Jiang Yuanrang looked at his sister with a puzzled expression upon hearing this. He simply didn’t want her to marry this widower whose wife had passed away, so how had it come to marrying her off to the Qinling Kingdom now?
“Can’t you just pick a fine young man from the Lannuo Kingdom to marry? If not, I’ll find you a good match in Lucheng,” Jiang Yuanrang said, frowning. He thought, what kind of monsters and demons were in the capital?
Could it be that his sister was only fit for the Qinling Kingdom or this widower before him?
His sister was delicate and lovely; she deserved the best!
With that thought, Jiang Yuanrang pulled Li Zhiwei behind him and quickly said, “Sister, don’t worry. I’ll protect you. These people have black hearts, I can tell. I’ll take you back to Lucheng.”
As he finished speaking, he made as if to drag Li Zhiwei away.
“Let her go!” Xu Heping watched Jiang Yuanrang holding Li Zhiwei’s hand, clearly displeased.
“Zhou’er, what are you doing?” Lady Yao and Li Tianyou quickly stepped forward as well.
They didn’t understand why their son, just after returning, was so eager to take his sister away.
His daughter’s wedding day was about to begin.
How could they leave at a time like this?
And in front of the future son-in-law no less—wouldn’t that make him uncomfortable?
“Zhou’er, let’s sit down and talk things over slowly,” Lady Yao said hastily.
“Talk about what? Are you even fit to be parents? One child was lost young and left to fend for themselves, and the one you kept you’re marrying off to a widower? Are you really her birth parents?” Jiang Yuanrang scolded Li Tianyou and Lady Yao with obvious dissatisfaction.
Li Tianyou and Lady Yao exchanged glances. Though this wasn’t their intention, it was the truth.
“Brother, you’ve misunderstood,” Li Zhiwei sighed. This elder brother of hers was stubborn and still held misconceptions about their parents.
“Brother, come with me.” Li Zhiwei pulled him aside and led him to the courtyard that Lady Yao and she had prepared for Jiang Yuanrang themselves.
“Brother, do you see this courtyard? It was set aside for you long ago, as soon as Mother and Father knew you might still be alive.” Once inside Ruiyun Pavilion, Li Zhiwei looked at Jiang Yuanrang with a gentle expression.
Jiang Yuanrang looked around Ruiyun Pavilion; every detail was exquisite.
He had to admit, he did like this courtyard.
But he was Jiang Yuanrang—he wouldn’t be won over by a mere courtyard and forget what they had done before.
He wouldn’t compromise.
“Hmph, a courtyard. I have one too, you know. Sister, come back with me to Lucheng, and I’ll give you one that’s even bigger and more luxurious!” Jiang Yuanrang said, saying one thing but meaning another.
“Brother, I know that these years you’ve spent outside are our failing. But this really wasn’t something we wished for. Father and Mother thought you were gone back then. Unable to bear the sight that stirred grief, they even moved away from Qujing to Li’an County.” Li Zhiwei looked at him with guilt, carefully pleading on behalf of Li Tianyou and Lady Yao.
“Hmph! Why did I fall into the water?” Jiang Yuanrang had no memory of the past, and though his anger toward Lady Yao had lessened a little, he still held resentment.
He couldn’t remember, so it must have happened when he was very young.
Yet deep down, he was also a bit displeased with Madame Jiang for not telling him the truth about his origins.
Still, Madame Jiang had raised him through hardships.
Nurture outweighed nature—that was the truth, no matter what.
“Back then, Mother was about to give birth. Father was called away to check accounts at the manor. You were being playful, went to the river with friends, and fell in by accident. Mother had just given birth to me when she heard you were missing. Ignoring her own frail condition, she waited by the river for three days and nights. Later, through a twist of fate, they found a body wearing clothes identical to yours from when you disappeared. But after three days in the water, the body was unrecognizable. Father and Mother thought it was you—” Li Zhiwei carefully recounted the situation at the time, explaining everything.
“So, all these years they didn’t look for me because they thought I was already dead?” Jiang Yuanrang felt a dull ache in his chest. He hadn’t expected it to be like this.
“Yes. I’m sorry, brother. On behalf of Father and Mother, I apologize. They didn’t go looking for you because they truly believed you were gone.” Li Zhiwei’s eyes reddened as she looked at him.
“Can you forgive them?” she asked. She felt that this brother was quite good to her, since he had worried about her marrying the wrong person and wanted to take her away.
“Hmph, I might have misunderstood that, but it’s still a fact that they’re marrying you off to that widower,” Jiang Yuanrang said with discontent.
“Brother, have you heard in recent years about the marriage of the Li family, the wealthiest in the Lannuo Kingdom?” Li Zhiwei asked with a self-deprecating smile.
“I heard that the Li family daughter married into the capital with a huge dowry, but on her wedding day, she was left waiting outside the husband’s estate?” Jiang Yuanrang recalled a storyteller mentioning it.
At the time, he had scoffed, thinking the Li family was overly ambitious—the aristocratic families looked down on merchants, and even if the Li daughter brought a dowry that could rival a kingdom, her husband’s family would still think she wasn’t refined enough. But he hadn’t paid much attention.
“That Li family daughter was me. At the time, the Ru’an Marquis’s manor used their power to force Father into agreeing to marry me into their family. I arrived with one thousand three hundred and sixty dowry cases, waiting outside the Ru’an Marquis estate, but I wasn’t allowed in. Even more absurdly, three days before, the young heir of the Ru’an Marquis had already married another woman.” Li Zhiwei recalled her previous life, when she had still married into the Ru’an Marquis manor, leading to the Li family’s tragic downfall.
“Hmph, I told you they’re not decent parents!” Jiang Yuanrang was furious at hearing this, feeling like beating up everyone at the Ru’an Marquis manor who had bullied his sister.
“Brother, do you know why the Ru’an Marquis manor wanted me to marry in? It was because they aimed for the Li family’s vast fortune. I was fortunate then to be saved by the young heir of the Prince An’s manor. To protect the Li family and our parents, I voluntarily donated my dowry to the imperial court.” Li Zhiwei felt a bit better at this thought.
After all, that decision of hers was the right one.
“They didn’t do anything?” Jiang Yuanrang asked, still dissatisfied.
“Father and Mother were far away in Li’an County then, too far to help in time.” Li Zhiwei shook her head. She didn’t blame them for this; she had done it willingly.
Only, in her previous life, Xu Heping hadn’t gone to Heping County, and he hadn’t known her at all.
He also never met Li Tianyou, and even if he had run into Jiang Yuanrang, he wouldn’t have suspected his connection to the Li family, would he?
Chapter 476
6 min read