After the replacement marriage, I was forced to fight at home

The old princess had three children, two sons and a daughter, but the daughter died at birth. It was said that the old prince was very sad, and the old princess also suffered from illness because of the birth of this daughter. Because she was already quite old when she gave birth to this daughter, and she died at birth due to a difficult labor, it was a great blow to the old princess.

Mrs. Qiu saw Meng Wan stand up, and she also stood up. "Yes, that's what Mrs. Hu said at the time. I was wondering, when the old princess gave birth, I was guarding the door. The midwife said it was a dead baby. Although I didn't dare to go and see, I saw the midwife put it in a bamboo basket and take it out. Because it was the old prince's son, even if there was something wrong, he would not be thrown away. Why did Mrs. Hu say that it was taken away by someone else?

"When I heard this, I took two steps forward. Then, I heard something that I regretted hearing."

"Speak." Meng Wan slowly sat back down.

"Hu said, 'Are you afraid that your daughter will look too much like him when she grows up, and you won't be able to explain yourself to the old prince? Also, you thought you were entrusting her with love, but you couldn't be sure if she would come back and bite you. And the child was born with your hard work, and you couldn't really strangle her to death, so you just took her away. If I heard correctly, the mother who was with the princess at the time is still with her now, right?'

"When Mrs. Hu said this, the room was very quiet. The servant could hear the old princess's heavy breathing. She asked Mrs. Hu what else she knew. Mrs. Hu said that she knew more than the old princess thought. She knew that when the daughter got married, all the dowry was prepared by the old princess. She knew that the girl's husband's family was also chosen by the old princess. She also knew that everything the man had now was given by the old princess, including the position that the man's son had obtained some time ago, which was all helped by the old princess.

"Hu also said that she guessed that the man should not know that the old princess was pregnant with their child and gave birth to a daughter, otherwise, the man would have asked for more from the old princess."

Meng Wan was speechless for a long time. How could it be possible? The old princess cheated on him? She even gave birth to a daughter with another man, raised her until she grew up and got married, and continued to support that man, while everyone in the palace was kept in the dark.

"Who is that man? Did you hear me?"

"No, they never said who that man was. When Mrs. Hu said this, the old princess was silent for a long time, until she said that she was not afraid. The old prince was gone, and the current prince was her son. Moreover, her own health was not good. She only had one year or two to live. She did not believe that Zhou Yiheng would bring this matter up to embarrass the palace.

"Hu said, yes, it is true that no one will do anything about this matter, and the daughter she had with that man died of complications during the birth of her third child. And the man who gave birth to that daughter with her also passed away a few years ago, so even if it is brought up now, there is no evidence. But what does it matter? What happened has happened. If you don't make amends in this life, there is still the next life. If this matter is known to everyone, the old princess will probably not be able to enter the Meng family's ancestral tomb, right? If she becomes a wandering ghost, how will she be reincarnated in the next life?

"I don't know if Second Madam knows this, but the old princess believes in this very much, and spends a lot of money every year. It was then that I understood why there were so many blank tablets in front of the Buddhist shrine in the west room of the old princess. Now I think it must be her daughter, and maybe that man.

"After Mrs. Hu said this, the old princess did not speak for a long time. Mrs. Hu changed her tone, and she was very earnest and aggrieved. She said that the old princess had also seen the current situation in the mansion. The mansion was in a mess when the previous princess left, and the old princess's health was also declining. How could it be done without someone to support her? The prince was busy in the front yard and the back house all day long. Doesn't the old princess feel distressed? Besides, what she asked for was not a difficult matter. The old princess could solve everything by going to the palace. As long as she could achieve her wish, she promised that this matter would be buried deep in the ground like that man and the old princess's daughter, and no one would know.

"Mrs. Hu also promised that she would take care of the child left behind by the old princess's daughter, and so on. She was just trying to coax the old princess into agreeing with her. After she talked for a long time, I heard the old princess sigh and say, "Never mind, she won't live much longer anyway, and it has nothing to do with her what happens in the mansion in the future, and it won't be her business who becomes the princess anymore." Then the two of them spoke in a lower voice, and I couldn't hear them anymore. At that time, I had already reacted and couldn't stay any longer, so I quietly returned to the back room."

Meng Wan frowned, looked Mrs. Qiu up and down for a long while, then smiled slightly, "Are you not frightened by this incident?"

The fact that she could tell this story so calmly shows that Mrs. Qiu listened to it very calmly. If she could listen to it all, how could she be frightened and become ill?

After hearing this, Mrs. Qiu smiled self-deprecatingly, then knelt down gently, "Please punish me, Second Madam. I have been pretending all along."

Meng Wan was a little surprised, "How many?"

Mrs. Qiu said, "After losing my loved ones, I was sometimes in a trance. Sometimes my temper got out of control and I even wanted to commit suicide. Sometimes I was impatient and wanted to hit someone, but I always knew what I was doing and what I was like."

"So, there's a sequel?"

"Yes, I realized it only after I returned to the back room. There was no one in the yard and the door was tightly closed. The old princess must have asked everyone to leave. She must have thought that there was no one in the yard, so Mrs. Hu told me so many secrets. If the old princess calmed down and knew that I had been in the back room, what would she do? She would definitely suspect me. According to her personality and physical condition, she would definitely not keep me, even if I would not tell anyone.

"When I thought of this, I was scared to death. How can I dispel the old princess's suspicion? Just as I was thinking of a solution, the servants in the yard came back. The maids cleaned up the broken cups that the old princess had quarreled with Hu, and asked what happened and why it was like that. Another maid said to her, why are you asking questions? Didn't you see that the old princess's face was so ugly? Just be a fool at this time.

"This sentence reminded me, so I went crazy under the pretext of taking medicine and drinking tranquilizing soup for my illness. As for what happened later, Second Madam should have heard from my empress-in-law. In this way, I was taken out by them. I originally thought that I would pretend for a while and wait for the storm to pass. But I didn't expect that there would be no problem at first. After all, I served the old princess for so many years, and she still trusted me. But Mrs. Hu was different. Maybe she knew that I had been in the back room that day, waiting for her to become the princess, so she actually sent someone to serve me, saying that I was an old friend of the old princess and must be treated well. I had no choice but to continue pretending, and I pretended for so many years until Mrs. Hu was completely relieved of me. Maybe she thought that even if I knew the secret, I would not pose any threat to her, so she gave up monitoring me."

Meng Wan understood. Mrs. Hu did not kill Mrs. Qiu directly. She thought that she was afraid that Mrs. Qiu would do something desperate if she was really pretending, or she was afraid that Mrs. Qiu had a backup plan or something.

"Get up, you've been living in my house for so long, are you also looking for the right time?"

Mrs. Qiu slowly stood up with the help of a stool. "Please punish me, Second Madam. It's not that I don't trust you, but I've been afraid for so many years. I'm telling you now because I know that Second Madam is a good person. She didn't force Song Zhu and his wife just to know the truth. She is a kind person. Besides, I live here now and have Second Madam's protection. Even if I tell you, I'm sure Mrs. Hu won't be able to intervene."

That’s right, Meng Wan admired Mrs. Qiu’s cleverness. She was able to endure for so many years and was worthy of being the top maid beside the old princess.

"What else do you know? Do you know about the late princess?"

Mrs. Qiu raised her head and glanced at Meng Wan, then immediately lowered her head. "When the late princess had an accident, I was already ill. Although I was the second-class housekeeper in the old princess's courtyard, it was also because the old princess gave me a title out of consideration for the relationship between master and servant. Therefore, I didn't leave the courtyard very often at that time, and I heard some things from others. There is only one thing I can be sure of, the late princess's health was not good, but it was not to the extent that she died at such a young age. The doctors all said that it was because she had weakened her body when giving birth to the second young master, and the disasters that the late empress dowager and the Wang family had encountered one after another stimulated her, but this was only part of the reason.

"What really caused the late princess' health to slowly decline was that Hu had been giving her drugs. It was a slow-acting poison that didn't kill her immediately, but it would eat away her life bit by bit."

Meng Wan sighed. Just as she had guessed, it was indeed Hu who did it.

"how do you know?"

"After the old princess passed away, her mother, who was a maidservant with me back then, came to see me. She looked at my stupid look and said that I was lucky because at least I could live well, but she couldn't. I could tell that she was going to die with the old princess. I could tell that she didn't want to, but there was nothing I could do. She knew too much, whether it was about the old princess or Mrs. Hu, or even about the prince and the palace. She thought I couldn't understand anything, so she told me a lot, including the fact that Mrs. Hu had drugged the late princess.

"She said that Hu's medicine was prepared by a special person, and even the imperial physicians in the palace could not find anything unusual. The old princess did not know about it at first, but when she found out later, she did not stop it and acquiesced to Hu's behavior. This made Hu even bolder, and the late princess could have survived for a few more days, but the wrong dosage was given once, causing her to vomit blood. She died before the imperial physician even arrived."

Meng Wan recalled what Zhou Yu had told him about the death of Wang Shi. He said that he was sleeping in the kitchen when he heard a scream. Then Zhou Yingrong came to tell him with her hair down that Wang Shi was gone. He said it was very sudden. She had talked to him a lot in the morning and even taught him how to write. It made sense. It turned out that the dosage was too high and it killed Wang Shi directly.

It seems that Zhou Yiheng must have known about it, otherwise, he would not have been so anxious to handle Wang's funeral, and he would not have had any doubts about why Wang, who was fine the day before, suddenly died, even though she had been ill.