Chapter 351

Qin Xin’s shoulders trembled in shock.

While Gu Jing’s eyes darkened even more as he immediately and coldly said, “Such unruly people, how dare they point at someone’s daughter, beat him to death.”

“…” Qin Xin’s eyes widened when she heard what Gu Jing said, and wanted to say no but at the moment she was in an extremely chaotic mood. She felt disappointed with her biological father, at the same time panicked at being exposed, and most of all fear, she was afraid of Gu Jing so much that her throat tightened and couldn’t make a sound.

Li Jinzhu looked at Qin Xin as if a bucket of cold water had been poured on his head and his heart went cold, then a chill quickly spread to all his limbs and bones.

The couple gave their hearts and souls for this daughter, risking everything to replace her with Erya, just so that their daughter could have a bright future. They regard this daughter as the jewel in the palm of their hands, but now they were unexpectedly abandoned by their own daughter as if they were nothing.

Li Jinzhu pointed at Qin Xin with trembling hand visible to the naked eye as he shouted again, “It’s her, she’s Daya, she is the only daughter of this poor commoner.”

Outside the public hall, there was an uproar.

The common people who were watching the show were pointing their fingers to blame Qin Xin as they spiritedly discuss while others still didn’t understand what was going on.

An old woman in gray asked the person beside her, “Isn’t the second prince’s concubine a girl from the Marquis family? How did she become Li’s?”

“Isn’t that simple?” Immediately, someone analyzed it and said with a loud voice with justice in his tone, “It must be because the marquis adopted a poor girl and gave her to the second prince as a concubine!”

“Who would have thought that this poor girl was already engaged previously by her former family.”

These people hearing this explanation either looked at Qin Xin with contempt or with astonishment…

Meanwhile, Gu Jing’s complexion at this time was even uglier as he called out the magistrate by his name in a warning tone. “Hu Mingke, you are letting this unruly person spread rumors, is this how you handle a case?!”

Magistrate Hu Mingke got the emperor’s oral order, so naturally, he would not let Gu Jing smooth things over, he could only salute to Gu Jing politely and said, “Your Highness, the second prince, this is the court of Jingzhao, this public hall belongs to the capital and I am its magistrate so I fairly should know how to judge a trial.”

Hu Mingke’s attitude and expression were very firm making the onlookers think that this Lord Hu was really an upright official who was not afraid of power.

Gu Jing: “!!!”

Gu Jing almost threw his sleeve and left, but he knew that if he really leaves Qin Xin here, the rumors about him and Qin Xin would only become even worse.

Gu Jing finally held back and stayed in the public hall.

Hu Mingke once again sounded the gavel and came to a conclusion. “Qin Xin, whose real name is Li Erya, the daughter of Li Jinzhu. You are the person who is engaged to Xu Jinpeng that was in the bride price letter and geng tie, but you are now also the second prince’s concubine. The woman who is promised to two families.”

Hearing the magistrate’s verdict, the public got even livelier, and the eyes of those onlookers were all shining with different lights. If this story was compiled into a playbook, it would definitely become popular in the capital!

Wonderful, truly wonderful.

Those onlookers once again size up Qin Xin up and down as if they were looking at the reincarnation of Daji*, and some even spitefully said. “Shameless, this woman is not afraid of going underground and being split in half by Lord Hades and divide her between two men?!”n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

(*the favorite consort of king Zhou of Shang, while in legends and fiction says she was a malevolent fox spirit who kills and impersonates the real Daji)

Hearing the scorns and the people’s discussion as they pointed at them made Gu Jing’s whole body stiff as a stone sculpture causing pain in his back and making him feel as if they were criticizing him.

His gaze was getting gloomier as if a tornado had started to roll up, trying to tear everything around him apart.

After giving his verdict, Hu Mingke began to announce the sentence, “Li Erya who was promised two marriages is found guilty with solid evidence, and since the Xu family has the bride price, according to the law Li Erya should belong to the Xu family.”

Master Xu: “…”

Madam Zhang: “…”

According to Master Xu and Madam Zhang’s original plan, they just wanted to extort some benefits from the second prince, but now, it was inevitable that the situation has backfired and they may even have to suffer a loss. However, after a moment of reflection, the couple realized that they still got the lost daughter-in-law, anyway, this daughter-in-law’s eight characters flourishes their son, and they already gave Li Jinzhu and Zhao Aman the betrothal gift back then, so it wasn’t really a loss.

Master Xu’s brain almost immediately calculated everything and his gaze landed on Qin Zhun again, thinking that he had just heard the yamen call him marquis, and Qin Xin call him father. So, this marquis was Qin Xin’s new father in the capital!

This marquis was a high-ranking official, surely his son would benefit from being the marquis’s son-in-law. Although Qin Xin was already spoilt, there was really nothing he could do about it but let her make up for it, after all, woman, as long as they give birth to a son for the Xu family they could continue to burn their incense*.

(*generation)

“Thanking Magistrate Hu for giving justice to my Xu family!” Master Xu happily kowtowed heavily to Hu Mingke, while Madam Zhang pressed her foolish son to kowtow with him.

Qin Xin was already in a daze and couldn’t believe that the magistrate had sentenced her as the fool’s wife, was this magistrate crazy?!

Madam Zhang also immediately change her stand, tugging her son’s sleeve with one hand, she pointed at Qin Xin with the other and said, “Jinpeng, go and take your wife and our family of four will go back to our hometown in two days!”

Xu Jinpeng’s eyes suddenly lit up, his eyes glowed as he looked at Qin Xin who was a few steps away, and only one word echoed repeatedly in his head: Wife.

“Wife!” Xu Jinpeng jump up from the ground and flew toward Qin Xin, and carelessly put his hand on Qin Xin’s right shoulder, trying to bring her into his arms…

Qin Xin whose face was already looking like it loses too much blood was terrified, and only felt a strong smell of sweat hit her nose making her shriek.

“Let go of me!” Qin Xin tried to break Xu Jinpeng’s hand on her shoulder, but the latter, who had found his wife was not willing to let her go that easily and instead grabbed the clothes on her shoulder even tighter.

“Hiss!”

During the push and pull between the two, Xu Jinpeng ripped a large portion of Qin Xin’s sleeve revealing her white jade shoulders, even the collar was ripped loose, vaguely revealing a section of delicate collarbone…

***