The entrance was not a place for conversation, so Wei Qingyan was led into the Du residence’s reception hall.
Suppressing his doubts and shock, Du Xueyi regained his composure and took his seat at the head of the room. His gaze swept indifferently over Wei Qingyan. “You claim to be my sister, but what proof do you have?”
Wei Qingyan calmly settled into a chair herself. Glancing at the servants standing nearby, she remained silent.
After a moment of stalemate, Du Xueyi dismissed the servants. “You may speak now.”
His sister was already dead, and this person’s impersonation of her made him wary.
Wei Qingyan replied calmly, “None.”
No proof, because she was not a member of the Du family to begin with.
“You have quite the audacity to deceive me, a marquis. Aren’t you afraid I’ll send you to the authorities?” Du Xueyi’s expression darkened immediately.
This woman’s boldness suggested she had significant ulterior motives.
“The one truly deceiving you is someone else,” Wei Qingyan said, lifting her eyelids slightly. “My name is Chang Qingnian. I came here for the late Marchioness Fang. You are a busy man, Marquis, and without this pretext, I feared I wouldn’t be able to meet you.”
Without her Gongdeyin now, her vitality could be cut off at any moment. She didn’t have time to waste.
Lady Fang?
Du Xueyi frowned slightly.
Lady Fang was his first wife, married to him by their elders’ arrangement.
Two months after their wedding, he followed General Wei to battle against Wudan. The war lasted two years until Wudan surrendered. He was stationed at the Wudan border until six months ago, when his father fell ill and passed away, prompting his return to the capital to inherit the marquisate.
Lady Fang had been having an affair for years. Upon hearing of his return to the capital and fearing her infidelity would be exposed, she absconded with her dowry and her lover.
When his grandmother discovered this, she ordered the steward to search for them. By then, her lover had already vanished with her wealth.
Lady Fang was brought back to the marquis’ residence. Heartbroken by the betrayal and too ashamed to live, she hanged herself with a white silk cord.
To preserve the marquisate’s reputation, his grandmother announced publicly that Lady Fang had died of illness. As for the dowry, it was impossible to report it to the authorities for recovery.
By the time he returned home, she had already been buried, so he did not pursue the matter further.
No man wanted to speak of a wife who had done such a thing.
Especially since his mind was preoccupied with what the woman had said earlier, he asked, “You said you came from Yulan Mountain in Ling County?”
His sister had fallen into disrepute and loved magnolias. When he found her, she was already terminally ill, beyond the reach of medicine. Her dying wish was to be buried in a place filled with magnolias, so she could be reborn as a pure person.
General Wei owned a magnolia-covered hill in Ling County. Upon learning of this, he allowed Du Xueyi to bury his sister there.
He had never told anyone in his family about this—only he and the general knew. Yet this person before him was aware of it.
Du Xueyi narrowed his eyes slightly.
Wei Qingyan shook her head gently. “I will explain that later. Let’s discuss Lady Fang first.”
Her tone was gentle, but there was a stern, unyielding authority in her expression.
Du Xueyi instinctively complied, then caught himself. He was the Marquis of Anyuan, yet he was being controlled by a woman of unknown origins. His tone grew impatient. “Lady Fang has been buried for six months. What else could there be to discuss?”
“Lady Fang was wronged. After death, she became a Guiyuan, lingering over the Anyuan Marquisate, unwilling to leave.” Wei Qingyan’s dark, serene eyes fixed on Du Xueyi. “I came to clear her name so she can enter the Lunhui.”
“Preposterous!” Du Xueyi rebuked. “We do not speak of supernatural forces and chaos. What is your true purpose in coming to my residence today?”
As a military man who had killed countless enemies, he believed death extinguished life like a lamp. What Guiyuan could there be?
Moreover, what grievance could someone who committed suicide out of shame after being caught in an affair possibly have?
If not for the thought that she had endured years of loneliness in an empty house during his long absence, he would have dug up her corpse and whipped it.
“Then can you explain why three people in the mansion have died and two have fallen ill? Why do the ancestral tablets in the shrine fall to the ground every night, and why do servants in the mansion sometimes go mad at night?”
Du Xueyi was momentarily stunned, then flew into a rage. “Did you do all this? Who exactly are you?”
He had returned to the capital with many guards, yet someone had silently caused so much trouble in his mansion without him being able to uncover anything.
The servants whispered among themselves that the mansion was haunted, and some of the more timid ones even considered leaving.
His grandmother and her old maidservant had inexplicably fallen unconscious, and no physician could determine the cause.
But how could there be ghosts in this world?
If there truly were, he would have wished to see the general again, to see his fallen brothers once more.
Rather than believing in ghosts and spirits, he was more inclined to think it was the work of humans.
Seeing his still skeptical expression, Wei Qingyan was not surprised.
Before meeting the Fat Monk, she too had not believed in such things, and those she had brought up naturally followed her lead.
But what needed to be said still had to be said. “You listened with bias and believed without question, convinced that Lady Fang was unfaithful. After returning home, you never visited her grave to pay respects, nor did you verify the authenticity of the so-called witnesses and testimonies. This is one reason for Lady Fang’s lingering resentment.
After just two months of marriage, you left for over four years. Lady Fang endured her pregnancy alone, gave birth to your daughter, and raised her as a precious treasure, yet you showed no care or concern for the child. This is the second reason for her resentment.”
Her voice grew low, and she lightly tapped the table with her fingers, speaking coldly, “If resentment remains unresolved, over time it can transform into a demon, bringing calamity to the world. Now, disaster has befallen your Du family.”
These words sounded exactly like those of a wandering charlatan who came to swindle money. Du Xueyi inwardly scoffed, dismissing it as utter nonsense.
But the child was innocent.
Even if the child was not his, even if her existence constantly reminded him of Lady Fang’s betrayal, he was unwilling to explain the child’s origins to an outsider.
He slammed the table forcefully and said sternly, “Enough of your deceitful tricks. This marquis will give you one last chance—who exactly are you, and how do you know about Yulan Mountain in Ling County?”
This threat did not frighten Wei Qingyan in the slightest.
Instead, it made her shake her head helplessly as she slowly rose and walked over to him. “All these years, you’ve grown in stature but not in brains.”
With that, she lightly drew her right index finger across the hairpin in her hair, and a drop of blood seeped from her fingertip.
Wei Qingyan focused her mind and quickly drew something on Du Xueyi’s forehead.
Du Xueyi felt that the woman’s tone just now was strangely familiar, almost… almost like the way the general used to scold him.
It was in this moment of distraction that his shoulder was pressed down, leaving him unable to move.
His heart shook violently—this person was highly skilled. What exactly was her background?
But soon, he had no time to think of anything else, because he saw Lady Fang.
She was pinned beneath a burly old woman, while a maid with a vicious expression choked her neck until she stopped breathing. Then they hung Lady Fang from the rafters.
Lady Fang died with her eyes wide open.
Through her widened pupils, he saw another scene: a small child huddled at the foot of the bed, while the usually meek-looking wet nurse sat with her legs crossed, cracking melon seeds and wielding a whip, viciously lashing the child. The child covered her mouth, not daring to cry out loud…
These scenes were too vivid, so vivid that Du Xueyi’s heart nearly leapt out of his throat.
“What have you done to me? What kind of trick is this?”
His voice remained furious, but the earlier conviction was gone.
Wei Qingyan lifted her gaze, her eyes deep and unfathomable. “Those who die unjustly, unwilling to accept their fate, carry the images of their final moments and the people or matters they cannot let go of, lingering in their consciousness, cycling endlessly, never fading.
The child is in the estate. Whether it’s true or false, you can see for yourself.”
Du Xueyi felt as though his head were about to explode. The three who had died inexplicably in the estate were precisely the three he had just witnessed plotting against Lady Fang and abusing the child.
A suffocating and oppressive feeling gripped his chest. His face was filled with disbelief. “Lady Fang didn’t take her own life?”
How could that be?
Wei Qingyan remained silent, simply watching him quietly.
Du Xueyi abruptly stood up and strode toward the door.