Quan Minghao turned to him with a solemn expression. “Lord Gu, may I ask—who are the two girls in this painting?”
Gu Changfan replied uneasily, “The older one is a Yiniang in my household. The younger… is my adopted daughter.”
Quan Minghao’s eyes widened. “Adopted daughter?”
Gu Changfan nodded. It was no secret in Changle County, so there was no need to conceal it.
“Yes. Fourteen years ago, Fu Yiniang was with me in the capital. At the foot of a mountain called Phoenix Mountain, she found an abandoned baby girl. Out of kindness, she brought her back and raised her.”
Phoenix Mountain… Phoenix Mountain…
That name struck a chord. It was the very place the nursemaid had fallen with his daughter.
The time, the place—it all matched.
Quan Minghao’s voice trembled slightly with emotion. “Lord Gu… may I meet your adopted daughter?”
Hearing this, Gu Changfan’s heart gave a sudden jolt.
Yesterday, Gu Heng had been beaten all over by him and hadn’t been given any food. He didn’t even know if she was still unconscious—how could she possibly come out to meet anyone?
“M-my daughter has recently caught a chill and is resting in her room. I fear it wouldn’t be appropriate for her to receive guests, lest she pass the illness to you.”
Upon hearing this, Quan Minghao immediately grew anxious. “She’s caught a chill? Is it serious? Then I must go see her!”
Just then, a young servant rushed in frantically. “Something terrible has happened, my lord! The rear courtyard is on fire!”
Already irritated, Gu Changfan waved him off impatiently. “Don’t you see I’m speaking with the marquis? If there’s a fire, then send people to put it out—why are you bothering me?”
The servant immediately dropped to his knees, trembling with fear. “It’s the woodshed that’s on fire! Second Miss is still locked inside—we don’t even know if she’s alive or dead!”
Quan Minghao’s heart sank with an overwhelming sense of dread.
He pointed to the young girl in the portrait and loudly asked, “The ‘Second Miss’ you mentioned—is it this girl?”
The servant glanced at the painting and nodded repeatedly. “Y-yes, that’s her! That’s our Second Miss, Gu Heng!”
In an instant, Quan Minghao was utterly shocked.
“Heng”—it was the name he had given his daughter as an infant, even embroidered it on her swaddling cloth. But when she was just one year old, she was stolen away by her wet nurse, swaddling cloth and all, and had vanished ever since.
Could this adopted daughter of the Gu family truly be the daughter he lost all those years ago?
At that moment, Quan Minghao slammed the table and roared, “Lord Gu! Not a single word from your mouth is the truth! If it were just a chill, why would you lock her in the woodshed?”
Seeing Gu Changfan cower like a quail, Quan Minghao knew something was deeply wrong in this household and could no longer be bothered to argue. He turned and strode toward the rear courtyard. “In any case, I will see her today. Lead the way!”
At this point, there was no room left for maneuver. Gu Changfan could only bow and nod repeatedly in submission.
As he passed by the servant, he shot him a vicious glare.
If that wretched servant hadn’t burst in, he might’ve managed to bluff his way through this whole thing today.
The servant, trembling under the glare, dared not utter a word.
Soon, they reached the rear courtyard. The fire had already grown fierce, and the woodshed door was still locked.
Several maidservants stood cowering in a corner, too frightened to approach.
“Poor Second Miss,” one of them whispered. “She was beaten so harshly by the master just yesterday, and now she’s caught in this fire. Who knows if she’ll even live to marry into the Wang family tomorrow.”
“Alas! If she dies today, maybe it’s a kind of release. Even if she did marry into that family, what good would come of it? That old man is already sixty. He loves nothing more than torturing young girls—who knows how long Second Miss would last with him.”
Hearing this, Quan Minghao could hardly believe his ears. He stormed over in a few strides and barked, “What did you just say?”
The startled maids stammered, “N-nothing!” and scattered like frightened birds.
Seeing the flames rise higher and higher while the key to the lock was nowhere in sight, Quan Minghao didn’t hesitate any longer. He grabbed an axe from the ground nearby and shouted, “Out of the way!”
The servants around the woodshed scrambled back, clearing a path.
Without a second thought, Quan Minghao swung the axe and smashed the lock. He kicked open the door.
The moment it opened, he saw two figures inside.
One was a young girl, her body covered in soot. The edge of her clothes had already caught fire, and the flames were about to reach her body. Yet she was still using her body to shield an unconscious young boy.
As the door opened, she weakly turned her head and gave a faint, relieved smile. “Ah Zheng… we’re finally… saved.”
With that, she lost the last of her strength, closed her eyes, and collapsed completely.
The scene struck Quan Minghao like a knife to the heart—he couldn’t breathe from the pain.
They had never met before, yet this girl felt incredibly familiar.
Without thinking, he charged through the flames and carried her out.
Seeing this, the rest of the maids and servants finally came to their senses and rushed in to rescue Ah Zheng as well.
Holding Gu Heng in his arms, Quan Minghao suddenly felt the urge to weep.
This child bore a striking resemblance to Qingrong—seven parts alike. And just now, behind her right ear, he had seen a familiar birthmark shaped like a peach blossom.
She was his daughter—the child who had been missing for fourteen years.
When Heng’er was taken from him, she had been just a tiny bundle.
Over the years, he had imagined countless possibilities—where she was, what her life had been like. He hoped that even if she wasn’t with her real parents, at least she would be warm and well-fed.
But her actual circumstances were far worse than he’d ever imagined.
As he held her, he realized she was all skin and bone—barely any flesh on her, as if she could break from a mere squeeze.
Beneath the thin clothes were whip marks crisscrossing her body.
When he carried her out, some wounds had torn open again. Blood seeped through her clothes, staining his hands.
Quan Minghao was filled with hatred.
For over a decade, he had lived with regret—regret that he had not protected Heng’er, that she had been stolen away by evildoers.
Now he was full of rage—rage at this cruel world that had treated Heng’er with such injustice, forcing a frail girl to endure so much suffering.
He rushed her to a bed in Zhaohui Hall. Then, without hesitation, he grabbed a teacup and hurled it at Gu Changfan’s head.
“You still haven’t sent for a doctor?!”
Blood streaming from his forehead, Gu Changfan dared not even show anger. He hurriedly turned to a servant and ordered, “Quick! Go to Ruikang Hall and fetch Doctor Qian!”
Suddenly, Quan Minghao thought of something else. “And the young man from the woodshed—see that he’s treated properly as well.”
He didn’t know what their relationship was, but at the brink of life and death, Heng’er had still used all her strength to protect him.
That boy must be someone important to her.
And what mattered to Heng’er, mattered to him too—he had to be saved.
“Yes, yes!” Gu Changfan nodded repeatedly. “Someone, go tend to Young Master Shen immediately!”
The servant didn’t even wait for a second command—he fled as if his life depended on it.
Away from the hall, he could finally breathe a little.
But Gu Changfan still didn’t dare to leave. Facing Quan Minghao’s seething fury, he was so terrified he nearly dropped to his knees.
Even now, he still didn’t fully grasp what was happening.
He had thought Yongning Marquis had simply taken a liking to that little wretch Gu Heng. He’d even been secretly pleased.
After all, among the nobles of the capital, it was common to take concubines or keep mistresses.
If Gu Heng caught the marquis’s eye, it would be a stroke of fortune.
To Gu Changfan, it would be a great boon too. After all, forming a connection with a marquis of the capital was far more beneficial than marrying her off to that old man of the Wang family.
But now, seeing how the Marquis looked at Gu Heng—it wasn’t the gaze of a man looking at a woman. It was the gaze of a father looking at his daughter.
Once the idea took root, Gu Changfan grew even more uneasy.
“My lord, may I ask… what exactly do you mean by all this? Could you please… enlighten me?”
Hearing this, Quan Minghao could no longer hold back his fury. In a few strides, he kicked Gu Changfan to the ground.
“Heng’er may be your adopted daughter, but she is my flesh and blood! You’ve raised her all these years—didn’t you develop any feelings for her? How could you whip her, imprison her, and even try to force her to marry a sixty-year-old man, all for your selfish gain? That old man is old enough to be her grandfather!”
Gu Changfan was dumbfounded.
He had already suspected as much earlier, but to hear it confirmed still left him in disbelief.
“What? You’re saying… she’s your biological daughter?”
Quan Minghao took a deep breath and forced down his rage. “Fourteen years ago, my daughter went missing near Phoenix Mountain. Behind her right ear is a birthmark in the shape of a peach blossom.”
He pulled a small portrait from his sleeve and handed it over. “This is my wife—Heng’er’s birth mother. Heng’er looks just like her. If you still don’t believe me, bring out the swaddling cloth she was found with. I suspect her name came from it as well, didn’t it?”
Seeing how detailed Quan Minghao’s account was, Gu Changfan realized the truth was undeniable.
To confirm once and for all, he sent someone to fetch the swaddling cloth hidden in Fu Yiniang’s old room and handed it to Quan Minghao.
The cloth had been carefully preserved by Fu Yiniang. She had always hoped to reunite Gu Heng with her birth parents and had never tampered with it.
Better that he handed it over now than have the marquis ransack the place later.
At the moment he took the cloth, Quan Minghao’s eyes turned red.
This swaddling cloth had been sewn by Qingrong before the child was even born.
Poor Heng’er—she should’ve grown up in the capital, a noble daughter of the marquis’s household, enjoying every comfort.
Instead, she had been abandoned in a remote region, mistreated and humiliated.
The grief and regret in his heart nearly choked him.
Just then, a movement on the bed caught his attention.
Quan Minghao turned around to see Heng’er had awakened. But those once bright eyes were now brimming with tears.
At that moment, Quan Minghao could no longer hold himself back. He rushed forward, wanting to embrace her, but as he neared the bed, he hesitated, afraid of overstepping. In the end, he withdrew his hands and simply asked with concern, “Heng’er, are you alright? Are you feeling unwell anywhere?”
