Faced with the Imperial Family's final verdict, the last glimmer of hope in Qin Xuehua, Zhang Heng, and Zhang Wanning's hearts was completely extinguished, swallowed up by boundless fear and despair.
Qin Xuehua trembled all over, her lips moved, but she couldn't utter a complete syllable;
Zhang Heng trembled violently, and a damp patch spread between his trousers.
Zhang Wanning's eyes were vacant, as if her soul had left her body.
In the suffocating silence and the fear before the execution, Zhang Yu did something unexpected.
He silently walked up to Qin Xuehua, who was slumped on the ground, still glaring at him with resentful eyes.
He spoke slowly, his voice not loud, yet it echoed clearly in the now quiet Heavenly Prison.
With a tone that carried a hint of indifference that was not his usual voice, it was as if he were asking a question on behalf of a long-gone soul:
"I have long known that I am not of the bloodline of the Marquis Yong'an."
My biological father is Sheng Yuntang, the Third Princes of the Eastern Sheng Kingdom.
But I still don't understand...
He paused, his gaze sweeping over Qin Xuehua's contorted face, and asked:
Even though my biological father betrayed you, I still have half of your blood flowing in my veins.
Why are you so biased towards Zhang Heng, disregarding my life and death, even... wishing you could push me into the abyss with your own hands?
This question, asked calmly, points directly to the darkest corners of the human heart.
Everyone in the Imperial Family, including Xiao Zhengfeng, Prince Jing, Prince Qi, and even Xiao Fenghua and Xiao Meier, couldn't help but turn their heads.
Although they already knew that Zhang Yu was not Zhang Jiuling's biological son, they still couldn't understand Qin Xuehua's almost obsessive behavior.
Even tigers don't eat their cubs, let alone those born after ten months of pregnancy.
Zhang Heng and Zhang Wanning didn't seem surprised by this, but their faces turned even more ashen, as if they already knew the inside story.
Only Jiang Luohan suddenly raised her head, her face showing genuine astonishment.
Hu Qingxuan, standing to the side, suddenly brightened up, her gossip-loving spirit burning brightly.
Qin Xuehua's already fragile rationality crumbled under Zhang Yu's calm questioning, like the last straw breaking the camel's back.
She suddenly raised her head, her hair disheveled, looking like a madwoman, and laughed loudly, "Hahaha, why, you ask me why?"
"Because every time I see your face, and your eyes that bear a resemblance to his, I'm reminded of that unbearable past, of the man who ruined my life— Sheng Yuntang."
Her eyes were bloodshot, and her voice was shrill and venomous, as if she were about to unleash all the pain and resentment that had been building up for more than twenty years.
"I, Qin Xuehua, was once a renowned jewel in the Capital."
Family background, talent, appearance—aren't they all top-notch?
Many talented young men from the Wei Kingdom flocked to me.
But I was blind; I fell for Sheng Yuntang Third Princes from the Eastern Sheng Kingdom.
I was bewitched by him, disregarding my Lineage's objections, even going so far as to... to become pregnant out of wedlock and give him my virginity, hoping only that he would marry me properly and take me back to East Sheng.
"But how did he treat me?"
Qin Xuehua's voice suddenly rose, filled with deep-seated hatred:
"Once he got tired of it, he casually said 'I had no choice in the matter,' and then disappeared without a trace."
He didn't even know, or even want to know, that I was pregnant with his child.
"It was him, it was him who ruined my reputation and turned me from the jewel of Capital into a laughingstock of the entire upper class."
She became pregnant out of wedlock, and the man was a foreign Princes who would leave without a trace.
The scorn, the disdain, the whispers—they almost drove me insane.
I was forced to hastily marry into the Marquis Yong'an's Estate, which desperately needed a marriage alliance to consolidate its power. I married Zhang Jiuling, whom I didn't love at all, using a marriage full of mutual benefits to cover up the scandal and maintain the last shred of dignity for the Qin Household and myself.
She suddenly pointed at Zhang Yu, her nails almost digging into his nose, her eyes filled with boundless hatred:
And what about you?
You are the proof of that shame, the stain that the heartless Sheng Yuntang left on me, a stain that can never be washed away.
It is a living testament to how foolish and pathetic I was back then, a constant reminder.
Every time I see you, it feels like my heart is being ripped apart with a knife.
Your existence torments me every moment.
It reminds me that my life, my love, my pride—all were ruined by that man, turned into a colossal joke!
"Zhang Heng is my hope, my support in establishing myself in the Zhang Family, and my rightful Legitimate Son."
He was completely innocent and had no connection to that past.
Only when he recovers can I hold my head high in the Zhang Family and escape the past.
And you...
She stared at Zhang Yu as if he were something filthy:
You are my nightmare, the Curse that Sheng Yuntang left me with.
Why should I be nice to you?
I wish you had never been born.
I mistreat you, neglect you, and allow others to bully you, all in the hope that you will disappear.
Only when you disappear can I completely escape the past and pretend that unbearable period never happened.
She roared hysterically, blaming all the mistakes and misfortunes on the man who abandoned her and the innocent child in front of her.
She was immersed in her own twisted victim mentality, using extreme resentment towards Zhang Yu to cover up her inner fragility, vulnerability, and escapism regarding her own choices.
Zhang Yu listened quietly.
He could sense that, with Qin Xuehua's almost frantic accusations, the original owner's Obsession with her mother was fluctuating violently.
It is the pain of how her birth mother views her, the sorrow of being a symbol of shame in her mother's eyes, and also a kind of... enlightenment and liberation before letting go after seeing the truth.
"He only has himself to blame."
Zhang Yu's voice remained calm, yet it was like a cold scalpel, precisely dissecting the disguise Qin Xuehua had concealed with over twenty years of resentment:
"You misjudged people back then and went your own way; it was your own choice."
Your secret engagement with Sheng Yuntang and the resulting pregnancy are the result of your joint efforts.
He started something and then abandoned it, betraying his promise and acting treacherously; he is indeed hateful. But you...
His gaze was like lightning, piercing Qin Xuehua, his words like daggers.
"You dare not face your past naiveté and mistakes, dare not bear the consequences of your choices, and transfer all your resentment, all your unwillingness, and all your sense of injustice towards your fate onto a newborn child."
You used twenty years of cold indifference, mistreatment, and even condoning murderous intent to punish him, to prove your own 'rightness' and 'innocence' as the 'victim,' and to maintain your pathetic and tragically shattered self-esteem and dignity."
"Qin Xuehua, you keep saying that Sheng Yuntang ruined you, that my existence ruined you."
But what truly trapped you in that nightmare of the past, what made you so paranoid, twisted, and ugly, was not Sheng Yuntang, nor me, but yourself.
It was you who chose to define the rest of your life with resentment, and to use hurting the innocent to escape facing reality.
You project your anger at your own powerlessness onto me, the one who is most powerless to resist.
You are the biggest perpetrator in your own life.
Incompetent, and... pathetic and shameful.
The last few words, like the heaviest judgment, struck Qin Xuehua's heart hard, shattering the twisted pillar that had supported her for over twenty years.
No, no, you're talking nonsense.
It's all your fault, it's Sheng Yuntang's fault, you're the ones who made me like this.
Qin Xuehua was completely struck in her deepest, most hidden pain and unbearable pain, and she shook her head and screamed wildly.
She wanted to argue, but could no longer utter any powerful rebuttals; all that remained was obsessive repetition and a deeper madness.
But deep in her eyes, beneath that madness, something that had sustained her seemed to have shattered completely, leaving only emptiness and collapse.
Zhang Yu could clearly feel that the Obsession he felt for his birth mother, Qin Xuehua, was dissipating and disintegrating at an unprecedented speed with this conversation and the complete revelation and ruthless analysis of the final truth.
It was a kind of despair and relief after seeing the true face and twisted psychology of one's birth mother, and also a kind of ease after completely severing the ties of this abnormal blood relationship.
After dealing with Qin Xuehua, Zhang Yu calmly turned his gaze to Jiang Luohan, who was huddled in the corner, trembling with fear.