TGCFNM -Chapter 414 Asking Wu Huan

After returning to the Wan Residence, everyone dispersed to their own courtyards to rest. Chu Ling carried the makeup box and accompanied Wu Huan back to her own courtyard.

Once the oil lamps in the room were lit, Chu Ling sat down steadily and placed the makeup box on the table.

“Right now, everyone else here is a ghost except me. Can I ask you a few questions?” Chu Ling said.

Wu Huan slowly sat down and glanced at the makeup box.

Chu Ling asked, “Do you want me to open it for you?”

Wu Huan nodded.

Chu Ling carefully pried open the lock with a silver needle and slowly opened the box. Inside was a silver hairpin, slightly darkened with age, with a carved peach blossom at the tip.

Chu Ling’s expression tightened slightly. “This hairpin… is it poisoned?”

Wu Huan quickly shook her head. “It’s not poison. It’s just… it’s been too long.”

Chu Ling was a little surprised. She took out the silver hairpin and then examined the rest of the box, realizing it was empty.

“You only hid a single silver hairpin, and it was hidden in the little kitchen of Wu Ting’s courtyard?” Chu Ling asked, puzzled. Was it really necessary to be this cautious?

Wu Huan nodded seriously. “If Mother found out I was secretly keeping a hairpin, she would have beaten me to death.”

Chu Ling froze for a moment. After hesitating, she carefully asked, “Was your mother not good to you?”

Wu Huan didn’t understand what “good” or “not good” meant, but… “Whatever my brother has, I don’t have. Whatever he doesn’t have, I can’t have either.”

Chu Ling frowned, a bit angry. “What kind of mother is that? Aren’t these her own children?”

Wu Huan bit her lip slightly. “It’s my own fault. My wet nurse said I was born first and nearly caused my brother’s death. I’m a born disaster, a curse to the Wu family.”

Chu Ling listened, somewhat bewildered. “You were born first, yet you call Wu Ting ‘brother’?”

“Yes. The fortune teller said my fate was too strong and would affect my brother, so I had to be suppressed and become the younger sibling. Later, after my destiny was altered and I was raised as a boy, my brother’s health gradually improved,” Wu Huan explained.

Chu Ling opened her mouth, but for a long while didn’t know what to say. Finally, she gritted her teeth and scolded, “That Taoist was the real disaster! Nonsense! Anyone who believes him is crazy!”

Wu Huan’s eyes drooped slightly. “But my brother really did get better, so everything they said must be true.”

“Nonsense! He just was frail, so the whole family went all out to care for him. With careful attention, he could recover—it has nothing to do with that Taoist,” Chu Ling said angrily. Since Wu Ting could be raised back to health, it meant that at birth, his condition hadn’t been that bad. That Taoist was merely trying to please the family, speaking whatever suited the person or ghost in front of him.

—

From Wu Huan’s account, Chu Ling finally began to understand what had really happened.

Wu Huan’s wet nurse told her that when her mother gave birth, it had been a dangerous delivery. Unexpectedly, the first to come out was a healthy baby girl, while the following baby boy was a bit frail. Because of this, her mother didn’t favor Wu Huan much and didn’t even ask the wet nurse to care for her, instead assigning a concubine to look after her.

When Wu Huan was little, she could only drink a little milk after Wu Ting had finished. Gradually, Wu Ting grew stronger while Wu Huan remained weak. The concubine, wanting Wu Huan to survive, secretly gave her some rice water to drink.

Because of this, Wu Huan called that concubine her wet nurse. The hairpin she wore was also secretly given to her by that concubine.

Later, a traveling Taoist came to the Wu family and said that Wu Huan had a strong life force and might harm Wu Ting. To prevent the King of Hell from noticing, he advised raising Wu Huan as a boy, but kept her locked inside the Wu household so she wouldn’t go out. That way, the outside world would only know that the younger generation of the Wu family had one child: Wu Ting.

When Wu Ting turned sixteen, he became addicted to gambling, and soon brought ruin upon the entire Wu family. This was likely partly due to the overindulgence and spoiling from his family.

Chu Ling patted Wu Huan’s shoulder consolingly. Seeing the Wu family now fallen from grace, a thought of karmic retribution lingered on her lips, but she ultimately didn’t speak it.

“You… you died in place of Wu Ting at sixteen, right?” Chu Ling asked softly.

Wu Huan nodded.

Chu Ling looked at her sadly. “Do you still remember exactly what happened back then? Can you recall it carefully and tell me?”

Wu Huan nodded. “I promised you I would help you, and you promised to help me too.”

Chu Ling nodded. “Alright, I promise, I will definitely help you.”

Wu Huan thought back to the year she died and slowly began to speak: “It was in the first month of the lunar year, also our birthdays. My brother was having a lively celebration in the front courtyard. My wet nurse and I had our own small table. She gave me a delicate silver hairpin, keeping it in her makeup box.”

“I was so happy—it was the first hairpin I’d ever owned. I wanted to hide it carefully, but I was afraid that if I was discovered, my wet nurse would get beaten. So I sneaked out of our little courtyard and ran to my brother’s courtyard, hiding the makeup box in his small kitchen. His kitchen was hardly used, and no one dared to look inside.”

“When I came out after hiding it, I saw the young master. He was really beautiful,” Wu Huan recalled with fondness. “He looked at me and smiled, asking if I had come to hide the silver hairpin.”

Chu Ling’s mind exploded with a flash of insight. Almost instantly, she realized that the young master must also be a reincarnated person, and that he truly had a grudge against the Wu family.

Wu Huan hugged herself. “I was so scared. I knelt and begged him not to tell my mother. He pulled me up and said that I was the only good person in the Wu family. He said he wanted to save me so I could buy many skirts and hairpins, but I had to do something for him.”

Chu Ling looked at her. “He asked you to go in your brother’s place to the Si family to celebrate their birthday, and to steal something at the same time. That thing… was it a jade Guanyin statue?”

Wu Huan nodded.

Chu Ling opened her mouth, nervous. “Did you change places? Did you steal it?”

Wu Huan nodded. “I changed places. I also stole it.”

Chu Ling was completely stunned.

Wu Huan seemed to sense she had done something wrong. She hugged herself tightly and whispered, “That year, I don’t know why, my brother suddenly lost interest in studying and loved going to the gambling house. His pockets were always empty. Mother was angry and cried, father tried every method, but my brother still loved to gamble.”

“Later, father locked him up and stopped giving him money. My brother went mad, started stealing things from home to go out, and got caught again by father, who beat him. This happened repeatedly… until the invitation from the Si family arrived. The young master came to me again and said it was time.”

Chu Ling felt a chill run down her spine. Had the young master been orchestrating everything all along, just to bring the Wu family down?

“This young master… really is incredibly clever.”