Chapter 269: The Fiery Ye Qing’s Mother
Chapter 269: The Fierce Mother of Ye Qing
If he were to force the marriage, Gu Dongxing would definitely not comply, but would refuse even more adamantly.
But now, Ye Sheng was pleading with him as a father, and Gu Dongxing truly found it difficult to refuse.
Gu Dongxing considered for only a moment before he agreed to Ye Sheng’s request.
"I can help take care of Ye Qing," he said. "But I require that the Ye Family returns all of Ye Qing’s mother’s dowry to Ye Qing."
Ye Qing’s mother was a servant girl from a declining aristocratic family. Before the lady left the Mainland, she gave her a very generous dowry.
All of these dowry items were brought to the Ye Family by Ye Qing’s mother, but because she died when her daughter was too young, they all ended up in the hands of Ye Sheng’s stepmother.
Upon hearing Gu Dongxing’s demand to return Ye Qing’s mother’s dowry, Ye Rushui immediately jumped up: "No way!"
Half of those items had ended up in her hands, how could she possibly give them back?
However, Gu Dongxing ignored Ye Rushui and seriously looked at Ye Sheng: "Grandpa Ye once gave me a list of the dowry items, which belonged to Ye Qing’s mother, but Grandpa Ye also made it clear that it was Ye Qing’s dowry."
At that time, he didn’t understand why Grandpa Ye would give him the list of Ye Qing’s mother’s dowry when he left the Gu Family and also urged him to take good care of it.
He took it as a sign of Grandpa Ye’s trust, so he kept it well hidden, even from his mother.
What he didn’t know was that at that time, Grandpa Ye and his mother had already arranged a child betrothal between him and Ye Qing.
He had always thought that since the two families had an arranged child betrothal, why did his mother give the Ye Family a token, but the Ye Family did not reciprocate. It was because the Ye Family had different intentions from the start.
It wasn’t until he received the storage bag from Mengyu and eagerly filled it with his treasures, that he found the dowry list while sorting through his possessions. Only then did he realize, Grandpa Ye did give a token to his mother—it was entrusted to him.
This dowry list was essentially the Ye Family’s token.
Indeed, what kind of token could be more valuable than a woman’s dowry?
He trusted Gu Dongxing’s capabilities to use this list to retrieve the dowry that belonged to Ye Qing.
Because, Grandpa Ye had written a sentence at the end of the list: the dowry of Ye Qing’s mother shall serve as the dowry for Ye Qing.
Ye Sheng was taken aback: "What did you say? You have the dowry list of my former wife?"
Gu Dongxing presented a photocopy of the list: "This is a photocopy; I don’t carry the original with me."
Ye Sheng looked at the photocopy of the dowry list with very complex emotions.
Ye Qing was a wife whom his family married on his behalf, and after their marriage, she joined the military with him. Due to his constant service away from home, she had never been pregnant. Unexpectedly, when he returned home and had a night of passion with his wife, she became pregnant.
But at that time, in the military, he had already found a woman of kindred aspirations, so he still divorced Ye Qing’s mother under the pretext of breaking free from the arranged marriage, and then married his comrade-in-arms.
He never anticipated that Ye Qing’s mother would be so intense to commit suicide after giving birth to their daughter.
That event dealt him a severe blow and also affected his career advancement.
In the first few years after liberation, many of his colleagues had also abandoned arranged marriages, a "new trend" at the time. But why was it that when others broke free from the old matrimonial system, it was considered a good thing, yet when he did the same, it turned into a bad thing?
However, when he thinks back to Ye Qing’s mother, he has to admit that she truly represented a traditional Chinese ideal of a virtuous wife and a good mother. Gentle, beautiful, graceful, loyal, with the man as her heaven. Apart from committing suicide because of being abandoned by him, she had almost no faults.
With his current perspective, such a woman was the true embodiment of an aristocratic daughter. Even though, she was only the leading maid of an aristocratic family!