Rebirth: Splendid Marriage in the 80s Chapter 2536 - 2472: To Provoke Them

Chiang Xiao and Meng Xinian traded a brief glance. Is she teetering between lucidity and madness? Or is her memory merely selective, retaining only what she chooses to recall?

"Brother Xinian, if her words are any indication, Nian Che is remarkably skilled at martial arts. Yet, when I moved against him that day, why did he refrain from defending himself entirely?"

She had also claimed that many formidable fighters were at his beck and call. This confirmed their previous suspicions.

"He was clearly putting on a performance; it seems his intent that day was simply to incite us. Given the circumstances, he may indeed be in league with Hu Xiangyong."

They remained completely in the dark regarding the people Nian Che had encountered or the deeds he had committed during his years away. It seemed entirely plausible that he would eventually cross paths and conspire with Hu Xiangyong—a man who, incidentally, was already acquainted with Meng Xinian.

After probing further, they realized that Chen Zhu’s mental state was truly fractured. She clung firmly to the knowledge of Nian Che—recalling that she was his fiancée, remembering her own identity as Chen Zhu, and repeating his promise to treat her face and eventually marry her.

Beyond that, her mind was a blank slate. She possessed no recollection of Chiang Xiao, Kuang Kanzhi, or Ah Liu, nor did she hold onto the memories of the humiliation she had endured in the past.

Though Chiang Xiao pressed her to reveal what had transpired back then, her responses remained fragmented and nonsensical. She kept muttering about her daughter’s death, insisting the child had been gone for a long time, and claiming she had buried her with her own hands on Bai Gu Mountain. She believed that because no one dared to ascend that peak, her secret remained safe.

"What about me? Who am I? Where did you abduct a child from!" Chiang Xiao felt a surge of rage so intense she nearly kicked the woman.

Chen Zhu gazed at her, her expression vacant and bewildered. "Even you are clueless about your own identity? Why pester me about it?"

"Chen Zhu!" Chiang Xiao clenched her hands into tight fists. "Did you steal another person’s child back then?" If she hadn't snatched someone else’s infant, how could she have ended up with Chen Zhu? And what, then, was the connection between that woman and Ah Liu?

At the mention of these words, Chen Zhu visibly recoiled. Observing this reaction, Meng Xinian realized the memory was still dormant within her.

"The child’s biological mother is coming to find you now," he added, his voice cold and cutting.

The declaration sent Chen Zhu into a frantic state. "Don’t let her come for me! She was already on the brink of death then, and the baby was wailing from starvation. If I hadn’t taken her home, she would have perished right alongside her mother! I was doing a good deed; I saved that child! Why would she come seeking me?"

She shrieked while scrambling under the table, retreating until she was tightly curled into a ball beneath it.

Perhaps she had always been haunted by the weight of her past actions; even in her deranged state, the guilt clung to her like a shadow. She was paralyzed by the terror that the woman would eventually track her down.

"Tell us exactly what happened, and I will ensure that woman stays away from you. What do you say?" Meng Xinian offered in a low, authoritative voice while gripping Chiang Xiao’s hand to restrain her.

Chiang Xiao could barely suppress the urge to drag the woman out and vent her frustration. Could she be any more delusional? She had abducted another woman’s child and had the audacity to call it a rescue?

Through Meng Xinian’s expert questioning, Chen Zhu eventually pieced together the truth of that time, despite her disjointed and rambling speech. She had indeed given birth to a daughter who was as delicate as jade. However, the face of the vagrant who had assaulted her remained burned into her psyche, haunting her dreams nightly. Terrified that the child would grow up to mirror his wretched features, Chen Zhu had been driven by her deteriorating mental state to contemplate strangling the infant to death on more than one occasion.