Clouds and Moon Shadow

Chapter 421 The Truth About Gu Qingyue's Selling

"Master, Yue Ran's gyrfalcon has arrived," Jiang Wan said in a low voice, taking a roll of paper from her sleeve.

Gu Qingyue opened it, read it quickly, and was stunned.

Gu Yuanen also came over to take a look, and he was shocked too!

Yue Ran was sent by Gu Qingyue to Mingzhi County, Lizhou, to find someone when Gu Qingyue was still in the capital. She brought with her the little bell pigeon that Hai Dongqing had caught.

The pigeon was originally meant to deliver a message to Liu, but it was captured by a gyrfalcon and given to Tang-ge'er to play with, which Gu Qingyue happened to witness.

The letter said that he had found and subdued the two men, and asked Liu if she wanted them killed.

She didn't have time to ask Liu about this when she interrogated her in the secret dungeon in the west of the city, because Liu committed suicide.

Fortunately, Yue Ran finally found a clue.

The letter said that the person who delivered the letter to Liu had been caught, and the person that person said he had taken control of was someone Gu Qingyue never expected—her adoptive parents!

Gu Yuanen looked at Gu Qingyue's shocked face with a complicated expression. He was shocked too!

The letter was brief and not very detailed, so it seems I'll have to go to Mingzhi County first.

"Let's go to Mingzhi County!"

Gu Qingyue made the final decision.

Twenty-three days later, in an inconspicuous courtyard on Xuyang Street, Mingzhi County, Lizhou.

Gu Qingyue stared coldly at the man and woman before her, utterly at a loss for words.

They arrived in Mingzhi County last night, met Yue Ran, and interrogated Liu's informant.

The man didn't know much, but through his words, combined with what Gu Qingyue knew and some childhood memories, Gu Qingyue was able to roughly estimate the cause and effect of the matter.

Gu Qingyue was clearly not found by the fourth wife of the Gu family; she was given to them to raise by a distant cousin of her adoptive mother.

Eleven years ago.

At the back gate of Lingyun Temple, Liu ordered a young man to sell Gu Qingyue.

It would be best if they were sold deep in the mountains, never to come out again, and died.

The man was Zeng Shun, her adoptive mother's cousin. He worked for the Liu family in Lizhou. That year, he was the one who was ordered by Liu's grandmother to escort Liu and Qin back to the capital.

Upon arriving at Lingyun Temple, Liu instructed him to sell Gu Qingyue.

He was naturally terrified!

That takes a lot of guts!

She is the legitimate daughter of a first-rank duke's family in the capital, the direct granddaughter of the old duke Gu, and the only direct granddaughter in three generations!

But since Lady Liu was the mistress of the main family and threatened his mother's life, he had no choice. His mother was in poor health. After thinking it over, he agreed, after all, she was his mother.

In order to win over Zeng Shun, Liu gave him the bracelet on her wrist as a gift to his mother, and also gave him five hundred taels of silver.

With these things in hand, he gritted his teeth and resolved to go all in.

With Liu's help, he first got Gu Qingyue out of the temple, and then placed her on a secluded path at the foot of the mountain. Little Gu Qingyue cried and looked for her mother everywhere, and he took the opportunity to sneak up and steal her away.

The reason for doing this was that Gu Qingyue was already over three years old at the time. What if she still remembered him when she grew up? If she went to the capital to complain about him later, he would be in deep trouble.

As for Liu's suggestion that Gu Qingyue's death would be best, he certainly wouldn't dare do that. He wasn't that bold; what if the old Duke came looking for him...?

Therefore, he played the role of a rescuer in front of Gu Qingyue.

He didn't know where to sell her, and after thinking it over, he thought of his distant cousin who had married into Xinghua Village.

The rest is simple.

Because Xinghua Village is located in a remote area, although it is not in the deep mountains that Liu mentioned, it is not easy for people to discover it.

He's just raising a little girl. He gives her some money and says he saved a benefactor on the road, who then died, leaving behind a child.

Because he wasn't married yet and couldn't support himself, he was given away to them.

When my cousin and her husband saw the twenty taels of silver, they didn't care about anything else and agreed immediately.

It's just another mouth to feed, and it's a girl, so she'll be easier to raise.

So the couple secretly left the twenty taels of silver behind and took Gu Qingyue back to Xinghua Village, telling everyone that they had found it on the way back from the county town by the mountain road.

The villagers are simple and honest, so naturally no one would suspect anything.

For many years, no one came looking for them, so no one suspected anything.

"Six years ago you said you came out to find your son, but you never went back. What happened?"

Gu Qingyue was still dressed as a teenager, wearing a mask, and her voice was icy.

She remembered very clearly how that old hag had tormented her ever since the couple disappeared. Thinking about it now, she really felt sorry for the original owner of this body.

Gu Shunfa and Wen Shi were terrified.

"Young man! Oh no! Hero!"

Our son was stolen by that damned Zeng Shun. We came to Mingzhi County hoping that finding his mother would allow us to find a way to get him back, but...

Zeng Shun was chased by debt collectors the day before we arrived, and he ran away. We had no choice but to search everywhere for our son, but we couldn't find him for several years.

Gu Shunfa was terrified when he saw Gu Qingyue's cold mask.

Why did Zeng Shun kidnap your son?

Gu Qingyue looked at the Wen family.

"We..." The couple looked at each other, unsure how to begin.

Gu Qingyue saw him trembling with fear.

She raised her hand to straighten her sleeves, already showing signs of impatience.

"Speak quickly!" Yue Ling shouted sharply from the side.

“I said, hero, I said, we came to Mingzhi County and found Zeng Shun’s mother, only to find out that… we found out that the child he gave us to raise was from a wealthy family, and he helped them sell him. We… we only agreed to take twenty taels of silver from him back then, and now that he has no money, he wants to ask us to take the money back.”

Madam Wen licked her dry lips. "Six years ago, Zeng Shun came to us wanting back those twenty taels of silver. We didn't have them, so he stole my son. Waaah..."

At this point, Wen was overcome with grief and wept bitterly.

"So, you've been looking for the child the whole time and haven't gone back?"

Gu Qingyue wanted to know why they had abandoned her alone in that cannibalistic place back then, never to return.

“We only dared not go back after we found out who that girl was. We were afraid that someone would look for her and blame us. We had never been very nice to her, so we hid... We just wanted the villagers to think we were dead.”

"Heh------" Gu Qingyue laughed in exasperation.

She vividly remembered that old hag Gu had shifted all the blame onto the original owner of the body, saying that her adoptive parents were likely no longer alive, that she had caused their deaths, and that she was a jinx.

She was not even nine years old when she took on all the household chores for the Gu family.

Chopping firewood, planting vegetables, feeding chickens and pigs, cleaning the yard, washing clothes for the whole family... and often going hungry!

Moreover, Old Lady Gu's slaps and any random object she picked up could be weapons that could inflict unbearable pain on her.

She still remembers the feeling of wanting to just end it all.