Upon hearing this, Zhu Xiuxiu couldn’t help but press, "What did he say? What... what exactly did he write in his letter to you?"
"His first sentence was to send his greetings. His second was to tell me that you are my daughter-in-law, Zhu Xiuxiu."
"As for the third sentence, he told me not to ask you about anything. He said I could pretend you don’t exist or treat you like my own daughter, but I was not to ask about your origins, nor about the circumstances of your marriage to him."
"Is... is this really the letter he wrote to you? I don’t believe it!"
Zhu Xiuxiu couldn’t believe that this was all Ji Lao San had written in the letter to his mother when he sent her to the countryside!
"This letter was given to me when his men brought you here."
"However, he did send someone later to explain. That person said you have a carefree and boisterous personality, and he was worried that if you stayed by his side, you might be exploited and become his vulnerability."
"That’s why he sent you to me."
"He’s full of shit!"
Zhu Xiuxiu slammed the table in anger, cursing Ji Lao San.
"Ji Lao San, that bastard! Who’s carefree, boisterous, and brainless?"
"He was clearly resentful that my father tricked him into catching the embroidered ball I threw to choose a husband, forcing him to marry me."
"So, on the second day of our marriage, he drugged me with knockout powder."
"When I woke up, I was already on my way to Ling Village. I was thirsty and took a sip of water, only to find it laced with muscle-weakening powder!"
At this point, Old Madam Ji felt immense sympathy for her daughter-in-law.
"So, can this marriage of yours continue?"
"Do you and Lao San actually have any feelings for each other?"
"Will it be a mutual separation? Or will he divorce you?"
"Have you truly thought this through?"
At this moment, Old Madam Ji felt an inexplicable wave of sympathy for Zhu Xiuxiu. If Zhu Xiuxiu were her own dear Xi’Er, how could she bear to see her suffer such grievances? Inexplicably, her thoughts drifted to her own daughter—the frailest of her children, yet the most unyieldingly stubborn.
"I... I don’t know. Just now, Ji Lao San and I were talking heatedly about separation and divorce, but I don’t know what I’d actually do if it came to that."
"I lost my mother when I was young. After I married Ji Lao San, my father disappeared without even sending a letter."
"All these years, I’ve been with you in Ling Village, and I’ve long since come to see you as my own mother."
Actually, there was one more thing about her marriage she was too embarrassed to tell Old Madam Ji: Ji Lao San’s devastatingly handsome face! When he first barged into the Zhu Family residence with five hundred taels of silver, asking her father, Zhu Daifu, to teach him business, she had been right beside her father. She watched him wash his face, revealing features so beautiful they were almost feminine, and she had been utterly transfixed. That was why, after the Scholar she had secretly sponsored was chosen by another family to be their son-in-law after the imperial examinations, and her father made her toss the embroidered ball, she had obediently married Ji Lao San when he caught it. Marrying a stranger to start a family was something she hadn’t wanted, but if that stranger was an outrageously handsome man, it was a different story. What she never expected was to be sent away on the second day of their marriage. Later, she heard Ji Lao San was surrounded by countless beauties, and that the four Maids attending him were all stunning women from prominent backgrounds!
"Silly child! My children all take after me; they’re cold-hearted. Not like their father, who was a man of fiery passion. Of my eight children, only the fifth—Suisui’s mother—took after her father. She knew it was like a moth flying into a flame, yet she plunged headfirst without a second thought."
Old Madam Ji sighed deeply and said to her, "I will not interfere in your affairs. You say you see me as your own mother, so I will tell you frankly: I also see you as my daughter. Whether you choose to live a good life together or to separate and go your own ways, I will respect your decision."