TGCFNM -Chapter 20 Flesh and Blood Do Not Merge

On Feihe Mountain, even without Zhang Dong’s notice, many people had already gathered. Everyone lamented Prefect Cheng’s deep devotion and sympathized with his misfortune, so they stood silently to one side, grieving and wiping away tears.

Prefect Cheng knelt on the yellow earthen ground, his head bowed without a word. The steward beside him tried several times to pull him up but failed.

“My lord, my lord, it’s not your fault. You’re not to blame.”

“That’s right, Prefect Cheng, it’s not your fault.”

“My lord, who could have imagined things would turn out like this?”

“My lord, if you go on like this, your wife Wu Lianzhi will not rest in peace.”

“She certainly won’t rest in peace!” Chu Ling’s voice suddenly rang out, drawing everyone’s attention.

They turned to see her hobbling up the mountain with the aid of a stick, her face pale and twisted in pain.

“Magistrate, are you… injured?” a woman asked uncertainly. The injury seemed to be on her backside.

The surrounding townsfolk all looked over curiously.

Chu Ling finally made it up the mountain, baring her teeth as she leaned against a tree trunk. She glanced at Miss Cheng, who stood nearby in a daze, and thought to herself: Perfect timing.

Seeing that their county magistrate had arrived and immediately fixed her gaze on Miss Cheng, the onlookers exchanged knowing looks. Understanding smiles appeared on their faces, and someone even mouthed silently to Chu Ling: Work hard, my lord!

Chu Ling steadied herself, caught her breath, and then walked over to Prefect Cheng. Seeing his grief-stricken, pitiable expression, she said, “Prefect Cheng, when do you plan to throw the first shovelful of earth?”

The steward clenched his teeth, his eyes red as he demanded angrily, “Magistrate Chu! Can you not see that my lord is heartbroken?”

“I can see that,” Chu Ling replied. “But the person is already dead. What use is sorrow? Wu Lianzhi can’t see it anyway.” She glanced back—but Wu Lianzhi didn’t even spare her a look.

Miss Cheng seemed to finally come back to herself. Pale-faced and furious, she strode toward Chu Ling.

“Magistrate Chu, my father is already suffering deeply in mourning my mother. If you did not come sincerely to see her off, could you please leave at once?”

“Your mother? Wu Lianzhi?” Chu Ling let out a cold laugh and slowly shook her head.

“You!” Miss Cheng gritted her teeth and raised her hand to strike.

Chu Ling caught her arm and dragged her forcefully to the side of the coffin. She pushed it open, revealing the skeletal remains inside.

“Magistrate Chu! What are you trying to do? Why disturb my wife’s peace?” Prefect Cheng staggered to his feet, nearly falling into the grave pit, and hurried over with the steward’s support.

Chu Ling pulled out the small carving knife Zhang Dong used from her waist and sliced a cut across Miss Cheng’s hand. After squeezing out a large drop of fresh blood, she let it fall onto the bones. Then she shoved Miss Cheng back toward Prefect Cheng and feigned surprise.

“Oh? The blood and bones don’t merge!”

Her actions had been so swift that by the time the crowd reacted, that was all they heard. Immediately, an uproar broke out as people rushed closer.

“How could a mother and daughter’s blood and bones not merge?”

“If they don’t merge, doesn’t that mean they’re not mother and daughter?”

“Then… does that mean Wu Lianzhi’s daughter, as Madam Feng claimed, isn’t Miss Cheng?”

Chu Ling clasped her hands behind her back and listened to the scholars’ heated discussions. She felt that this little ruse of hers had saved a great deal of trouble. She really had to thank Prefect Cheng—his acting had been so convincing that more than half the scholars of Sishui County had come.

These scholars were sharp-minded. The moment they saw that the blood did not mix, they began to connect the dots. As they looked at Miss Cheng and Prefect Cheng, hesitation filled their eyes.

Lord Cheng’s face darkened. He abruptly pulled Miss Cheng aside. “I don’t know about that. Back then, I devoted myself entirely to traveling to the capital for the imperial examinations. It was people from the Feng family who took care of my wife.”

So perhaps the Feng family hadn’t just switched wives—they had switched daughters as well.

Miss Cheng stood there in a daze, feeling as if her entire world was collapsing. She had only just forced herself to accept that set of remains as her mother’s, and now she was being told it wasn’t her biological mother after all.

So was her real mother still Feng Zhen?

Chu Ling gripped her walking stick to steady herself. “When Master Zhang unearthed the remains, I happened to be there. So I asked Coroner Su to examine the bones.”

“First, when Wu Lianzhi was alive, she had once broken her leg. Among the medicines used to bandage her injury, there must have been a toxic ingredient, because her kneecap shows irregular black blotches. Second, the poison found in her lungs and the poison in her kneecap are not the same. The poison in the kneecap was the fatal one.”

The townspeople immediately lifted the coffin lid completely and craned their necks to look inside.

“Third!” Su He shouted, panting heavily. “Wu Lianzhi’s cervical vertebrae have cracks—her neck was twisted. She died from suffocation.”

An uproar broke out. What did this mean? Wu Lianzhi hadn’t been poisoned to death—she had been strangled?

Taking advantage of the crowd’s stunned silence, Wan Sanjin once again grabbed Miss Cheng’s hand and sliced it with a knife. Blood was forced out and dripped into a bowl. Immediately afterward, Su He took out a small vessel and poured a drop of blood into it.

The blood did not mix.

Miss Cheng rushed forward in disbelief. Seeing the two drops remain separate, she froze. Her hand trembled, and the porcelain bowl slipped from her grasp, shattering on the ground and splashing blood everywhere.

“Father… I… who am I?” Miss Cheng looked at Prefect Cheng in terror, as though clutching at her last lifeline. She was not Feng Zhen’s daughter, nor Wu Lianzhi’s daughter—then was she still Prefect Cheng’s daughter?

“Nanny Zhao, you’ve seen it.” Chu Ling slowly straightened her back and looked toward the person Qi Da was carrying.

Nanny Zhao’s eyes were red. She glanced at Miss Cheng in a daze before turning to Prefect Cheng. Revealing her blood-seeping neck, she said, “Your Excellency, you handled it too late. I was saved.”

At the foot of the mountain, the crowd was swelling. More and more townspeople, led by Zhang Dong, were heading up the slope.

The steward instinctively shielded Prefect Cheng. His uninjured arm trembled as he kept glancing back at his master.

Nanny Zhao staggered to Chu Ling’s side. She knelt before Wu Lianzhi’s remains and knocked her head heavily against the ground three times before saying, “Lianzhi, the reason you drank the bowl of medicine Miss prepared for you without suspicion back then… was because I told you I had brewed it myself.”

“After I handed it to you, I regretted it. Miss grew afraid as well. We never meant to take your life—only to make you suffer. The Master wanted two sons-in-law: one wealthy and powerful, and another with limitless prospects. He would never have encouraged his daughter to exchange places.”

“The Feng family personally escorted you back to reassure Lord Cheng. Miss went along too, wanting to see where you lived—to confirm you were still beneath her. But no one expected that she would be discovered by him. And that very night, you suddenly stopped breathing. Lord Cheng said he would make a scene in the capital and ask his teacher to uphold justice. So the Master grew afraid—and exchanged Miss for you.”

As Nanny Zhao spoke, she braced herself against the coffin and slowly stood. She glared at Lord Cheng with hatred, tears streaming down her face. “It was Lord Cheng who buried you. Only he knew someone in the Zhang family had died. Only he, a local scholar, had the means to bury you without anyone knowing!”

Wu Lianzhi’s form swayed. Those dense, horrifying memories suddenly descended upon her, suffocating her in airtight darkness that shook her very soul.

It had been a black night. The husband she had trusted said the poison worked too slowly, so he strangled her instead. Afraid her face would be recognized, he slashed it beyond recognition. Afraid her vengeful spirit would come for him, he broke her limbs.

It was him.

It was Lord Cheng.