Chapter 3: Trusting You

Meng Zhenyue caught the flicker of panic in Zhao Xianzhi’s eyes and found it amusing. No matter how you concoct the origins of the beeswax, as long as Lizhu is involved, you won’t be able to extricate yourselves!

Zhao Xianzhi finally understood what it meant to lift a rock only to drop it on one’s own feet. Upon hearing Meng Zhenyue’s words, his mother and sister looked at Lizhu and Wu De in disbelief, then turned their hesitant gazes toward him. At this point, he had no other choice.

He cast a glance at Wu De before addressing the Marchioness with a stern expression, "Mother, it would be more appropriate to have Father’s people handle this interrogation."

The Marchioness nodded quickly, adding with patient explanation, "It is not that I do not trust you, but for the sake of your reputation, you must recuse yourself..."

Before the Marchioness could finish, Wu De threw himself onto his knees, feigning terror. He kowtowed repeatedly and cried out, "The small one will speak! The small one will speak! Lizhu saw that I had beeswax and asked me for it. I was curious and asked what she needed it for."

"Lizhu only said that she had accidentally lost the Second Miss’s beeswax and, fearing the Miss would find out, she wanted to use it as a replacement."

"I truly did not know that Lizhu intended to use it to harm the Second Miss!"

By the end, Wu De was glaring at Lizhu with feigned indignation. Seeing this, Lizhu realized she was being forced into the trap. She bit her lip, crawled forward on her knees, and grabbed the hem of Zhao Zhizhi’s dress, sobbing, "I beg you, Miss, please save this servant! I have always been loyal to you and never harbored any two-faced intentions."

Hearing this plea for loyalty, Zhao Zhizhi instinctively pulled back. Her hand throbbed with lingering pain, and her mind was still in a state of chaos. Yet, she felt as though Lizhu was implying something—as if she were being accused of ordering the act, and now that things had come to light, she was expected to protect her servant.

She felt the surrounding gazes piercing her like blades. Her heart hammered against her ribs, and tears began to stream down her face. Suddenly, it occurred to her: was this the same feeling her elder sister had when she was being falsely accused earlier?

As Wu De gave his testimony, the Marchioness’s anger began to shift. So, it was Zhizhi’s maid who had tricked her son’s servant out of the beeswax? The situation seemed clear now. Why would Zhizhi’s maid harm her own mistress? It was clearly a desperate scheme orchestrated by Zhizhi herself!

What a hypocrite—always mouthing words about "making amends" while plotting such schemes in the shadows! Had they spent all these years raising an ingrate who would ultimately scheme against her own kin?

The Marchioness looked at her with utter disappointment. "Zhizhi, we have lived together every day, yet it seems I never truly understood you."

Meanwhile, Zhao Xianzhi was keeping a side-eye on Meng Zhenyue’s reaction. His fingers rubbed together nervously, his heart filled with anxiety, yet he waited in anticipation for Meng Zhenyue to attack Zhao Zhizhi. The testimony pointed directly at Zhizhi; the motive and intent were now laid bare. Surely, Meng Zhenyue could not have missed that.

***

Things had reached this point; he had no choice but to let it play out. Finally, he waited for Meng Zhenyue to speak. Her expression was exactly as he had hoped—void of both anger and joy, her tone cold and indifferent.

"Sister, was it you who instructed Lizhu to do this today?"

"No, it wasn't me." Zhao Zhizhi tried hard to suppress her emotions, struggling to speak clearly. She had never seen that look in her mother’s eyes before; in that moment, she felt as though the entire world had turned against her. Facing her sister’s question, she felt she had no way to defend herself. She clutched her handkerchief tightly, finding herself increasingly able to empathize with how her sister must have felt before.

"Very well, I believe you," Meng Zhenyue nodded.

As she said those words, a sudden sense of suffocation washed over her. Just this short sentence—this single, brief sentence—was all that had been missing in her past life, leading to a total defeat.

"Ah?" Zhao Zhizhi looked stunned, momentarily forgetting her previous distress. Zhao Xianzhi was so startled that he knocked over his teacup—a rare loss of composure in front of others. Realizing his blunder, he hurried to cover it up, "My sister’s grace and reason are truly the fortune of our Marquis household." Only he knew how difficult it was to force those words out.

However, few paid attention to Zhao Xianzhi’s lapse, as they were all equally shocked. The Marchioness remained dazed for a long time before she could piece together a rational explanation. She asked, "Zhenyue, are you choosing to suffer this grievance only because you fear upsetting your mother?"

The moment the words left her lips, the Marchioness recalled her own childhood experiences and her own attitude just moments ago. A wave of heartache and deep remorse flooded her. She rushed over and pulled Meng Zhenyue into an embrace, "My poor daughter, how have you come to suffer so much?"

"That is not the case." Meng Zhenyue felt a certain resistance to the Marchioness’s intimacy and used the excuse of speaking to push her away. She continued, "That day, when my sister first saw me, she blurted out the word ‘Sister.’ I, too, felt an immediate kinship with her at first sight. That is why my intuition tells me she would not harm me."

The reason the Marquis household had discovered that Meng Zhenyue, who had been living far away in Xiao Province, was their long-lost daughter was because Zhao Zhizhi had visited Xiao Province and encountered her by chance at her foster father’s tavern. Zhao Zhizhi had shared the story of how she had instinctively called out "Sister" with Zhao Xianzhi. He had taken it to heart and followed the trail to uncover the truth.

Meng Zhenyue then looked at Zhao Zhizhi, puzzled. "And so, sister, you kept speaking of wanting to make amends to me, but why were you so certain that I was the one who pushed you when you fell?"

To the onlookers, this sounded like a deliberate challenge. They realized that Meng Zhenyue wasn't just blindly trusting someone out of foolishness, which eased their minds slightly.

***

Zhao Xianzhi, however, was breaking into a cold sweat. As the architect of all this, he could see exactly what Meng Zhenyue was aiming for with this move. If he didn't realize by now that the beeswax incident was a trap set by Meng Zhenyue, he would be a fool.

But how did Meng Zhenyue know he was the mastermind? What else did she know?!

While he desperately searched for a countermeasure, Zhao Zhizhi had already moved to Meng Zhenyue’s side, sobbing uncontrollably into her arms. "Sister trusts me so much, yet I harbored such petty thoughts!"

Watching Zhao Zhizhi, a fire of anger ignited in Meng Zhenyue’s heart. Zhao Zhizhi’s fragility was something that the far-sighted Zhao Xianzhi had deliberately cultivated! Since she was so delicate, she should have been well-protected, not pushed into a den of wolves and demons!

She softened her gaze and patted Zhao Zhizhi’s shoulder to soothe her. She did not know that the Marchioness, watching this scene, felt as if a hollow void had opened up in her heart.

Feeling Meng Zhenyue’s comfort, Zhao Zhizhi cried even harder. It was true that someone had pushed her, but she had indeed acted out of a desire for revenge, believing that her sister was attacking her maid. She had never imagined that her sister harbored no hostility toward her at all.

As she wiped her tears with her handkerchief, she sobbed, "Lizhu warned me time and again to be careful of Sister, saying that 'one must always be on guard against others.' She said that because Sister had been living away for over ten years, she most likely resented me. I actually... I actually doubted Sister!"

Hearing this, Meng Zhenyue lifted her gaze toward the deathly pale Lizhu, her expression hardening completely. "You were sowing discord between me and my sister. Why?"

Zhao Zhizhi, looking both angry and confused, turned her gaze toward Lizhu as well. The Marchioness and the others, who had been waiting for the truth, stared daggers at Lizhu, equally baffled by her motives.

Wu De was also involved in this—could it be that he was acting under his master’s orders? But how could that be possible!

They exchanged a brief, suspicious glance toward Zhao Xianzhi before filling in the gaps with their own conclusions. At this moment, Zhao Xianzhi looked at Wu De with a suspicious gaze, "Wu De, the matter is shrouded in confusion. Is your testimony truly the truth?"