Chapter 99:
He was unwilling for her to return bearing the identity of another man’s wife, and the thought of kidnapping her and keeping her as a hidden concubine flashed through Lu Ziyan’s mind only once before he subconsciously rejected it himself.
This was the young lady he had set his heart on since he was twelve, cherishing her deeply without ever slighting her in the slightest; how could he bear to keep her as a concubine who could not see the light of day.
He could not just hold her like this without any clarity.
If he was going to snatch her back, it had to be upright and proper, with eight carriers in a grand sedan, embracing her into his arms with the status of wife.
Thinking this way, Lu Ziyan’s face softened slightly, and his gaze even showed a hint of gentleness.
Xie Wanning had already been stirred to unease by his unpredictable moods and was the first to look away.
The autumn wind blew gently, the jade pendant at her waist swaying lightly against her skirt hem; as Xie Wanning stepped inside, the large gate slowly closed behind her, and she inevitably felt some nervousness.
This was a two-courtyard house; Lu Ziyan’s personal soldier was guarding the front courtyard, and only Ming Jian followed inside to lead the way ahead. He climbed several steps to the door of a side room, pushed the door open, made a gesture inviting her in with a bow, and then retreated.
In the spacious courtyard, only the two of them remained.
Lu Ziyan said, “The wind is strong outside; let’s talk inside.”
He took a few steps, then turned back to see her standing motionless, her hand clenched into a fist against her lips as she coughed twice, tilting her head with a smile, “What are you overthinking? I’m still injured; even if I wanted to touch you, I don’t have the strength right now, got it?”
Xie Wanning: “…”
Fine, she couldn’t beat him in a fight nor escape; she only hoped he would keep his word and let her go.
Charcoal fire had already been lit in the side room, making it very warm; soon after Xie Wanning entered, her little face was flushed red from the heat.
The two sat facing each other across the table; Lu Ziyan’s gaze fell on the cape she was wearing, his fingertip tapping as he said, “Take it off first; put it back on when you go out later, so you won’t easily catch a cold.”
Xie Wanning ignored him and said directly, “You’ve kidnapped me here; what exactly do you have to say? Say it quickly.”
It was already late; she hadn’t returned to the estate, and it couldn’t be hidden for long.
But Lu Ziyan was very insistent; his fingertip knocked on the table as he said, “I don’t want to hear in a few days that you’ve caught a cold.”
A cold could be minor or severe.
In Lu Ziyan’s eyes now, the young lady across from him was so fragile that she would fall at a gust of wind; everything about her required careful tending.
If possible, he even wanted to pull her into his arms and handle it all personally.
Xie Wanning didn’t want to waste time with him and did feel a bit hot, so she lightly tugged the tie to remove the cape.
But her impatience had reached its peak, showing in her eyebrows and eyes.
Lu Ziyan seemed oblivious; he sat very upright, shoulders broad and back straight, his deep dark eyes fixed on her, filled with an obscurity no one could read.
Xie Wanning prided herself on having the memories from the dream, thinking she understood him well enough, yet she couldn’t read the meaning in this gaze of his.
She only felt an inevitable tension rising in her heart from being looked at this way.
So tense that she dared not break this eerie silence.
After a long time, Lu Ziyan gently blinked.
“Wanwan,” his voice was hoarse, “I’ve come to give you an explanation.”
Xie Wanning was puzzled; he had just said he would give her an explanation.
But things between them were already settled; since the breaking off of the engagement, each had gone their separate ways in marriage, so what did he need to explain to her?
Outside the window, the autumn wind howled, swirling fallen leaves into a scene of desolation, while inside the room, the tea had boiled, bubbling with ‘gurgle gurgle’ sounds, steam rising and dispersing, inexplicably bringing a sense of relaxation.
“That day when our wedding date was near, but you insisted on breaking off the engagement no matter what, I was full of confusion…” Lu Ziyan’s voice was low and slow, “After all, before that, you clearly looked forward to marrying me very much.”
“I’ve been wondering why you suddenly changed.”
“Was it disappointment in me because of my nonsense words, or did you not believe my explanation at all, thinking that Liu Manrou and I had an improper relationship.”
“I even thought if you had shifted your affections to someone else…”
At this point, he paused, lifted his hand to refill her hot tea, and said gently, “That night after I passed out, I had a dream.”
Xie Wanning froze for a moment, her pupils suddenly dilating.
Her expression stiffened, as if struck by lightning.
Lu Ziyan watched her unblinkingly, and seeing her reaction, his last shred of hope vanished.
As expected…
He closed his eyes, hiding the despair in them, but his expression still showed a hint of bleakness.
She had also experienced that absurd dream.
No wonder she was so eager to break off the engagement, no wonder she remarried another, no wonder she changed her mind.
It was all his fault.
His fault.
He had never felt so fragile and despairing.
What did he mean?
What did that sentence he said mean?
What did this expression of his mean?
Xie Wanning’s fingertips holding the teacup trembled uncontrollably.
He had also had those dreams, and he too had gained memories not belonging to this world?
Those memories of him deceiving her, humiliating her, betraying her?
This was all too bizarre; Xie Wanning’s mind was in chaos, yet her thoughts grew clearer.
So, everything that happened in the dream was truly their past life?
She wasn’t some bystander but had experienced it personally herself.
Perhaps because she died so unjustly in her past life, even heaven couldn’t bear it and let her remember everything.
And now, he had remembered everything too.
He remembered he owed her a life, so he came to give her an explanation.
To think, it was like this.
Xie Wanning’s mind went blank, staring dazedly at him.
Her expression was helpless, like a lost little young lady at a loss for what to do; Lu Ziyan’s heart suddenly softened, his arm lifting almost subconsciously, wanting to pull her into his arms.
In the end, he restrained the motion.
Before seeing her, he always felt there were too many words to say; but now facing each other, his lips parted and closed, yet he didn’t know where to start.
But many things had to be told to her after all.
After a long, long time.
Lu Ziyan gave a self-mocking smile and said, “After you left, I clung to life alone for five years.”
Afraid of scaring her, he kept his voice very soft.
Xie Wanning blinked, “…What do you mean?”
He repeated slowly: “After you were gone, I lingered in the world for five years alone.”
Even though he was perfectly fine sitting across from her now, when speaking of his past life, he still refused to use the word ‘dead’.
This was his taboo.
Xie Wanning was already stunned.
“How could it be like this…”
What did it mean to linger in the world for five years alone.
He had practiced martial arts since childhood, strong and robust, with immeasurable martial power; when she spat blood and died, he was only twenty, just coming of age.
He had just inherited the title, from Young Lord of the Marquis’s Estate to Super Rank Marquis, at the age to make his mark and achieve achievements.
Why did he die at twenty-five?
Yes, how could it be like this?
Familiar twisting pain rose in his chest, Lu Ziyan breathing slightly labored from the pain, but afraid of disturbing the person before him, he forcibly endured it.
His voice trembled slightly, “That time you came to the study to find me, I was unaware; I was gravely injured and unconscious, on the verge of death.”
“…!” Xie Wanning’s pupils dilated slightly, her lips pursing unconsciously.
The study incident was, in those tragic dreams, aside from the two maidservants, her greatest knot in her heart.
She had endured for so long, been obedient for so long; that time was when she mustered the last of her courage for this relationship, wanting an explanation from him.
She wanted to know why he had to deceive her.
Lu Ziyan did understand her; the pride of a legitimate noble lady of the Marquis’s Estate, arranged by him to live in the family temple for several months, forbidden visitors and from leaving, already extremely aggrieved.
Yet he had not fulfilled his promise.
On the road back after storming into the study demanding an explanation only to be turned away, how heartbroken she must have felt.
The reprimand she suffered the next day before all the madams was nothing short of humiliation.
And he had witnessed all of it with his own eyes.
Thinking of the humiliation she endured, Lu Ziyan’s heart ached dully and unbearably.
He closed his eyes and continued, “On the way back from the Northern Frontier Battlefield, I encountered an ambush and was shot in the heart; I was unconscious for those days.”
“Before that, I thought what mattered most in my heart was family and country, responsibility, the pursuit of power; but on the brink of death between life and death, my mind held only you, only you.”
“I couldn’t bear for you to remarry after losing your husband, nor for you to live out your days in lonely hardship; …you don’t know that feeling,” he smiled, “Before passing out, I did everything I could to arrange everything for you.”
“I wrote the divorce letter; if I didn’t survive, someone would escort you back to the Xie Family, leaving Ming Jian and Ming Feng for you, along with five thousand personal guards; my private wealth wasn’t much, but I had already given it to you early on.”
“I always remembered you in the family temple, waiting for me to come back and pick you up, but news of my injury couldn’t be leaked; before life and death were certain, no one could know.”
He hadn’t deliberately avoided seeing her, deliberately deceived her, or deliberately humiliated her.
This answer left Xie Wanning somewhat dazed.
So that was how it was…
But that unwillingness and pain had already happened; did this belated explanation still have meaning now?
Amid her drifting thoughts, the man’s voice across from her continued.
“And Liu Manrou, I didn’t deceive you before; she is Lu Zishuo’s concubine, and the child in her belly is also the Lu Family Second Wife’s offspring.”
“…I don’t know how she made those marks you saw on purpose; I can only be sure I never touched a single finger of hers from start to finish.”
Terrified of being misunderstood, he was practically laying bare his heart.
“Before our marriage, I never touched another; in the two years of our marriage, I only wanted you; in two lives as a person, I’ve never shared a bed with any woman but you.”
He looked at her, voice strained, word by word, “Not Liu Manrou, nor Er Xia.”
Beliefs she had firmly held were suddenly completely overturned; Xie Wanning’s mind was in turmoil, as if listening to a celestial book.
The instant their gazes met, scorched by the light in his eyes, she hurriedly looked away and said quickly, “You think I’ll believe you?”
“You were concerned that the Lu Family’s Second Madam couldn’t accept her deceased husband leaving behind bloodline, and couldn’t let the Lu Family bloodline be lost, so arranging Liu Manrou into the Second Wife as a concubine was enough; why lift her to the position of main wife?”
“Because I owed the Lu Family.”
Lu Ziyan said, “At first, I thought the same as you: Liu Manrou was for the Second Wife, arrange her as a concubine there, and the child she bore, whether son or daughter, would count as continuing the Second Wife’s line, easing the pressure on you and me. But later, I learned something…”
He paused slightly, lips parting and closing, voice strained: “I am not the Lu Family’s biological bloodline.”
Xie Wanning had been listening quietly; she did want to know the full truth, even if all that past was from her previous life, but she still wanted to know. Hearing this, she suddenly looked up, staring at him in disbelief, “What did you say!”
“How could you not be the Lu Family’s biological!” She even suspected she’d misheard; they had known each other since childhood, childhood sweethearts growing up together.
He was the Lu Family’s sole remaining scion, loyal and valiant to the last!
“See, even you’re this shocked; can you imagine how I felt when I first heard it?”
Lu Ziyan coughed lowly twice, giving a self-mocking smile: “I truly am not the Lu Family’s biological bloodline; this matter, aside from the women in the family, my grandfather, father, and my birth father all knew.”
Xie Wanning hadn’t yet digested what this meant when he continued.
“Though they all knew, it’s an indisputable fact that I was raised by the Lu Family’s kindness and teachings; Lu Yunpei is the Lu Family’s only bone and blood. My thought at the time was, no matter what, I couldn’t let the Lu Family’s only bloodline become a concubine’s son.”
Legitimate and concubine-born status was like a chasm, the difference between cloud and mud.
Lu Yunpei was Liu Manrou’s son; if he didn’t promote Liu Manrou, he was destined to be merely a concubine’s son.
A concubine’s son had no inheritance rights, couldn’t enjoy family resources; though able to take the imperial examination, his concubine-born status required far more effort than a legitimate son to stand on the same level.
Lu Ziyan, young as he was, held great power, all earned on the battlefield by his own ability.
With his pride, upright and open, if unaware it would be one thing, but since he knew he wasn’t Lu Family offspring, he couldn’t go against his own heart and feign ignorance to suppress the true Lu Family bloodline.
He had received the Lu Family’s teachings, felt guilty toward them, and out of a desire to make amends, would surely ensure the Lu Family’s only scion had a smooth path ahead, inheriting the family’s remaining glory.
The room suddenly fell quiet.
Xie Wanning lifted her gaze in a daze to the man across from her; Lu Ziyan smiled gently at her and said apologetically, “The reason I didn’t tell you has a few causes.”
With nothing left unsayable, he said: “First, I’m just an ordinary man; I only wanted to appear tall and great before the woman I love, for you to take pride in me, not as a cuckoo occupying the magpie’s nest, usurping a loyal and valiant prominent family’s remaining glory, with a complicated background…”
He paused, then continued: “Second, the matter of my true identity couldn’t be known by others; it’s not that I didn’t trust you, but the less you knew, the better for you and those around you.”
“You grew up in the inner courtyard, seeing and hearing only back courtyard intrigues; you can’t imagine the treacherous waves of the imperial court. I didn’t want, and absolutely couldn’t let, you fall into danger.”
……Into danger.
Lu Ziyan’s voice choked, nearly bringing tears.
He had thought he’d eliminated all threats, protecting her airtight; under his guard, she wouldn’t meet any mishap.
While he lived, he would love and protect her for life; if he died, she could safely return to the Xie Family and continue as their noble lady.
But he had overlooked his own ‘family’.
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