Her personal maids had all been beaten to death...
The Shen Clan had been wiped out, root and branch...
Everyone who knew Madam Shen best was now dead and unable to speak. Even a dowry companion like the dancing girl, who had served inside the household, couldn't have known much. However you looked at it, the whole affair reeked of conspiracy. The Shen Clan... was no simple family.
Shen Tang murmured, "Was the Shen Clan really so unremarkable?"
She was starting to forget what Tian Zhong meant by "unremarkable."
What unremarkable family behaved so mysteriously?
Mr. Gu said, "Could Madam Shen have had a lover and chosen to run away from her wedding? Perhaps the Shen Clan killed the maids who served her closely to cover up the scandal. Unable to find Madam Shen and with no one to take her place, they might have found Young Master Shen to marry in her stead. But the difference between a man and a woman is rather obvious. Gong Yun Chi may be young, but he isn't blind... Whether they traveled by water or by land, they couldn't have fooled him on the wedding night."
Shen Tang: "..."
She tried hard to suppress the twitch at the corner of her mouth.
Her tone turned unfriendly. "The Shen family's eldest daughter was about my age, eleven or twelve. She was an unmarried girl raised deep in the inner quarters. Where could she have met a man and eloped for love? Read fewer of those tacky, clichéd stories written by impoverished scholars."
Mr. Gu realized he'd spoken out of turn.
Whatever the truth, whether the Shen family's eldest daughter was alive or dead, he shouldn't have made reckless conjectures about something that affected a woman's reputation.
By any measure, he was in the wrong.