Burst Into Tears

While it was clear that the Lvs were truly grieved by the loss of Lv Mingyue, they also looked more frightened than sad.

Regardless of whether Lv Mingyue was their biological daughter or not, or whether she had been nice to them or not, they had taken very good care of her for so many years. Of course they were emotionally attached to her. At the same time, Lv Mingyue had died at such a young age. They had accepted so much money from the people who brought her to them, but they failed to protect her. They were afraid that those people might take revenge, so their fear was understandable.

But because of this fear, they didn’t seem as sad. Their emotions didn’t seem as genuine. It was rather strange.

Song Caitang didn’t know how to describe how she felt either.

She continued walking on and on, until she realized she had arrived at the jail where Madam Gu was kept.

Her eyes widened a little and she said, “Qi Yan, why don’t you go back first? I’d like to take a walk by myself.”

“Nooo… I’ll see you home…” Qi Yan had been instructed by Zhao Zhi to see Song Caitang home, so he wanted to make sure he got that done. But neither whining nor playing the cute card nor throwing a tantrum worked, so he had no choice but to walk away very, very reluctantly.

Song Caitang looked at the entrance to the jail and sighed quietly.

Madam Gu had been put in jail temporarily because of the Lin Feizhou case, but she ought to be released since the real killer had been found. But it would take time to process the paperwork, so in the meantime, Song Caitang thought of going in to accompany her for a while.

She held onto a hand warmer as she slowly walked down the long, dark and narrow corridor. To her surprise, someone was already there.

She froze in her footsteps. It was Old Madam Li.

Old Madam Li was a very wise woman and she was able to understand the hearts of people much better than most because of all the experience she had accumulated over her long life. She had not been at the court hearing earlier, but she had received a lot of information about what was happening inside and she quickly figured out the truth of the matter. She felt that Madam Gu might need her, so she came over.

“It’s all in the past, so don’t think about it anymore…” Old Madam Li’s voice was low and calm. It carried a sigh that showed how much of life she had gone through.

Madam Gu was a resilient woman and carried herself well regardless of her circumstances. Before this, she always sat up straight and never flinched, but now, she was crying like a child before Old Madam Li. “I just… I just feel so bad for her. The girl was completely innocent… she managed to get to this age and she just wanted to know who her real parents were and be loved by them… why did things end up like this… where did everything go wrong…”

“You feel bad for her,” Old Madam Li spoke calmly, “But nobody in this world has been spared from suffering injustice and unfairness.”

“Her life did start out really hard. Her biological father didn’t want her and her biological mother couldn’t keep her, so she could not be officially recognized as their daughter and was sent to a farmer’s family. But your family gave the Lvs more than enough money to make sure she would be able to grow up well. As long as she didn’t think too much about the fact that she was adopted, she could have led a smooth sailing life. But she was not satisfied and was rebellious. She did not accept her adoptive parents and started searching for her biological parents without thinking about the consequences because she felt that she had the right to do so, since her parents had cruelly abandoned her. She did whatever she wanted. But she never considered the fact that this society would never allow a woman to behave like this.”

Old Madam Li sighed. “She had the right heart, but did not have the ability to do what she wanted and did not realize it. It is sad that she passed away like this, but you can’t say that she hadn’t done anything wrong at all either.”

Madam Gu rested against Old Madam Li’s knees and cried even more loudly.

“You gave birth to her but did not bring her up, so technically speaking, you’re more guilty than she is. But you were too young back then, you were still a child. You didn’t even know you were pregnant until later, and after you found out, you were scared, but you also tried to fight for her, albeit naively. Your family… did not handle this well.” Old Madam Li patted her back gently. “You’ve been trying so hard to locate the girl because you felt guilty and wanted to make things up to her, but fate is something that’s really unpredictable. You weren’t able to find her in time and teach her well. This is how life is. It depends on fate and there’s nothing we can do about it.”

“You’ve already done your best. Nobody wanted things to end this way. It’s not your fault.”

Old Madam Li’s voice was like the beating of the morning drum. It was old, low and slow, but very therapeutic.

“The word for ‘human’ requires only two strokes of the brush, but you’ve got to be one for an entire lifetime. You’ve suffered sometimes, I’ve suffered sometimes. Everyone has made mistakes, everyone has burdens in life.”

“But what’s done is done, what happened has already happened. Wallowing in regret won’t do you any good, so why don’t you remember how you feel now and use that to remind yourself to always be kind to others and not to do anything wrong in the future. If you’re able to, you could also help to save others and live without any regrets for the rest of your life. That would be good enough.”

Madam Yu didn’t stop crying because of what Old Madam Li said, but started crying even harder. It was as though she was crying all at once for all the hardship and injustice she had suffered all these years.

She had been kidnapped, raped, became pregnant with her assailant’s child. She was full of hate, anger, and guilt toward her child. Then she was widowed young and had to bring up her only son. Because of the society she lived in, she had suffered tremendous humiliation and insult in silence. She had nearly given up.

What was the right way to live? How could one live with ease of mind and leave the world without any anger or regrets?

The candlelight swayed gently along the deep and dark tunnel. It could not conquer the sinister and icy feeling in this place.

This sorrowful outburst of tears from the heart was truly heart-wrenching.

Lv Mingyue had died, but the only one who was genuinely crying for her was Madam Gu.

After giving Madam Yu time to let everything out and waiting for her sobs to subside, Old Madam Li started speaking again.

“You know,” she gently patted Madam Gu’s head and spoke gently, “I believe that Miss Mingyue was a good child at heart, just that she had the pride and rebellious heart that all children her age would have. Unfortunately she was simply too naïve. She never thought that her existence could be a curse to someone else, or imagined that her biological father would be someone so wicked.”

“You took the rap for her without any hesitation, so it wouldn’t have taken her long to realize who you were. All these years, she must have been angry at you, but she would have missed you too. When you meet her in the afterlife, I don’t think she’d blame you.”

Madam Gu’s fingers trembled slightly. “R-really?”

Old Madam Li caressed her hair and nodded hard. “A kind girl wouldn’t blame you.”

Tears rolled down Madam Gu’s cheeks again.

Perhaps that was what she really wanted to hear all these years.

That her daughter wouldn’t blame her.

She knew that the old lady was trying to comfort her, but she was also very confident that her daughter must have been a kind person.

They weren’t fated to be mother and daughter in this life, so she could only hope that she would get a chance to be good to her in their next life.

“In fact, you ought to think about how you’re going to deal with what happens after this,” said Old Madam Li with a slight frown. “What if Yuanjia finds out about her?”

Men had a lot of pride. How could they accept the fact that something like that had ever happened to their own mother?

Madam Gu was more or less done with letting out her emotions by this time, so even though her eyes were still red and she was still crying, she was able to speak logically. “I think… he already knows.”

Old Madam Li frowned. “What?”

“Yuanjia is very clever. As long as it’s something he wants to know about, nobody will be able to hide it from him. I’ve been trying to locate my daughter for years now, and I’ve done such a thing this time… I don’t regret it, but I’m also quite sure he must have guessed why.”

Madam Gu closed her eyes and sighed quietly. “During his last visit, he told me that I’m his only kin and he’s good with letting me do whatever I want, as long as it makes me happy. He said he wanted me to assess his future bride, to watch him get married, and to help him bring up his children, saying that he was lazy and that if I help him, he can have more time for himself. He also said that he’s taken a fancy to a girl…”

“What a good boy he is,” Old Madam Li burst out laughing. She had been right about him.

But immediately after that, her attention was drawn to something else. “Wait, he said he’s taken a fancy to a girl and wants you to assess her? Who’s she? Which family is she from? How old is she?”

Madam Gu nearly blew out some of her mucus from laughing, which would be very unlike her usual elegant self. “Why is your reaction just like mine? That naughty boy distracted me that way too…”

As she spoke, Madam Gu felt her emotions slowly stabilize again.

She still had a long way to go and there were still people who needed her. No matter how tough life was, she had to keep going.

Old Madam Li was right. She had made some mistakes, but she should not wallow in them. She was to carry this burden and slowly make her way forward. She was to be kind to others and accumulate good karma so that she could leave this world without any regrets. That would be good enough.

Song Caitang stood quietly in the corner and did not say anything.

After a long time, she turned and left silently, just like how she came.

Having Old Madam Li here was good enough.

In the end, Lv Mingyue still had no idea who her biological father was. Even until the day she died, she had no idea that her biological father was a notoriously wicked bandit who wanted to kill her. She had been a child of rape and her birth had only brought problems to everyone around her.

Song Caitang felt that perhaps this was the only good thing that had happened to Lv Mingyue.

As she emerged from the dark jail, she instinctively raised a hand to shield her eyes from the sun.

The sun was too bright and glaring.

As though there was nowhere in this world that it couldn’t reach.

The two murder cases were quickly closed by the authorities.

But there were still certain aspects that weren’t clear yet. For example, who was Lin Feizhou? Nobody knew who he really was.

He was a swindler who lived in a secluded lane with gangsters just outside his door, so it would have been difficult for anyone to find him. He was also good at befriending such people, convincing them, bribing them, pretending to be poor, pretending to carry himself really well – he was good at everything he did.

But what was he really looking for? There were still no answers. Whose jade pendant was that and what did it represent? Nobody knew and neither Zuo Xiuwen nor Li Zhengzhi knew anything about it.

At that time, one was an official and the other was a bandit. They had done a lot of scheming and accomplished a lot, but there were a lot of people involved in that battle on the mountain and it was complete chaos, so sometimes, they didn’t even know where their own men were. Nobody had time to notice who this jade pendant might belong to.

Lin Feizhou had approached Li Zhengzhi to bribe him over the secret he had overheard at the brothel five years ago. It had nothing to do with the jade pendant.

Zhao Zhi began to be somewhat bothered by this matter. It seemed like the more his subordinates failed to find anything, the more interested he became in Lin Feizhou. He felt like a deeper secret was involved here.

As he continued investigating, he discovered that more than just the authorities and the bandits had been involved in that battle on Beiqing Mountain…

He was caught up in this investigation, so he hadn’t gone to visit Song Caitang in a while. But Song Caitang didn’t mind. She spent her time leisurely and also took the chance to investigate the man who had stopped her along the street that day and claimed to be from her hometown, Wang Liu.

What he said was pretty nasty and sounded like he was challenging her as well as an attempt to get money out of her, but it also sounded like he was trying to… sound her out.

After running into him a couple of times, Song Caitang felt that someone was behind this guy. Someone else had taught Wang Liu what to say.

In the end, Wang Liu couldn’t take her continuous questioning and came clean. He admitted that someone did tell him what to say and told him to approach her and behave like this. But he had no idea who the other party was and was doing this because he had been paid to do so.

Song Caitang tried asking for more details, including how the money was paid, what the note said and about the beggar who had brought the message, but she couldn’t find any further clues.

In that moment, she realized how important her memory of the past was.

She had no idea who this person was, why they were trying to sound her out, or what they were trying to achieve…

If she knew about her past and what she had gone through, she might get answers to these questions.

What a headache.

Should she try harder to get those memories back?