Seeing that Mrs. Pei didn't respond, Yao Ran asked softly: "What's wrong with mother?"
Mr. Pei seemed to be trying his best to suppress some emotion, remaining silent and just closing his eyes.
This depressing atmosphere made the originally spacious carriage suddenly shrink into an extremely narrow and cramped existence. Yao Ran felt suffocated, and cold sweat broke out in his hands holding the handkerchief.
She really didn't know what to do to ease the suffocating atmosphere, so she could only say at a loss: "If mother really doesn't like such occasions, she will never come here in the future..."
Hearing this, Mr. Pei suddenly opened his eyes and said word by word: "If it weren't for your business, do you think I am willing to come? Do you think I am willing to deal with those humble people who come from a humble family?
"
Hearing this, Yao Ran grasped the handkerchief tightly and whispered: "My daughter knows her mother's painstaking efforts, but it is said that Wei Shilang's eyes are high, and he seems to have no intention of meeting Mrs. Zheng Guogong today... In my daughter's opinion, there is no need to waste time on this matter.
…”
"Who dares you to belittle yourself like this!" Mrs. Pei interrupted her coldly: "You have my blood flowing in your bones! Your grandfather is the head of the Pei family, and I am the eldest daughter of the Pei family. Who dares to look down on you?
!”
"Even though the Wei family seems to be famous for a moment, they are just a rising star. In terms of their background, how can they be compared with our dignified Pei family?"
"If my daughter is willing to marry into their family, it will be because they are so high-ranking and will bring honor to their Wei family!" Pei's words cannot be ignored: "Just like when I married into the Yao family... If it is not my Pei family,
Zhongzhuli, where did your father come from?"
Hearing this last sentence, Yao Ran bit his lip slightly and said: "But my father was clearly a Jinshi, and he was also talented. Over the years, he did not rely on his grandfather's family... On the contrary, the uncle of the Pei family was involved in the money and food case before.
When the quarrel reached the imperial court, my mother asked my father to deal with it several times, almost causing my father to lose his official position..."
"Presumptuous!" Pei raised his hand and slapped Yao Ran hard on the face.
The girl turned away from the slap and looked stunned.
Mrs. Pei was furious: "You are indeed just like your father, an ungrateful, ungrateful person!"
"If I hadn't broken up with the Jin family by mistake, how could I have married into your Yao family, how could I have given birth to a heartless thing like you, and because of the root cause of the disease after childbirth, it would have been difficult to have children...
To be ridiculed by others today!"
"No one laughs at mother..." Yao Ran's eyes turned red, "Father never did it because of this..."
"Of course he shouldn't and can't look down on me because of this!" Mr. Pei's neck tightened with excitement, and the veins on it were bulging: "... He owes us the Pei family and me! Does he dare to treat me because of this?
Never give up!"
"But my father has never done anything wrong. Why does my mother have to treat my father like an enemy?" Yao Ran shed tears and mustered up the courage to say what he was thinking: "Just because my mother can't give birth, my father is still a bastard.
Never...hasn't my father done enough over the years?"
"Of course it's not enough!" Mrs. Pei said sternly: "He still has no concubine, that's nice to say... Do you really think he doesn't want to have one!"
When Yao Ran heard this, his eyelashes trembled, as if he had fallen into an ice cave.
So, are the rumors she secretly heard true?
There were only two aunts in the mansion, one of whom had been in the mansion for many years but had never received any news of being pregnant, and the other who died due to dystocia in her early years...
"Besides, his heart has never been with you and my daughter!" With that slap, Mrs. Pei seemed to be completely unable to suppress her resentment: "He has always had someone else in his heart!"
Yao Ran's breath was suffocated when he faced those eyes that were so gloomy that people dared not look directly into them.
She had known that her mother was different from before and after, but this was the first time she saw her mother showing such a terrifying face.
Is it because of what she accidentally overheard that day and because she learned about the existence of the Chang family's wife? Is it because those resentments that have been accumulated for many years are completely out of control?
Yao Ran's fingers were cold and he looked away tremblingly, not daring to look into those eyes again.
"Madam..." the maid beside her said as a reminder.
Mrs. Pei felt that he had made a mistake in front of her daughter, so she gritted her teeth and closed her eyes to calm down.
"Young lady, don't ask too much about the elders' matters." The maid's voice sounded gentle: "Young lady only needs to know one thing, Madam only has a girl under her knees, everything she does is naturally for the girl's future consideration, the girl should be considerate to Madam
It’s all your hard work... Let’s make amends with Madam quickly.”
Yao Ran sniffed lightly and lowered his eyes: "It's all because of my daughter's talkativeness and disobedience that made her mother angry... Please punish her."
After being silent for an unknown amount of time, Ms. Pei slowly opened her eyes and looked at the girl in front of her.
The excitement that had just been revealed in her eyes disappeared. When she looked at her only daughter, she felt helpless after resentment, and also like a person floating in the boundless sea of suffering trying to drag the last piece of driftwood -
"Don't let me down again."
"Yes... please remember this, daughter."
There was no words spoken all the way, only the muffled sound of the wheels rolling.
After returning to Yao's house, Mrs. Pei returned to the residence. As soon as he sat down in the inner room, a female envoy brought warm tea.
Mrs. Pei raised her sleeves and waved them down, her face gloomy as water: "Get out!"
The female servant was so frightened that she knelt down and knelt down to admit her mistake. At the signal of the servant beside Pei, she quickly collected the pieces of the tea bowl, bowed her head and left.
"Did you see that? That little bitch... really looks exactly like the woman in the painting he hid in his study!"
"Before, you thought I was suspicious and shouldn't mind some of the old things before I got married to him... Little did you know that not only had they been in an affair, but that woman had secretly given birth to him!"
"He has been looking for it for so many years, and now he has finally found it!"
"The next step is to bring the person back...Father and daughter will recognize each other and reunite, right?"
"Then what have Ran'er and I become? What have we, the Pei family, become... the laughing stock of the whole capital!"
The servant woman quickly comforted her and said: "Ma'am, please calm down. In my opinion, Master Lang may not have any intention of acknowledging his relatives. After all, Master Lang still has to worry about the official reputation and our Pei family..."
"Even if I don't recognize him for a while, he will recognize him sooner or later! After all these years, don't I still understand him? He seems to be kind and easy-going, but in fact he prides himself on being noble! He has now established a firm foothold in the officialdom and has strong wings.
I'm afraid he's looking for an opportunity to shame me and the Pei family, to show that he can take charge of his own business and no longer needs to rely on our Pei family!"
"But why...why did I marry him, and after so many years of living as a stranger, I still have to suffer such humiliation?"
"Am I going to just watch and wait for him to bring that scoundrel to come and humiliate me?"
The determination he had made from the beginning made Pei grit his teeth: "He is just a little scoundrel. Even if he really knows it, what can he do to me?"
"The couple separated..." She asked and answered the question to herself, laughing twice sadly and ironically: "How did his heart ever give to me -"
"Since he never thinks about me at all, I can only think about myself!"
…
On the other side, shortly after the Yao family's mother and daughter left, a group of palace people came to the flower party at Zheng Guogong's mansion.
The leader was a young female official, who smiled slightly and said to Duke Zheng: "Not long ago, the sage sent someone to find a beautiful purple peony from Luoyang, and he kept it in the palace for half a month. Today he specially ordered us to send it to him.
The flowers from your mansion will add some fun."
Looking at the purple peony that was brought to the palace by the palace servants, it was something the capital had never seen before, and people everywhere were filled with exclamations of exclamation.
Although purple peonies are rare, what is more valuable is the saint’s intention.
All the women looked at Duan, Mrs. Zheng Guogong, who was bowing and thanking her, and they all expressed envy and emotion.
"Speaking of which, the Duan family is really lucky..." Several women who were further away sighed in a low voice: "The Duan family is not a high-ranking family. In terms of background, it is not comparable to you and me.
But when the palace was choosing a reading companion for Princess Chongyue, Her Royal Highness chose Duan, who was three years older..."
"Yes, I was lucky enough to be the princess's companion, and the princess's brother was later appointed as the crown prince... In this way, when the marriage is discussed, I can marry into the Duke of Zheng's palace."
"I got a good marriage, gave birth to a good son, held an important official position at a young age, and was so respected by a saint... With such a good life, where can I ask people to reason?"
"Come to think of it, when Princess Chongyue was choosing a reading companion, didn't you Mrs. Liang also go there? In terms of family background, in terms of cleverness... Where did you lose to the Duan family?"
The woman in question mentioned this matter after so many years, and still gritted her teeth: "... Her Royal Highness the Princess said that she wanted to be accompanied by someone who would be pleasant to the eyes, and she seemed to be in a good mood."
After hearing this answer, the two women who asked the question looked at Duan who was surrounded by everyone with complicated emotions, and then quietly looked at the person next to them...
Okay...it is indeed somewhat convincing.
One of them couldn't help but said: "Co-author... Our eldest princess Chongyue, who has a great heart, turns out to be a person who only cares about her face?"
Not far away, Chang Sui Ning, who had sharp ears, heard this conversation and nodded in agreement - yes, correct, objective, pertinent, and to the point.
"Girl?" Xi'er looked at Chang Sui Ning who nodded with some confusion.
Chang Sui Ning relied on the confidence of "nothing to fear even if your brain is broken" and did not intend to explain any strange behavior. He calmly asked: "Who is that female officer?"
She looked at this person from a distance, feeling a strange feeling that she couldn't explain.
"That is the head of Gu'an County." Xi'er whispered to her daughter: "But nowadays most people call it the Ming Dynasty's female history——"
Chang Suining looked over and asked, "Is she from the Ming family?"
"Yes, Ming Nu Shi is the niece of today's saint." Xi'er was familiar with some rumors from the capital and whispered: "It is said that Ming Nu Shi was born as a concubine in the family. She was not favored originally. After the Ming family,
No one in the house cares about it, just because when I was ten years old, I met the saint, and my fate was completely different..."
Chang Suining subconsciously asked: "How do you say this?"
