12dz Chapter 124 Betrayal
Chapter 124 Betrayal
Even if a prominent family is internally corrupt, it will still cover it up with gorgeous brocade and never allow the slightest ugliness to be exposed.
No one pays attention to its inner filth; everyone recites the rites of propriety, righteousness, integrity, and shame, using the most hypocritical words to decorate their facade.
For aristocratic families, dignity is more important than the life of any member of the family.
I am unwilling to become like my mother, who, despite being mired in a quagmire, numbed herself with her noble bloodline and became a tool to protect the interests of her family.
However, I am powerless to resist the mission my family has given me.
Did you know that if a person cannot obtain what they most desire, the overwhelming desires will, like a raging torrent, easily devour all their innocence and purity?
When one has the power to control the fate of others, indulgence becomes an easy thing to do.
When a group of such people stand at the top of a country, it's hard to imagine that for them, the pleasure they get is no longer simple food and enjoyment, but rather the fleeting thrill of manipulating others.
I'm not trying to defend myself; in this environment, I'm both the fish on the chopping block and the butcher on the knife.
At least I have never regretted that night when I let myself fall into an abyss.
I still remember the day he wiped away my tears; his hand was so hot that I trembled like a helpless child.
We lingered under the moon, the moonlight like water, the spring rain pattering softly, and I was lost in the vast expanse of misty waves, living a life of blissful oblivion.
The first time I experienced true joy in life, it was not from my husband in name only.
After returning to the Han Prince's Mansion, the days I looked forward to most each month were the first and fifteenth of the lunar month when I went to the temple to light eternal lamps for my mother.
Looking back now, it's really laughable. My change was so obvious that anyone could see through it at a glance.
Only I naively thought that I had concealed the truth perfectly at the time.
If one has never experienced gentle breezes and light rain, then perhaps the violent storms and downpours would not be so unbearable.
The King of Han was no different from that group of people; he was just one of the masses, yet he thought himself so special.
I was terrified of him. He not only shattered my hopes for genuine affection, but also cruelly showed me the ruthless and violent side of men.
I once thought that person would be different; when we were deeply in love, he would call my name again and again.
That unwavering joy made me mistakenly believe that I would be all he desired.
Before the Han Prince's mansion was destroyed, Gui'er and I were taken onto a carriage together.
Escorted by my father's guards, I escaped from the mansion when the city was already in chaos.
At that time, all I knew was that a band of bandits were burning, killing, and looting in the city, and my father's guards hurriedly took me and Gui'er away.
For some reason, our whereabouts were discovered, and a band of bandits chased our carriage all the way to the outskirts of the city.
In order to save my life, I threw all my valuables out of the car, but the group of people didn't even glance at them.
It was only later that I realized that the other party was not pursuing me for money, but to take my and Gui'er's lives.
The enemy outnumbered us, and the guards my father gave me were killed one after another.
I refuse to sit idly by and wait to die. Even if I die, I will never fall into the hands of these ruthless murderers.
The enemy played like a cat playing with a mouse, killing my protectors one by one.
Hearing the last guard's dying sobs, I grabbed my bow and arrow and rushed out of the carriage.
The arrow missed the enemy leader.
I held the bow and arrow in astonishment, but dared not loosen my grip on the fletching.
Even though the leader on the other side was blind in one eye and his appearance was very different from what she remembered.
I recognized him at a glance.
My fifth brother...
Fifth Brother...why? Are you really going to kill me? Don't you remember me? I'm your own sister!
"Sister? Hmph, so what if she's my sister? We're all serving different masters now, our lives are in the hands of fate. If you want to complain, blame your bad luck for being born into a hypocritical and mercenary family. Everyone wants to be the victor, everyone wants to climb to the top by stepping on the corpses of others. Has anyone ever asked if the one being stepped on was willing!"
'I'm telling you, I'm not willing! No one, not even a stepping stone, should use me.'
From Fifth Brother's resentful words, I learned that Father had ordered the surviving members of our Lin family to join different camps.
In the future, no matter which branch of the family serves the monarch who will have the last laugh, my Lin family will become a founding hero.
And no one is more worthy of being a model for all subjects than the Lin family, who sacrificed themselves for the monarch and the state by crashing their heads into the Golden Palace.
Fifth Brother is loyal to King Zhao, Father and Third Brother chose King Han, and now I am a concubine of King Han.
Fifth Brother then believed that his father had given up on him from the very beginning.
He was deliberately sent to join the King of Zhao, simply to use him as a pawn that could be discarded at any time.
Fifth Brother has been vengeful since childhood; if he is unhappy, he will make sure the entire Lin family is unhappy too.
I don't want to be enemies with Fifth Brother. He, like me, is a pitiful person manipulated by the family.
But I don't want to die either.
I drove the carriage away as fast as I could, ignoring Gui'er's loud cries inside.
The mountain road was rugged and bumpy, and the carriage swayed precariously.
Finally, amidst the neighing of horses, we stopped at the edge of a cliff.
Seeing that there was no way forward, I wanted to turn back and beg Fifth Brother to let us go.
Turning his head, he saw that Fifth Brother had his eyes closed and was ordering someone to shoot at the horse.
The startled horse carried me and Gui'er off the cliff.
At that moment, I suddenly heard someone calling my name from the cliff.
The wind was strong, and I couldn't see the person's face clearly, but I knew who he was.
He jumped down after us.
At that moment, even if I were to die, I think I would have no regrets.
The next instant, I naively realized how terribly wrong I had been.
He grabbed onto Gui'er, and onto the vines on the cliff.
He didn't choose me.
My family only wants me as a tool for them, my husband only wants me as a plaything for them, and my lover only wants the children I bear.
No one truly cares about me or genuinely loves me as a person.
"Was it that old geezer who saved you?"
Lin Wenjuan's haggard and sorrowful face did not change color, but she was secretly surprised by the sharpness of the beautiful girl opposite her.
Even after living in the palace for many years, she had never seen such a stunning beauty.
Seeing the other person's naive and innocent appearance, she thought that the other person would empathize with her and care about her, and feel sorry for her.
Aside from showing some emotion when talking about her sister's death, the girl remained frowning no matter what she said afterward, seemingly lost in thought.
She wasn't sure if the old man had revealed their relationship to these people during her period of delirium.
From the first day she met the old man, she knew that he had an eccentric temperament that was beyond the comprehension of ordinary people.
"Mr. Mo is a master that Gui'er found. I fell off the cliff and landed on a tree on the edge of the cliff, thus escaping disaster."
Lin Wenjuan tentatively told the truth, though the information was incomplete, her eyes gazing wistfully out the window as if lost in memories.
She suddenly gave a sad smile, a smile filled with despair and sorrow.
"What good is escaping death... It seems my life has never truly belonged to me. Countless high walls have trapped me for life. My father ate my blood, Huadi ate my flesh, and my children and lovers are even more ruthless, tearing at my bones and sucking my marrow."
"Nobody really cares how I want to live; what they want is a puppet that they can manipulate and control at will."
"How I wish that one day I would not be anyone's daughter, anyone's woman, anyone's mother, but just myself, a Lin Wenjuan with no one to rely on."
"Canary..."
The soft murmur from across the room was caught by Lin Wenjuan, who seemed to have fallen into a memory and quieted down. She hummed in confusion.
“You went back… You escaped once, but you still chose to return to the cage that imprisoned you.”
The little girl's furrowed brows didn't relax; she went straight to the point.
“My senior sister once said that if a bird that can soar in the sky is kept in a cage for too long, even if the cage is opened, the bird will not dare to soar in the sky again. Lady Lin, are you telling me so much tonight because you want me to take you away? But you…”
“Girl, you don’t need to be troubled. Gui’er and he are both dead. Now I am all alone and have no more attachments. Whether I live or die is no longer important to me. Perhaps tomorrow Hua Di will send someone to send me on my way.”
“It’s just that Mr. Mo didn’t fulfill my son’s third request. I’ve heard that you people in the martial arts world value the word ‘promise’ the most. He might come back to me. I don’t care if I die, but I don’t want to drag others down with me.”
"Lady Lin, wait for me to come back!"
Lin Wenjuan was about to say something when the girl opposite her suddenly rushed out as if she had heard some important news.
……
Lin Wenjuan carefully recalled the information in her words. Was the little girl so agitated because of the dying old man?
What does this impetuous girl want with the old man who's about to die? Is it for the reward from Huadi?
However, this is not important.
As long as she possesses something the other party desires, she will not die for the time being.
Sure enough, even a girl who seems so easy to fool can be manipulated if there are enough benefits to entice her.
When she regained consciousness, she found herself outside Ninghai City, a thousand miles away from the capital.
The old man Mo Zhu, who was about to die, was not by her side.
She fell into the hands of Lady Hua Lian, the beloved concubine of Prince Rui.
Lady Hua Lian was known for her ruthlessness and resourcefulness, which she had long heard of.
Emperor Hua issued a kill order against her, but instead of being thrown into prison by Lady Hua Lian, she was well taken care of. Such an abnormality must be strange.
While she was pretending to be unconscious, she heard Lady Hua Lian being very polite to the little maid who was taking care of her, and almost always granting her every request.
She thought the reason lay with the little girl just now.
When she opened her eyes, she saw a stunningly beautiful woman carefully washing her face with a handkerchief.
For some reason, Lin Wenjuan recalled an interesting story that Empress Wang had told her.
Gu Mingfeng, the grandson of Empress Wang and the only son of Prince Rui, has been talking about wanting to marry the most beautiful woman in the world since he was a child.
At the time, they just thought it was a child's joke.
Unexpectedly, Xiao Feng really seemed to be searching for someone. After learning about the person, he would insist on going to see any beautiful woman whose name was mentioned.
Even if he caused trouble because of this, and Prince Rui wanted to break his legs, he still did things his own way and did not change at all.
In their leisure time in the palace, they would laugh and say that Prince Rui had no right to beat his child. He was just like that himself, so how could his child be unfilial?
Although the Prince Rui's mansion was a place of bustling activity and chaos, all of the Prince Rui's women loved his only child as their own.
He was about to use family discipline, but Lady Hua Lian was the first to jump out and stop him.
Looking at the stunning beauty before her, Lin Wenjuan felt that good things were about to happen at the Prince Rui's mansion.
If she guessed correctly, this stunningly beautiful young girl could definitely help her escape from Madam Hua Lian's clutches.
She half-jokingly recounted half of her life to the young girl, and as she spoke, she truly expressed the grievances in her heart.
Her family used her, her husband didn't love her, and her lover abandoned her; she was resentful and hated everyone.
Her younger sister starved to death in her arms, and her mother became a goddess used to win over the family.
If she doesn't go back, her fate won't be much better than her sister's and mother's.
And in that moment between life and death, she understood.
She wanted supreme power and to no longer be controlled by anyone.
She wanted to trample all those who had wronged her under her feet!
She fell off the cliff, but luckily she survived.
Not only did she not die, she also gained an unexpected opportunity.
What the little girl just said was half right and half wrong.
She did meet the old man who was about to die because she fell off a cliff, but it wasn't the old man who saved her; rather, it was she who saved the old man.
To repay her, the old man promised to do something for her someday.
She went back with that promise.
Gui'er was still young, and the Lin family was also looking for her. After finding her, the Lin family successfully sent her back to Huadi.
Amid her lover's remorseful tears, she "understood" his instincts as a father.
Later, she cautiously tested him. It was true that her lover loved her, but he had indeed developed an arrogant ambition to put his own son on the throne of the world.
This was exactly what she wanted. With her help, her lover quickly gained the trust of the Lin family and became deeply entrenched in their influence.
When the time was right, she took the keepsake left to her by the old man and asked him to come find her.
She wanted the old man to appear beside her son, help her child stage a coup, and then kill her lover immediately afterward.
Everything went as smoothly as she had hoped.
But she didn't expect that Empress Wang would stand firmly on Emperor Hua's side, even though Empress Wang had also betrayed Emperor Hua in the past.
She would never tell anyone this secret in her entire life.
Even if her palace coup failed, she believed that one day, Empress Wang would deliver a fatal blow to that hateful and arrogant man.
……
She helped the blood-covered old man toward the cave entrance, but when they were almost there, she could no longer support herself and collapsed to the ground.
In her dazed state, she heard a fierce argument coming from outside the cave, and one of the voices sounded somewhat familiar to her.
It was already bright outside the cave, which was covered with vines. She climbed to the cave entrance and saw the riverbank not far from the entrance through the gaps in the vines.
Aunt Qiuyue threw a package into the water, and a little girl she had never seen before reached out and scooped the package into her arms.
"Auntie, what are you trying to do?"
“Miss Xiaoran, my master and I will never forget your great kindness. Please return her to me and do not interfere in our affairs.”
“Aunt, you still don’t understand me. If I were a coward, I wouldn’t have saved you that day. Besides, if it were just your private matter, I naturally wouldn’t interfere. But if something goes against the natural order and morality of the world happens before my eyes, no matter what your status or how noble you are, don’t even think about stopping my determination to see it through to the end.”
"No, young lady, you don't understand. This child is a bastard; she must never exist in this world!"
"Someone commits evil, yet an innocent child has to suffer the consequences. How can such a thing be justified? Even if it is, I, Fei Xiaoran, will never agree to it."
“Miss Xiaoran, you are a good person, but my master is by no means a bad person either. If this child lives, it will kill a lot of people. Can you bear to kill a lot of people for the sake of this child? I beg you, give her back to me, and just pretend that what happened today never happened, okay?”
"No, if I give her to you, you will still kill her."
"..."
“However, you are right about one thing. I don’t want this child to be born with too much sin on his shoulders… I have a way.”
"Miss Xiaoran..."
“Since you don’t want her and even consider her an illegitimate child, then I will take this child! You have never seen me today, and I have never seen you. She is my child, my flesh and blood. She is the most precious gift that God has given me. She was born into this world because of my love, and she has nothing to do with any of you.”
"Can……"
"Aunt, please go back. From today onwards, we need not see each other again."