Cheng Haoxuan also wanted to ask, but after hesitating for a long ti, he only managed to ask one question: "Does he know about ?"
His voice was trembling, sounding exceedingly heart-wrenching.
A stir of emotion touched Madam Cheng’s heart, and with so reluctance to face her own son, she eventually shook her head and said, "He doesn’t know."
What could she say? That he knew of her pregnancy but suddenly disappeared? That he was nothing but a treacherous scoundrel?
Such words might be cathartic to say, but what would this child think of them?
Madam Cheng’s heart ached as she clenched the clothing at her chest. Initially, to prevent the child from being bullied, she deliberately referred to him as her adopted son. But in the end, this still left the child feeling sowhat uncomfortable in his heart.
If she were to tell him that his own father knew of his existence but chose to abandon him, wouldn’t that just cause him even more pain?
Lu Chong wanted to say sothing, but he ultimately couldn’t bring himself to speak and continued to remain silent.
Madam Cheng slowly shook her head as if recalling the ti when she discovered her pregnancy after his father left.
"After your father left, I found out I was pregnant. But the scandal of an unwed woman with a child was shocking beyond belief. Later, with the help of your master, I hid in the countryside outside the city to give birth to you, and raised you until you were sixteen before bringing you back to the Capital city under the guise of an adopted son."
Lin Yuan raised her eyebrows, sowhat surprised as she looked towards Lu Chong – this Lu Chong had always been with Madam Cheng.
For an unmarried woman to be pregnant before marriage was hard enough to accept in her own era, let alone in this ti. It’s not hard to imagine how helpless Madam Cheng must have felt back then.
Fortunately, Lu Chong had always been by her side.
But for so reason, Lu Chong later developed a rift with Madam Cheng. Could it have been because of Cheng Haoxuan?
Just as Lin Yuan guessed, after giving birth to Cheng Haoxuan, Madam Cheng planned to raise him as her adopted son by her side.
Even though she repeatedly professed deep-seated hatred for Cheng Haoxuan’s father, it was a case of deep love bred deep hatred; it was precisely because she loved deeply that she could hate so thoroughly.
She wanted to continue raising Cheng Haoxuan by her side because deep down she still believed his sudden departure had unspeakable reasons. With this child by her side, her fantasies weren’t shattered, and there might still be a chance for them to et again.
However, Lu Chong disagreed. He was concerned about Madam Cheng and hoped she would let go of the past and look forward, not to remain entangled in her forr life.
Therefore, he intended to take the child away to allow Madam Cheng to move on with her life.
That is how their conflict arose. Madam Cheng not only quietly changed her place of residence but also opened the Red Smoke Pavilion in the Capital city and forced Lu Chong not to seek her out anymore.
It was not until Cheng Haoxuan entered the Capital city at the age of sixteen and coincidentally t Lu Chong, who had been waiting there early on, at the city gates.
Don’t ask how he knew, because he had heard her plans in the vows Madam Cheng made the day her son was born—to let her son enter the Capital city at the age of sixteen and have him achieve the success that even his father did not.
Persistent efforts pay off, and Lu Chong, who had been loyally waiting at the city gates, did indeed encounter the naive and lively Cheng Haoxuan.
Therefore, Cheng Haoxuan would say that his eting with his master was coincidental, and coupled with the striking resemblance he bore to his father, Lu Chong recognized him almost instantly and right away expressed a desire to take him on as a disciple, citing predestined affinity.
When Cheng Haoxuan used to live in the rural villa, he was very fond of cooking, but because Madam Cheng disapproved, he always studied it in secret.
Now that a fortuitous master had seemingly fallen from the sky, he was naturally overjoyed and imdiately accepted the offer.
Speaking of which, Lu Chong’s decision to take on Cheng Haoxuan as his apprentice was also partly due to his missing senior apprentice brother. Both of them were the youngest disciples of Zhuang Kangping and had a good relationship; his senior apprentice brother’s son was as good as his own.
Madam Cheng’s voice was soft, but to Cheng Haoxuan, it weighed a thousand pounds.
He had a mother, but her pregnancy before marriage must have subjected her to unspeakable tornt. Suddenly, he thought of his mother’s relatives and finally understood why they had severed ties with her so early, and even after she established the Red Smoke Pavilion, they still disdained any association with Cheng Panzhen.
So it turned out that everything was because of him!
In an instant, Cheng Haoxuan felt a burden heavy as Mount Tai upon his shoulders; he was his mother’s last hope and the future of the Red Smoke Pavilion. For him, she had faced abandonnt by her kin and had depleted her once healthy body.
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