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Marquis Gu slammed the table, "Both witnesses and physical evidence are here. What else do you have to say?"
These letters were definitely written in Concubine Ling's handwriting at first glance.
Concubine Ling herself was confused.
For a moment, she suspected that she had suffered amnesia!
Could she have really written it?
This adulterer, of course, didn’t exist. In order to make the whole story more reasonable and believable, Old Chief wrote a letter that conveyed their break up in a very sorrowful tone at the very end.
It roughly said: I've had enough of this secret relationship. I can no longer stand seeing you go back to another man. Farewell, love of my heart. Don't come find me. I'll be going to a place where there is no one else but me, carrying all the memories of the two of us together for the rest of my life! These letters between us are proof that I have once stayed in your world. I want to leave them all to you, hoping you’ll take good care of them.
Okay, it even filled the hole as to why Concubine Ling was still keeping these love letters safe till now.
If there had been no letters from Concubine Ling herself, it could only be regarded as a one sided story of the male adulterer. Concubine Ling could dispute that it was not written to her at all.
But it was precisely because there were her handwritten replies mixed in the bunch of letters that gave this romantic story a sense of realness and persuasiveness.
Marquis Gu: No wonder the adulterer can't be found. It turns out that he had left the capital already!
Marquis Gu was seething with anger. He wasn’t just furious about Concubine Ling putting a green hat on his head, but also angry that the adulterer’s writing was much more spicy than his own!
But he really couldn’t come up with such corny and cheesy sentences!
......Let’s take down notes and write it to his wife later!
The fact that Marquis Gu could still be distracted at this moment despite being absolutely angry about Concubine Ling's cheating on him meant that Concubine Ling really didn’t hold much importance in his heart, and it was purely a matter of a man’s face.
In contrast, Old Madame Gu was truly very furious.
Concubine Ling was simply too shameless. Was the husband in their family so bad that she had to have an affair outside?!
Which wild man out there could compare to her son?
Trembling with anger, she pointed to Concubine Ling's nose, "I used to think you are a good woman and treated you like my own daughter! You are never mistreated in terms of food and clothing! Although you’re only a concubine, you are living a better life in the estate than the official wife! In the end, this is how you repay Lord Marquis?"
Concubine Ling thought inwardly: Right, she indeed lived a better life than the official wife, but wasn’t that because she drank the anti-pregnancy medicine? If she happened to have given birth to a son that could compete with Gu Changqing and his younger brothers for the family property, would the Old Madame still think highly of her?
She didn't say her thoughts out loud though.
It was unlikely for Old Madame Gu to see any wrong in her own actions, rather she would only think that Concubine Ling did not know honor and shame and was extremely greedy. It was her who begged to enter the Marquis Estate, and she was the one who volunteered to drink the anti-pregnancy medicine, saying that nothing was as important as the Marquis Estate and the children of her older sister.
Could she just be saying nonsense then?
In truth, Concubine Ling had never said those words, but Old Madame Gu would only believe what she wanted to believe. And in her mind, Concubine Ling said those words.
When Concubine Ling was drinking the anti-pregnancy medicine, her widened and tearful eyes were looking straight at Old Madame Gu with grievance.
She didn't refuse because she couldn't, not because she was willing.
However, Old Madame Gu deliberately misinterpreted it as voluntary.
Old Madame Gu could tolerate Concubine Ling's framing Yao shi, but she would never allow Concubine Ling to tarnish her son’s reputation.
Concubine Ling said with sorrow, "Doesn’t mother know best what kind of person I am? How could I do something to let down Lord Marquis?"
The evidence was conclusive, so Old Madame Gu would never listen to her excuses!
The dirty water that Concubine Ling poured on Yao shi in those days was now poured back on herself ten fold.
Concubine Ling's nails dug into her flesh, "Fine then, you say I’m pregnant? I'd like to see if I will have a baby in ten months!"
But, did she really have ten months to prove whether her pregnancy was real or not?
Marquis Gu opened the second box, which turned out to be two account books.
The first one was the Marquis Estate's account book. Evidently, it wasn’t a public account, but Concubine Ling's private account.
It was recorded that Concubine Ling embezzled as much as 200,000 taels of silver from the Marquis Estate!
It must be known that Marquis Gu's salary in a year was only a few hundred taels of silver. It would take him five hundred years to save this amount of money without eating or drinking.
Part of this money was to subsidize her brothers.
Compared with the declined Yao Family, Concubine Ling's two brothers, who lived separately from their parent’s home, led a much better life, thanks to Concubine Ling funding the both of them thousands of taels of silver.
It was at this moment that Old Madame Gu felt that Yao shi was much more reliable than this one surnamed Ling. At least Yao shi wouldn't steal the Marquis Estate's hard-earned money to subsidize her own family.
Another portion of the money was converted into gold ingot by Concubine Ling and deposited in the bank, which was to satisfy her own greed.
Old Madame Gu didn’t even know what she intended to do with this private money. Did she actually planned to elope with that wild man?
Old Madame Gu was furious!
The last ten thousand taels of silver were recorded in a more intriguing way. It was unknown what they had been used for as there were only the names of a few servants written down.
"Zhang De..." Marquis Gu chanted this name and thought it sounded familiar.
Huang Zhong said, "Lord Marquis, isn’t that Little Zhang?"
Marquis Gu mused, "Little Zhang?"
Huang Zhong explained, "Unfalling Zhang! The guy who doesn’t get drunk even after downing a thousand cups! He’s really amazing when it comes to drinking! He used to be in charge of the storehouse. Later, he became the coachman for the First Madame for more than a year!"
With that, Marquis Gu remembered. That guy loved to drink, as a result, he always made mistakes. Later, he was sent back to guard the storehouse by Ling shi.
Marquis Gu asked, "Is he still in the estate?"
"Yes!" Huang Zhong answered.
"What about these ones?" Marquis Gu handed the account book to Huang Zhong.
"All these people are still here. But this one named Liu Chun’er..." Huang Zhong was not sure.
"She's no longer in the estate! But this old servant knows where she lives!" Old Madame Gu's confidant elderly maid said from outside the curtain.
Thereupon, Huang Zhong and the confidant elderly maid went separately to find people. Most of the servants in the account books were found while a few of them had disappeared, but it did not affect the final investigation.
Marquis Gu confronted them in front of Concubine Ling.
At first, they didn't admit it.
Marquis Gu said coldly, "You can continue denying it. Anyway, it’s clearly recorded here how much money you have received. You must give back the same amount of money to this Marquis immediately. Otherwise, it will be regarded as theft and I will have to report you all to the authorities! I'm a Marquis, I can guarantee that the people I have the officer arrested and imprisoned can’t come out to see the sun again!"
As soon as these words came out, everyone jolted in alarm.
Zhang De was the most timid and thus the first one to kowtow and beg for mercy, "Lord Marquis, have mercy! This servant will confess! This money was given to this servant by Concubine Ling. She instructed this servant to spread the rumor that the First Madame was killed by the Second Madame in the estate and all over the capital!"
"She also asked this servant to break the third young master’s favorite inkstone and frame the fourth young master!" One old female servant said.
"She had this servant say in front of the second and third young masters that Lord Marquis won't want them anymore once Lord Marquis has a new wife! And if the new Madame gives birth to a son, then the Marquis Estate will belong to their youngest brother!" Another old female servant added.
Among these people, some have served Gu Chengfeng and Gu Chenglin closely.
Gu Chengfeng and Gu Chenglin had great prejudice against Yao shi. On the one hand, it was the influence of Old Madame Gu and the Ling Family, on the other hand, it was instigated by these few servants.
However, they were very skillful in their instigation. Under the direction of Concubine Ling in the dark, not only did the two brothers listen to them well, but the situation also made them unlikely to tell on their servants.
A servant boy said, "Also... That time when the fourth young master was locked up in the storeroom... The third young master wasn’t strong enough to close the door. Concubine Ling then asked this servant to shut the door..."
Even Gu Chenglin didn't know about it. He really thought he had shut the door himself.
Gu Yan, who was unable to open the door, had a heart attack and almost died inside.
Marquis Gu almost beat the three brothers to death at that time.
Gu Changqing was always by the side of Old Marquis, and Concubine Ling couldn’t make a move on him. Hence, she extended her manipulating hands to Gu Chengfeng and Gu Chenglin.
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