The madness and hatred in Douniu’s tone left Marquis Yongchang stunned. He angrily retorted, “Stop spouting nonsense! How have my wife and I wronged you to make you so vicious?”
The stares from everyone didn’t make Douniu panic. Instead, she burst into laughter. “Haha! Even if you didn’t ask, I would have explained it clearly, to let the world know what kind of despicable person the supposedly cultured and proper Marquis Yongchang is!”
“Don’t you dare insult my father!” Xie Qingyao’s face turned pale with anger.
Marquis Yongchang pulled his daughter back slightly. “Let her speak!”
Douniu wiped the tears of laughter from her eyes and said hatefully, “Seventeen years ago, when the Marchioness was pregnant, she announced that she would choose a concubine for the Marquis. At that time, many maids were eager for the position, including myself.”
At this point, Douniu gave a self-mocking smile. “Everyone in the household knew that Marquis Yongchang deeply respected and loved his wife. He was usually gentle and polite and kept himself pure. Besides his wife, he had never taken any concubines, not even a maid as a bedwarmer. How many maids wouldn’t be tempted to become a concubine for such a good-natured, noble, and still young man? But—”
Douniu choked up a bit, her eyes full of hatred as she looked at Marquis Yongchang. “But who could have imagined that this widely praised Marquis would be so despicable? He deceived me and took my body, then turned around and denied it, pretending nothing had happened and allowing the Marchioness to arrange for Chunmei instead. Heh, I was too naive and foolish back then to understand. For a man, what’s the harm in sleeping with one more woman? I couldn’t accept it and went to argue with the Marchioness, but she accused me of using unscrupulous means to climb up to the Marquis’s position and had me thrown out…”
“Is this why you killed the Marchioness and framed the Marquis?” Zhen Shicheng asked calmly, ignoring Marquis Yongchang’s increasingly ugly expression. “Hatred can make people lose their reason and do impulsive things, but hatred often lessens with time. You chose to take revenge after seventeen years. Did something happen?”
Douniu pressed her lips tightly, her whole body trembling like a leaf in the autumn wind.
Zhen Shicheng clapped his hands. “I see, the change must have been related to the deaths of your son and husband two years ago!”
Hearing Zhen Shicheng’s words, Douniu involuntarily took two steps back, looking at him as if she had seen a ghost.
Could this Lord Zhen read minds?
At this point, Douniu lost any desire to conceal anything. Instead, she felt an urge to let it all out. She sneered, “That’s right, but the root cause goes back to seventeen years ago! I was sold to the Marquis’s household as a child. I had no family or support there, and after being thrown out, I had nowhere to go. In desperation, I chose to throw myself into the river. Perhaps heaven couldn’t bear to see me go so easily, and I was saved by a passing peddler. At that time, I was disheartened and grateful for the peddler’s life-saving kindness, so I married him and returned with him to live in his hometown of Nanhe…”
Recalling the past, a bright light appeared in Douniu’s eyes, clearly indicating that those days with the peddler were not without joy.
But soon, Douniu’s tone changed: “Who could have imagined that shortly after marriage, I would become pregnant!”
Hearing this, everyone couldn’t help but look at Marquis Yongchang.
In this situation, almost everyone’s first reaction was that the child in Douniu’s womb was Marquis Yongchang’s. Only the Marquis himself maintained a cold expression, his thoughts unreadable.
Douniu’s body began to shake violently. “Although I quickly became the peddler’s wife after he saved me, based on the timing, this child couldn’t possibly be his. Sure enough, eight months after our marriage, I went into labor. After three days and nights of difficult childbirth, I finally gave birth to a son at the risk of my life. As my son’s features became clearer day by day, there wasn’t a single resemblance to my husband. I could no longer cling to false hope and deceive myself. Fortunately, my husband thought the child was premature and didn’t suspect anything. I had planned to bear more children for him and take care of him for a lifetime to make up for my guilt, but who would have thought I would never conceive again? The doctor we consulted said I had been injured during childbirth and could no longer become pregnant. I truly hated it!”
Douniu’s eyes widened as she glared at Marquis Yongchang, her voice trembling, “He ruined my entire life for a moment of pleasure. How could I not hate him!”
Zhen Shicheng remained noncommittal and continued to ask, “Then what does the death of your son and husband have to do with this?”
Just being unable to bear children for her husband wasn’t enough hatred to drive a woman living a decent life to meticulously plan revenge and murder.
Hearing Zhen Shicheng’s question, Douniu pulled hard at her messy hair. The pain helped her recall the past without falling into madness from the pain. “This secret had been hidden in my heart for too long, far too long. Watching my son grow day by day, his appearance and temperament so different from my husband’s, I became increasingly anxious. Until one night—”
As Douniu paused, the courtyard fell silent.
Everyone wanted to know what terrible thing had happened that night.
“That night, I had a nightmare and couldn’t help but reveal the secret in my dream!”
A wave of gasps arose from the crowd, clearly not expecting the secret to be revealed in such a manner.
A strange light flashed in Jiang Si’s eyes.
Revealing a secret by sleep-talking might sound incredible, but it wasn’t strange at all.
When a terrible secret is hidden for too long, it grows heavier and heavier in one’s heart. Eventually, one day, unable to bear it any longer, the person will find an outlet, either actively or passively.
“Upon hearing this secret, my husband went mad. With bloodshot eyes, he forced me to tell him everything, and then—” Douniu opened and closed her mouth, tears flowing from her dry eyes, “He rushed into my son’s room and, in a fit of rage, strangled him to death!”
“Hiss—” The crowd couldn’t help but draw in a sharp breath, their gazes towards Douniu now tinged with sympathy.
No matter what, having one’s only son strangled to death by one’s husband was truly too tragic.
“You didn’t stop him at that time?” Zhen Shicheng asked.
“I was dazed from his beating. By the time I came to my senses, my son had already breathed his last. When my husband calmed down, he tied stones to my son’s body and threw him into the river, creating the illusion that my son had drowned while playing…”
Zhen Shicheng was silent for a moment before asking, “Then how did your husband die?”
Douniu fell silent as well. Just as everyone was holding their breath waiting for her answer, she smiled and said word by word, “I killed him.”
Looking at Douniu’s smile, everyone suddenly felt a chill down their spines, and no one made a sound.
“After that, he would beat me every night, whipping me with shoe soles, burning me with fire tongs, using every method of torture he could think of. I knew I wouldn’t last much longer before he beat me to death, but I couldn’t accept it. Not that I couldn’t accept his beatings – I owed him that. What I couldn’t accept was how badly I had been harmed by Marquis Yongchang, while the one who had harmed me was still living a life of wealth and ease. It wasn’t fair!”