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Marriage of the Di Daughter Chapter 132 Part 4: Truth
She spoke while looking as if she was crying and laughing at the same time, yet Jiang Li was seemingly able to see through the face of this woman who was no longer in her prime and saw her heart full of sadness and resentment.
Aunt Hu was silent for a moment before she said softly, “In this residence, there was a person who should believe me, which was Madam. Unfortunately, she had pa.s.sed away. Probably this was my retribution.”
“What do you mean?” Jiang Li sensitively sensed other meaning behind her words.
“Second Miss, this matter has been buried in my heart for many years.” Aunt Hu laughed miserably, “In this mansion, everyone avoids me like a plague, and I haven’t been able to tell this secret to others. Now that you’re here, I think it’s only right for you to know about it too. In fact, the death of the Madam was not accidental. ”
A basin of cold water seemed to be doused onto Jiang Li after hearing this. The cold weather seemed to get even colder and penetrated to the bone. Her smile disappeared and she asked, “Aunt Hu, speak clearly.”
Aunt Hu didn’t seem to notice the change in Jiang Li’s complexion and said to herself, “At the beginning, when Ji-shi has just entered the door, as long as I showed a warm, gentle and obedient att.i.tude, Ji-shi would tolerate us mother and daughter and would not trouble us. At that time, I often went to curry favor with Ji-shi, either sending food that I made, embroidery, and so on. There was a day when I overheard Ji-shi chatting to her wet nurse, talking about how the doctor who was treating Madam’s sickness had returned to Yanjing and to find a person to silence him.”
“What did you say?” Jiang Li frowned, “DIdn’t my mother die because her body grew weaker after giving birth to me?” It was said that precisely because of this, second miss Jiang blamed herself very much. If it were not for giving birth to her, Ye Zhen Zhen did not need to die so young.
“If she was in poor health, she could be nursed back to health slowly.” Aunt Hu said, “But in that half a year, Madam’s health steadily deteriorated. We did not think much then, but on that day I suddenly had a feeling that something was not right. After Madam’s death, the several personal maids beside madam left the Jiang residence due to various reasons. They either went home to take care of their seriously ill mother or got married. Within half a year, there was no more news, and even the servant girls left beside you were no longer the ones Madam had set aside for you.”
“Thinking about it now, perhaps Ji-shi bribed these servant girls and the attending doctor, tampering with Madam’s medicinal dishes, and caused Madam to meet with mishap.”
Jiang Li shook her head, “This may not be the case. My father only saw Ji-shi after my mother’s pa.s.sing. At that time, Ji-shi was still a young girl in her boudoir. Based on her family’s lintel, in the entire Yanjing, even if there was no other family that was as high as the Jiang family, there were still a lot of ordinary young masters from official families. She did not need to be a wife to a widower.”
“This is also something that this concubine does not understand.” There’s puzzlement on Aunt Hu’s face, “It could not be said that Ji-shi has fixed her sight on Master before and thus used such a vicious method as Ji-shi and Master had never met before.”
Jiang Li was silent.
“After knowing this, this concubine did not dare to disclose it, fearing the more secrets one knows, it will be faster to die.” Aunt Hu said, “Simply thinking, as long as this concubine could protect Yue’er until she grew up, just treat it as not being aware of these things and let it rot in the stomach. Unexpectedly…..” She laughed bitterly, “This was the punishment G.o.d gave me. Madam treated me so well but I could not vent her grievance. It serves me right to lose Yue’er, I only have myself to blame.”
Jiang Li looked at her, she knew that Aunt Hu was broken-hearted, but she couldn’t continue to sympathize with Aunt Hu anymore. If Aunt Hu had revealed a little bit of these things at the beginning, the real second miss Jiang would have been wary of Ji-shi, and it would not have caused the final tragedy. Although now it seemed to everyone that she, the Jiang family’s second miss, had everything except for her bad reputation in the past, only Jiang Li knew that the real second miss was no longer in the world.
The daughter that Ye Zhen Zhen wanted to protect did not survive in the Jiang family.
“Second miss, I know you blame me, and I don’t have the extravagant hope that you will forgive me. My guilt will naturally be carried by me, but there are two lives lost on Ji-shi, yet she could still pa.s.s her days comfortably. I am not reconciled.” This time, she didn’t even call herself “this concubine”. She said, “I have endured for many years, thinking how to perish together with her, but I could not get close to her. I don’t have money, thus cannot order the servants. To say it bluntly, I don’t even have the money to buy the poison to poison her. I also feel that letting Ji-shi die like this was letting her off lightly. Even if I kill her, others would only say that I am malicious for killing the mistress of the house, so it’s well deserved that my Yue’er could not live long. What about Ji-shi? She would still have a virtuous reputation, her death will not be stained, which is not what I want.”
Jiang Li looked at her and said, “What do you want to say by telling me this?”
“Second miss, I know you brought the people of Tongxiang to Chang’An Gate and hit the drum of grievance for a stranger you have never met before. You can wash his injustice on his behalf. This concubine is not talking about Yue’er, Madam is your biological mother, you must have a way to clear Madam’s death, right?”
“Then what about you?” Jiang Li asked, “Aunt Hu, what can you do?”
“I can….. give everything.” The woman who was like stagnant water gradually had flames of vengeance bursting from her eyes, like a lioness carrying her child away from the hunter, radiating madness of ending in mutual destruction. She said, “Including my life.”
She stood up abruptly and knelt in front of Jiang Li.
“This concubine begs second miss.”
Jiang Li looked at her, and for some reason, thought of herself who was at the end of her rope under house arrest in the Shen residence.
She could not even take other people down with her.
She said, “Aunt Hu, please get up, I promise not for you. Rather, Ji-shi must die.”
She should pay the price.
That was unexpected, not just the truth of the eldest young miss’s death, but also the truth behind her mother’s pa.s.sing.
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