Luzhou Moon - Chapter 139
"I didn't want to see her, so she left." Wei Heng frowned. "That was decisive; she didn't linger..."
Yue Ruzheng interrupted his sigh urgently, "When did she leave?"
"yesterday."
As a result, Lian Junxin, who was originally unpopular, suddenly became Wei Heng's target of urgent search. In order to find her again, he sent out many of his men from the manor to search almost every part of Huangshan.
Finally, Qi Yun and his men intercepted her on the official road; any later and she would have been leaving.
When Lian Junxin saw Wei Heng riding towards her, she was initially delighted, but she pretended to be arrogant. Unexpectedly, as soon as Wei Heng approached, he asked her about her parents' past. Lian Junxin became angry, and when she saw that Lian Junchu and Yue Ruzheng had also arrived, she felt even more humiliated.
"Who remembers what happened more than twenty years ago?!" She didn't even want to look at Yingluo, and turned her face away, wanting to leave.
Lian Junchu caught up with him and said, "No matter what, please tell me."
Lian Junxin paused, staring at him, and said, "Do you think that just because you used the word 'please,' I'll actually pity you and forget your relationship with Tang Yunlan? If it weren't for you two, perhaps my mother wouldn't have died at all!"
"But my mother...she's already passed away..." Lian Junchu took a deep breath and said, "Right now, I just want to find out Ruzheng's identity. Please feel free to tell me what you want me to do."
Lian Jun laughed indignantly, "What if I asked you to kneel down and apologize at my mother's grave?"
"Just tell me what you know..." Before Lian Junchu could finish speaking, Yue Ruzheng rushed over, grabbing Lian Junchu's sleeve tightly, fighting back tears, and said, "I don't want to know anything about my origins anymore, okay?"
"But I want to know who you really are!" Lian Junchu looked at her sadly. He felt as if he was walking down a dead end. He knew that there might be darkness ahead, but he still refused to turn back and desperately wanted to find a way out.
Looking at the scene before him, Wei Heng walked up to Lian Junxin and said in a deep voice, "Lian Junxin, is it necessary to hold onto this grudge for over twenty years? Do you think this will bring you happiness?"
"No one has ever cared about my happiness! Even now, it's all for her!" Lian Junxin shouted angrily, but tears were also glistening in her eyes.
Perhaps because of her extreme disappointment, she felt indifferent to everything. After venting her frustrations, Lian Junxin still looked at the necklace Yue Ruzheng was wearing. But she said she didn't know why the necklace had ended up with someone else. In her memory, her mother had never worn this piece of jewelry.
"But my elder sister once saw Yingluo. At that time, she seemed to have thought of something, but... she passed away before she could say it." Lian Junchu thought of Lian Junqiu and couldn't help but feel a sense of loss.
Wei Heng, who was listening nearby, chimed in, "According to you, it's possible that Yingluo was already gone from Seven Star Island before Lian Junxin was born or even before she was old enough to understand things."
Lian Junchu recalled what the servants had said: they hadn't seen Yingluo when Madam Lian was buried. This made sense when the two events were compared.
He suddenly remembered the maid they had mentioned before, so he asked Lian Junxin about it.
Lian Junxin paused for a moment, then scoffed, "Do you think I was already quite old back then? I wasn't even ten years old yet, how could I possibly remember any maidservants!"
"But that was the person who had always served my father..." Lian Junchu was unwilling to let the clue die out again and tried to get her to think about it carefully.
"You're calling him 'father' so familiarly now?" she said indignantly, seizing the opportunity to mock him.
Wei Heng rolled his eyes at her and said, "Lian Junxin, are you ever going to stop?"
Lian Junxin pretended to leave, hoping that Wei Heng would apologize hastily. Unexpectedly, Wei Heng didn't even look at her. Instead, he turned to Lian Junchu and Yue Ruzheng and said, "Asking her is a waste of time. You might as well find someone in the martial arts world who is well-informed. Maybe someone knows the past you want to find out." After saying that, he took his horse and was about to leave.
Lian Jun stamped her foot in anger, cracking her riding whip loudly. "I'm telling you, we can't find out anything in the entire martial world! No one can stop Father from doing what he wants!"
Lian Junchu was startled upon hearing this and turned around, asking, "What did he do?"
Now, even Lian Junxin could only suppress her anger and say, "Didn't you mention that maid who used to serve Father? It was she who leaked the news that Father was keeping a mistress, which reached Mother's ears. That's why she was banished from Seven Star Island and can never show her face in the martial world again!"
When she said this, she deliberately emphasized the words "keeping a mistress," and Lian Junchu was indeed stunned on the spot, her face turning pale.
"How did you know that?" he asked with difficulty.
Lian Junxin gritted her teeth, glaring at him fiercely, and said, "Thanks to you! After your hands were cut off, Father rushed to bring you back to Seven Star Island. My mother was already terminally ill at the time, and she didn't want to see you again, so she had a huge fight with Father. I happened to be hiding outside the door and overheard all this nonsense. Not long after, my mother passed away, and I will never forget it for the rest of my life!"
Looking into her hateful eyes, Lian Junchu was momentarily speechless.
At this moment, Yue Ruzheng remembered that when she asked Xiao Tang why his hands were broken, he seemed to have mentioned that Lian Haichao had sent a maid who thought she was his confidante to take care of Tang Yunlan, but the maid accidentally leaked the news, which led to Madam Lian giving birth to Lian Junxin prematurely, and afterwards she was ill for many years and bedridden.
"Could it be that the maid also took away Madam Lian's Yingluo?" Wei Heng pressed.
Lian Junxin scoffed, "How could a mere maidservant possibly steal Mother's things? If she did, wouldn't Father send men to arrest her?"
Lian Junchu looked at Yue Ruzheng, whose expression was quite complicated. He was about to say a few words of comfort to her when Yue Ruzheng stared straight at Lian Junxin and asked, "Do you remember what that maid's name was?"
After a moment of silence, Lian Junxin uttered two words: "Mingyu."
Lian Junchu looked at Yue Ruzheng nervously, but saw that her brows were furrowed, as if she was struggling to recall, and in the end, she still looked disappointed and painful. He closed his eyes and breathed a sigh of relief. At this moment, he wished that Ruzheng would never remember the past.
"You won't find her." Lian Junxin said coldly to them before leaving, her elegant long dress fluttering in the wind. "Those expelled from Seven Star Island can never reappear in the martial world. Even if they escape to other places, they have already changed their names and identities."
After saying this, she didn't look at Wei Heng and led her white horse away alone. For some reason, Wei Heng felt that the once arrogant and domineering woman now left behind a somewhat lonely figure.
The sky was dark, and a wind rose over the wilderness, swirling up the leaves that covered the mountains.
Seeing that Lian Junchu and Yue Ruzheng were both silent, Wei Heng wanted to invite them to stay at Tingyu Manor for a few days before making further plans. However, Yue Ruzheng shook her head and declined, "I just want to go with Xiao Tang to find that Mingyu as soon as possible. Right now, she's probably the only one who knows why Yingluo is stranded outside..."
"But so many years have passed, and she was a dismissed maid; it's hard to say whether she's still alive!" Wei Heng sighed.
Lian Junchu frowned slightly and said, "Now that we've come this far, we can't just stop here."
Wei Heng knew they were anxious, so he couldn't force them to stay.
After parting ways with Wei Heng, Lian Junchu intended to leave with Yue Ruzheng, but she suddenly looked at the distant mountain peaks and asked, "Little Tang, do you still remember Jade Screen Peak?"
Lian Junchu paused for a moment, then nodded and said, "I've always remembered."
"Come with me to that mountain." Ever since Lian Junxin said those words, she had been in a daze, but now she showed a rare look of anticipation. Lian Junchu couldn't refuse her request, and despite the approaching darkness, she walked with her toward Jade Screen Peak.
Last early winter, he climbed this mountain alone to fulfill a promise no one knew of, to tell himself that one day he could come to the place Ru Zheng dreamed of, just as if he were by her side. Now, he and she walked silently down the endless stone steps, each step hesitant, yet it seemed far more arduous than before.
It was already dark, and the mountain wind was swirling. Yue Ruzheng's palms were sweating, and she involuntarily moved closer to him.