Jiaochu

Chapter 532 Life experience
"My mother is also a pitiful person."

This was a sentence Ye Lingjue had said to her a long time ago. She thought of it now and her heart suddenly moved. Could it be that he had known her life experience for a long time?
"Princess, what's wrong with the Queen?" Lu Yu asked outside the door.

Ye Lingxi asked her to come in. Lu Yu pushed the door open and came in to see Concubine Xiao curled up on the cushion with her head in her arms, looking very painful. She was slightly surprised and squatted over to ask, "Madam, what's wrong with you?" Concubine Xiao suddenly raised her head and glared at Lu Yu with extremely cold and resentful eyes. She pushed her away and ran out the door. Lu Yu ran out behind her and asked, "Madam, where are you going?"

When she ran to the Bodhi tree in the middle of the yard, Concubine Xiao suddenly stopped, turned around and said coldly to Lu Yu, "Let Xiao Ting come to see me." Lu Yu was slightly surprised to hear her calling her by her name, and obediently replied yes, walked over, opened the gate and left.

The two Dragon Shadow Guards saw someone coming out. It was not Ye Lingxi, but a girl in a green skirt. One of the Dragon Shadow Guards followed her secretly and saw her going down the mountain with brisk steps. She must be a martial artist. After seeing Lu Yu go down the mountain, the other Dragon Shadow Guard came back to guard outside the yard and did not follow her down the mountain.

Concubine Xiao stood in the yard, looking up at the sky. There was no movement for a long while. After a while, she retracted her gaze, turned around and walked into the Buddhist building. Without looking at Ye Lingxi who was still sitting on the chair, she lifted the door curtain and went into the inner room. She opened the secret compartment in the jewelry box and took out an exquisite glass bottle filled with translucent liquid. She grabbed the bottle and smashed it on the ground. As the crystal fragments shattered into pieces, a strange fragrance drifted away.

Ye Lingxi saw this scene when she pushed aside the door curtain and came in. She also smelled the fragrance, which was the fragrance of Meng Tan. She had sneaked into Concubine Xiao's bedroom and stole some of the liquid in the glass bottle and sent it to Bai Hu for research. At that time, she thought it was a deadly poison or a beauty secret. Bai Hu wrote down most of the medicinal ingredients in it, but she couldn't write down the last one. She didn't know what it was. Now she knew it was Meng Tan.

"Do you remember everything?" She had seen Concubine Xiao holding her head in pain, just like when she lost her memory before, and heard the word "Crown Brother". Now when she smelled the fragrance of the dream palm, she had a vague guess in her heart.

Concubine Xiao said coldly: "Get out."

Ye Lingxi did not leave, and continued to ask: "The prince brother you are talking about is Gongzi Yu?"

Concubine Xiao glanced at her, and suddenly stared at her face, which met the face in her past memory. Her eyes changed from confusion to fear, and she staggered back, "Who are you?" Ye Lingxi did not answer, but walked towards her. Concubine Xiao was so scared that she pulled out the only hairpin on her head and held it in her hand for self-defense, warning her not to come over.

Ye Lingxi stopped and said, "Don't you recognize me?" Concubine Xiao's voice was trembling with fear, "You... are dead... are you a human or a ghost...?" She said, "I died once, and now I'm alive again." She walked to a chair and sat down. Concubine Xiao relaxed a little, but still stared at her suspiciously, not sure whether she was a human or a ghost.

"How did you get to the Xiao family?" Ye Lingxi asked. Concubine Xiao mistook her for someone else. She knew who that person was, so she used this identity to interrogate the person.

Concubine Xiao was still hesitating. She said, "Don't you want to know where he is now? Don't you want to find him and ask him face to face why he lied to you in the first place?" Concubine Xiao felt as if she was being held at bay by these two words, and her tone became a little anxious. "Do you know where he is?" She said, "Tell me what I want to know, and I will tell you what you want to know."

Concubine Xiao stared at her suspiciously again, unsure whether she was a human or a ghost, and asked her how she survived. She said, "He wanted me to live, and he could do such a thing as resurrecting a corpse." Concubine Xiao looked terrified, and probably believed her words. She continued, "What about you? You are obviously a princess of the previous dynasty, so how did you come to the Xiao family and become a concubine in the palace?"

Concubine Xiao stared at the crystal glass fragments on the ground. Her eyes were also cut into pieces by the fragments. She was dazed and dim. She murmured, "He made me forget everything. I thought I was an orphan without a father or a mother and was adopted by the Xiao family. It turned out that everything was fake. It's ridiculous." She laughed and said to herself, "It's all fake. Why did you lie to me..." She repeated these two sentences, and suddenly seemed to think of something. Her expression changed and she called out a name:
"Ling'er?!"

"Second brother?" Ye Lingxi said.

Concubine Xiao ignored her and immersed herself in her own memories, frowning and looking painful. She realized that this Ling'er was not Ye Lingjue, and was most likely Concubine Xiao's own child. She didn't know what happened to the child, whether he died or was still alive. If he was still alive, Concubine Xiao probably didn't know about it, and most likely he was secretly hidden by the Xiao family. Suddenly, a thought flashed through her mind, could Xiao Yun be that child?
She thought about it carefully. If the Xiao family had defected to Western Yan long ago and joined forces with Western Yan to replace the real prince, and the fake prince ascended the throne in the future, Dahui would be in the hands of Western Yan. That's why Western Yan was able to capture the capital of Dahui so easily in the previous life. But in this life, Ye Lingjue returned to Western Yan early and resumed his identity as the fourth prince of Western Yan, becoming Yan Lianjue. Was it because of her, or did Western Yan's plan change?
These questions can only be answered when Xiao Ting comes.

...In the afternoon, a carriage stopped outside the gate of Baohua Temple. Xiao Yun got off first, and then a folding fan was stretched out to lift the curtain. Xiao Ting got off the carriage, and Lu Yu led the two of them through the gate to the north courtyard.

After entering the courtyard, they saw a man standing under the Bodhi tree in the middle. Lu Yu reported, "Princess, the master and the young master are here." She turned around, glanced at the two of them, then turned and walked into the Buddhist building. Lu Yu also led the two of them in.

After entering, Xiao Ting sat down on a chair nearby, looking around casually, tapping his fingers with his folding fan rhythmically, neither too fast nor too slow. Xiao Yun stood nearby, and Ye Lingxi sat on a chair a little further away. Lu Yu went into the inner room to report, and Concubine Xiao came out, walked to the chair opposite Xiao Ting with an indifferent look, and sat down. She coldly asked Lu Yu to leave, and Lu Yu took her leave, closing the door of the Buddhist building after leaving.

"I remember everything." Concubine Xiao said this coldly.

Xiao Ting paused for a moment while tapping his folding fan, then continued to tap rhythmically. He glanced at Ye Lingxi and asked, "When did the princess come back?" She lightly scraped the teacup twice without saying anything. Concubine Xiao stood up and glared at Xiao Ting, questioning, "You arranged everything, didn't you? You switched my child. Where is my Ling'er? Where is he now?!"

Xiao Ting said, "It was you who begged me, the father, to replace the child." Concubine Xiao interrupted him angrily, pointing her finger at him tremblingly and accusing him, "It was you who asked the midwife to tell me that the child died at birth. It was you who conspired to replace my Ling'er. You lied to me!" Concubine Xiao's voice was a little hoarse in anger. "The whole thing was planned by you from beginning to end. I was the only one who was kept in the dark. Where is my Ling'er? Where did you hide him? Tell me!"

Ye Lingxi glanced at Xiao Yun, then returned her gaze to the teacup in front of her. Xiao Ting noticed her gaze and said calmly, "Yun'er, kneel down for your mother."

The understated words hit people's hearts like a thousand-pound stone, and even the air was filled with tense shock factors.

Concubine Xiao was so shocked that she was like a wooden man and could not hear anything.

Xiao Yun stood there without moving, his expression didn't change much, but his eyes had obviously lost focus, as if they were dull, making that calm face look stiff and not real, as if it were a mask.

Although Ye Lingxi had thought of this possibility before, he was still a little surprised when he heard the answer so simply from Xiao Ting's mouth.

Only Xiao Ting was still leisurely tapping his fingers with his folding fan, and said again, "Yun'er, why don't you kneel down for your mother? Don't you even listen to me?"

Xiao Yun knelt down stiffly, his face turning cold and pale.

After a while, Concubine Xiao raised her eyes and looked at Xiao Yun, who was kneeling on the ground, in shock. He lowered his head, and his eyes, which were originally calm and distant, did not look at Concubine Xiao. His gaze was lowered to the ground. He looked calm on the surface, but there were waves in the depths of his eyes. Concubine Xiao rushed over and hugged him, calling Ling'er, and tears fell like rain. He said nothing, his expression was as calm as a pool of stagnant water, and his eyes were equally empty, as if he was wandering in the sky and didn't care about anything in front of him.

Concubine Xiao hugged him and cried for a long time before letting him go. She reached out her trembling hands towards his face, but he blocked them. Concubine Xiao was stunned and didn't know what to do. He helped her up first, and her expression returned to normal. Concubine Xiao turned from worry to joy.

"Yun'er, help your mother go in and let her rest, and you two can talk for a while." Xiao Ting said.