“Sir, we are not lying. If you don’t believe us, you can ask the villagers about it. The year our daughter disappeared was when Fourth Lady was seriously ill. I-If my daughter had not been taken away, why would we have said that she disappeared? She replaced the Fourth Lady, who died of disease, and became your daughter.”
The middle-aged woman, Li, cried loudly as she knelt on the ground.
“Greetings, Father!” Qu Moying walked in and bowed to Qu Zhizhen.
“Father, what happened? W-Who are they?” Qu Qiuyan also bowed. Then, she looked up at the couple kneeling on the ground in shock. Her face was full of surprise.
Compared to Qu Moying, Qu Zhizhen favored Qu Qiuyan more, so the latter was a little casual when she spoke to him.
Qu Zhizhen waved his hand and gestured for his two daughters to get up. “Take your seat!”
The two of them obediently sat down on both of his sides.
“Dear… M-My dear daughter…” Upon seeing Qu Moying, Li immediately teared up and locked her gaze on Qu Moying. Li seemed to want to approach Qu Moying, but she did not dare. She could only kneel on the ground, sobbing and saying nothing. It was a pitiful sight.
“Do you mean that Granny Gu stole your daughter to replace my daughter, who died back then?” Qu Zhizhen asked impatiently, his eyes sharp.
Although he did not like Qu Moying, it did not mean that he wanted such a thing to happen.
Someone swapped his legitimate daughter, and he had raised a fake daughter. This kind of matter was simply humiliating and bizarre. He was the dignified Mr. Vice Minister who had a reputation in the imperial court. How could something so ridiculous happen in his mansion?
“Yes, Sir. Please return my daughter. We are going back to our hometown. If we don’t take our daughter with us, we will have to part with her forever. We don’t mind living a hard-knocked life as long as we can stay together as one family. Please grant us our wish.” Li kowtowed to Qu Zhizhen again, wiping away her tears as she spoke.
“W-When did you know that she is your daughter?” Qu Zhizhen asked with a gloomy face.
“We only found out about it recently. We wouldn’t have known about it had it not been for Granny Gu who spilled the secret while we were chatting. Then, we came to see our daughter privately, but she didn’t want to accept us and asked us to leave. She only gave us some clothes and… and some pastries that were newly sent to us…”
As Li spoke, she opened up a paper bag in front of her, revealing a few pieces of pastries inside. Although the pastries had shattered into pieces, one could still vaguely tell that they were pastries.
“Oh? Aren’t these the newly made pastries in the mansion? I think the chef made it yesterday,” Qu Qiuyan gushed in surprise.
After she finished speaking, she seemed to realize that she had spoken too much, so she hurriedly turned her head and gently wiped the corner of her lips with a handkerchief to cover up her slip of the tongue.
Qu Qiuyan didn’t talk loudly, but because the atmosphere in the study suddenly became quiet, Qu Zhizhen could hear her clearly despite her light volume. He massaged the throbbing veins on his forehead and glanced at the young servant who was standing at the side.
This young servant was in charge of his pastries and tidying up the study room.
The young servant took two steps forward, carefully examined the pastries, and then nodded silently at Qu Zhizhen, indicating that Qu Qiuyan was right. It was indeed the newly made pastries in the mansion that had just been introduced recently.
YOU ARE READING
Reborn to Be A Noble Wife
Historical FictionDie in Water and Revive in Fire Ji Hanyue was born of a general. On the evening when she married the Crown Prince, she was framed and pushed into a lake. Before she died, she was told that both her father and sister had been murdered. When she woke...