The Devious First-Daughter

Ao Chenyi curved up his lips and a bloodthirsty smile appeared on his face.

He put down the note and asked a guard into his room in a lazy voice.

A secret guard in black immediately showed up in front of him. He knelt down and said, “Prince Yi!”

“It’s unnecessary to leak out more news about my favorite concubine. It’s enough for now.” A relaxed smile appeared on Ao Chenyi’s red and thin lips. He had deliberately leaked out some news about his favorite concubine to arouse other people’s attention on Third Young Lady. Now what Ning Xueyan had done had successfully caused Ao Mingyu’s suspicion about Ning Qingshan.

“She coincided with me! I was thinking to arrange carefully to arouse people’s suspicion against Ning Qingshan as well. This little girl is becoming more and more my cup of tea!” Ao Chenyi thought.

“Got it. I’ll convey your message immediately!” The secret guard stood up with a nod and was about to leave.

“Wait!” Ao Chenyi suddenly stopped him.

“I’m listening, Prince Yi!” The secret guard instantly stopped and lowered his head respectfully.

“Investigate the background of the two women the old guy, Ya Rui, asked his granddaughter to bring back. Could they be the ones I’m looking for? If possibly, bring them here,”

Ao Chenyi said slowly, his red lips so charming.

“Prince Yi, Third Prince’s manor is strictly guarded. After the two beautiful ladies were brought there, they have been watched by Third Prince’s henchmen and nobody is allowed to approach them casually,” the secret guard said with hesitation.

“If I can’t see them alive, bring their bodies here!” Ao Chenyi said with obvious killing intent. He held up a brush pen gracefully and picked up a note casually with a slight laugh and his eyes flickered.

“Got it!” The secret guard did not dare to say anything more. He left with his head lowering and then disappeared behind the window.

Ao Chenyi wrote several words with the brush pen and stuffed the note into a small bag under a pigeon’s right leg. He touched the pigeon on the back for a moment with rare tenderness and then threw it into the air.

Ning Xueyan was about to freshen herself up when the pigeon arrived. Hearing a sound like a bird pecking at the window, Xinmei immediately put down the comb and walked to the window. She opened the window and let the pigeon in. After practically taking off the note from the pigeon’s leg, she walked toward Ning Xueyan with the pigeon in her hands and passed the note to her.

“Miss, it’s from Prince Yi!”

Ning Xueyan turned her head carelessly with her hair hanging down loosely. She looked at the note Xinmei passed her and played with it for a while. Then she touched the pigeon’s snow-white back gently and let out a sigh before opening the note. She had no idea what was wrong with this wickedly charming Prince Yi. “He could ask me to send information to him if he wanted, but why did he ask Xinmei to give me the pigeon?” she wondered.

There were only two words on the note, “Nice girl!”

Ning Xueyan was shocked. It was crazy that the wicked, arrogant and cold-blooded Prince Yi would have said something like that!

She crumpled the note and burned it with fire. Then she threw it onto the ground and watched it burn to ashes. After that, she went to bed and nodded to Xinmei, signaling her to leave.

Xinmei walked to the window and put down the pigeon before cleaning the ashes on the floor with a broom. “Miss, do you want me to put out the candle?” she raised her head and asked.

Sometimes, Ning Xueyan would read for a while before sleeping.

Ning Xueyan shook her head and sat up. She picked a book from the table and began to turn the page. “No. I want to read for a while. I’ll put it out myself,” she answered without even raising her head.

“Got it!” Xinmei poured a glass of hot water for her and tiptoed away.

Ning Xueyan held the book in the candle light abstractedly. Although she was staring at the page, she did not know what it said. What on her mind now was how Ning Qingshan had acted today. Even though Ao Mingyu’s behavior was generally normal today, he was not that happy. He had been lost in thought from time to time, so obviously, he was suspicious about Ning Qingshan.

After thinking for a while, Ning Xueyan sat up and took out a letter from the top of a small package in her pocket which she had secretly brought out from Cloud Reflection Courtyard today. Before she came to the capital, Ning Ziying’s mother had asked her to give this letter to Marchioness, Madam Ming.

Unfortunately, when Ning Ziying arrived at the capital, Madam Ming had been degraded to Second Madam. She had hidden herself in Bright Frost Garden with Ning Xueyan all the time and refused to see any visitors. Therefore, Ning Ziying had not had any chance to give the letter to her. It was obvious that her mother had not been in touch with Madam Ming for many years and she had no idea that Madam Ming had offered to give up the title of Ning Zu’an’s principal wife. Looking at this letter, Ning Xueyan could only let out a sigh at the strange combination of circumstances. She thought for a while and then put the letter to the side.

Next, she saw another letter, a thin one.

The moment she saw the familiar characters, tears streamed down her cheeks. It was a letter that her mother had written to her.

“To Ying’er”, “Your mom”.

The simple words reminded her of her last life. Before her mother died, she had been a happy child. Even though her father had died early, her mother had loved her dearly. However, all these had gone after her mother’s death.

Before she could recover from the sorrow of losing her mother, their old housekeeper had asked her to go to the capital, saying that her mother had arranged for this. Since then, her doom came.

Now when she saw her mother’s letter again, Ning Ziying had become Ning Xueyan!

She withdrew the letter from the envelope with trembling hands. There were not so many words on the page, but Ning Xueyan’s head buzzed the moment she saw the first sentence, as if she had been struck by lightning! She wiped tears with her sleeve with a look of disbelief. After clearly seeing the words on the letter, she felt like all her blood rushing to the top of her head.

“Impossible! How could I not be born by mom!”

In addition to her name, the first sentence of the letter content was, “Ying’er, you’re not actually our own daughter!”

How could that happen? In her memory, her mother, father and she had been the only three in their family. Her father had been kind to her and he had been an upright official. Although his rank was not very high, he had been very influential locally. Their family relationship was quite simple, because in addition to her father, mother and her, his father had no concubine, and he had never allowed any maid to serve him in bed.

Her parents had been a harmonious couple and they had never fought. Every time her father had returned home from outside, he would have brought delicious melons to her. And she would have run to her mother and given her half of the melon while gobbling another half of it.

Even though she had died in her last life, she remembered all the happy moments.

Sometimes, she would have compared Ning Xueyan’s childhood with hers and every time she had drawn the same conclusion that she was happier than Ning Xueyan when they had been kids. Compared to Ning Xueyan, Ning Ziying had been carefree in her childhood. After all, her parents had treated her so well. And since there had been nobody else in addition to the three of them, she did not need to worry to be bullied by other family members.

But now, she suddenly got the news from her mother’s letter that she was not her parents’ own daughter! How could she accept such a fact?

She wiped her tears with her hand and continued to read. However, the more she read, the more shocked she was. Tears rolled down her eyes and her vision turned to a blur.

To her surprise, she had been adopted by her parents when she was only two or three years old. It was a day with strong wind and heavy rain when she had been found out at the gate of the Ning Manor. She had curled up in the porch with crossing arms and shivering body and had almost fainted from the cold. Finally, the old housekeeper saw her and carried her into the manor.

Her physical conditions had been very poor at that moment and in addition to a few burns on her body, her hair tip had also been burned. It seemed that she had just escaped from a fire. Her mother felt pity for the cute girl, and she happened to have no children, so she had adopted her and named her Ning Ziying.

In the letter, her mother said that she did not know Ning Ziying’s origin. She had arranged some people to investigate it, but they failed to get any clue. Afterwards, she was not that eager to see into this matter and began taking Ning Ziying as her own daughter wholeheartedly. Later, she had even arranged for her daughter’s marriage. Unfortunately, Ning Ziying doomed to have lost her parents early and become a lonely girl.

Maybe her mother had expected that her natural parents would come to find her someday in the future, so she had left this letter to tell her the truth.

The last paragraph in this letter did not reveal much detailed information and her mother had used ellipsis in many places of this paragraph. Obviously, she had been in a mood of ambivalence at that point. She also mentioned that if Ning Ziying wanted to investigate her own origin, she could visit a nun called Jingkong after reaching the capital, and she might get some information from Jingkong.

When talking about the nun called Jingkong, her mother deliberately said that she had no idea which nunnery Jingkong had been and if it was meant to be, Ning Ziying would find her someday. Then her mother said some things dispensable, as if all she had known about Jingkong was her name, and she even had no idea how old Jingkong was.

After closing the letter, Ning Xueyan was lost in thought. She recalled every word in the letter and vaguely felt that her mother had been trying to hide something and had not told her everything she knew.

After going through all the terrible things and rebirth, she was no longer that Ning Ziying who was simple and naive!

Since her mother had said that she could not find any clue about Ning Ziying’s origin, why she knew the nun, Jingkong, and was so certain that she was the one that Ning Ziying would look for and would tell Ning Ziying about her origin? What was more, before Ning Ziying came to the capital, it was obvious that her mother had arranged for something to confuse some people. Whom had she tried to hide from?

Besides, Xia Yuhang’s attitude had been abnormal. What had he wanted to get from Ning Ziying?

Since Ning Ziyan had conceived his baby, of course Xia Yuhang should have married her as soon as possible. However, why had he postponed his marriage with Ning Ziyan so long time and had not killed Ning Ziying until the night before the wedding of Ning Ziying and him when Ning Ziying’s dowry was brought to the Xia Manor?

There must be something Xia Yuhang had wanted to get from her dowry, so he had waited so long before killing her!

Not long after her rebirth, she had angrily thought that Xia Yuhang had killed her because he wanted to take her property. However, after thinking it over, she had found that things could not be that simple. Even though she had some money and treasure, they were not enough to make Xia Yuhang delay his marriage with Ning Ziyan. Moreover, after Ning Ziying’s death, all her property would naturally be taken by the Lord Protector’s manor.

Since Madam Ling favored Ning Ziyan that much, Ning Ziyan would have no problem to bring all Ning Xueyan’s property to the Xia Manor with her.

But why Xia Yuhang had killed Ning Ziying until the day before their wedding? What had he wanted to get? What on earth had been in the brocade? What her mother had hidden from her? Or maybe her mother had been avoiding someone.

She recalled the past in her last life. Ning Ziying’s mother had seldom brought her out. Whenever her mother could not persuade her to stay at home, she would have put her into a carriage and asked their driver to carry her around the city. But her mother had never allowed her to get out the carriage alone, saying that she had been worried about Ning Ziying getting lost.

Now when she thought it again, Ning Xueyan found it seemed that Ning Ziying’s mother had not wanted her to show up in front of people, instead of being worried about her getting lost.

She put the letter back into the envelope and then placed the envelope in the small package again. After thinking for a while, she stood up and walked toward the dresser. She pulled open a drawer and put the small package into it before closing the drawer.

She then turned around and walked back to her bed. Lying on the bed, she stared at the ceiling in darkness blankly with her jet-black, icy eyes.

“Abbess Jingkong? Since she is the key person to reveal the mystery, I’ll definitely find her! Although mother didn’t say much about Ning Ziying’s origin, when she talked about Jingkong, she was quite sure that this nun knew something about Ning Ziying.”