Chapter 400
Wen Tianyao casually flipped through a few paintings. When he came to the last painting, his gaze fell on it, and he froze. First of all, he knew that this was definitely not the work of his third brother. The strength of the strokes in this painting looked much weaker.
At the first glance, he could tell that it was the work of a woman.
When he looked closer, he found that the woman in the portrait looked somewhat familiar. The image of a woman immediately appeared in his memory, and it became clearer.
When he looked at the signature below, he saw that it was actually Marquise Hua Yang.
Marquise Hua Yang? Wen Tianyao felt as if his heart had been stabbed, and he felt a slight pain. So this was Marquise Hua Yang?
She looked exactly like the image he stored in his memory. He curled his lips into a bitter smile. No one would have thought that the Crown Prince had never met the dignified Marquis Hua Yang’s wife.
One day, he happened to ask by chance and hear that Marquise Hua Yang entered the palace to meet Mother Empress. He was intrigued to know how the vicious-looking Marquis Hua Yang could marry such a beautiful woman, so he went to steal a glance.
Only then did he know that Mother Empress disliked him seeing Marquise Hua Yang!
It was his mother’s most trusted confidant who came to stop him, and her attitude was so firm that in the end, she did not hesitate to stop him by mentioning his mother’s name. Because of this, he, who was still young and naive, decided to obey her order.
Then, he noticed that Marquise Hua Yang rarely entered the palace, but when she did, he would be sent away to do something that he could not refuse. The instruction came directly from Mother Empress.
This made Wen Tianyao even more suspicious.
Until one day, he saw the young woman in this painting standing among the orchid in the garden…
After that, he would occasionally go over to locate where the qin music came from and meet this woman. The music she was playing was the one Wei Qiufu had placed in the Plum Blossom Nunnery, but it was different from other women’s editions of Confession of Love…
However, Wen Tianyao did not meet Marquise Hua Yang on formal occasions till the day she passed away. Hence, he had no way of knowing if the woman he met was Marquise Hua Yang.
Now, it seemed that it was! As expected, she looked somewhat similar to Wei Yuewu, but not exactly. At first glance, they did look alike, but on closer inspection, there were not many similarities. Wei Yuewu had her eyes, but the eyes of Marquise Hua Yang in the painting seemed gentle and kind, while Wei Yuewu’s eyes were a bit detached and indifferent.
“W-Where did this come from?” He heard his own voice asking coldly.
“They are all portraits of the daughters of the aristocratic families that Heir-apparent of the Duke of Yan State returned. I don’t know why this portrait is stuck in there,” the eunuch thought about it and said. The Third Prince would always draw some portraits of the young ladies of the aristocratic families and send them over in order to please the Heir-apparent of the Duke of Yan State.
However, he returned the portraits batch after batch. This time, it was another batch of portraits that he returned.
In fact, there were only four to five of them, and each time, there would be a few that were repetitive. But this time, for some reason, this portrait was contained in this batch of portraits that were returned.
“Did the people from the mansion of Heir-apparent of the Duke of Yan State send these over?” Wen Tianyao’s brows furrowed even more. Yan Huaijing was paying attention to the mansion of Marquis Hua Yang and even to Marquise Hua Yang.
However, he handed the portrait to him. Did he do it intentionally?
Wen Tianyao’s gaze involuntarily fell on the beautiful and feminine brushing style of the portrait. It was obvious that this was not drawn by Yan Huaijing, but by a young lady instead. He had seen Yan Huaijing’s handwriting before. His brush strokes were strong and vigorous. Although the painting in front of him was very good, it could be seen that the brush strokes were not strong enough.
A young lady? The young aristocratic lady beside Yan Huaijing?
As soon as this thought appeared, he withdrew it. That young lady had been in Yan Huaijing’s mansion all the time and never left. In fact, Marquise Hua Yang had passed away years ago, so the young lady would never have the chance to meet her.
However, this portrait obviously looked new.
If it was not drawn by the young lady, who drew this?
He inexplicably remembered that he had asked Wei Yuewu to find a portrait of her mother, and his heart skipped a beat upon this thought. Was this portrait drawn by her?
The only people who could paint Marquise Hua Yang’s portrait accurately were none other than the young ladies in the mansion of Marquis Hua Yang.
Right now, there were only four young ladies in the mansion of Marquis Hua Yang who were still unmarried.
Wei Yuejiao was a concubine-born daughter, so she wouldn’t draw the Marquise’s portrait. Wei Qiufu was from the third branch, and she wouldn’t draw it either. It was even more impossible for the other concubine-born daughter to draw it.
At this point, he figured that Wei Yuewu was the most likely person. It would explain the light and dainty brushing style. Wei Yuewu looked quite agile and petite, so it showed that she had extraordinary skills for her to draw a fine portrait like this. However, women were innately inferior to men in terms of strength. This was difficult to make up for.
Thinking of this, Wen Tianyao was almost certain that it was Wei Yuewu who drew the portrait.
But why did Yan Huaijing have this portrait? It made Wen Tianyao even more suspicious.
“Your Highness, Third Prince is here!” Another eunuch came in and informed.
“Hurry up and invite him in!” Wen Tianyao nodded with his hands behind his back.
The Third Prince followed behind a eunuch and was about to bow to Wen Tianyao when he was stopped. “Third Brother, you don’t have to do this. Come and see this. This portrait was returned together with the portraits Yan Huaijing returned to me. It’s Marquise Hua Yang’s portrait.”
“Marquise Hua Yang?” The Third Prince was stunned for a moment. He obviously did not expect such a thing to happen.
“Come and take a look. Is it Marquise Hua Yang?” Wen Tianyao pulled Third Prince over and showed him the portrait he had placed on the table.
The Third Prince came over and looked at the woman in the portrait. The face in the painting was somewhat familiar. It was clearly the image of the gentle woman in his memory.
He thought that he had forgotten this image, but once he saw the portrait, the image suddenly appeared in his mind so clearly.
The face was sincere and gentle. It had once made him so attached to her. It was not only him, but also…
At that moment, he was greedy for the motherly gentleness, so much so that he deliberately followed her to the mansion of Marquis Hua Yang, just because this woman could make him feel the gentleness and caress of a mother…
It was so beautiful at first, but in the end, the beauty of that precious moment became another painful memory. The Third Prince clenched his hands fiercely, and his eyes twitched unconsciously. There were some things he couldn’t get over.
Those things were about Marquise Hua Yang, himself, and also Sixth Miss Wei.
“Third Brother, did you see this?” Noticing the pain and struggle on the Third Prince’s face, Wen Tianyao asked cautiously and sighed inexplicably. It seemed that it was true. Perhaps Marquise Hua Yang mistook him for Third Prince at that time.
“Yes, it was Marquise Hua Yang!” The Third Prince’s hand slowly relaxed, and he exhaled forcefully. It was as if he had breathed out the air that caused his suffocation in his chest.
“Who do you think drew it? Wei Yuewu?” Wen Tianyao reached out and patted his shoulder, seemingly comforting him.
This third brother had no greed and desire, and the two of them shared a good relationship. Because of this, he would help him no matter what.
“It’s very possible.” The Third Prince collected his thoughts and nodded.
“Can it be Wei Qiufu? I heard that Marquise Hua Yang treated her very well,” Wen Tianyao probed.
That day, Wei Qiufu said that Marquise Hua Yang treated her even better than Wei Yuewu. This was really strange. Who would treat their own daughter badly but treat other people’s daughter well?
“She treated other people’s daughters well.” The Third Prince nodded and felt a pain in his heart. She was kind to everyone, which was why that kind of thing happened to her.
He had never been able to forget that matter and had blamed himself because of that over the years. Things would probably have never happened in this way had he not yearned for the motherly gentleness and warmth from her, had he not come back and talked about Marquise Hua Yang all the time, and had she not been so gentle and kind…
“Did she treat them better than her own daughter?” Wen Tianyao asked in surprise.
“Equally well!” The Third Prince lowered his eyes to hide the pain in his eyes. After Marquise Hua Yang passed away, he could draw her, but her image had gradually faded away in his memory. It felt as if he couldn’t draw it even if he wanted to.
But when he saw the painting today, it was as if he had returned to the past. At that time, he was still young. No one took care of him, and he yearned to have a mother who could take care of him gently, but he did not have one…
“Why do you think Yan Huaijing has this?” Wen Tianyao sighed silently, waking up Third Prince from his thoughts. Every time he talked about Marquise Hua Yang, his brother would look so sad and sorrowful, but there was a hint of longing in his expression.
At that time, even though he was curious about Marquise Hua Yang, he did not dare to ask his brother to draw her portrait.
“Maybe Wei Yuewu gave it to him,” the Third Prince said after pondering for a moment.
“Why?” Wen Tianyao asked, although his answer was in line with his assumption.
“No matter how powerful Yan Huaijing is, he can’t go inside an unmarried young lady’s room and take a painting from there. I think he must have asked Sixth Miss Wei to draw this. I heard that Yan Huaijing saved her once when she came to the capital and again during Madam Dowager’s birthday banquet. He has saved her life twice. So I think it’s not a big deal for him to ask her for a portrait, and it is not her own portrait.”
It sounded reasonable and made sense. Wen Tianyao thought for a while and was a little dismayed when he remembered that he had asked Wei Yuewu to search for Marquise Hua Yang’s portrait but she never gave him.
“So, Yan Huaijing asked Wei Yuewu to draw this portrait. Of course, his target is not Wei Yuewu, but Wei Luowen, Marquis Hua Yang,” the Third Prince looked at Wen Tianyao and said.
Wei Luowen was an important official of the imperial court, and he also guarded the border with the State of Yan. It could be said that he held an extremely important position.
There was naturally a reason why Yan Huaijing valued him.
“Eldest Brother, could Yan Huaijing have taken a fancy to Wei Yuewu?” The Third Prince suddenly thought of a possibility, and his expression changed.
“It’s very possible!” It dawned upon Wen Tianyao. When he first met Wei Yuewu, Yan Huaijing said something ambiguous and meaningful, and then, a series of events happened that indicated that Yan Huaijing had another and deeper meaning. Of course, his main focus was Wei Luowen.
“Then what should we do?” The Third Prince frowned.
“We don’t have to do anything. Marquis Hua Yang has already reported the matter at the border to Father Emperor. He is willing to let Wei Ziyang take up the job. He will only have an idle position in the capital,” Wen Tianyao said indifferently. In this way, although the mansion of Marquis Hua Yang’s overall strength did not increase, the center of power was leaning toward the entire second branch, and the main branch was basically powerless!
“Why did Marquis Hua Yang do this?” This was definitely not a small matter. The Third Prince’s expression changed slightly…
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