180 Pitiful
Zhao Chuchu was dumbfounded.
She looked at Xie Heng. “How come your words do so much damage? Why did she run so fast?”
Xie Heng said indifferently, “Probably because she’s a coward. Don’t worry. They won’t dare to come looking for trouble again.”
“Are you sure?” Zhao Chuchu felt that the Kong family did not seem like they would give up easily. “Speaking of which, this grandfather’s family of yours is peculiar. Your mother is not at all the same as them.”
In the original owner of the body’s memory, Xie Heng’s mother was a very gentle person.
Compared to the people of the Kong family, she was like a star in the night sky.
“My mother’s real mother died while giving birth to her, and my grandmother is my mother’s aunt. The Kong family is intellectual and quite rich,” Xie Heng explained.
Zhao Chuchu was rendered speechless.
She wanted to criticize the Kong family but didn’t know where to start.
It was incredible that something like a sister-in-law marrying her brother-in-law would really be around.
“It looks like this aunt doesn’t treat your mother well.”
“Not exactly. At least to others, she’s a good stepmother.”
“She mistreats your mother in private, doesn’t she?”
Zhao Chuchu had heard quite a lot about such methods.
“Yep.”
Xie Heng nodded.
“It turns out they wanted to marry my mother to a 50-year-old man family as a concubine. Fortunately, my grandfather still had some conscience and did not agree to the marriage. Later, my mother married my father to get rid of them.”
Zhao Chuchu was disgusted.
It was possible that this sister-in-law already had her heart set on her brother-in-law from the beginning. Otherwise, how could she target the daughter left behind by her sister at every turn?
“This old woman is so repulsive.”
If she had known this inside information earlier, she would have made these people in the Kong family get a taste of losing sleep.
Xie Heng looked at Zhao Chuchu and said warmly, “It’s all in the past. My mother doesn’t want to get too involved with them, so she won’t return to her mother’s house except for the New Year’s holidays. And I, like my mother, have long since dismissed this family.”
Xie Jun snorted. “Brother, it’s not like that. I was not allowed to tell you that when you went to school, they often came to the house and robbed us of our belongings. I saw them push Mom once, and her head was injured. I saw it all.”
Xie Heng’s face turned cold. “Was it the time during the mid-autumn festival five years ago?”
“Yes, the year when I was five.” Xie Jun nodded vigorously.
“I see. Then, is there anything else that I don’t know?”
Xie Jun thought about it and told quite a few more odd things about the Kong family.
Because their home was far away from everyone else, plus his parents were used to holding back, not many people knew that the Kong family came looking for trouble and thought it was their filial piety.
Xie Jun was also ordered not to tell Xie Heng. Xie Heng was completely unaware of these things.
Xie Heng listened very calmly.
“It didn’t scare you today, did it?” Xie Heng asked Xie Jun. “If you’re fine, go out and play with Liang and the others. I need to discuss some matters of the field with your sister-in-law.”
“Okay.” Xie Jun ran away in a flash, leaving Xie Heng and Zhao Chuchu alone as quickly as possible.
“Did your mother’s death have anything to do with them?” Zhao Chuchu asked straightforwardly.
“No, they were sick. But these accounts can’t be written off just because my mother passed away. The old me didn’t know this.”
“They didn’t come to find you?”
Zhao Chuchu knew Xie Heng meant his previous life when he referred to “the old me.”
“I entered Imperial City when I was fifteen, and I didn’t have many encounters with them, and Junjun’s health wasn’t as good as it is now, and the poison was torturing him every single day, so it was impossible for him to tell me these things.”
His parents did pass away because of illness, so he didn’t look into the Kong family.
Then again, he no longer had time to care about such trivial matters.
Zhao Chuchu caught the point. “You started working as an official when you were fifteen?”
“Yep.”
“You don’t seem to like to talk about these things. Could it be that you have a lot of unpleasant memories after being an official?”
Xie Heng was at a loss for words.
He looked at Zhao Chuchu, and those soulful eyes were full of curiosity.
Xie Heng gestured for Zhao Chuchu to sit down.
Zhao Chuchu intuited that Xie Heng was going to tell a story.
Xie Heng made sure there was no one outside before lowering his voice and talking about his past life.
In his previous life, Xie Heng was 14 years old when he took the Provincial Examination and won in one fell swoop. Then he won the Conference Examinations and was named the top scholar in the Temple Examination.
The Prince’s uncle Sikou Zhendong took a fancy to him at fifteen and married his daughter Sikou Qin to him.
He married Sikou Qin for the simple reason that she was from an affluent family, and he needed such a wife. Even if he had no feelings for her, he would still give her respect as a wife.
But from the day they got married, they slept in separate beds, and the only communication they had was the words Sikou Qin said on the night of the wedding. “You are just a mere Number One Scholar. You are not worthy of me. I married you because my father wanted me to, I will not give you children, but you must give my children a name.
“Wait, is she trying to get you to raise someone else’s child?” Zhao Chuchu did not resist interrupting Xie Heng. “Da Lang, if you are not making up stories, you are really miserable!”
Seriously, Xie Heng’s appearance was one of a kind, a 15-year-old Number One Scholar. How could he be so pitiful and disliked by women everywhere?
Xie Heng looked calm. He didn’t get angry because of this kind of thing. “I don’t have any connections or background. A mere Number One Scholar was nothing in a place like the Imperial City. Everyone knows why the Sikou family chose me.”
...
He just didn’t expect the Sikou family to be so disgusting. It was obvious that they were humiliating him!
He could accept mutual use, but not the Sikou family to use him as a cover for shame.
Xie Heng continued on. It turned out that Sikou Qin had an affair with the Eldest Prince long ago and was originally going to marry the Grand Prince. Still, the appearance of Xie Heng made them discover Xie Jun’s existence, and to get what Xie Jun had, they married Sikou Qin to Xie Heng.
However, Sikou Qin was a no-brainer and actually told Xie Heng on the wedding night. She also told Xie Heng that she was already pregnant.
Xie Heng didn’t make a fuss about it, said he would cooperate with Sikou Qin, and pretended to ask Sikou Qin if he could have a concubine. Sikou Qin flatly rejected him.
Xie Heng knew then that the status of the child’s father in Sikou Qin’s womb was very high.
He endured the ridicule of the whole of the Sikou family and secretly set them up. Ultimately, he sent the Sikou family and the eldest prince away together.
“Then Junjun is…”
“The ninth prince.”
Zhao Chuchu was gobsmacked.
“I didn’t know about it until after I entered the government either.”
...
This was something Xie Heng did not lie about.
Before that, even his parents didn’t know about Xie Jun’s birth.
If Sikou Qin hadn’t been too eager to show off her status and unwilling to condescend to commit to him, a mere Number One Scholar, he wouldn’t have found out so quickly that Xie Jun’s birth was so amazing.
“What happened next?”
“Junjun did not live past the age of twenty.”
When Xie Heng thought of this matter, his heart sank.
Updated from fr𝒆ewebnov𝒆l.(c)om