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Little Jing Kong was exuding Xiao Liulang's presence from head to toe, even his little mannerisms were exactly the same.
Long Yi stared at Little Jing Kong for a while, then glanced at Xiao Liulang inside the house. Suddenly, his brain malfunctioned!
After Gu Jiao made sure that Princess Xinyang was truly fine, she got up and left.
Yu Jin offered to pay for the medical treatment, and Gu Jiao didn't refuse.
As Gu Jiao left the residence, she found that Little San's carriage was still there, so she got on it.
She assumed that Xiao Liulang had already gone back with Little Jing Kong, but to her surprise, both the big and the small were seated in the carriage at this moment. Xiao Liulang was awake, while Little Jing Kong was sleeping soundly in his arms.
"He has eaten already." Xiao Liulang said. "He wanted to wait for you."
He seemed to be explaining why they hadn't gone ahead and returned home.
Gu Jiao made a noncommittal sound, choosing not to reveal that she saw through his intentions.
Little Jing Kong did want to wait for her, but he could wait inside the residence. His decision to stay wasn't solely to wait for her; half of it was indeed for her, and the other half was to wait for Princess Xinyang to recover from her condition.
In this world, relationships were never entirely fair. Often, when parents hurt their children, the children wouldn't stop loving their parents; they would just stop loving themselves.
Gu Jiao sat down next to Xiao Liulang. Little San, the coachman, waved the whip in his hand, and the wheels turned in the quiet street.
The noise was quite loud, coincidentally masking their conversation.
"The princess is fine now." Gu Jiao said to Xiao Liulang.
Xiao Liulang lowered his gaze, his emotions hidden from view. He murmured a low "en," and reached out to pull up his slipping coat, covering Little Jing Kong's entire body.
Little Jing Kong was sleeping deeply, his lips smacking intermittently as he seemed to be dreaming about something.
In fact, Princess Xinyang’s fainting today was partly due to Little Jing Kong's complaints about Xiao Liulang. It was the case of, ‘The speaker has no intention, but the listener reads between the lines.’ How could Princess Xinyang have anticipated the hardships Xiao Liulang had endured in these past few years?
Gu Jiao pinched the little one's cheek and withdrew her hand. As her gaze shifted away, it seemingly glanced over Xiao Liulang's face.
Afterward, she looked elsewhere.
But she was still mindful of him, casting him a sidelong glance.
"Do you want to know about my origins?" Xiao Liulang suddenly spoke.
"...Yes." Gu Jiao didn't deny it.
At some point, she had become curious about his background, wanting to understand him—— the good, the bad, the proud moments, the embarrassing ones... She wanted to know everything about him.
It was just that he didn’t bring it up, and she rarely took the initiative to ask.
But if he did initiate to talk about it, she wouldn't be polite either.
After all, moments like these were really hard to come by, where the atmosphere was so open.
"Even if my background is sordid, you still want to know?" Xiao Liulang let out a self-mocking smile, "You'll regret it. Regret marrying me, regret treating me so well, and even regret knowing me."
Gu Jiao looked at him with confusion.
Xiao Liulang chuckled grimly, "I've told you that I'm not Princess Xinyang's biological child, but I haven't said who exactly my parents are."
"En." Gu Jiao responded.
Xiao Liulang's expression inexplicably relaxed, "There's actually nothing that can't be said. My mother was a prisoner of war, no, she couldn't even be considered a true prisoner of war. She was just a subordinate of the prisoners, a female slave from the State of Yan."
"Princess Xinyang and that female slave became pregnant in the same month and gave birth in the same month. Princess Xinyang's son was born half a month early. Then, on the night I was born, the Marquis Estate was attacked by assassins, and both that child and I were poisoned."
"There was only one antidote."
Upon hearing this, Gu Jiao seemed to understand somewhat.
She didn't interrupt Xiao Liulang but patiently waited for him to continue.
Xiao Liulang smiled faintly, with a hint of helplessness and scorn, "I was just the son of a female slave. How could I possibly be entitled to the antidote? In order to get the antidote for me, that female slave stole Princess Xinyang's son and killed him in cold blood. Then she hanged herself."
Ever since hearing that there was only one antidote, Gu Jiao had already predicted the development of the story. Therefore, there wasn't much surprise in her heart.
Or perhaps she was just too cold-blooded.
Her parents from her previous life were right. She was indeed a monster.
Xiao Liulang still wore an indifferent expression, as if what he was recounting wasn't his own experience but rather an inconsequential story, "Princess Xinyang didn't know, she believed they were captured by the assassins, and killed by the assassins. She lost her son, and I lost my mother. She said that maybe we were fated to be mother and son. She then decided to raise me as her own."
When Princess Xinyang decided to raise him, he was just an infant in swaddling clothes. Naturally, he couldn't have heard those words directly from her. It was something Princess Xinyang told him later on.
"I see." Gu Jiao said. "Well, does Marquis Xuanping know?"
Xiao Liulang lowered his gaze, "Yes, he knows. It was exactly him who led Princess Xinyang to believe that her son and the female slave were captured and killed by the assassins. It wasn't until four years ago that she coincidentally learned the truth—— that she had been raising her enemy’s son for fourteen years."
After that, Princess Xinyang collapsed.
She had never forgotten about her lost son, nor had she treated Xiao Liulang as a replacement for anyone. She genuinely raised Xiao Liulang as another son of hers.
She devoted herself to his upbringing, put in all her painstaking efforts, and molded him into a remarkable Little Marquis of Zhao.
Because of this, she couldn't handle the blow of the truth.
That female slave was dead, so I could only kill her son!
This was her inner demon, her utmost evil.
"I was the last one to find out." Xiao Liulang said calmly.
He appeared calm on the surface, but whether his heart matched that calmness was unknown.
Gu Jiao paused, "So the fire four years ago..."
Xiao Liulang nodded, "She wanted to kill me. She wanted to die with me. Unfortunately, things didn't go according to plan. The person burned to death wasn't me. Long Yi arrived later and rescued her."
He didn't explain what went wrong, but Gu Jiao thought it must have been related to the real Xiao Liulang.
He had told her once that he might not be who she thought he was. She had thought he was referring to his identity as Xiao Liulang, but it turned out he was talking about his identity as Xiao Heng.
Suppressing the immense pain in his heart, he said, "Sometimes I wonder, why wasn't I the one who died back then? Why did I survive? How many lives must I bear on my shoulders? A person like me... someone so filthy!"
Gu Jiao gently took his hand.
"Husband, you're not filthy."
"And, it's not your fault."
T/N: This is yesterday's update. Apologies for the delay. Today's update will be posted later.
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