Chapter 279: Not Dead!
Yun Moxiao stared dazedly at Yun Ruoyan, rather shocked by her desire to be married off as soon as possible. After all, to him, she was still just a little girl!
In truth, ignoring her reborn soul, she was just a little girl.
“Ruoyan, you’re still not of age yet, are you?”
“No, I’m only fourteen. Next spring, when the phoenix orchids bloom once more, I’ll reach my age of majority.”
Her gaze was bright, clear, and filled with anticipation. “It’s only two or three months away, so it isn’t too early to be planning my wedding now.”
Given her apparent jubilation, Yun Moxiao couldn’t bear to speak up against his sister’s wishes. “Ruoyan, you’ve changed so much this last year,” he eventually sighed.
By the time Yun Moxiao had returned from the army, Yun Ruoyan had already cleansed the carmine embrace from her body with Lin Zainan’s help. With this poison gone, she had regained her beauty.
If you had seen me before my rebirth, Brother, you would surely have been more surprised. “My hard work brought me a few opportunities, but a large part of my improvement was only possible due to Li Mo’s help,” Yun Ruoyan began solemnly. “Brother, if there exists a man that’s worth my marrying, that man is surely Li Mo.”
Yun Ruoyan’s words were tinged with the affectation of aged wisdom, manifesting itself so strongly that Yun Moxiao was a little taken aback.
His sister smiled again, somewhat sadly. “No matter how you or Father object, no matter what Grandfather thinks, I’ll still marry Li Mo.”
“Since your mind is set, as your brother, I have to support you, don’t I?” Yun Moxiao sighed.
“Brother, thank you!” Yun Ruoyan leaned her head against his dependable shoulder. In her heart, she thanked the heavens once again that there were two trustworthy men in her life this time around.
“Young Master, Miss, we’re at the Lin manor,” their carriage driver announced.
Yun Ruoyan and Yun Moxiao got off the carriage. When they saw Lin Bo standing at the front of the manor waiting for them, they both sped up unconsciously.
“Lin Bo, what’s so urgent?” they asked.
“You’ll see once you talk to Master Lin,” Lin Bo replied.
The two siblings exchanged a worried glance before they followed Lin Bo toward Lin Zainan’s study. As they entered, they saw Lin Zainan slumped against his chair behind the desk, his eyes glazed over. However, his eyes conveyed neither worry nor anxiety, but rather a sense of joy.
“Yan’er, Xiao’er, you’re both here!” Lin Zainan straightened up and smiled.
Yun Ruoyan and Yun Moxiao both relaxed upon seeing their grandfather in good spirits.
“Grandfather, what was so urgent that you had to summon us immediately?” Yun Moxiao asked.
“Something big has happened.” Lin Zainan motioned for Lin Bo to shut the door, then for Yun Moxiao and Yun Ruoyan to have a seat. “Yesterday, one of the servants responsible for guarding the Lin mausoleum reported that someone tried to rob a tomb.”
“What---someone robbing a Lin family tomb?!” Yun Moxiao and Yun Ruoyan recoiled with identical expressions of shock, then looked even more strangely at Lin Zainan. Doing so was an unimaginable offense, so why did Lin Zainan look so happy?
“Grandfather, why aren’t you… angrier?” Yun Ruoyan asked.
“Because the incident led me to discover an excellent piece of news,” Lin Zainan replied agitatedly.
“What news?”
Lin Zainan took a deep breath and slowly exclaimed, “Your mother might not be dead!”
“Grandfather, what did you say?!” Yun Moxiao and Yun Ruoyan exclaimed as one. Yun Ruoyan was so shocked that she even stood up.
“Your mother might still be alive,” Lin Zainan repeated, his voice quavering.
“Mother isn’t dead?!” Yun Ruoyan and Yun Moxiao exchanged a glance in disbelief. After Lin Zainan returned from the pillmasters’ conference in the Yue kingdom and was told that Lin Yuemei had died, he had discovered several strange aspects of her death that merited a postmortem examination of her corpse.
However, by that time, the Yun family had already buried Lin Yuemei, and they were strongly against Lin Zainan’s request.
“I had no other choice but to sneak into the Yun family mausoleum to reclaim Lin Yuemei’s corpse,” Lin Zainan explained.
“What?! Grandfather, you… stole Mother’s corpse and brought it back to the Lin family?”
Yun Ruoyan and Yun Moxiao were clearly shocked that their esteemed grandfather would do such a thing.
“I was heartbroken by my daughter’s death and suspicious that her death had been caused by the Yun family, so I didn’t want to leave even the smallest stone unturned.”
Lin Zainan’s means were shocking, but his motives were understandable.
“No one knew about this, no one except for me and Lin Bo. I hid the matter even from your grandmother.”
“In that case, my mother’s sepulcher is fake…?!” Yun Ruoyan couldn’t believe that she had been paying her respects to an empty tomb all this time.
“After I retrieved her corpse, I made her original tomb in the Yun family a cenotaph,” Lin Zainan continued. “Your mother’s corpse had largely decomposed, and there were no distinguishing features left on her body. I didn’t discover any remnants of a strong poison or anything of the sort, so although I still had my doubts, I could only drop the matter. Afterwards, I buried that body within the Lin mausoleum.
Yun Ruoyna remembered that there had been an unnamed tomb by her deceased grandmother’s tomb, which Lin Zainan had always bade her kowtow to whenever she came by to offer sacrifice to her ancestors. Only now did she realize that it was likely her mother’s.
“But, last night,” Lin Zainan continued, his voice tinged with emotion, “that grave robber unearthed the corpse I retrieved from the Yun family. The groundsperson didn’t dare touch it, so he reported the matter to me immediately. When I placed those bones back into your mother’s tomb, I found that they didn’t belong to your mother.”
Lin Zainan was so agitated that his beard was faintly shaking. “When Yuemei was small, she fell while learning horseback riding. At the time, she broke her left arm, and I personally attended to her injury using bone-fixing grass.”
The bone-fixing grass was a herb that could be threaded through broken bones to help them mend fully. However, the seam at which the cracks joined up would be dyed a bright jade-green, one which would never fade.
“I found that her left radius was whole and unblemished, so the skeleton couldn’t have been your mother’s at all!” Lin Zainan stood up. “As such, I suspect your mother might still be alive.”
“Our mother’s alive?” Yun Ruoyan glanced toward Yun Moxiao, only to see shock and agitation warring on his face. Only after long minutes did the two siblings seem able to digest this revelation.
“In that case, where might she be?” Yun Moxiao asked.
Both siblings turned toward Lin Zainan, hoping against hope that he would have a clue as to her whereabouts, but he only shook his head. “I don’t know, but this is a question to pose to your father. I think it highly likely that he’s been hiding Yuemei somewhere,” Lin Zainan spat, his disgust for Yun Lan as clear as it had ever been.
“I had intended to pay a visit to the Yun manor to interrogate Yun Lan himself, but he would have all sorts of excuses for me. I don’t think I would be able to discover anything, so I summoned both of you urgently to see if you had any ideas regarding how to proceed.”
Yun Moxiao scrunched up his forehead. “Grandfather, if I may speak honestly, I think Father’s feelings for Mother are genuine. If he truly orchestrated her false death, then why would he have remained grief-stricken all these years?”
Yun Moxiao had personally witnessed how his father had restored and maintained Lin Yuemei’s former cottage, and how frequently he would head to the cottage atop the lake to reminisce about his time with her.
And during Yun Ruoyan’s annual visits to the Yun mausoleum to offer sacrifices to her ancestors, she would often see her father standing still in front of Lin Yuemei’s tomb. Even if he knew her tomb were fake, surely he wouldn’t have kept the pretense up for over a decade?
“Even so, he’s still quite suspicious,” Lin Zainan emphasized. “Yun Lan’s our only lead, and we have to begin our investigation with him.”
“Grandfather, don’t worry. Ruoyan and I will surely investigate this matter thoroughly. No matter where our mother is, we’ll bring her back to reunite with you,” Yun Moxiao promised, his tone resolute.
The two siblings left the Lin manor and returned to the Yun household. Yun Ruoyan paid her respects to her father and described what had happened during her stay at Kongming Academy. When Yun Lan found out that Yun Ruoyan had been chosen to participate in the expedition to the alternate dimension, his face twitched.
But he didn’t say anything more, and only instructed her to train studiously and prepare well. Yun Ruoyan nodded and turned to leave, but when she got to the door of his study, he called her back. “Tomorrow, go pay your respects to your mother with your brother.”
Yun Ruoyan turned around to see Yun Lan seated at his desk, his head lowered as he wrote, as though his words were only a coincidence.
“Yes, Father.”
Then, Yun Ruoyan and Yun Moxiao went to see their grandmother together. Surprisingly, she found Qin Jianmei and Yun Ruoyu in her yard with her.
“Ruoyan greets Grandmother.”
“Ah, my Yan’er’s finally back to see me!” The Yun matriarch smiled and extended a hand to her.
Yun Ruoyan clasped her grandmother’s hand and sat down by her side. “Grandmother, I’m sorry I can’t accompany you more often.
The Yun matriarch held onto her with both hands. “Yan’er, although I wish you could always accompany me, I know how important your cultivation is. After all, in the end, this house and the family name will pass onto your generation.” She sighed. “I’m old, and I don’t know how many years are left to me. You must remain safe; don’t force me to send one of my grandchildren off again.”
Yun Ruoyao’s death had been a big blow to Yun Lan and the Yun matriarch; the Yun family had fewer scions than average for the noble families of the capital.
After Yun Ruoyao’s death, the main house’s descendants only consisted of her, Yun Ruoyu, and Yun Moxiao.
1. Radius as in arm bone, not circle.
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