The snow continued to fall.
Meng Shaoxia pondered over the situation.
So, his father-in-law was the biological son of Eldest Princess Huiyun.
He had married Eldest Princess Huiyun's granddaughter.
His two children now had a great-grandmother who was an Eldest Princess.
For some reason, as Meng Shaoxia looked at the innocent Little Yu'er, he felt a pang in his heart.
He thought back to when he first met her, how she had nearly been kidnapped and sold.
Her clothes were so tattered, even more worn than those of his household servants.
She was actually a princess's granddaughter, yet because the kidnappers wanted to sell her without paying her parents, she had wailed and kicked, not even crying because she was being sold.
He remembered when he first saw Feng.
He had neither sword nor brush.
He used firewood as a sword, firewood as a brush.
Zi Congheng had been silently observing the drama unfold.
Now he grew even quieter.
He sorted out the relationships in his mind.
Suddenly he realized that the Eldest Princess was his great-aunt, and Mianmian's grandmother.
His father and Uncle Jiang were perhaps actually cousins.
And now he and Mianmian had truly become relatives.
In simple terms, his grandfather and Mianmian's grandmother were siblings.
Those two were probably also cousins.
Zi Congheng felt a bit of regret that his father had passed away early.
If not, he could have stayed to witness this family reunion, which would have been wonderful.
At this moment, he greatly envied Uncle Jiang.
Although he was wailing,
At least he had someone to wail for.
He didn't.
Jiang Changtian was truly weeping bitterly.
Crying uncontrollably.
He wasn't crying for the present.
He was crying for the world Jiang Wan had described.
In his previous life, he might have never found his birth mother until his death.
They had lived such miserable lives, dying so early, so unjustly.
Why, why was it so?
He had a mother, his mother was a princess.
He had a princess for a mother, yet his son, daughter, and young daughter all died in various tragic ways.
They had never lived good lives.
Had never enjoyed life.
Why?
His wife had suffered with him until her death.
Never enjoying a single day of good fortune.
She should have been a princess's daughter-in-law, able to flaunt her status, to compete with the noble ladies of the Capital City in wealth, to compare whose pearl hairpins were larger and rounder, rather than competing over who could dig up more wild vegetables or carry heavier loads...
Jiang Changtian wailed like a wounded, dying beast.
The Prince Consort was aware of the truth, his father probably wasn't the Prince Consort, so who was he?
Whose child was so unwelcome in this world?
He felt no filial affection.
He wasn't kind.
Kindness is what we unkind people bestow upon you.
If we don't bestow it, you can't be kind at all.
He had no right to be kind.
He looked at this old woman.
An ancient temple, a lost path home, half her face scarred, half mad.
If half her life had been lived in deception.
Half her life spent trying to die.
He wondered if such a person could be happy.
It's fine.
Before he found his mother, he had imagined thousands of scenarios.
He had even wondered if his mother might be a brothel courtesan.
Or a servant in some household.
He had imagined many unsavory possibilities.
So he didn't dare to search.
He thought things were fine as they were.
If he was fine, his children would be fine.
He didn't dare to hope for better.
He feared that if he had hope, only to have it taken away, the disappointment would be doubled.
He had suffered enough in the first half of his life, he didn't need any more suffering, he had had enough.
From now on, he just wanted sweetness, sickeningly sweet, he didn't want to taste any bitterness, nor did he want his children to suffer.
But his mother was an Eldest Princess.
The most noble woman in the world.
The dream in others' mouths.
It was her.
He only felt doubled pain, doubled suffering.
It was as if I had originally thought I was just a dog, and you made me eat feces, I would think it was only natural.
But one day you tell me that I'm actually human, a noble human being, that I didn't have to eat feces at all, it's just that my parents lost me, accidentally dropped me among a pack of dogs, making me think I was a dog, and my children were puppies, only fit to eat feces.
That intense emotion wasn't excitement, wasn't gratitude, but a desire to kill.
To kill many people.
He wasn't grateful, at this moment.
All the pleasant surprises and good fortune in this world didn't exist, they could all go to hell.
This year was Jiang Changtian's zodiac year.
He had found his mother.
Eldest Princess Huiyun opened her eyes to see a man in white robes kneeling before her, his eyes red, hands and feet unsure what to do, his body frail, coughing several times in excitement, his face flushed.
Seeing her open her eyes, he exclaimed joyfully: "Mother, you're awake, that's wonderful, I was so afraid, so afraid that just as I found you, you would leave me again, Mother."
Eldest Princess Huiyun reached out and grasped his hand tightly, choking out: "Never, never again, Mother promises, I will never lose you again."
Her son looked so frail, his hands so cold, his constitution clearly ruined. She wanted to go and flay that poisonous woman alive.
On the ground, a chunk of snow that Jiang Changtian had just held slowly melted, soon disappearing without a trace.