Chapter 237:
Xie Yanyu and Ji Chengfeng were both somewhat surprised. They hadn’t expected that she could run off alone and still encounter their own cousin.
“To think we are so fated.” Xie Yanyu mustered some spirit and said to Chen Xi’er, who still had tears on her face beside him, “Cousin, greetings. Thank you for taking care of Wanwan these past days.”
Xie Wanning felt a bit embarrassed. She was the elder sister, yet when her elder brother spoke of her, it was as if she were still a little child.
By contrast, Ji Chengfeng recalled Chen Xi’er’s earlier words as she knelt and pleaded, and asked, “Is Scholar Li your husband?”
“Yes!” Chen Xi’er hurriedly said, “My husband is a gentleman as refreshing as a clear breeze and bright moon. He is absolutely not a wicked man. Please investigate clearly!”
As she spoke, she wanted to kneel again.
“No need for such courtesy,” Ji Chengfeng made a gesture to help her up, saying, “Even if he weren’t your cousin’s husband, I would not let a student in my jurisdiction suffer injustice.”
With this promise, Chen Xi’er breathed a huge sigh of relief and nodded repeatedly.
The group dismissed their attendants and entered the courtyard.
Seeing no one else around, Xie Wanning hurriedly grasped her elder brother’s sleeve. “Elder Brother, how are Father and Mother?”
Earlier in the carriage, upon hearing that Madam Zheng had nearly cried herself dry for her sake, Xie Wanning had been anxious and worried, but fearing eavesdroppers, she dared not speak much.
Now she could no longer hold back and pleaded, “Tell me quickly.”
“You still know to worry about Father and Mother!” Xie Yanyu felt an itch in his hands, wanting to pinch his younger sister’s cheek as he had when they were young.
Thinking that she was now about to become a mother, he barely restrained himself and said indifferently, “The pain of a white-haired person sending off a black-haired one—what do you think?”
Their palm jewel, the apple of their eye, had been pampered at their side since childhood, protected like the pupil of their eye.
In the past few years, she had chased after Lu Ziyan day after day, and they had never said a word against it.
Later, when her heart was hurt and her feelings severed, she insisted on breaking off the engagement.
The other party was a young marquis who held military power and had limitless prospects, yet their daughter refused to marry. For the sake of their daughter’s feelings, they tore faces with the Lu Family and insisted on canceling the engagement.
Then later, their daughter inexplicably wanted to marry Pei Yuqing, who was eleven years her senior, whose poor health was widely known, and who was old enough to be her elder.
Seeing her determination, her parents nodded and agreed.
It could be said they indulged her in everything.
Yet even after she married, they still worried themselves sick over her.
On her wedding night, Lu Ziyan had caused a huge scene in the wedding chamber.
More than a year after the marriage, their delicate young lady had been kidnapped by Jin raiders.
Falling into the hands of Jin raiders, how could she possibly fare well.
Upon hearing the news, Madam Zheng blacked out on the spot and could not get out of bed.
When news came that Lu Ziyan had rescued her, the rumors in the capital city about their daughter began to turn around.
At that time, Madam Zheng and Xie Shu were somewhat grateful to Lu Ziyan.
Without him, even if their family’s precious youngest daughter was rescued, her reputation would be ruined, and the spit of gossip would drown her.
Jin people were existences that everyone shouted down under the Great Khan.
Compared to the severity of falling into the hands of Jin raiders, the scandal of being fought over by two men was simply negligible.
Lu Ziyan had shouldered this blame himself.
He admitted that he was the one who had kidnapped her.
The capital city’s common folk at most gossiped a few words about what heavenly beauty Duke Pei’s Mansion’s young lord’s consort must possess.
But falling into the hands of Jin people would make her worse than a street rat.
Not only Xie Shu and Madam Zheng were grateful to Lu Ziyan—Xie Yanyu was too.
When he learned of his younger sister’s trouble, he was a thousand li away. The news took several twists and turns to reach him, and by then the emperor had already decreed divorce and granted an imperial marriage to Lu Ziyan.
