered off all those years ago.
She had been deliberately abandoned by Chen Huaiyuan’s own hands!
“Jiang Baozhen, let me tell you the truth.
I threw Ruixue away with my own hands.
You knew full well that I was in love with Sang Rou, yet you refused to break off our engagement.
Marrying you was the biggest regret of my life, and I endured disgust every single day we lived together.
That’s why I abandoned Ruixue—to torture you.
Besides, if Ruixue were still around, you wouldn’t have poured your heart and soul into raising Tianhao.
“Do you want to know who the daughter you constantly pine for is?
It’s Lin Yingxue.
During the war, I found her among the refugees.
I purposely brought her home to be Tianhao’s child bride.
Your daughter is only fit to slave away for Tianhao.
Every time I saw you mistreating your own flesh and blood, it brought me joy.
You kept talking about how much you missed your daughter, yet you failed to recognize her.
You have no one to blame but yourself for being so blind.”
On her deathbed in her previous life, Chen Huaiyuan had personally revealed her daughter’s whereabouts to her.
Even a vicious tiger would not eat its own cubs, but Chen Huaiyuan was worse than a beast.
“Jiang Baozhen, I have hated you to the core in this life!
I have hated the Jiang Family!
If your father hadn’t used that debt of gratitude to force my hand, tearing me away from Sang Rou, why would I have ever married you?
The Jiang Family owes me, and you owe Haotian.”
Right before she drew her last breath, Chen Huaiyuan’s whispers in her ear had sounded like a curse from hell, and they still echoed in her mind now.
Using the very last ounce of her strength, Jiang Baozhen had pulled the hairpin from her head and blinded Chen Huaiyuan.
Jiang Baozhen closed her eyes, her teeth chattering as she clenched her jaw.
She wondered why she had been so blind in her past life.
Why hadn’t she seen through this man’s true colors?
Chen Huaiyuan kept claiming her father had used a debt of gratitude to coerce him, but the man’s conscience had been fed to the dogs!