Chapter 3224 — The Old Director's Worry

So when the old director learned that Xu Shilan would come to the orphanage to give a charity performance, her heart was torn between excitement and fear. She was afraid that any contact with Xu Shilan would not only ruin herself, but also ruin Xu Shilan and the orphanage!

Would that jealous woman, Dongfang Xiaocui, ever let Xu Shilan off? Would she let the old director off? When the time came, the children of the orphanage might well be dragged into it! Though the old director had founded the orphanage in the first place to search for Xu Shilan, after all these years she had long since come to love the children there, and she feared they would meet with danger and trouble!

What she had never expected, though, was that Xu Shilan had actually recognized her anyway!

"Miss Xu... what are you saying? Is there... is your mother here?" the old director asked, feigning composure. She did not want to reveal her identity, and so she asked with a faint hope in her heart.

"Madam!" Feng Sanmang, who had been standing at the door all this while, now strode quickly over and bowed directly. "I've finally found you!"

"Sanhuang?" The old director knew that she could hide it no longer. She knew Feng Sanmang; back when she and Feng Tianqi had been in love, Feng Sanmang had been Feng Tianqi's attendant!

It was only that she came from a family of thieves, and the Feng family rather looked down on her, a girl of petty pilfering. And then the head of the Feng family had fled his marriage; sooner or later someone in the Feng family would have to be joined in marriage with the Dongfang family, or they would bring down the Dongfang family's vengeance upon themselves!

After all, it was the Feng family that had begged the Dongfang family for the match in the first place, and now the Feng family had fled the marriage—where was the Dongfang family's face in that? To quell the Dongfang family's fury, the Feng family would have to honor the engagement, and so Feng Tianqi married Dongfang Xiaocui in place of his elder brother!

Feng Tianqi was a rather weak-willed, good-natured man, unable to refuse the earnest, longing gaze of his father. And Dongfang Xiaocui, after looking at photographs of the other men of the Feng family, had chosen Feng Tianqi as well, feeling that he was more refined, unlike Feng Tianhu with his shifty, sly ways. So the Dongfang family decided that Dongfang Xiaocui would marry Feng Tianqi!

Under such circumstances, Feng Tianqi had no choice but to make a difficult decision and take Dongfang Xiaocui as his wife. The old director, in truth, understood his predicament, and knew that her own status made it impossible for her to enter the Feng family as a properly wedded wife—but to be a concubine was still possible.

After all, the cultivation world kept to the customs of ancient times, and a man with three wives and four concubines was a normal state of affairs. What she had never expected was that Dongfang Xiaocui was such a jealous woman that she would actually bring men to assassinate both her and Xu Shilan!

Thinking back on all these things, it was as vivid as yesterday. Seeing Feng Sanmang, the old director finally accepted her own identity, though she was rather puzzled. "Sanhuang, how did you recognize me? You and Xiaohan... you shouldn't know me at all, should you?"

"Madam... look at your face right now..." Feng Sanmang was briefly taken aback before he understood why the old director had asked. It was precisely through the change in the old director's appearance that he had recognized her as the woman who had once been Feng Tianqi's lover.

Hearing Feng Sanmang's words, the old director was briefly startled too. She turned to look at the mirror in the room, and the moment she did, she froze! Was this not how she had looked in her youth? No wonder both Xu Shilan and Feng Sanmang had recognized her!

As she was now, she looked far too much like Xu Shilan! The old director could not help sighing inwardly. It seemed that denying it was no longer an option!

Since it could no longer be hidden, the longing the old director had buried deep in her heart for so many years came surging out all at once. She threw her arms around Xu Shilan, tears streaming down her aged face. "Shihan... my child..."

Hearing the old director admit it with her own lips, Xu Shilan immediately dissolved into sobs, and the two of them clung to each other, weeping together...

Wei Zhao, Yu Xiaoke, Cheng Yiyi, and Feng Sanmang all stood silently to one side and said nothing! The shock this had brought them was simply too great—the old director was actually Xu Shilan's mother...

Only after Xu Shilan and the old director had finished crying did the old director heave a sorrowful sigh and say with a helpless, bitter smile, "Xiaohan, you really should not have come. By coming here, you have as good as exposed your identity! And my identity will be exposed along with it... You do not know how vicious and jealous that woman of the Dongfang family is! She would love nothing more than to be rid of the two of us, mother and daughter! We... are no match for her..."

"Is it Dongfang Xiaocui?" Xu Shilan was briefly startled, and something stirred in her heart. So it was that woman, Dongfang Xiaocui, who had separated her from her mother back then, and who had beaten her mother so badly...

"You know of her?" The old director was taken aback, never expecting Xu Shilan to know such things! But on second thought, she let it go. "It was Tianlin who raised you, wasn't it? Tianlin must have told you all this? It seems that woman Dongfang Xiaocui never did hunt you down to the last..."

"No..." Xu Shilan shook her head. "I never knew about Father's affairs before. Brother Sanhuang was sent by Father in secret to protect me, and I grew up under Father's protection all along... But I only learned of these things recently, because Dongfang Xiaocui made a move against me..."

"What?! She moved against you?" The old director was instantly aghast. "After all these years, she still will not let the two of us be? Ai, but what is to be done..."

At this point, the old director suddenly seemed to have made some momentous decision. "Wei Zhao, Xiaoke is in your care from now on. I am going back—I will go to Dongfang Xiaocui of my own accord. So long as I am dead, the orphanage will be safe! And Xiaohan, under Tianlin's protection, should not be in much danger! Since nothing has happened for so many years, I suspect Dongfang Xiaocui's target is only me!"

The old director saw things clearly enough, and she meant to trade her own death for the safety of Xu Shilan and the orphanage.

"What? Why?" Xu Shilan was taken aback. "With Wei Zhao protecting us, we have nothing to fear..."

"Xiaohan, you do not understand. The Dongfang family is an ancient family, and the most formidable of the ancient families! Not only does Dongfang Xiaocui have her two brothers, those two fine fighters—her second brother, Dongfang Yinxing, has already reached the peak of the late Heaven rank, a top-tier expert, one of the overlords of the cultivation world!" The old director knew nothing of the affairs between Wei Zhao and the ancient sects; after all, she had no sources of information, and lately Yu Xiaoke and Wei Zhao had had little contact, so she was unaware of what had happened.