Chapter 84

Chapter 84.1: You Can Stand Up Already?

Qing Yu watched with amusement at the exchange between the two of them, not really surprised at the attitude Yan Su was taking. Her alluring fox like eyes narrowed as she looked at the servant girl that was restrained by Yan Xi Cheng. "There should be a chastity granny in the manor who will be able to inspect her body right? I would have to trouble Father to summon the granny and have her check the servant girl's body, and see if she is still a virgin."

Yan Su's brows furrowed up. "You mean to say that she is still a virgin maiden?"

"Haha, it doesn't count when I say it, or the Duchess will say that I am just spouting nonsense later." Qing Yu said with a shrug of her shoulders, the smile on her face highly meaningful.

The servant girl was taken out from there. The granny who would check her body was the nanny who had always been looking after Yan Su, a person who could be trusted.

Very soon, the granny came shuffling in. She looked to be about fifty years of age, with faint wrinkles on her face that was friendly looking and highly benevolent. "Greetings to His Highness, and Duchess."

"Dispense with the formalities Granny. What's the result?" Yan Su asked.

"The marks on that lass' body shows that she has indeed suffered severe torture, and there were even marks from whipping and biting, frightening to see." Granny recalled what she saw earlier, and her heart was mournful. What a pitiful child.

Yan Su's eyes darkened and he was just about to open his mouth when the Granny spoke again. "But, although her injuries were serious….. her body is still complete and untainted."

"What did you say?" Mo Han Yan's eyes stared wide and round. "Have you made a mistake in your inspection?"

"Duchess, my old humble self was also in charge of inspecting the ladies in the Imperial Palace when I was younger and I have never made an error." Although the Granny was a little displeased, but she still replied highly respectfully.

Mo Han Yan shook her head in disbelief. "How is it possible? How could she still be untainted….."

"Why should that be impossible? Little Bei had not done anything to her at all!" Qing Yu said as the ends of her mouth curled up. "Not to mention that his body is just starting to make a recovery and he will not have the energy to do something like this. Moreover, he had also received pointers from my Master and is now able to practice cultivation. With such prodigious gift, how could he possibly do something that would harm his body's energy essence just to torment a servant girl?"

With the switch in her tone of voice, she turned the spearpoint straight onto Mo Han Yan. "But why is the Duchess….. getting so highly worked up? You said that the entire matter has nothing to do with you in the slightest, why don't you ask the other concubines whether they believe that?"

Mo Han Yan quickly turned herself around to look at the bunch of ladies who had come here just to watch the show, every single one of their gazes filled with suspicion, and tinted with contempt.

Her gaze then slowly shifted over to look at Yan Su, only to discover that the man she had loved for twenty over years was looking at her with a complicated kind of eyes, which chilled her heart like a tomb.

But no matter what, she needed to maintain her last measure of composure and dignity.

Mo Han Yan push down and restrained her emotions against all those many pair of eyes, like she did not feel the surrounding animosity and the eyes looking at her strangely at all as she said in an emotionless voice. "Even if the servant girl had exaggerated her words and made it such a big deal, the injuries on her body cannot be faked. Yan Qing Bei must have used violence but was unsuccessful and his carelessness allowed the servant girl to escape. As a Young Master of the Eternal Peace Duke Manor and he has done such a shameful thing to a servant, he should still be punished."

Even at the point where the truth was already almost as good as having been fully revealed, the woman Mo Han Yan still refused to let Qing Bei go, doggedly insisting on making an issue out of the injuries on the servant girl's body.

Qing Yu did not say anything but just lifted the corners of her mouth scornfully.

Thereafter, just as everyone were flabbergasted as their eyes stared at the scene before them, the weak and pale faced youth then stood up from his wheelchair before all those pair of eyes. At the moment the youth stood up, the air around him and his demeanor changed in an instant, his dispirited person suddenly disappeared, his eyes turning icy cold.

Chapter 84.2: You Can Stand Up Already?

"If I had really done anything to a weak and defenceless servant girl, I will not be so foolish to let her live and give her such a great hold over me."

The youth's cold and emotionless voice slowly startled everyone out of their astoundment from seeing him stand up.

The youth who had always looked so frail and thin had not stood up before for all these years. Hence, when they found out for the first time just how tall and towering his body's frame really was, almost as tall as Yan Xi Cheng, at the very moment that he stood up, he seemed even taller than he really was for an instant.

"May I ask, when I am really fully mobile like this with full use of my limbs, would she possibly have a chance to escape at all?" Qing Bei said contemptuously, his handsome long narrow eyes glinting sharply as he swept his gaze over to the servant girl on the ground, whose face had gone deathly pale.

Yan Su stood up from his chair with shock in his eyes, and said in disbelief: "Qing Bei, you….. you can stand up already?"

"I have been able to stand on my feet from a long time ago." Qing Bei said with a malevolent gaze as he looked at Mo Han Yan. "If you had not hatched a plot like this against me this time, I will not show I can stand before everyone so early."

All the suppressed emotions held down within the youth for so long seemed to explode out at that moment. All the pressure built up from the maddening rage threw out an oppression that even Yan Su had felt a little oppressed.

"Ten years. Mo Han Yan, I sat in a wheelchair for ten years. Crippled for ten whole years. It was not enough that you broke both my legs, and you wanted to completely destroy me this time. Are you seeking to make me be a failure who will not accomplish anything, one whom no one would know or even hear of my entire life? !"

The youth's tall figure slowly approached closer one step at a time, his cold unfeeling voice spat out from his mouth, every single word crystal clear.

Both the face of Mo Han Yan and Yan Su changed a shade. This matter had always been a secret in the Eternal Peace Duke Manor.

Back when Yan Su had found out about this, although he had been filled with rage, but to protect his reputation, he did not want news that the Lady of the Eternal Peace Duke Manor could so heartlessly do such a cruel thing to a young child to spread. He had just told people that Qing Bei had been too playful, having accidentally fallen off from a tree while playing, and had broken his legs.

In the main hall at that moment, besides the royal concubines and ladies of the various courtyards, there were all tens of servants present. When they heard that astounding piece of news, they all immediately blew their tops.

"What? So the Second Master did not fall and break his own legs? !"

"Can you believe how selfish and narrow minded the Duchess is! ? How could she do such a thing to a little child! ? The Second Master said he had been in a wheelchair for ten whole years. Then doesn't that mean he was only about four or five when….."

"No wonder none of the ladies in the manor dared to give birth to a son all these years! Besides the heir who is birthed by the Duchess, all other children born are girls. The Second Young Master is the only other son and he had mysteriously become a cripple back then. Now, she is even seeking to destroy his future completely."

"You really can't tell a book by its cover. The Duchess looks to be such a gentle and virtuous wife on the surface….."

"The most terrifying ones are people who are always wearing a smile on their faces, but their hearts are always thinking of venomous ways to harm you."

...

Qing Yu's corners of her lips raised up in an arc, revealing an indiscernible smile.

It must be known that the most scary thing was slanderous gossip, which often could force a person back into a helpless corner.

Now everyone knew Mo Han Yan's real person. The gentle and virtuous image she had built up and maintained for so many years collapsed in that instant. There was no need for Qing Yu to do anything else. With so many pairs of eyes, ears and mouth here today, unless they were all silenced, otherwise someone was bound to leak it out.

All those people were carefully discussing in hushed voices on the surface, but who among the Duke's family had not cultivated martial arts before? Hence they all possessed astounding hearing and moreover, Mo Han Yan herself was one who possessed a significant level of cultivation.

Chapter 84.3: You Can Stand Up Already?

The servants were all taken aback in horror, the concubines and ladies avoiding her like she was a venomous serpent. A dark and sinister aura exuded from Yan Su's body, and all of that heavy and oppressive power was directed straight towards Han Mo Yan.

But at that moment, she was acting like she was not bothered by everything at all. She suddenly laughed out loud and when she raised her eyes, everyone saw that cruelly ugly face that had shed off its mask of false pretence.

"So what if I had been the one who did that to you?" She spat out those words viciously, without any fear of consequences and like she did not care anymore.

[This woman….. is actually admitting to it?]

Just as everyone was feeling dubious of her real intentions, Mo Han Yan suddenly broke into wild laughter like she had gone mad. "What right does a bastard child like you have to live in this world? You should have died long ago. Both of you should have died by right! !"

Yan Su was greatly shocked by her words. By the time he realized that something didn't feel right, Mo Han Yan had already spat out all the aggrievement she had kept hidden in her heart without a care in the world.

"The Duke was the one who let that shameless woman come in here, and she gave birth to you two illegitimate bastards from her illicit affair with some other unknown man! It was retribution that she died so early….."

At that moment that Mo Han Yan was screaming out loudly, Yan Su caught her unawares when he reached his hand out and struck her on the back of her neck. Mo Han Yan immediately fell limp and slumped back into her chair.

"Cheng Er, your mother has gotten too worked up and is spouting nonsense. Bring her back to her room to rest." Yan Su said in a deep voice.

Yan Xi Cheng had still been immersed in the version of truth that Qing Bei had said and had not awoken from it. Hearing Yan Su say that, he then woodenly held Mo Han Yan in his arms and carried her out.

But those words that Mo Han Yan had said earlier was already causing everyone there to find it hard to digest and react to it.

[In this Duke's manor, just how many secrets were there that they were completely unaware of…..]

Yan Su swept his gaze over the people below who had strange expressions on their faces. His eyes then glinted sharply as he ordered. "All the things that you've heard here today, forget every single word of it without any exception. If this Duke is to ever hear the slightest whisper about this outside, you will not be shown any mercy!"

Everyone's heart quivered and they all immediately chorused. "Yes Your Highness, your servant (Lady) does not know anything."

"You're all dismissed!" Yan Su said as he closed his eyes feeling thoroughly exhausted, waving his sleeve at them for them to go.

In the next instant, the enormous hall emptied out and only three people. Yan Su, Qing Yu and Qing Bei were left in there.

After a rather long while of deathly silence, the clear soft mirthful voice of a young lady sounded. "Doesn't Father have any sort of explanation he wants to give us? Regarding those words the Duchess said earlier, I do not believe that it was all just nonsense she spouted out in the heat of the moment."

Yan Su's brows knitted up slightly, and that good looking face could not defy the vestiges of time as it showed a moment of weary sadness. His gaze looked deeply at the young lady's exquisitely beautiful countenance and his voice turned a little hoarse as he said: "You really….. look very much like your mother."

Qing Yu was taken aback a moment. This was seemingly the first time she had heard Yan Su mention her mother.

[Do they really look that alike?]

"Your mother was a very gentle woman, but her heart was incredibly strong willed, seemingly good to each and every person, and nobody seemed to be good enough for her." Yan Su said with a bitter laugh, overcome with emotion. "Hence, how much I envied the one person she had really loved, and how fortunate he was."

"When I saw her for the very time many years back, I was never able to forget her. When I saw her again, she had already become someone's wife, and….. was already with child." Yan Su said softly, looking like he was going to to come clean on everything with them.