[Author note skipped: not part of novel narrative.]
"So all along, the throne I fought for was actually yours."
"Of course! Did you really think you were actually Emperor Song Jing's child? How shameless," Yvonne Li blurted out quickly.
But Ivy Shen didn't respond; she just looked at him with a blank expression.
"You must've been exhausted, hiding for so long, huh?" Song Zhijue asked calmly, like he was just making small talk.
Ivy Shen looked at him and said quietly, "Cao Wan'er is dead."
Hearing this, Song Zhijue's body visibly trembled, his face twisted with pain, but it vanished in an instant. He looked at her and said, "So what?"
"Wow, you really have no conscience, huh? She was your mother!" Yvonne Li was super annoyed by his indifference. Does this guy have zero morals or what?
At that moment, Ivy Shen turned to the crowd and said, "Could you all leave for a bit? I want to talk to him alone."
"Ivy..." Yvonne Li frowned, grabbing her hand, clearly worried.
"It's fine," Ivy said, then turned to Fire God and Ice God. "Please take the citizens outside."
At that, Connor Tong quickly knelt and said, "As you command!"
The guards and citizens didn't really understand why, but since Ivy Shen had spoken, of course they wouldn't argue.
Soon, everyone inside and outside the hall was cleared out—even the seven husbands were left outside.
At this moment, Shou'an Hall was left with only Ivy and Song Zhijue. The silence was heavy, making every breath loud.
"Aren't you afraid of me?" Song Zhijue glanced around the empty hall, then looked up at Ivy Shen.
Ivy smiled slightly, sat down on a nearby stool, and said, "If I dared to clear the hall, obviously I'm not afraid of you. I think you already know everything, don't you?"
"Yes."
"When did you find out?"
"When you were fighting her."
Hearing that, Ivy Shen paused for a moment, then guessed when he must've seen it. Back then, she and Cao Wan'er were both on high alert—and with Cao Wan'er's twisted methods, Ivy was so shocked she didn't notice Song Zhijue's arrival. How ridiculous. She wondered what kind of mood Cao Wan'er would be in now, knowing her ugliest side had been seen by the son she'd always doted on.
"Why did it turn out like this? Why?" Song Zhijue shouted, clenching his fists in confusion.
"There's no reason. A lot of things just don't have a reason," Ivy Shen replied, unmoved by his shouting. If she knew the reason for everything, the world wouldn't have so many headaches.
Song Zhijue let out a bitter laugh. "Ever since I was little, she raised me with so much care. I knew exactly how good she was to me. As for Sylvia, the Silver Consort, I just saw her as a tool to use. Later, as I grew up, no matter how unreasonable my demands were, she'd always help me, always do whatever I asked. Eventually I realized, besides Mother Empress, this teacher truly cared about me—not because of my status, but for real."
Ivy Shen just sat in her chair, quietly listening to him speak.
"So it turns out her kindness wasn't random. 'Mother'? Ha, what a joke. She turned out to be my real mom, while the woman I called Mother Empress for over twenty years is just a stranger—a total stranger with no connection to me at all." Song Zhijue's voice trembled with anger and deep helplessness. Why did it have to be this way?
Ivy Shen listened, then smiled slightly. "So, you hate Cao Wan'er, don't you?"
"Yes, I hate her—hate her even more!" Song Zhijue raged, pointing at Sylvia's corpse. "She's the reason I never had a tail, the reason I never had legs. I don't know why she did it, but I'm really not happy about it. Not happy at all!"
"Let me tell you, we just died and took a spin through hell before coming back. The Cao Wan'er you hate is suffering tongue-pulling torture right now, and she's got all eighteen layers of hell waiting for her. So, are you happy now?" Ivy Shen said with a smile.
Hearing that, Song Zhijue's heart suddenly ached terribly, his expression twisted in pain. "You're lying!"
Seeing this, Ivy Shen realized that even if Song Zhijue hated Cao Wan'er, her influence on him wasn't something built overnight. "Believe it or not, that's up to you. But honestly, you're pretty pathetic—abandoned by your birth mother, used by your adoptive mother. Who knows what was going through their heads!" Every word Ivy spoke was sharp as a needle; she wanted him to feel the pain.
"Enough! Stop talking!"
"Do you want to know why they treated you that way?" Ivy Shen raised her eyebrows and asked.
Song Zhijue was stunned. He looked at her. "You know?"
"Yes!" Before coming here, she'd asked her master about it. Even though her master only gave her a few hints, Ivy was smart enough to piece it together.
She just hadn't expected things to be so complicated in the middle.
Seeing Song Zhijue silent, Ivy Shen knew he was desperate to know why.
So Ivy Shen smiled and said, "Gordon Gao—that name probably sounds unfamiliar to you, but let me tell you, he's not a stranger at all. He is your real father!"
"What?" Song Zhijue was stunned. Is his real father still alive?
"Don't be so freaked out. Now that you know you're not Cao Wan'er's child, of course you have a father. Back then, Sylvia had an older brother who liked traveling the world and hadn't come home in years. Sylvia lived alone with her father, but their family was dirt poor. Then came the famine, so Sylvia had to take her father out to look for food. They walked and walked, so far that her father died out there. With no money, Sylvia could only sell herself to bury him. Gordon Gao was the one who gave her the silver to fulfill her wish."
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"It was because Gordon Gao once saved Sylvia when she was in desperate straits, and she repaid him with her body. Back then, they were truly in love—if only..." Ivy Shen paused, leaving her words unfinished.
"If only what?"
As expected, Song Zhijue couldn't help but ask, his urgency obvious.
"If later on your father hadn't gotten addicted to gambling, things wouldn't have ended up this way. Once, your father truly loved Silver Consort, and your mother truly loved him too. But at some point, Gordon Gao fell into gambling and changed completely. He not only lost all the family's wealth, he made your grandparents die of anger, and your aunts all left. To Gordon Gao, all of this was Silver Consort's fault for marrying him."
Even before hearing the rest, Song Zhijue clenched his fists hard. He seemed to already know what was coming.
"After that, besides gambling, he turned to drinking. He started beating Silver Consort every few days. She endured it, until she lost her first child to a miscarriage from the abuse. That was when her love for him was completely destroyed, and she started thinking about ending her life. Whether by fate or misfortune, just then, the Empress Cao Wan'er happened to leave the palace and saved Silver Consort."
Hearing this, Song Zhijue clenched his fists even tighter, as if the story had reached its climax. Was the rest about to prove he was a mistake?
"Afterward, Sylvia was brought into the palace, but discovered she was pregnant. Cao Wan'er couldn't have children herself, so to secure her position in the harem, she begged Sylvia to let her have the child, promising the child would have a life of wealth and honor. At that time, your mother hated Gordon Gao and maybe wanted revenge, so she agreed."
"Actually, the more I think about it, the more it seems like a conspiracy. Why would Cao Wan'er rescue Sylvia out of nowhere? And did Sylvia really not know martial arts back then? Was it just coincidence that she happened to be pregnant? You're smart—don't you think something's off here?" Ivy continued, her tone icy.
Song Zhijue listened carefully and thought it over. There were indeed many things he couldn't understand, but now that everyone involved was dead, he had no way to verify any of it.
"As for the rest, you probably already know. Because of your identity, you could never have legs. I just can't imagine how Sylvia could bring herself to watch her own son's legs get chopped off." Ivy shook her head, hitting Song Zhijue right where it hurt most.
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PS: Thank you all for your support! The finale will be tomorrow or the day after. I'll see if I can wrap it up tomorrow—don't rush me, just two more days! I'll do my best! Mwah~~