Chapter 233

Chapter 233: You Should Pay for Your Sins Too

The scene exploded with noise; no one had imagined that the truth behind the “real and fake daughter” would be like this. People whispered: “So it was the Yu couple who courted disaster by offending the Martial Alliance and nearly caused the Alliance Leader’s daughter-in-law to die with her child.”

Another person said: “Then they kept the little miss by force just to survive.”

Someone else added: “And when she was no longer useful, they flipped the story, smeared her background, and dumped dirt on her.”

“They’re too wicked,” a voice cried.

“Poor Official Yu,” another said, choking up. “She was so young back then, yet she had to carry a stain that wasn’t hers. She must have been so sad and hurt.”

“I scolded her before,” someone confessed. “I want to apologize. I’m sorry.”

[Sad? Hurt?] For a moment, Yu Zhi Yi felt she was back on that drizzly day ten years ago.

It had been an ordinary rainy day. She was practicing the Rain Command Talisman her master had taught her. She thought, if she could make the rain stop, she would run to her parents and perform it to make them laugh. But just as she stilled the rain and happily ran to Madam Zheng’s small courtyard, the steward met her with a cold face and took her to Jing Prefecture.

She was only ten, and she had always heard that Jing Prefecture was where criminals were interrogated. Fear gnawed at her.

Standing in the cold main hall, she watched a woman who claimed to be her mother hug her in public and say that years ago, to give her a good life, she had used the old baby-swap trick to switch her and Yu Jiao Jiao. The woman said many half-truths. After dumping all the blame on Yu Zhi Yi, she smashed her head and died right there in the hall.

At ten years old, Yu Zhi Yi had never imagined that a person’s heart could be that cruel, able to pull an innocent girl into the mud without a second thought. Stunned, she did not step forward to check on Qiao Shi. Soon someone reported that Qiao Shi was already dead.

To show their “kindness,” the Yu family took over the burial. Yu Zhi Yi never saw the body of that “mother.”

Now, looking back, the holes were obvious.

Her gaze moved from Yu Chun Yue to Madam Zheng and stayed there. For years, Madam Zheng had been the one to care for and teach her, so Yu Zhi Yi’s feelings toward Madam Zheng had been far deeper than toward Minister Yu. Or so she had thought.

She looked steadily at Madam Zheng as old puzzles finally clicked into place: “So I never stole ten years from Yu Jiao Jiao’s life. Your Yu Clan stole seventeen years from mine. I don’t owe you. You owe me.”

Madam Zheng’s lips trembled. She wanted to speak, but under those clear, spring-water eyes, she could not open her mouth.

Yu Jiao Jiao was shocked too. In her previous life she had died early and never knew Yu Zhi Yi’s background held such waves. She quickly recovered, knowing she must not let Yu Zhi Yi stand on the highest moral ground, or the Yu Clan’s hopes of rising again would be shattered. She stammered: “Sister, you can’t say it like that. Father and Mother didn’t take you on purpose. A mysterious person sent you to them.”

She added: “And if the Martial Alliance hadn’t chased them so hard, they wouldn’t have had to take such a desperate step.”

She thought her words were logical, but before Yu Zhi Yi could answer, onlookers were already pushing back. One person said: “Wasn’t it Madam Yu who first relied on status to bully someone, almost causing a mother and child to die, and that’s why things became a fight to the bitter end?”

Another said: “Even if it was to save your lives, after you got back to the Capital City you could have secretly returned the child. Instead, you kept her by your side for years and smeared her. Now that the truth is out, you still want to blame the Martial Alliance? What a joke.”

A third snorted: “This is like doing shameful things and still trying to act noble.”

Yu Jiao Jiao opened her mouth to argue again, but Yu Zhi Yi pressed a truth-telling talisman onto her forehead. At once, the clever excuses turned into blunt confessions. Yu Jiao Jiao blurted: “That woman refused to give the room to my mother. She deserved what she got!”

She went on, unable to stop: “Refusing to give the room was one thing, but to cause so much trouble after, how could she be so vicious?”

She snapped: “My mother was too kind. If she had just killed that woman back then, none of this would have happened.”

She sneered: “And you ignorant commoners make me laugh. My father is the Minister of Revenue. That little wretch Yu Zhi Yi lived as the Minister’s Manor’s young lady for seventeen years. She made a profit off it!”

Then she spat out the last, eyes going red as she tried in vain to cover her mouth: “If Father hadn’t been right in the middle of his promotion from Vice Minister of Revenue to Minister of Revenue, how could that little wretch have kept clinging to the Yu Manor for so many years?”

The moment she said the first sentence, Yu Jiao Jiao slapped both hands over her mouth, but it did no good. No matter how hard she pressed, the ugly words kept spilling out. She didn’t think her parents had done anything wrong, but she knew she should not say it aloud. Panic burned her eyes.

Listening to her daughter’s raw, immoral thoughts, and seeing her shame, Madam Zheng grew both anxious and heartsick. She fell to her knees with a thud and pleaded: “Yi’er, we truly did wrong in this matter. But no matter what, we raised you with food and clothing until you grew up. If we don’t have the grace of giving you life, we still have the grace of raising you.”

She bowed her head and begged: “I don’t ask you to treat us like family. I only beg you to be merciful and spare your father and your sister.”

From above, Yu Zhi Yi looked down at the elegant noblewoman. In both her past life and this one, Madam Zheng had always worn a gentle, noble face. If Yu Chun Yue had not confessed it himself, Yu Zhi Yi would hardly have believed this woman could be so cruel.

Because of Madam Zheng, she and her birth mother had almost died on that Water-Prayer Festival seventeen years ago. Because of this woman, mother and daughter were torn apart for seventeen years. And now Madam Zheng still dared to talk about the grace of raising her.

Yu Zhi Yi laughed quietly and said: “If, back in the palace, you had not insisted on cutting ties with me to make me take the blame, then today I might have spared them for the sake of blood.”

She smiled slightly; there was no hatred in her clear eyes, as if the person before her were just an ordinary stranger: “Those who do wrong should pay the price. That is the lesson you spent seven years trying to hammer into me.”

She added softly: “Because of that lesson, I carried many burdens I never should have. And now…”

Her smile vanished. She thought of the version of herself who had worked so hard for the Yu Clan’s approval, and the version of herself who believed her birth was a sin, and her heart ached. She did not smile anymore. Because it was not funny.

“They should pay for their mistakes too,” she said.

As her words fell, the two truth-telling talismans turned into starlight. The motes did not drift away; they sank into Yu Chun Yue and Yu Jiao Jiao’s bodies instead. No one else saw it. Only Yu Zhi Yi knew that, for the next year, these two would only be able to speak the truth. They would not be able to use slick tongues to trick anyone. And if anyone asked them about the bad things they had done, they would be unable to hide them.

For schemers who stop at nothing, this was the most frightening punishment of all, bringing endless trouble in its wake.