Chapter 18: Striking Out on My Own

“Mother, are you truly my mother?” Yunzhi looked at Xu with a heartbroken expression, tears welling up in her eyes.

Her sorrowful appearance tugged at the heartstrings of everyone present. Yunzhi was already beautiful, and now with her tears, not just the men, but even the older women felt pity for her.

Sympathy sparked, and everyone was about to criticize Xu, wondering how a mother could treat her daughter like this. Wasn’t this tantamount to forcing Yunzhi to her death?

However, Yunzhi spoke before anyone else, her voice choked with tears. “Yes, I am divorced, but what have I done wrong? Firstly, I haven’t wronged my husband’s family, it was An Xiuyuan who wronged me. He had a woman he loved, but didn’t tell me, and even had a child with her before our marriage. I wouldn’t even mention that. But as soon as his concubine entered the house, he wanted to demote me to a concubine. I am a legitimate daughter, married with a proper ceremony and carried into the house on an eight-bearer sedan chair. How could I be demoted? Therefore, I divorced him, what wrong did I do?”

“Miss Yun, you are right, it was the Marquis of Dingyuan who was wrong!”

Yunzhi glanced at the speaker and continued, “Secondly, this marriage was arranged by you and Father, right? From beginning to end, I had no say in it, I never met him, and I didn’t know what kind of person he was. Arranged marriage, I didn’t say anything, did I? I didn’t. Now, I’m divorced and back home, don’t you have any responsibility? If you had properly investigated An Xiuyuan’s background, would I have divorced him?”

“Thirdly, my dowry should have been prepared by you, Mother. But did you prepare it? No. The reason I have a dowry is because my maternal grandparents and uncle and aunt felt sorry for me having an unreliable mother, so they prepared it for me.”

“Since this isn’t the Yun family, and it wasn’t my mother who prepared the dowry, why should I give it to you? Compensating the family for the other daughters, that sounds nice. But you just feel that my dowry is more than my younger sister’s, and you want to transfer it to her.”

“You, you, you are talking nonsense!” Xu pointed at Yunzhi’s nose, her words coming out in a jumbled mess. This time, she was truly angry.

Earlier, she didn’t stop Yunzhi because she was caught off guard. The Yunzhi in front of her was completely different from the one before her marriage.

Before her marriage, Yunzhi didn’t even dare to speak loudly, let alone argue, and she was quite timid. But look at her now, speaking so much in front of everyone, without a hint of fear.

“Mother, am I not telling the truth? Otherwise, why did Brother say you were sick and should be resting in bed? Why would you come to the door and say such hypocritical things? What’s the reason? It’s just that you have your eyes on my dowry.”

“Originally, I thought that after all this happened, my family would be my safe haven. But who would have thought that all the storms were brought upon me by my own family.”

“Therefore, I declare here that from today onwards, I have no connection with the Yun family. All the villagers here, please bear witness. From this day forward, I, Yunzhi, will strike out on my own, with no family.”

After speaking, Yunzhi put on a heartbroken expression and said to her maids, “Let’s go, from this day forward, the Yun family has nothing to do with me, Yunzhi.”

“Yes, Miss!” Rumei and the others looked deeply at the Yun family, then turned the carriage around and headed towards the separate courtyard.

And Yunzhi, as soon as she got into the carriage, seemed to become a different person.