CHAPTER 410: CHAPTER 378: I LOST A MOTHER (DOUBLE UPDATE)

Suddenly hearing these words, Fanghua’s face froze as if all expressions had been frozen, with no reaction for a long time.

Wen Wan did not avoid the shocked gaze of her birth mother.

After asking, she felt both physically and mentally relaxed.

Along with the relaxation, there was a faint thread of expectation.

She couldn’t consider the birth mother in front of her, whose face resembled her own, as an insignificant person, and she hoped that the other person wouldn’t ignore her or run away from her.

The surrounding was silent for almost a quarter of an hour. Fanghua suddenly spoke, "Wanwan, have you found something out?"

Wen Wan said calmly, "I lost a mother, her surname is Lu, a native of the Capital. She gave birth to me in Lower River Village, Pingjiang County, Ningzhou, twenty-two years ago. Before I grew up, she disappeared. I had an accident which made me forget her face. For more than a decade afterward, I kept visiting her empty grave to mourn. Later on, by coincidence, I discovered that she wasn’t dead; she was still alive, but she had started a new family with someone else. That family didn’t include me. I want to know if she originally didn’t like me as a daughter, or if she had no choice but to leave me. I also want to know if, upon meeting one day, she would still allow me to call her ’Mother.’

Her peaceful voice was sincere from the bottom of her heart.

Fanghua’s heart tightened again and again; some emotions were uncontrollable, "Wanwan, it’s not that Mother didn’t want you, it was that there was no way to take you along back then."

As she spoke, she took a few steps forward, and her reddening eyes were filled with endless regret, "It’s all Mother’s fault for the mistakes made in youth, making you a child who couldn’t see the light of day. I’ve wronged you all these years."

Wen Wan did not rush to ask about the past events, just looked at her, "If I didn’t bring it up, would you have never intended to recognize me in this lifetime?"

"No!" Fanghua shook her head repeatedly, "Mother is not unwilling to recognize you but is afraid."

"Afraid?"

"I’m afraid you can’t accept having such a mother, afraid it will cause a collapse in your mindset, and afraid of disturbing your originally peaceful life, so I’ve always been afraid to recognize you."

This speech contained a lot of information.

An imperial princess having a child in the countryside and returning to the capital to marry a Prince Consort gives people the first impressions mostly associated with "absurdity."

Although records of absurd princesses in history are not rare, with second and third marriages, or even taking lovers.

But when such a thing happens to oneself, the feelings are completely different.

Learning that she was the result of a princess’s youthful folly, Wen Wan’s heart felt pricked as if by needles.

She spoke again, trying to suppress her voice, "So, my existence is not allowed, is that right?"

Before the other person could speak, she continued, "You explain then; I want to know exactly what kind of unacceptable existence I am."

Fanghua wanted to tell her she never thought her existence was superfluous, but other than explaining, saying anything else at this point was futile.

Gathering her emotions, Fanghua turned her gaze to the white water spray raised by the painted boat in the lake, tracing memories back many years.

"This matter should start from your grandmother’s generation. Before entering the palace, she had a childhood sweetheart, Lu Feng of the Lu family, who is now the Old Marquis Lu. The Mei and Lu Families have been friends for generations, well matched in social status. This marriage was acknowledged by the elders on both sides and had reached the stage of discussing marriage.

When your grandmother was seventeen, she encountered the late Emperor’s selection process. To avoid entering the palace, the two families agreed to advance the wedding date. However, the night before the Lu family came to propose, Lu Feng unexpectedly disappeared without a trace. No one knew where he went.

The engagement was canceled, and your grandmother was forced into the palace, becoming the late Emperor’s woman. From then on, she resented the man who ruined her life, even spending decades later exacting any cost to crazily retaliate against him.

With this prior history of grievances, my love with Lu Xingzhou, the second son of the Lu family, was not permitted.

After your grandmother found out, she frequently ordered and warned me not to have any contact with Lu Xingzhou.

At that time, I was young, and once my affections were unlocked, I couldn’t stop them. I couldn’t hide my admiration for him."

Speaking of these matters in front of her daughter made Fanghua somewhat difficult to utter, but to let her daughter know the whole truth, she had to confess everything in detail.

"One year, the wife of Lu Feng, now Old Mrs. Lu, hosted a banquet and invited many women. I seized the opportunity to disguise myself as a maid and went to the Lu family. Originally, I just wanted to see Lu Xingzhou, but due to carelessness, I was set up and drugged. I don’t remember what happened afterward, only knowing that when I woke up, the person beside me was Lu Xingzhou.

Realizing that the person I lost my virginity to was him and no one else, my fear gradually dissipated, thinking that with the cooked rice, even if your grandmother was unwilling, she would have to agree to my marriage with Lu Xingzhou.

But I didn’t expect that the person who drugged me acted faster. She met with the Empress Dowager ahead of me and begged for marriage with Lu Xingzhou. To separate us, the Empress Dowager nodded almost without much consideration.

Just as the Su and Lu families were discussing the marriage, I found out I was pregnant. After knowing, your grandmother wouldn’t let me out, keeping me confined in the palace, stating only that I was ill, and told me that Lu Xingzhou had agreed to marry Su Yi, asking me to abandon my feelings for him. She would find a way to discreetly cause a miscarriage without anyone noticing.

I couldn’t believe Lu Xingzhou would betray me. Your grandmother let me out to see on their wedding day.

I sat at a high place and saw him at a glance, wearing a wedding robe, riding a tall horse, receiving the blessings of the city’s people, on his way to fetch his bride.

After returning to the palace, I was in utter despair, even contemplating ending my life, but every time I experienced morning sickness, I realized I was about to become a mother. By dying, I would be equivalent to personally killing my own child. It was the existence of that little thing that made me develop a reverence for life.

To ensure its health, I stopped starving myself, stopped being constantly depressed, and even agreed with your grandmother to go to an estate to nurse my pregnancy under the guise of recuperation and to quietly give birth.

However, I only realized once I arrived that your grandmother was determined to abort my child. She believed it was an illegitimate child that couldn’t see the light of day and that the Imperial Family would not allow it, as its existence could tarnish their image.

I refused to miscarry, narrowly escaping death multiple times to flee to Ningzhou. One time, while suffering abdominal pain from eating something wrong, drenched in sweat and weak in an alley, I encountered a man named Wen Guangping.

It was he who quickly took me to a medical clinic, securing the safety of my child.

At that time, I was new to Ningzhou, with people everywhere hunting me down. Unfamiliar with the area, I didn’t dare to go out recklessly. In desperation, I followed him back to the village, where his mother assumed the child in my belly was his.

Afterward, Wen Guangping also told me that if I had nowhere to go, I could stay, at least to give birth safely.

I was a heavily pregnant woman with nowhere else to turn, so I stayed under the guise of being his wife.

A full term later, I gave birth to a daughter, naming her Wanwan. I had initially intended for her to bear the Lu surname, in my heart unable to let go of Lu Xingzhou. I fantasized that he had not married Su Yi, fantasized that he would come for me and take me back. As long as he came, no matter what criticism I would endure in the future, I didn’t care.

Yet I waited for a year, and he never appeared, not even by Wanwan’s first birthday.

I began to feel utterly hopeless; I considered leaving with my daughter, but I did not want her to ask one day why she had no father. Not wanting my daughter to be without a father, I decided to genuinely become Wen Guangping’s woman the year Wanwan turned one, giving my daughter a nominal father."

At this point, tears welled uncontrollably in Fanghua’s eyes, and recounting those events scraped at her heart like a knife.

"Wanwan was three years old when I truly became Wen Guangping’s woman," she said, her eyes brimming with moisture. Those events ripped her heart open and cut her to the core each time she mentioned them.

"On Wanwan’s first birthday, I decided to completely stay away from my past, though I had thought about leaving with her numerous times. But I didn’t want her to question why she didn’t have a father. She was the reason I eventually chose to stop pretending to be a princess and became Wen Guangping’s woman in reality, to provide her with a father in name."

"When Wanwan was three years old, planted with pregnancies with Wen Guangping’s child. When I learned the truth, it felt like pins driven into my heart; I thought I should keep everything hidden. I was torn every time we met; ultimately, I pushed my son to the brink, resulting in thirty years of banishment."