The night was misty, bronze bells softly chiming. After driving through the darkness for who knows how long, Que’er lifted the curtain to look outside.
I breathed a sigh of relief. “That’s good. I thought you might have been trapped. Where’s An Jin? Are my parents okay? Have they been arranged for?”
Que’er hesitated before answering, “Your family has been escorted out of the city by another group. We’re now heading to meet them. As for the master—” She turned and glanced at the woman beside her.
I followed her gaze to the woman. She pondered for a moment, then reached up to remove her mask.
It was actually my mother-in-law. She looked pale and haggard, but her eyes remained sharp as ever.
The bitterness and grief of recent days surged up, and I couldn’t help but grab her hand, choking, “Mother-in-law… Father-in-law, he—”
“I already know,” she said, her hand cold, her voice still calm and steady. “Now is not the time to discuss this.”
My emotions, which were about to burst forth, were suddenly blocked, stopping abruptly. Why could mother-in-law remain so calm? Her husband had just died, without even seeing him one last time—could she really feel nothing?
Mother-in-law was indifferent to the confusion and doubt in my eyes, her face like stagnant water, without a ripple.
As for the infant she had brought with her, almost no one knew her whereabouts. It was probably because the elderly woman was worried about being found by the empress’s people. Before her death, she deliberately instructed her parents not to publicize the baby girl’s origins. My father soon left to take an exam elsewhere, and my mother packed up her business, taking me and my older brother to travel with my father. Thus, there were no informed people left in Yao Town. The secret department’s investigation ultimately yielded nothing.
Later, my parents became neighbors with the An family. By chance, my mother had put away the black gold token hanging on me, and no one noticed anything, except for An Jin.
