Surely, the auspicious date chosen by the palace would not be delayed by the fact that the elder brother of a consort would take an examination, so Ning Xueyan’s wedding would not be delayed by Ning Huaiyuan’s taking the imperial examination.
The dowry would be sent the day before. Since Ning Xueyan was a consort, she did not need to put up pageantry as Commandery Princess Xianyun did, but all the relatives and friends had been informed. Today was not the wedding date, so only a few close marital relatives came to the Lord Protector’s Manor.
Ning Xueyan got up relatively early and visited Madam Dowager to send her morning greeting. Rarely, Madam Dowager asked Ning Xueyan to have breakfast with her, and Ning Xueyan also chatted with Madam Dowager for a while. Ning Qingshan and Ning Lingyun were also there. Ostensibly, the three of them were in harmony, and Madam Dowager was very satisfied with it.
The rare scene was that Madam Dowager Liu even came out to chat for a while. After a while, a guest came. Since Ning Xueyan was a bride-to-be, it was not suitable for her to stay here, so she went back.
On the way, Ning Xueyan drove Lanning back to the Bright Frost Garden. At this time, the Bright Frost Garden was in a mess. Although all the people of the Bright Frost Garden were there, they still thought that it was too late to do the sorting and counting, and the maids and older female servants from the other courtyards who temporarily came to help them were many. So, Ning Xueyan did not want to go back and only wanted to go around alone.
There was no one around her, and many servants in the backyard had gone to the Bright Frost Garden or Madam Dowager’s Lucky Garden to help others. The whole backyard was empty. She walked slowly and remembered that it was not the first time to send the dowry, but now she thought it was only a joke.
At that time, she was quite excited, thinking that the man she married was her beloved man, to whom she gave her heart and love!
With three years of waiting and three years of love, she had secret joy, imagining the harmonious and happy days of being a married woman.
At that time, the dowry was what it was when she moved in. The dowry items had been counted a few days before, and she just needed to ask some people to take them out. At that time, she didn’t know anything. Madam Ling said that her courtyard was not big enough to hold these items, they should be moved to Ning Ziyan’s place for the time being, and Ning Ziyan would send the dowry, lest that her place should be so noisy that her quietness was disturbed.
So, she stupidly believed Madam Ling. Then, she let her carry the dowry to Ning Ziyan’s courtyard, and then it was sent from Ning Ziyan’s courtyard under the eyes of everyone. Recalling it now, she thought that she was so stupid. Others only saw that the dowry was carried out from Ning Ziyan’s courtyard, so they naturally thought that it was Ning Ziyan who was about to marry.
But no one knew that the dowry was carried out from her courtyard previously. Those who carried the dowry were not many: these few confidants of Madam Ling and those of the Cloud Reflection Courtyard. And they carried it away in the night. The night when Ning Ziyan’s dowry was sent was the time she died miserably.
After Ning Ziying lost all her value, her death was inevitable. The man who once told her that he would be good to her wholeheartedly watched her be drowned in the lotus pond…
She could not help but walk to the Cloud Reflection Courtyard. After the incident of the Cloud Reflection Courtyard broke out, the staff of the Ministry of Justice once lived here for some time, but now when the case gradually became less important, the staff of the Ministry of Justice rarely came here, and the door of the Cloud Reflection Courtyard had been sealed with a strip of red paper.
When all the people saw the two skeletons, they knew that the original owner of this place was gone.
Standing under a tree, she bit her lips and inexplicably felt sad. Not only the life of a young girl but also all her kindness and beauty were buried here.
Ning Ziying, who had been growing up under her father’s pampering, would never have thought of being viciously calculated by so many people, so she ended up in death. If it wasn’t for the inexplicable rebirth, she would have already fallen into the underworld, and the hatred would never be repaid.
“Why did you… come here?” A voice came from somewhere not far away. Ning Xueyan turned around, and her black jade-like eyes fell on Xia Yuhang indifferently and calmly, but she did not know when he appeared there.
This person once made her feel caring after her mother died. At that time, she was very scared and terrified. The people in the Lord Protector’s Manor were not friendly. On the day she came here, Madam Dowager never met her, and even Madam Ling only allowed her to kowtow to her once and then coolly assigned the remote Cloud Reflection Courtyard to her.
Therefore, Xia Yuhang’s care at that time was so important to her that she felt that she was no longer alone in the world. In this world, there was still a person who really thought about her and cared about her.
Unexpectedly, everything was so cruel at last, and she would rather never know this person.
“Why did you come here, Eldest Brother-in-law? Did you also come here to miss Sister Ziying!” A mocking smile appeared at her light-colored but perfect lips. She slowly turned around to look at the tightly sealed Cloud Reflection Courtyard again.
Some memories in her mind had become blurred, and she had long forgotten the scene when they met the first time. When she was still Ning Ziying at that time, she remembered their first meeting firmly, but now she only had the memory of watching the sky that was dyed red from the bottom of the river. When she was just reborn, she was awakened by such nightmares many times.
The Lord Protector’s Manor sent the dowry today. Although Ning Ziyan was no longer a wife, the Xia’s Manor was the marital relative of the Lord Protector’s Manor, in general, but no matter what, she didn’t think that Xia Yuhang should be here now.
And today’s Xia Yuhang was no longer the image in her memory. The gentle and elegant person had long become vague. Except that she had been remembering him when she was just reborn, she had almost no memory of him now. It seemed that he did not live a good life. His wife became his concubine, and Ning Yuling was still making trouble.
Besides, now he should have taken the imperial examination and realized his ambition, but his path to the high positions in the officialdom was destroyed because of this marriage.
“Are you… all right?” Xia Yuhang looked at Ning Xueyan with his complicated eyes, and there was a pain in his eyes for a moment, as if he had not seen the mockery on Ning Xueyan’s face.
“Eldest Brother-in-law, your question is so strange. How could I not be all right? I’m not Sister Ziying. Just after her dowry was sent away, she died. But she did not see someone clearly, and this led to her death. Whom could she blame?” Ning Xueyan said lightly. Maybe her former tone sounded a little cold, but this one did not contain any sarcasm.
She said these words sincerely!
She just viewed this from the perspective of someone else. She had no sadness or happiness, and she had no hatred or love. In her previous life, she lost her life for Xia Yuhang, but in this life, she would never have any connections with him.
“Don’t, don’t say that about her. I treated her wrongly. I thought that she really had a relationship with another man, and I did not want her to die… but I just wanted to use that to suppress… her,” Xia Yuhang said with difficulty and also turned his eyes to Cloud Reflection Courtyard. The pain in his eyes was clearly shown, and nothing was concealed now.
“Use that to suppress her? Let her be a concubine?” Ning Xueyan suddenly looked at Xia Yuhang, having a trace of disgust in her eyes. “It turns out that this is Xia Yuhang’s idea. He claimed that he thought that she really had a relationship with another man? Can the portrait of beauty really prove anything?
“Anyway, Madam Ling and her daughter could not hoodwink the smart Xia Yuhang. A portrait of beauty could not prove anything, but he watched Madam Ling and her daughter kill her. At that time, he also supported Ning Ziyan affectionately, but it turns out that this is what he wanted.
“Turn a wife into a concubine. This is what he wanted. It turns out that it is so…
What she could not figure out in the past suddenly became clear. “How greedy this man was! He wanted to turn his wife into his concubine, so he framed her by saying that she had a relationship with someone. He watched Madam Ling and her daughter persecute her and then sink her into the lotus pond. But all this was just the man’s self-righteous idea.
“Even if Madam Ling had let me off at that time, what’s the point of that? How could I be willing to be a concubine? I was betrayed by the man I wholeheartedly loved and the sister who had the best relationship with me, so that I finally fell to the position of a concubine. Although I was gentle, I was not spineless.
“In a marriage, two people betrayed me. Finally, he even had such a goal.” Ning Xueyan smiled coldly.
The wind lifted her dress, and her plain colored dress danced gently. The wind was not cold, and the momentum of the whole space was cold, but the coldness did not reach the bottom of her heart, but reached her black jade-like eyes. As early as she was reborn, she had gotten rid of the persistence in her previous life.
“How could you make her your wife, Eldest Young Master Xia! You and Ning Ziyan are the real couple.”
“Vicious, selfish, and self-righteous.
“It seems that no matter what you wanted, you could get it. You did not care about others’ lives, and you even cared less about others’ wills.
“As long as you got it, that’s enough!”
“I, I, I also had a helpless difficulty!” Xia Yuhang moved his lips twice, looking a little pale because he was hurt by Ning Xueyan’s merciless words. “If she had been willing to serve me, her husband, with another woman and lived with me in peace, she would not have ended up like that.”
“Two women to serve one husband? You are a scum indeed, Eldest Young Master Xia! So, all this was her fault, only because she did not clearly tell you beforehand that she was willing to marry you as a concubine and serve you with your wife Ning Ziyan. But you could give up the original betrothal, she should obediently hand what you wanted to you, and then you could spare her life. Anyway, she was just an orphan. Where she died or not, it was not a big deal.”
Ning Xueyan sneered mercilessly. She did think this was funny. In her previous life when she was still alive, she thought that she could see him through, but when she died, she then found that this man so selfish and self-righteous. Although he was quite talented, what was the point of that? Such a person who had such behavior did not even deserve to be a human.
She felt that this face was disgusting. In the previous life, she was so blind that she felt that he was a nice gentleman and would not disappoint her, so she was nice to him wholeheartedly and sincerely wanted to marry him, but now she did not want to see this face anymore. After finishing speaking, she turned around and did not stop, but gave an ice-cold smile.
“Ziying, is that you? Is that really you! I… I didn’t want that, and I didn’t know that she would kill you. Initially, I made a deal with Madam Ling that you would not die and she would only make a show. How could I… I bear to…” Xia Yuhang’s somewhat frantic and anxious voice came from behind. With the pain of being at a loss, he hurriedly ran after her, and she could almost sense his eagerness.
He was about to come and catch her!
