"By the time I woke up again, the baby I saw must already have been Ningning. The midwife who delivered my baby that day took her reward and disappeared. Every last one of those midwives vanished without a trace. You know that much."
Lin Xiangyin spoke slowly.
There really wasn't much useful information, but Jiang Wanrong's instincts were still sharp. She spoke again. "Mother, why did Ling Tan Temple fall into decline? As far as I know, there's no place called Ling Tan Temple in the Capital now."
"Well, supposedly some villain at Ling Tan Temple offended the imperial family. Outsiders like us couldn't possibly know the exact reason.
"But we were kept there for three days, and soldiers even came to investigate the courtyard where we were staying. After we came down the mountain, no one was allowed into Ling Tan Temple anymore... Later, it somehow fell into decline."
As though something had occurred to her, Lin Xiangyin glanced around before lowering her voice and continuing:
"Oh, there were also all sorts of wild rumors. Some said one of the late emperor's consorts was caught having an affair at the temple. Others said the current emperor was stripped naked and left hanging from a tree all night. There was an even more absurd one about some noblewoman going into labor there too, only for her child to disappear as soon as it was born...
"Anyway, it was all a jumble of baseless rumors. My guess is that all those monks died."
Jiang Wanrong's gaze nevertheless froze for a moment.
A noblewoman went into labor, and her child disappeared?
Giving birth at a temple on a rainy day was chaotic enough. If someone had fished in those muddy waters, swapping the babies wouldn't have been impossible.
*But if that really