"No—don't!"
Watching Song Yuan's receding back, the Fourth Concubine truly felt fear, and began to beg for mercy, "Master! This concubine did not do those things! Master, please see clearly, they have no proof, why do they say that about this concubine?!"
But all that answered the Fourth Concubine was Song Yuan's gradually disappearing back.
Until only the Fourth Concubine, Concubine Liu, and Song Chaoyu were left in the room.
Concubine Liu raised her head and looked at Concubine Liu with hatred, "Why are you doing this to me?! I didn't do those things, why frame me?!"
"Enough, stop pretending."
Song Chaoyu sneered, knowing that Concubine Liu was never good at handling such matters. She stepped forward and stared coldly at the Fourth Concubine, "Big Brother's affairs, Xiao Qing'er's affairs, and many other things we don't know. Whether you did them, don't you have a clue? Including Second Concubine's affairs, I'm afraid you also fanned the flames, aren't you? And now you're acting innocent, thinking everyone is like Father?"
"You say I did it, what proof do you have?!"
The Fourth Concubine seemed to want to make a final struggle, "You are wrongly accusing me without reason. If the Master knows the truth later, what will you do?"
"Wrongly accuse? Proof?"
Song Chaoyu slowly walked towards the Fourth Concubine, "Perhaps we don't have direct evidence pointing to you, but we probably don't need it anymore, do we? You know, I know, Father knows, and Grandmother knows in her heart. These things were done by you, what more evidence is needed? In this vast Song Manor, there are probably not many people who would want to kill two of Father's sons, right? Moreover, only you can get those dirty things from the Hu tribes!"
"I don't know the Hu tribesmen!"
The Fourth Concubine's body trembled slightly, "Although my maternal family is on the border, they moved to the capital many years ago! I don't know any Hu tribesmen, why do you say that?"
"Tsk—"
Song Chaoyu knew that Concubine Liu was flustered.
She sneered and retorted to Concubine Liu, "But didn't you just tell Father that the Chongming Incense was given to you by your maternal family? Why do you say now that you haven't contacted the Hu tribesmen?"
Her eyes were faint, "Actually, I know your identity!"
This matter was something she had asked Qiu Qing to help investigate.
The Fourth Concubine's eyes widened, "What... what are you talking about?"
Song Chaoyu's attitude was always unhurried, "I'm saying, I know who you are, and I know you are related to the Mohe tribe of the Hu tribes."
She softly spoke of the Fourth Concubine's past, the past that the Fourth Concubine wanted to hide the most.
The Fourth Concubine's Jiang family was originally a small household on the border. The Fourth Concubine's father passed away early, and her mother, Madam Jiang, raised three children, living a very difficult life.
On the northern border, there was a special group called "Corpse Pickers."
Because the northern border and Da Yue often had minor conflicts and wars, after the wars, the job of the "Corpse Pickers" was to clean up the battlefield, gather the bodies left behind or those that could not be processed in time, and then hand them over to the government or the army.
Such work, whether from a safety perspective or from the nature of the task itself, was naturally something most people were unwilling to do.
Therefore, the number of Corpse Pickers was small, but the rewards were high.
To better support her three children, Madam Jiang chose to become a Corpse Picker.
About twenty years ago, when the Fourth Concubine was only three or four years old, Madam Jiang picked up a living person among the "corpses"!
That person was a general from the Mohe tribe, and he was on the verge of death.
When Madam Jiang found him, her first reaction was to hand him over to the authorities.
But the general, to save his life, gave Madam Jiang a priceless jade pendant he had hidden on his person and begged Madam Jiang to save his life.
It is unknown whether Madam Jiang was moved by compassion or by greed at that time.
In any case, under the cover of night, she took the general back to her home and saved his life.
But Madam Jiang did not expect that the general would "repay kindness with enmity."
When leaving the Da Yue Dynasty, he took Madam Jiang's entire family of four away from the Da Yue Dynasty!
He took Madam Jiang back to the Mohe tribe and kept her by his side as a slave.
However, because Madam Jiang had saved his life, he promised to take good care of Madam Jiang's three children.
Concubine Jiang's childhood was spent growing up in the Mohe tribe.
It was not until that great general died ten years ago that Madam Jiang found an opportunity to bring her children back to her hometown.
Unfortunately, her hometown was no longer the same. How could the Jiang family accept them who had returned from foreign tribes?
So the Jiang family drove them out. The Fourth Concubine's elder brother, resentful, returned to the Mohe tribe, saying that at least there he could live a life.
The remaining Concubine Jiang and her younger brother were taken by Madam Jiang to choose a new place to live.
After all, Madam Jiang did not dare to let others know that she had once served a great general of the Mohe tribe.
Although the lives of the three of them were hard, they could still manage.
It wasn't until a few years ago that Madam Jiang fell seriously ill.
Concubine Jiang had no choice but to "sell" herself to a trafficker to exchange for the chance for Madam Jiang and her younger brother to live.
The trafficker sold Concubine Jiang to the Song family's residence, and Concubine Jiang thus became Song Yuan's Fourth Concubine.
Because Madam Jiang intentionally concealed her past life, the Song family did not investigate the events of that year when they investigated them.
It was not until now, when Song Chaoyu laid these matters bare before the Fourth Concubine, that the Fourth Concubine burst into tears, "How... how could you know?! No one knows about this, not even the Master!"
Song Chaoyu did not answer the Fourth Concubine's question, but only sighed, "So you can get things from the Hu tribes because your elder brother is still in the Hu tribes. As a Da Yue person, traveling between the Hu tribes and the Da Yue Dynasty is not so conspicuous, is it?"
The Fourth Concubine lowered her head, as if all her persistence had collapsed and crumbled at this moment.
She lowered her head, kowtowed her head fiercely to the ground, and then wailed in grief, "Why does heaven treat me like this?! If heaven had just given me a child, I wouldn't be jealous of others' children! I just wanted to have my own child, is that so difficult?!"
Among the Song family's First Madam and several concubines, it was true that only the Fourth Concubine had served Song Yuan the longest, yet she had no children.
In this deep courtyard, jealousy was enough to make a woman lose all her beauty.