Farm Girl's Manor
Chapter 979 Stirring into Evil (4)

Chapter 979: Chapter 979 Stirring into Evil (4)

By the time he had finished the wedding ceremony and received the news to pursue her, Fangcao had already been raped by a villain on her way back home from the city and, unable to bear the humiliation, she threw herself into the moat. When her body was fished out, it was unrecognizable, becoming the nightmare of his lifetime.

Back then, he wished he could have died alongside Fangcao. It was only his grandmother’s threat of death that kept him from throwing himself into the moat, but his heart had already died there with Fangcao.

Cui Pingan, like a walking corpse, clung to Fangcao’s body without rest or sleep until her corpse decayed beyond recognition. He, too, from starvation, had fainted, and it was only then that the Cui family’s servants buried Fangcao and brought him back to the Cui family.

When Cui Pingan awoke, he seemed to have lost his soul, spending every day by Fangcao’s grave, never returning home. He forgot about the Cui family, his grandmother, and even his cousin, who was his newlywed wife.

His new wife couldn’t bear having her husband’s heart occupied by another, and knowing too well that the living cannot compete with the dead, she left behind a divorce paper and returned to her maternal home, never to set foot in the Cui family again.

However, since she had been married, although she had not consummated the marriage, she was still subject to unbearable gossip and could no longer find a family of equal social standing. In the end, she had no choice but to marry a widower.

The widower was a third-rank Military Counselor who appeared decent on the outside but was unbearably brutal. He would beat people at the slightest disagreement. His first wife, pregnant for six months, died from his beatings over a trivial matter. Because the incident was well concealed, it did not become public knowledge, and others simply believed, as he claimed, that his wife had died from complications during an early childbirth.

Cui Pingan’s cousin’s ruined reputation became the reason the Military Counselor abused her; she was mistreated to death within half a year of her marriage. Although Cui Pingan’s maternal grandfather discovered the truth behind his granddaughter’s death and had the Military Counselor executed, the dead could not be brought back to life.

Because of this incident, Old Lady Cui’s maternal family severed all ties with her, and even when Old Lady Cui died of depression, her family did not visit to see her off on her final journey.

Not many years after Old Lady Cui’s death, Cui Pingan died in melancholy. When he died, not yet thirty, he had the white hair and withered face of a sixty-year-old, leaving behind countless sighs from the world.

Cui Pingan died in despair, never once thinking he’d wake up again. The moment he reopened his eyes, he decided to persuade his grandmother to grow old together with the person he loved, rather than to let his innocent cousin die a tragic death; otherwise, he would rather remain unmarried for life than repeat the tragedy of his former life.

For the first time, Old Lady Cui saw such a resolute side of her grandson. She found this stranger-like grandson could no longer be treated as the child who had not yet grown up. But she couldn’t let her grandson marry a tenant farmer girl of low birth not because she was haughty, but because such a daughter-in-law was no match for Princess Fuyun. Princess Fuyun wouldn’t need to lift a finger herself to get rid of her; there would be people willing to do it for her.

Should that time come, how could her grandson bear it? If he impetuously did something to Princess Fuyun, even if she was unharmed, there would be enough reason to accuse him of disrespecting his stepmother and the crime of lèse-majesté. Then not only would her grandson be in trouble, but the Cui family would also be implicated, and this was not what she wanted to see.

However, looking into the deep plea in her grandson’s eyes, she found it impossible to refuse outright as she had done before.

Old Lady Cui took a deep breath, as if she had made a significant decision, "Xiaoqi, as long as you are willing to marry your cousin, Grandmother can bring that girl into the residence. In this way, you can still play together as you did before, and it won’t affect your marriage to your cousin."

"No, Grandmother!" His voice turned pale with emotions suddenly surfacing as he repeated the same phrases from his previous life, and Cui Pingan shouted excitedly, "You can’t do this, you can’t bring Fangcao here, Grandson cannot marry the cousin, cannot— otherwise, they will all die, all of them will die!"

Seeing her grandson lose control, Old Lady Cui was startled. She quickly wrapped her arms around Cui Pingan, patting his back with immense tenderness to comfort him, "Xiaoqi, what’s wrong with you, what has happened to you? Don’t scare Grandmother... "

Cui Pingan heard someone calling him through the haze of his stupor, but trapped in the tragedy of his previous life, he couldn’t make out who it was, only helplessly sobbing, a far cry from his usual lively and bright young self.

The commotion in the room naturally couldn’t escape the maids guarding the door. Hearing Ping An’s painful cries and Old Lady Cui’s pale, powerless consolation, Old Lady Cui’s trusted head maid, worried about possible trouble, hurried to find Cui Qingrou.

Cui Qingrou had just finished bathing. Upon hearing the maid’s report, she tied her loose hair with a ribbon and rushed over without bothering to comb it.

Seeing Cui Qingrou, Old Lady Cui called out anxiously, "Rourou, come quickly and look at Xiaoqi. Check if he has been afflicted by some evil spirit."

Cui Qingrou, in a panic, hastened over and saw her nephew, who had still been alright upon his return, now with his eyes tightly shut, pale and limp in his grandmother’s embrace, muttering something under his breath.

Cui Qingrou leaned down to listen and could only vaguely make out words like "don’t jump" and "don’t die." Seeing the pain in her nephew’s face, her heart ached, and she quickly ordered the maids, "Quickly help Seventh Master onto the bed to lie down, and summon the family physician to have a look."