Seeing that Ye Jinmo was about to slit Maidservant Lin’s throat with his sword, Ye Changlin hurriedly intervened: “Mo’er, stop!”
“Today is the day of your triumphant return, a momentous occasion. There must be no bloodshed.”
Ye Changlin’s eyes narrowed as he looked at Maidservant Lin.
Lady Chen was right. Over these years, he had been consumed by official duties and rarely returned to the estate. It was Lady Chen who kept the affairs of the household in perfect, meticulous order.
Moreover, Lady Chen hailed from a family of scholars; she surely wouldn’t commit such atrocious and malicious deeds.
Ye Changlin asked in a deep voice, “Who exactly sent you here?”
“Whose spy are you?”
“Why are you sowing discord?”
Ye Chuchu rolled her eyes internally: [Zhazha, are you sure this is my biological father?]
[Lady Chen has already tormented me nearly to death. Now, I stand right before him completely mute, covered in injuries, yet he actually doesn’t believe what the maidservant said.]
[A spy? What utter rubbish!]
Zhazha: [Little Chuchu, this piece of rubbish is indeed your biological father—genuine and certified.]
Ye Chuchu: [Fine, then this father of mine definitely has an incomplete cerebrum and a completely underdeveloped cerebellum.]
[Is there any possibility of saving him?]
Zhazha: [Judging by this level of stupidity, he’s probably beyond saving.]
Ye Chuchu: [Alright then. Living under the same roof with this piece of work in the future is bound to be exhausting.]
Zhazha: [Who says it isn’t? Little Chuchu is so pitiful!]
Being labeled as a “piece of rubbish” and “piece of work,” Ye Changlin blew his mustache and flared his eyes, glaring furiously at Ye Chuchu. Just as he was about to bark a fierce reprimand, another wave of suffocation struck him, as though a ghostly claw had gripped his neck.
Ye Changlin immediately abandoned the notion of questioning Ye Chuchu, and the suffocating sensation vanished at once.
By now, Ye Changlin understood perfectly: his third daughter’s inner thoughts could be heard, but never questioned!
The corners of Ye Jinmo’s lips hooked up in a faint smile.
His little sister made an excellent point. His father’s brain was indeed dysfunctional; he truly couldn’t fathom how the man had managed to pass the imperial examination as the top scorer back then.
Ye Chuchu blinked her eyes, meeting Ye Changlin’s bristling mustache and glaring stare, feeling entirely bewildered.
[Zhazha, why is this brain-afflicted father of mine glaring at me like that?]
[Could it be that his eyes are diseased too?]
Zhazha: [The files show that your father, as the Minister of Rites, is typically a workaholic who overuses his eyes. Five years from now, your father’s vision will leave him practically half-blind.]
Ye Chuchu nodded to herself: [Understood. So his eyes are failing him.]
[If he goes blind, then so be it. His heart is already blind anyway.]
Ye Changlin: “…”
What an unfilial daughter!
Ye Jinmo: Little sister is absolutely right. Serves him right to go blind!
Looking at Maidservant Lin who was slumped limply on the ground, Ye Jinmo sheathed his blade and let out a cold laugh.
His little sister’s inner thoughts had revealed that Ye Jinxing’s first time had been defiled by this old bag. Leaving her alive and delivering this old crone as a gift to Ye Jinxing later on would count as doing a magnificent deed.
Ye Jinmo raised his hand: “Men, drag this maidservant down and lock her up.”
Two guards stepped forward and dragged the wailing, screaming Maidservant Lin away.
Suddenly, Zhazha said excitedly: [Little Chuchu, there’s gossip! There’s gossip! Massive gossip! Do you want to eat it?]
Ye Chuchu: [Is it massive gossip about Lady Chen?]
Zhazha: [You bet!]
Ye Chuchu: [Was the gossip you wanted to share earlier also about Lady Chen?]
Zhazha: [Yes, yes! That one earlier was just minor gossip, this one right now is the massive scoop.]
Ye Chuchu instantly rallied every ounce of her attention: [Then tell me both the massive scoop and the minor gossip.]
Zhazha: [Then I’ll start with the massive scoop.]
[Back then, when your father passed the imperial examination as the top scorer, he wanted to bring your mother and you three siblings to the capital to enjoy a life of wealth.]
[But what your father didn’t know was that his fine skin and handsome looks had caught Lady Chen’s eye at first glance, plunging her into a deep, unrequited lovesickness.]
[Once Lady Chen realized she had fallen hopelessly and irrevocably in love with your father, she decided to go all the way. She sent people to your old hometown to set a massive fire.]
[Originally, your mother had a chance to escape, but Lady Chen had given a strict order to kill. The arsonist hid in the shadows, struck your mother with a heavy club, and left her head battered and bleeding profusely.]
[Your mother saw that the man still held a knife. She knew that if she let him leave, you three siblings would surely perish beneath his blade.]
[Unable to stand back up, your mother could only tightly clamp her arms around the man’s legs.]
[Even after being stabbed over a dozen times by that man, your mother never let go.]
[In the end, that man was burned alive right alongside your mother.]
[What a monumental, magnificent maternal love!]
Ye Chuchu’s eyes turned red: [This absolute wretched Lady Chen is actually the murderer who killed my mother.]
Zhazha: [That’s not even the end of it.]
[After your father learned that your mother had perished in the fire, he was utterly heartbroken and swore never to take another wife.]
[Lady Chen dressed herself up beautifully on numerous occasions to present herself before your father, but your father wouldn’t give her so much as a single glance.]
[Enraged, Lady Chen decided to stop at nothing once more and laid a trap. At the banquet that year, it wasn’t that your father got drunk and crawled into Lady Chen’s bed; rather, Lady Chen had drugged your father’s wine.]
[Your father is fundamentally an honest, dutiful man. In the end, he had no choice but to brace himself and marry Lady Chen into the household.]
[Your father genuinely holds your mother in his heart!]
[After marrying Lady Chen, he almost never stepped foot into her bedchamber.]
Ye Chuchu nodded along: [And then? What happened next?]
Zhazha let out a low giggle: [Then comes the minor gossip that Zhazha wanted to share just now.]
[Unable to endure the loneliness, Lady Chen started keeping male escorts.]
[Any male escort she takes a fancy to, she buys out their contract and has them cross-dress as maids to serve in her courtyard.]
Ye Chuchu turned her eyes in sheer shock toward the two maids currently kneeling on the ground beside Lady Chen.
Ye Chuchu: [They’re men? Oh my god, she plays way too wild!]
[My father’s head is a vast, endless green pasture of cuckoldry.]
Zhazha giggled again: [Exactly!]
[Just last night, this wicked stepmother of yours spent the spring night with four male escorts. The rolling of clouds and raining of rain was quite something…]
Ye Chuchu’s eyes gleamed brightly: [I really want to see it!]
[I want to let my father see it too.]
[Hehe!]
“You slut!”
Ye Changlin, who was clenching his fists tightly, raised his foot and kicked Lady Chen square in the chest.
“Venomous as a viper, a woman of easy virtue, scandalous, completely shameless!”
Ye Changlin was trembling from head to toe with pure rage.
Never could he have imagined that his first wife did not die in an accidental fire, but had perished at the hands of this venomous woman standing right before his eyes.
He had actually kept his wife’s killer by his side, living as husband and wife for all these years.
He had failed the spirit of the children’s mother in heaven!
Kicked squarely by Ye Changlin, Lady Chen’s face turned pale from the impact, and she was left entirely bewildered.
In all their years of marriage, Ye Changlin had never so much as raised his voice to her, let alone laid a hand on her.
From Ye Changlin’s words just now, Lady Chen had already detected an ominous shift.
She had assumed Ye Changlin would conclude that Maidservant Lin was surely a spy planted by some outsider to sow discord between her, Ye Chuchu, and Ye Jinmo.
Ye Changlin hadn’t even followed that line of questioning. How had his face transformed so abruptly to kick her?
He had even used such vicious words to revile her.
“Master!”
Lady Chen scrambled up, her face a picture of agonizing heartbreak, her eyes brimming with tears as she looked at Ye Changlin.
“Just what has this concubine done to make Master react with such fury and humiliate this concubine so?”
Ye Changlin snorted coldly, his mustache practically curling upward with rage.
“Men! Drag everyone from Madam’s quarters down. Let us see just what kind of fiends and monsters they truly are!”
Hearing this, Lady Chen’s face turned as white as paper!
Could it be that Ye Changlin had found out?
Impossible!
For so many years, he had never discovered a thing.