Gu Meiting froze, her mind going blank, unable to answer for a moment. Gu Suying, on guard, hurriedly pulled Jiang Yuan behind her!

But just then, the wailing Jiang Yuan, seeing his mother being bullied, suddenly broke free and rushed straight at Ziqing, punching and clawing at her. “Don’t bully my mother! Bad person! You’re a bad woman! Don’t bully my mother!”

“Get lost!”

Ziqing said coldly, not even sparing him a glance.

Frightened, Jiang Yuan cried even harder and struck at her more wildly. Ziqing, still glaring furiously at Gu Meiting, seized him tightly, and paying no heed to Madam Gu’s screaming behind her or Gu Meiting’s shrieks, flung Jiang Yuan aside, straight into the wall!

“Yuan’er!” Gu Meiting went instantly berserk, all fear forgotten, charging straight at Ziqing and swinging a slap at her. “You shameless woman, how dare you strike my son!”

“So what if I struck your son! Having a son makes you something special?” Ziqing finally let her anger show, her voice thunderous—proof of just how much she’d been holding back until now!

She stepped back and grabbed Gu Meiting’s wrist. Gu Meiting’s other hand shot up at once, but Ziqing’s free hand rose just as fast, striking precisely against her wrist bone. Gu Meiting cried out in pain, that arm going instantly limp!

“Stop this, both of you, stop fighting! Han Ziqing, I misspoke, I’ll apologize to you, is that not enough! I’m sorry, please stop!”

Gu Suying rushed forward to intervene, hurriedly grabbing Ziqing’s raised hand. But Ziqing didn’t even look at her—she simply shook her off. “Stay out of this. You’re a grown woman, and you’re still playing the mischievous little girl act? Doesn’t that disgust even you?”

The words struck Gu Suying dumb. She simply stood frozen off to the side.

“Han Ziqing, who do you think you are! Let go of me! How dare you hit my son, I won’t let this go!”

“You think being Jun Beiyue’s wife makes you something, coming to the Gu family to run wild? Let me tell you, Jun Beiyue hasn’t even been formally recognized by his ancestral clan yet! Who do you think you are!”

Gu Meiting, both hands now useless, glared with eyes gone bloodshot with fury, cursing without pause!

“Han Ziqing, you shameless wretch, striking a child—you’re worse than a beast, you’ll come to a bad end!”

With that, she immediately swung a kick at Ziqing. Ziqing drove her knee up hard, nearly shattering Gu Meiting’s kneecap, and Gu Meiting, unable to keep her footing, dropped straight to her knees!

That posture—it looked exactly like she was kneeling before Ziqing!

Unable to move, she lifted her head to glare at Ziqing, still cursing furiously. “Han Ziqing, you shameless wretch, get out of the Gu family! We don’t want you here! Get out!”

The moment the words left her mouth, Ziqing, gathering her full strength, swung a slap down hard—the crack of it rang through the entire chamber. Everyone froze in shock; even Gu Meiting herself went stiff, blood slowly trickling from the corner of her mouth.

The room fell utterly silent, as if everything had stopped—except for the man on the bed, the man who had lain silent for months, whose pale lips seemed to curve, faintly, into something between a smile and not.

No one knew how long passed before Madam Gu’s anguished wail broke the silence from behind them. “Oh no… please, don’t do this, Ziqing, you’ve disappointed me so much, please stop this!”

At the same moment, Gu Meiting finally came to her senses, and from some unknown reserve of strength, lunged forward again, trying to bite Ziqing.

Ziqing snorted coldly and seized her by the jaw, pinning her down again, saying icily, “Gu Meiting, you’re a daughter who’s already married out—what gives you the right to call the Gu family your home? What gives you the right to order me out? The ground I stand on today belongs to the Gu family, not to your Jiang family! You’re the one who needs to get out!”

Gu Meiting abruptly summoned her internal energy and broke free of Ziqing’s grip, shouting furiously, “You shameless wretch, how dare you—this is my own parents’ home, how is it not mine? You’re right about one thing—this is Gu family land! It’s not your Great Zhou, it’s my parents’ place, and they invited me to stay here. What right do you have to control me? Go back to your own parents’ place! Oh wait, that’s right, you have no parents left. Wasn’t the Prime Minister Han’s entire household executed?”

“Is that so!” Ziqing suddenly laughed coldly, turning to the Gu couple who were rushing over to separate them, and asked, “You two—so a married-out daughter of the Gu family is still counted as belonging to the Gu family? I heard the three of them have been living here permanently—so it’s all true. Is the Gu family really so short of sons that you had to take in a live-in son-in-law?”

The moment she said this, the Gu couple both sucked in a sharp breath. This—this—this had been the plain truth ever since Gu Meiting and Jiang Yuan had come to live at the Gu estate, only no one had ever dared say it out loud!

And now Han Ziqing had shouted it out in front of everyone!

“What did you say!” Gu Meiting flew into a rage, absolutely unwilling to let her husband be insulted this way. She summoned her internal energy at once and, breaking free of every restraint, clawed viciously at Ziqing’s face!

“You wretch, what do you mean by ‘live-in son-in-law’? Explain yourself! What are you implying!”

Ziqing leaned back to dodge. Madam Gu and the Gu family head rushed forward to try to hold Ziqing back, and Gu Meiting seized the opportunity, clawing at her savagely. But Ziqing used the leverage of the couple gripping her arms to launch herself into the air, driving a merciless kick straight into Gu Meiting’s abdomen—a kick that showed absolutely no mercy, sending Gu Meiting flying out through the doorway with a loud “boom”!

“Ting’er!”

Madam Gu bolted after her in shock, only to see Gu Meiting sprawled flat on her back on the ground, unable to get up for a long moment.

She panicked instantly, tears streaming down her aged face. She had endured so much, worked so hard, all to avoid exactly this outcome today!

She had even gone so far as to have Imperial Physician Gu and Yingzi taken away, just to hide the unpleasantness that had happened before, just hoping Ziqing and Meiting could get along peacefully!

But she hadn’t even had a chance to persuade Meiting yet, and their very first meeting had already turned into this!

How was she supposed to clean up this mess?

Gu Suying rushed out and hurried to help Gu Meiting up. Gu Meiting immediately began wailing loudly. The Gu family head, carrying the equally wailing Jiang Yuan, rushed out as well, his sword-like brows knit tight. For the first time facing this kind of domestic strife, unable to use force, unable to alert the guards, he had no idea what to do!

Ziqing came out last, coldly surveying the pitiful sight of the three Gu women, her expression still utterly blank, sharp and severe.

Gu Meiting practically writhed on the ground. “Father, Mother, you must stand up for me! She called me a live-in wife’s family, she insulted me and Jiang Chen! You have to stand up for me! I don’t want to live anymore, she’s just here to cause trouble, to destroy our family!”

“Look at her, she’s only just arrived and she’s already thrown our whole family into chaos, make her leave, make her leave right now!”

Ziqing advanced step by step. If not for Jun Beiyue being here, the Gu family would mean nothing to her at all—there was plenty to handle back in Great Zhou, she had no wish to be here at all!

The Gu family head hurried forward to block her, finally speaking sharply. “Han Ziqing, what more do you want? Do you want to keep causing trouble?”

Causing trouble—who exactly was causing trouble here?

“Tell her to shut her mouth,” Ziqing said coldly.

With her father’s backing, Gu Meiting immediately glared over and shouted furiously, “What, did I say something wrong? You’re just shameless. No one in the Gu family welcomes you, you barged your way in here uninvited, how shameless!”

“Gu Meiting, be quiet!” the Gu family head scolded, displeased. He understood perfectly well that he couldn’t show favoritism—if he did, both sides would suffer. For now, all he could do was try to salvage the situation.

“Stop it, all of you, just stop! Meiting, hold your tongue, do you want to be the death of your mother! Please, please, I beg you to stop talking!” Madam Gu pleaded, her eyes red from crying, though her mind remained perfectly clear.

The trouble had been stirred up by her two daughters, but if she sided entirely with Ziqing, both daughters would surely make an unbearable scene with her!

At least her parents hadn’t fully taken Han Ziqing’s side, so Gu Meiting wasn’t afraid—she intended to keep making a scene, just to see exactly what her parents could do to her.

Far from staying quiet, she cursed even more viciously. “You shameless wretch! My family doesn’t welcome you, get out!”

Ziqing didn’t grow angrier—instead she laughed coldly. “So that’s how it is—truly a live-in son-in-law after all. Well then, my apologies, I didn’t realize your husband had married into this family, so of course you have the right to throw me out. After all, I’m nothing to the Gu family—and of course, neither is Beiyue.”

With that, Ziqing turned to head inside.

At this, the Gu couple could bear no more. The Gu family head hurried forward, not daring to resort to force, and blocked the doorway. “Ziqing, can’t we talk about this calmly? Does it have to come to this? Beiyue is still unconscious!”

Madam Gu pleaded as well. “Ziqing, please don’t do this. Beiyue is my husband’s own flesh and blood, and I’ve always treated him as my own son too. Everything the Gu family has will belong to him one day. We’ve never met you before, but we’ve always considered you our daughter-in-law! Please don’t do this. No matter how serious the matter, surely we can talk it through calmly!”

Ziqing scoffed coldly. These two elders were speaking with their eyes wide open and yet seeing nothing. How could this possibly be talked through calmly—even if Gu Meiting were willing to talk it out with her now, she herself was no longer willing!

There was nothing left to discuss!

Seeing signs that her parents were leaning toward favoritism, Gu Meiting immediately scrambled up, pulled Jiang Yuan close, and wailed, “Yuan’er, Grandmother and Grandfather don’t want us anymore. Since they want us gone, let’s go find your father, let’s go back to the Jiang family, we’ll never come back again, boo hoo… Yuan’er, remember this—it was this woman who did this to us!”

With that, she truly did scoop up Jiang Yuan and turn to leave. Jiang Yuan, still such a small child—spoiled, yes, but he’d never witnessed such an intense scene before—could only cry, sobbing nonstop the whole time, breaking Madam Gu’s heart.

Seeing Gu Meiting about to leave, Madam Gu hurriedly grabbed her, and finally spoke her true feelings aloud. “You’re not going anywhere. No one’s telling you to leave. Unless I die, no one in this household will ever drive you out!”

Ziqing laughed coldly. Madam Gu’s reaction didn’t surprise her much—she only felt a touch of sorrow. Just now, in the east wing’s sitting room, it had felt so achingly similar to that time at the Situ estate. The warmth of having parents had felt so close, so within reach—but in the end, it was always someone else’s loving father and mother, never hers.

On the mountain path, Madam Gu had twisted her ankle—how convenient. Ziqing knew how to read people; the moment she’d touched that ankle, she’d known it was faked.

Her heart was simple and pure—true was true, false was false, good was good, bad was bad. Once was enough to remember for a lifetime.

Just as with Jun Beiyue—once she loved, she loved, and would not change even in death.

Madam Gu—Ziqing simply did not like her.

With that promise from Madam Gu secured, Gu Meiting had no intention of leaving at all—that was exactly the statement she’d been waiting for. She finally calmed down, looking at Ziqing with cold provocation.

Yet Ziqing didn’t spare the mother and daughters another glance. Her icy gaze bore straight into the Gu family head, and she said coldly, “Family Head Gu, both Beiyue and I have a cleanliness about how we live—we absolutely will not share a roof with people who have nothing to do with us. Today, either she leaves, or we do!”

The moment she said this, the Gu family head choked with fury. He was about to speak when Ziqing continued, leaving no room for argument. “If I stay, it means I’ve accepted the Gu family as my own, that I’ve become part of it. Beiyue is unconscious, and as his wife, I have the authority to make decisions on his behalf. The Gu family absolutely does not accept live-in sons-in-law!”