Favoring a concubine and destroying the wife? I'll abandon my husband and children and wipe out

Zhou Xiangru casually picked a line from his poem "A Great Storm on November 4th". He immediately noticed the extremely eye-catching line that followed: "Lying awake at night, I listen to the wind and rain; iron horses and icy rivers enter my dreams."

A careful reading reveals its remarkable beauty.

He then asked Zhao Shize what the preceding sentence was.

But Zhao Shize had no idea. He was truly illiterate and couldn't even come up with a few words. When Zhou Xiangru asked him a question, his mind went blank, and he panicked, stammering and unable to answer.

Ye Ruyue reacted quickly: "It is 'Lying alone in a desolate village, I do not grieve for myself, but still think of defending the frontier for my country!' Ze-ge'er, you were just saying that to me yesterday, how come you forgot it in your nervousness today?"

Zhao Shize, as if grasping at a lifeline, immediately nodded in agreement.

But the way people around them looked at them changed.

Anyone with a discerning eye could see Zhao Shize's awkwardness and unfamiliarity with the poem.

Old Madam Zhao knew her grandson and Ye Ruyue much better than they did, and upon seeing this, she felt a wave of dizziness.

What's there to misunderstand? Is the grandson's talent genuine? Ye Ruyue spoke so fluently; it's probably related to Ye Ruyue!

Zhao Ye breathed a sigh of relief and tried to smooth things over by saying that Zhao Shize was young and it was normal for him to be nervous, and even tried to let it go.

Just as Cheng Nanzhi was about to interrupt him, Lord Han waved his hand and said, "Lord Zhao is right. One time is indeed not enough to see anything. We should not make hasty judgments about the young master of the Zhao family. It would be wrong to wrong him. Mr. Zhou, please continue."

Cheng Nanzhi secretly gave Han Da a thumbs up.

It was worth it for her to stay up all night carefully selecting such a capable person as Lord Han.

Zhou Xiangru's face was already extremely pale, but because she was in front of others, she barely endured it and continued to ask Zhao Shize, leaving Zhao Ye unable to refuse even if he wanted to.

Ye Ruyue's heart turned to ice.

She never circulated those poems, so there really is a second time traveler? Wouldn't her son Ze'er be exposed then? And then her son would be...unfit!

Ye Ruyue gritted her teeth and shielded Zhao Shize again.

The third time, some guests started pointing and whispering at her, their eyes filled with suspicion.

Zhou Xiangru said coldly, "Your daughter and your son do seem to have a good relationship, but is it you, Zhou, who is testing the daughter right now?"

Zhao Ye hoped that Ye Ruyue could help Zhao Shize out of this predicament, but definitely not in a way that would worsen the situation.

He gave Ye Ruyue a meaningful look.

Ye Ruyue had no choice but to back away.

Cheng Nanzhi calmly and magnanimously apologized on behalf of Ye Ruyue, allowing Zhou Xiangru to continue, while still casting a trusting and encouraging look at Zhao Shize in front of others.

Zhao Shize was so frightened by the scene that he almost cried.

Fortunately, the next song was one that Zhao Ye had mentioned before, and he stammered out the rest.

Zhou Xiangru's expression softened slightly.

Cheng Nanzhi immediately expressed her delight: "I am my Ze-ge'er, he is excellent. Mr. Zhou, even if you ask me ten or eight more questions, there won't be any problem!"

"Cheng Nanzhi!" Zhao Ye and Madam Zhao blurted out, their voices filled with anger.

Cheng Nanzhi immediately looked at them in surprise, her face full of confusion and slight grievance: "Husband, mother-in-law, what's wrong?"

Seeing the whispers around them, the two suppressed their unpleasant expressions and said that she was right.

Zhou Xiangru asked again, still suspicious.

Zhao Shize was unlucky; he couldn't recall any of the songs he had ever heard before, and he stammered out the names of them all.

For a moment, the front hall was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. Everyone's eyes, whether knowing, astonished, or contemptuous, were fixed on Zhao Shize, as if he were being tortured and humiliated in front of everyone.

Unable to withstand such immense pressure, Zhao Shize burst into tears.

Seeing this, Zhou Xiangru understood immediately. He angrily slammed the manuscript to the ground and said, "That Zhao family! How dare they cheat me like this! I will remember this day. I, Zhou Xiangru, have no disciples like them!"

He suddenly turned around and was about to leave.

Zhao Ye and the others panicked: "Mr. Zhou, it's a misunderstanding, a real misunderstanding! My son Zizhe has never experienced anything like this before, and he was so frightened that he completely forgot. He's just a child, it's understandable! Mr. Zhou!"

Cheng Nanzhi also anxiously tried to persuade Zhao Shize to stay, speaking up for him.

Zhou Xiangru ignored them completely, turned and left.

Zhao Ye chased after Zhou Xiangru to the gate of the mansion but failed to stop him. When he returned, he heard Lord Han say with disappointment, "Lord Zhao, you are different from others in the court. I respect your character very much, but I did not expect that you are so good at being an official, but your domestic affairs are... a complete mess."

He didn't say anything else, saving face for Zhao Ye.

But the guests were all shrewd; they could easily see that Zhao Shize, a mere child, couldn't possibly have stolen so many excellent poems. Someone must have been condoning and helping him. Furthermore, Ye Ruyue knew things Zhao Shize didn't, so it was hard to say whether Zhao Ye was the one helping him.

After all, how could a newly arrived orphan girl have the audacity to do such a thing?

The guests could no longer stay and all took their leave with Lord Han.

Zhao Ye's ears were ringing. He wanted to explain something but couldn't say anything. He was too ashamed to keep the guests for the banquet any longer, so he barely managed to maintain his composure and saw them off.

Cheng Nanzhi forced a smile as she saw the guest off.

Ye Ruyue slumped to one side, lost in thought.

As soon as Madam Zhao and the others left, she immediately asked Zhao Shize what had happened, but Zhao Shize was still sobbing and couldn't speak. This made her angry and anxious, so she slammed her hand on the table, which frightened Zhao Shize into crying even harder. Zhao Huaiyu also shrank her neck and didn't dare to breathe loudly.

After Zhao Ye and Cheng Nanzhi returned from seeing off all the guests, they immediately dismissed the servants.

Cheng Nanzhi noticed that Qingdai hadn't left yet and gave her a look.

Qingdai nodded and turned to leave.

"What exactly happened?" Cheng Nanzhi preemptively asked, "Ze'er, tell your mother the truth: why didn't you prepare the poetry gathering yourself, but instead plagiarized other people's poems?"

"I didn't!" With no outsiders present, Zhao Shize cried and could only say this one sentence.

Cheng Nanzhi's face darkened, and she said sternly, "Shut up! Don't cry! What kind of man cries like that!"

Zhao Shize trembled with fright and dared not cry anymore, but he still choked up and said, "It was my father who taught me to do that."

"Husband?"

Cheng Nanzhi suddenly turned her head to look at Zhao Ye, her gaze deeply piercing Zhao Ye's pride.

“I didn’t teach Ze Ge’er to plagiarize! I just personally taught him to prepare for the poetry gathering, let him compose his own poems, and then helped him polish and revise them, so it really was his own writing! Besides, what’s wrong with preparing in advance? Which family doesn’t do that when attending a poetry gathering? It’s nothing special,” Zhao Ye argued.

Zhao Shize knew that stealing someone else's reputation was not a good thing, so he immediately agreed, saying guiltily, "I'm still young, and my memory isn't very good. It's normal to forget some things."

Old Mrs. Zhao also refused to believe that her grandson was that kind of person, and echoed her agreement.

Ye Ruyue was still thinking about the transmigrator and had no intention of speaking.

"How did Zege'er's poems end up in someone else's manuscript?" Cheng Nanzhi pressed, carefully listening to Zhao Ye's inner thoughts.

From the moment she spoke until now, whenever the original author of a poem was mentioned, she couldn't hear Zhao Ye's thoughts clearly. It was as if the person he was thinking of wasn't in the same place as her, but far away, protected by a barrier. She couldn't fathom its mystery.

This made Cheng Nanzhi very unwilling, and she tried to analyze the clues.

“It must have been stolen by someone in the courtyard! Ze’er prepared for so long, and if someone stole it during that time, there was plenty of time to sell it before the poetry gathering!” Zhao Ye did not believe that Ye Ruyue had leaked it, and was convinced that it was the case. He angrily called Qian Yidong and asked him to investigate the servants in Zhao Shize’s courtyard.

“Investigating only Ze Ge’er isn’t enough; we need to investigate the entire household!” Old Madam Zhao added.

Cheng Nanzhi looked at them coldly, and then drew their attention back with a single sentence.

"But, my husband, are you saying that the entire manuscript was written by Ze'er? My husband, do you think many people would believe that? How old is Ze'er? Can he really write so much?"

Let alone outsiders, even Old Madam Zhao, who dotes on her grandson so much, doesn't have that kind of confidence.

Zhao Ye subconsciously looked at Ye Ruyue.

Cheng Nanzhi noticed this and paused for a moment.

Why was he looking at Ye Ruyue? Could it be... that Ye Ruyue knew this powerful figure?

Cheng Nanzhi immediately recalled what had just happened and said quietly, "Oh, by the way, cousin, why doesn't Ze Ge'er himself know the content of that poem, but you do?"

Ye Ruyue snapped back to reality.

Zhao Ye has already insisted that Zhao Shize did not plagiarize, so she absolutely cannot admit that she gave it to him.

She couldn't admit to knowing anything else. She had already assured Zhao Ye that only she knew the poems she provided, and no one else could possibly know them. If she revealed that she knew the poems, Zhao Ye would either suspect that she had leaked them or that she had plagiarized them, putting her in a bad position.

Furthermore, she was unsure whether there were other time travelers, and she couldn't risk claiming the title and causing future trouble.