Super-Fertile Darling: Forced to Marry the Heirless Tyrant

While they were still discussing what it was, Song Wei suddenly barked out a fierce command.

"Drink it now!"

"Open your mouth!"

Su Daiyue could no longer see Song Wei’s face clearly, but she could feel his anger through his voice.

Her heart had just found a moment of peace. She didn’t want to dwell on what had happened before.

Su Daiyue gasped for breath, her eyelids as heavy as mountains. She pleaded, "I really can’t go on. Just let me have some peace... just for a little while... I want to sleep for a bit..."

"You can’t sleep! Wake up!"

The jar in Song Wei’s hands trembled. A red liquid dripped slowly down his robes and onto the white jade tiles, forming a shocking pool of blood.

His voice was laced with sobs.

"These are Nanny Ma’s ashes, mixed with my blood."

Ji Qingwu sucked in a breath. Wei Tongyou had been right, and she hadn’t been mistaken, either.

The pool of blood at Song Wei’s feet was growing. It wasn’t spilling from the jar in his hands, but coming from his own body.

Yet, he seemed completely oblivious to it.

"It was Nanny Ma who poisoned your placenta-calming medicine. I was the one who brought you that bowl. The two of us conspired to harm you. You should hate us. Nanny Ma is dead, but I’m still alive. You have to live to watch me die a miserable death."

Song Wei begged, "Dai Yue, drink this and you’ll get better."

But no matter what Song Wei said, Su Daiyue didn’t respond. She stared with unfocused eyes, her face etched with agony.

Song Wei’s expression twisted in an instant. "Open your mouth and drink! Drink it!"

Su Daiyue cried out, "Miss Ji, Miss Ji..."

"Please help me. Can you pull him away? I don’t want to be near him. He’s brought more medicine, hasn’t he? I don’t want to take it. I don’t want to lose my baby..."

Hearing Su Daiyue’s words, Ji Qingwu sighed.

The child was long gone, by the hand of the very man before her, who had fed the poison to his own wife. As Su Daiyue lay dying, the shadow and terror of that bowl of medicine were inescapable.

At Su Daiyue’s words, Song Wei’s arms went rigid. He lowered his head very slowly. A ripple spread through the jar as a tear fell into it.

He suddenly rushed toward Ji Qingwu. Wei Tongyou, hiding behind her, had no time to shield her.

But Song Wei dropped to his knees when he was still a few feet away.

The posture also revealed a gruesome, gaping wound on his thigh. Ji Qingwu slipped the bottle of medicinal powder she had been about to throw back into her sleeve.

Song Wei’s eyes were bloodshot. He shuffled forward half a step on his knees and said wretchedly, "I beg you, save her. Save my wife."

"It was my fault. All my fault. I was blinded by hatred and bewitched by Nanny Ma’s treacherous words."

The woman on the bed was like a lamp running out of oil, her eyes closed in exhaustion. It was impossible to know if she could still hear his words.

Ji Qingwu said, "But you were the one who brought her the medicine. There’s no cure for regret in this world. I can’t save your wife."

Hearing that she couldn’t be saved, a shudder wracked Song Wei’s body.

He clutched his head, saying in anguish, "She killed my child. I just wanted her to feel what I felt. I didn’t want her to die. I just wanted to punish her, to stop her from acting however she pleased and trampling all over me just because her father is the Prime Minister."

Until yesterday, Song Wei had still believed that Su Daiyue’s health could recover.

They had been married for years. ’As long as she stops ordering me around so arrogantly,’ Song Wei had thought, ’as long as she shows me a bit of respect, we can still make this work.’

But he hadn’t expected that this morning, Su Daiyue’s condition would deteriorate so drastically. She began to fall into a coma. It was only after he went to the storehouse, found his private stash of wild ginseng, and used it to keep her alive that she regained consciousness.

Hearing that preparing a coffin and burial clothes early could counteract the bad luck, the entire household had scrambled into action...

Ji Qingwu said, "Ma Pozi was your mistress’s mother. Why would she tell you the truth?"

Song Wei shook his head, denying it. "I checked. That poison isn’t fatal."

Ji Qingwu said, "Your one bowl wasn’t fatal, but have you ever tested the nourishing soups Ma Pozi gave her? She was already weak from the miscarriage. With the toxins accumulating, the onset was much faster."

"She can’t die. We said we’d have a son. She said she didn’t want a daughter. I..."

Song Wei couldn’t continue. The sight of him, with tears and snot streaming down his face, was too wretched to behold.

He collapsed completely to the floor, unable to accept that she was truly about to leave him.

Listening to this couple’s saga of love, hate, and vengeance, Wei Tongyou’s brows were knitted into a knot.

Ji Qingwu had never encountered a couple with such a tangled web of love and hate, such complex emotions.

She said in a low voice, "Mr. Song, rather than fussing with these useless remedies, you should spend this final time with her properly. If there are things that need to be said, say them clearly now."

"We’ll take our leave now."

How the husband and wife said their farewells was their own business.

Once the two of them left the main house, Wei Tongyou pulled Ji Qingwu aside to ask the question she hadn’t voiced earlier.

"Are you really going to the Su family’s estate?"

Ji Qingwu nodded.

Wei Tongyou fretted for a long moment before saying, "Well, it is Madam Song’s dying wish, so you have to go. We could go now. It’s broad daylight, so that old pervert won’t be home. You can give the hairpin to her mother, and then we can go back to the Wei Family estate together."

Ji Qingwu wagged her index finger. "I’m not going now. I’ll go tonight."

Wei Tongyou said, "You’re going at night? What if you run right into that old pervert? Wouldn’t that be too dangerous?"

She added with a strong sense of self-preservation, "You know I’m younger than you, and he likes young girls. I’d be in even more danger than you. If I go, it’ll be like a lamb entering a tiger’s den."

Ji Qingwu moved closer to Wei Tongyou, tilted up her chin, and examined her from side to side.

"Su Fengyue prefers women who are pure and noble, like the moon. As for you..."

Wei Tongyou glared at her. "What about me?"

Ji Qingwu said, "You’re no little lamb. You’re a little sun, bursting with energy."

Wei Tongyou pressed her lips together, suppressing the urge to smile.

Ji Qingwu let go of her chin and gave her a wink.

"Did you think I was going to swagger in through the front gate and parade around right in front of him? Do you really think I’m that stupid?"

Wei Tongyou shook her head sheepishly, then awkwardly scratched the back of her head.

Just then, Song Wei’s grief-stricken howls carried out from inside the room.

Ji Qingwu let out a long sigh of her own and looked up at the azure sky.

The sky had cleared after the rain, but someone would never see such a beautiful day again.

And someone else would have to live under a shadow for the rest of his life.

*

The sky was as clear as if it had been washed, making every part of the Imperial Palace glitter with a golden sheen.

In front of the most opulent palace in the imperial grounds, Zhao Minghong had already been standing for nearly half an hour.

He had come to visit his Imperial Brother several times these past few days, only to be stopped at the gate by the Black-clothed Guards of the Imperial City Department every time. Once or twice was one thing, but this was already the fifth time.

Zhao Minghong lowered his head and, when no one was looking, barged into the hall.