For the sake of her family, the wet nurse decided she had no choice but to betray her young mistress.
The wet nurse said:
"Please ask, my lord. Whatever this servant knows, I will tell you truthfully."
Wang Youxin kept signaling to the wet nurse with her eyes, but the wet nurse kept her head lowered and did not look at her at all.
Satisfied that the wet nurse knew which way the wind was blowing, the Marquis of Suning asked:
"Tell me, is Lu Zhihong of the Marquis of Suning's bloodline?"
The wet nurse had not expected him to ask about this. Since the marquis was asking, he must already have learned something. She answered directly:
"No."
"Then tell me what happened before and after Wang Youxin gave birth."
"Yes.
The young mistress had always been deeply in love with the eldest young master..."
The wet nurse then told him everything she knew, both what she could say and what she should not have said.
She even told him how Wang Youxin had killed any maid who so much as gave the eldest young master an extra glance.
Only then did Lu Ziqing understand why several maids he had seen in Wang Youxin's courtyard had mysteriously disappeared.
He had asked about it before, and Wang Youxin had told him that those maids had committed offenses and been sold off.
He had not thought much of it at the time. He had never imagined that those maids were already dead, simply because he had glanced at them a couple of times.
His hand trembling, Lu Ziqing pointed at Wang Youxin.
"Wang Youxin, what sins did I commit to end up marrying you?
When I went to your courtyard, I merely glanced at those maids as anyone would, and you took