Chapter 232

Chapter 232: The Truth About the Real and Fake Daughter

Yu Chun Yue clamped a hand over his mouth and shook his head. [I can’t say it. I can’t.]

Yu Zhi Yi was surprised, since a person with a truth-telling talisman on them usually cannot resist its power. Only someone with an iron will, or someone hiding the deepest secret in their heart, could fight it.

She asked again, this time letting spiritual energy carry her voice: “What is the truth about the real and fake daughter?”

Yu Chun Yue’s fingers loosened.

Madam Zheng screamed: “Don’t say it!” Then she rolled her eyes as if to faint.

Yu Zhi Yi pointed a finger and said calmly: “Don’t pretend to faint yet. Wait until he finishes talking, then you can.”

Madam Zheng stared, speechless, and discovered she could neither close her eyes nor fall.

Unable to resist the truth-telling talisman any longer, Yu Chun Yue began to speak in a steady flow: “Qiao Shi is a distant aunt from my hometown. Years ago, when I went home to visit family, I saw she was alone and pitiful, so I planned to bring her to the Capital City to look after her.”

“At that time my wife had given birth two months earlier. As we passed through Tian’an Commandery…”

As he spoke, the truth from those years slowly unfolded. Eighteen years ago, Yu Chun Yue had just been appointed Vice Minister of Revenue. Then his elderly father died, and he had to take his wife back to their hometown to observe mourning.

In the Great Sheng Empire, officials are required to mourn for one year. During mourning, husbands and wives are not forbidden from sharing a bed. Yu Jiao Jiao was conceived in that period.

By the time the mourning ended, Yu Jiao Jiao was almost two months old. She had weighed a little over five jin at birth, and not much more than six jin at nearly two months. If someone said she had just been born, many people would believe it.

As soon as the mourning ended, Yu Chun Yue hurried to return to the Capital City to report for duty, taking his family with him. Passing Tian’an Commandery, they looked for an inn, but that day happened to be the most important local festival, the Water-Prayer Festival.

The city was packed. Every inn was nearly full. After checking many places, they finally found one inn with a single superior room, only for a pregnant woman to grab it first. Relying on her status, Madam Zheng tried to pressure her, but the pregnant woman did not back down, and even the shopkeeper refused to give Madam Zheng face. Madam Zheng was furious.

If they had not seen an abandoned house on their way into the city and squeezed into it for the night, they would have slept on the street.

The more Madam Zheng stewed, the more unwilling she became, so she sent people to “teach that pregnant woman a lesson.” The woman was already close to giving birth; after the fright, her labor started at once. The hired thugs were afraid they would cause a death, so they stopped and ran back to report.

Madam Zheng knew the woman had no attendants, and that mother and child could die at any time, but she still did nothing. In her heart she cursed the woman for daring to fight her for a room.

They had no idea that the woman was not ordinary at all, but the daughter-in-law of the Martial Alliance Leader. The Martial Alliance is the greatest power in the Martial World; anyone with a name in the Martial World considers it an honor to join. It is said the Alliance Leader’s skills are so high that, if he wished, he could even take the emperor’s head. The Martial Alliance’s base is in Tian’an Commandery.

No one knows why the Alliance Leader’s daughter-in-law left home alone in the middle of the night to come into the city, but that night she almost lost both her life and her child.

The next day, people from the Martial Alliance came knocking.

In those years, the Martial Alliance had grown stronger and stronger, and its influence even faintly threatened to surpass the Imperial Court. The Alliance Leader’s daughter-in-law was like the Martial Alliance’s crown princess consort. The child in her belly would be their little princess. On their own turf, someone had plotted to harm their crown princess consort. How could they let that pass?

By the time Madam Zheng realized how serious it was, they were already facing the Alliance’s revenge.

At the critical moment, Yu Chun Yue decided to cut off the tail to survive. He left behind the servants and baggage in Tian’an Commandery, took only Madam Zheng, planned a quick disguise, and prepared to slip out of the city.

Just then, a mysterious figure descended from above and thrust a baby girl into their arms, saying: “This child is the newborn granddaughter of the very Alliance Leader whose people are hunting you. If you carry her with you and use her as a shield at the key moment, you will be able to leave Tian’an Commandery.”

Neither husband nor wife thought this plan was wrong. They took the infant and fled.

No one knew whether it was the mysterious person’s arrangement or the baby’s own good fortune, but from the moment they received her, although pursuers kept coming, the couple escaped danger again and again.

At their closest brush with death, Madam Zheng decided to take responsibility alone. She kept the Alliance Leader’s granddaughter by her side and put her own newborn daughter into her husband’s arms, telling him to leave with Qiao Shi and the true-born child.

Later, people from the Martial Alliance caught up. Seeing that Madam Zheng had been “abandoned” by her husband and that only a lone woman and a baby were present, the warmhearted heroes of the Martial World could not bring themselves to slaughter them. They only made Madam Zheng write a letter of guilt to apologize to the Alliance Leader’s daughter-in-law.

Madam Zheng returned safely to the Capital City, but Yu Chun Yue, delayed on the road, arrived half a month late. By then, the Martial Alliance’s experts had also entered the capital. Through her channels, Madam Zheng learned that these masters were flying about the Capital City at night, searching for the Martial Alliance’s “little royal princess.” She sent word to her husband: do not bring their true-born daughter into the Capital City yet.

The Martial Alliance searched for the “little royal princess” for ten full years. Only when the old Alliance Leader died and a new Alliance Leader took the seat did their agents finally withdraw from the Capital City.

Only then did the Yu couple dare to switch the children back. But by then the two girls’ faces had long since taken shape, so there was no way to swap them quietly. That was why Qiao Shi “came to confess” and then “died to atone.”

In truth, Qiao Shi did not die. She only looked gravely injured. After she was carried away, Yu Chun Yue had her secretly sent to a trusted physician to recover. Right now she is living comfortably at a country estate outside the city.

Under Madam Zheng’s burning, shamed gaze, Yu Chun Yue continued without stopping: “If the Martial Alliance had not grown so powerful, and if they weren’t colluding with several high-ranking lords at court, I would never have had to wrong my own daughter for ten years.”

A giant question mark seemed to appear above everyone’s heads. [Weren’t you the ones who, to save your own skins, forced the innocent granddaughter of the former Alliance Leader and the current Alliance Leader’s own niece to stay at your side?]