Chapter 405 — Back Then

Chen Jia did not need to look. He knew Li Liang's thumb was as good as ruined.

Song Sui, his expression unchanged, stepped on Li Liang's index finger and said, "If Song Han had come, what difference would there be?"

Li Liang was sweating profusely from the pain.

Song Yan pressed down again.

Once more Li Liang's scream rang in Chen Jia's ears.

He could not help but curse Li Liang roundly in his heart.

Li Liang had no eye for a situation at all; at this rate, he was bound to leave his life right here.

Chen Jia hurriedly crouched down to counsel him: "Things have come to this pass — what is there you still cannot say? Even if you keep silent, the Heir can just as well ask your sister, ask the Second Lord. He could even go ask Lord Zhenguo. But you will have ruined yourself for nothing. If you won't think of yourself, then think of your wife and children at home..."

Yet he had forgotten why Song Yan had not trodden on Li Liang sooner or later, but had waited until he had finished his business before beginning to deal with him.

In Li Liang's eyes, not one of these people was easy to deal with; comparatively speaking, only Chen Jia was more reasonable, and several times when he had been in danger it was Chen Jia who had spoken up for him. Hearing this, his expression turned somewhat hesitant.

Chen Jia hastened to say, "You heard just now — the Heir's most capable guard has gone to fetch your sister. Why must you stand by and watch your sister suffer? The Heir means nothing else. He only wants to get to the bottom of the matter concerning Miss Yigui. Miss Yigui grew up at your side — do you not wish for her to be acknowledged by her clan and live a good life?"

Li Liang's eyes dimmed.

He moaned twice from the pain, then mumbled, "My sister... was never a steady sort, not since she was small... When the Duke of Yingguo cast her off, by rights she should not have given in so easily. Yet all these years she has lived quietly alongside me... She takes little interest in Yigui's affairs, too. When Yigui was small, if ever the child crossed her in the slightest, she would snatch up a feather duster and beat the child within an inch of her life. The child would often cry and beg for mercy while calling out 'Mama.' She was unmoved by it — even Mother, who had always favored giving the child away, could not bear to watch, and only then agreed to hand the child over to my wife to raise..."

As Chen Jia listened, his face changed with fright, and he darted a glance at Song Yan.

Song Yan stood there mild of countenance, as though he were listening to someone else's story.

But Chen Jia's heart pounded wildly, and he cursed Li Liang without cease.

If you must speak, at least choose your words! Carrying on like this, do you think your life is too long?

He wished he could step forward and cover Li Liang's mouth.

Yet Li Liang noticed nothing and went on in a low voice: "My wife said at the time that she had seen hard-hearted mothers, but never one so hard-hearted as this. She also said that though Yigui was born premature, luckily her constitution was sound; otherwise, being knocked about like that, she would have died long ago... Even then I thought it a little strange. Since the Songs knew a child of their blood was lost outside, and had taken my sister in to await the birth, how could they suddenly want neither the mother nor the child? Even if they disdained my sister and wanted nothing to do with her, how could they not want the child? Could it be that the child my sister bore was left with the Songs, and that this child was one my sister, in her grief over losing her own, took it into her head to carry back from somewhere?

"I pressed her about it once, and she said I was imagining things.

"In those days she was much kinder to Yigui.

"I thought perhaps I really was overthinking it, and that she simply could not abide the child.

"Five years ago, when I sat for the examinations, I caught a chill, and after taking medicine for more than half a year I still was not well. With no rice left in the house to put in the pot, Mother and my wife discussed selling the last dozen or so mu of ancestral land — and then she suddenly produced several silver drafts, saying they were private savings she had put by long ago.

"I knew well enough what was in the house.

"In the early years, to nurse her back to health, Mother had spent every last bit of her own savings. Later, when the Songs sent her back, apart from the clothes on her back, there were only two hundred taels in silver drafts stuffed into Yigui's swaddling clothes. In all these years, hard as times have been, I gave her at most five or six taels a year for rouge and powder — and she would have the best of it, and new clothes besides, and snacks to buy. How could those two hundred taels possibly have gone untouched?

"I asked her where the silver came from, and she clamped her mouth shut, insisting the Songs had given it.

"Later I noticed that she spent more each year than I earned. Not only that, she was free-handed with it — buying whatever she fancied, never worrying that there might be no silver to spend in the days to come.

"So I began to suspect she had never broken with Song Cen."

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Sisters and brothers, I beg for your pink votes.

o(n_n)o~