Angel's eyes widened when she heard Ding Meng's request.
Ding Meng frowned and asked, "Is there a problem?"
Angel looked around and asked, "Are you sure you want to go?"
Ding Meng had no choice but to answer honestly, "It's like this. Mr. Ting is Miss Guan's friend. He asked me to pass on a message to Second Madam!"
Angel whispered when she heard that it was about Ding Meng, "I can only bring you there, but not for too long. It won't be good if Third Aunt finds out."
Ding Meng could imagine this. Long Lin's status in the Guan family was definitely not high. Even Guan Xinqing's Second Madam did not appear at this occasion. This was enough to explain the problem.
Xin Zhiyao watched Angel leave with Ancestral Gragon. She wondered, "Xiao Fei, did they know each other before?"
At this moment, Lan Bing received Ding Meng's Divine Sense message and hurriedly explained, "Madam, Sir has a friend who is an old acquaintance of Miss An. That friend instructed him to come here and pay a visit to Miss An."
Xin Zhiyao asked suspiciously, "The casino on Planet Beidou?"
It seemed that Xin Zhiyao was not someone to be trifled with. She even knew about this.
Lan Bing did not dare to hide anything and said, "Yes!"
Xin Zhiyao sighed and said, "This child is very lucky. She has a benefactor helping her wherever she goes. If it wasn't for your husband's friend, this child would have cried and made a scene again. Xiao Fei, your husband is not bad. Cherish him."
"I will!" Lan Bing replied calmly.
Deep in the Guan family's mansion, there was an ancient courtyard in the middle of a wide green lawn. This courtyard looked like an ancestral hall, but it was lifeless when one entered.
Before Angel could speak, a woman's voice came from behind a closed mahogany door. "Is it my little niece?"
Angel actually became obedient. "Second Aunt, I'm here to visit you."
The woman seemed to be very pleased. "Good child, come in. The door is not closed!"
Angel led Ding Meng in slowly. Ding Meng finally saw clearly that this was indeed a large ancestral hall. The hall on the first floor was built with Nuoxin wood. There were many religious murals and pendants in the hall. In the center of the hall was a wooden table. A screen lit up on the table, displaying Sanskrit scriptures.
Long Lin sat on the ground with her back to the door.... she seemed to be a devout religious person.
......... Ding Meng was shocked. Guan's mother had a head of silver hair.. Guan Lin 'mother. Meng. She looked very old.. Her clothes were very ordinary clothes...... a Daoist robe or Taoist robe.
Ding Meng bowed slightly. "Second Madam, nice to meet you. Ding Meng and I are friends. Mr. Ting and Miss Guan are old acquaintances. They asked me to come and visit you."
Long Lin looked like an old woman. You couldn't see any surprise or excitement on her face. There was only a very indifferent calmness. This place was like a space outside the mortal world. It was completely isolated from the outside world. People who stayed here felt like they had no emotions.
"Is it Ding Meng, the Empire's most wanted criminal?" Long Lin asked calmly.
Although she lived outside the mortal world, she knew a lot about the outside world.
"Yes!" Ding Meng could only bite the bullet and answer. His bad reputation had spread far and wide.
Angel immediately interjected, "Second Aunt, Ding Meng is also my friend. If it wasn't for him, I would have lost a lot of money!"
Only when she saw Angel did a faint smile appear on Long Lin's face.
Ding Meng suddenly realized something. Could Guan Lin have been as naive and straightforward as Angel when she was young? Was that why Long Lin favored this niece of the third madam? The relationships in the rich and powerful sure were complicated.
"Mister Zu, please take a seat!" Long Lin said.
There were tatami mats on the floor. Ding Meng sat down, but Angel took the initiative to leave. With her status, she couldn't stay here for too long.
Long Lin didn't ask about Guan Lin. Instead, she turned around and placed a tea set on the wooden table. She had actually brewed a cup of hot tea for Ding Meng.
The teacup was made of an ancient white porcelain. Ding Meng took a sip from it. The tea wasn't of high quality, so it tasted bitter and astringent in his mouth.
Long Lin sat down across from him. "Is it bitter?"
Ding Meng nodded slowly. "Yes!"
Long Lin said leisurely, "A cup of tea, three flavors for a lifetime. In the end, I still haven't woken up from my dream, but the bitterness is still there."
Ding Meng suddenly felt that Guan Lin's mother seemed calm, but her heart was filled with sorrow. "Madam, it's hard to imagine that you would live in a place like this."
Long Lin said, "Mister Zu, I don't think you've brought any good news with your sudden visit, have you?"
Ding Meng was momentarily at a loss for words. This second madam seemed to have the ability to predict the future. She knew exactly why he had come. He really didn't know how to broach the subject of Guan Lin.
Long Lin sighed softly. "It looks like what's bound to come will come. What can't be kept will never be kept."
Ding Meng sighed with emotion. He slowly took out the small crystalline bottle from his pocket and carefully placed it in the center of the wooden table.
The two of them sat there quietly. Neither of them took the initiative to speak, but time seemed to stop at this moment.
Long Lin stared at the bottle in a daze. After a long time, she slowly rose to her feet. However, her expression was still calm. "When I was young, my father was very strict with me. Whether it was my studies or my martial arts, he gave me seven lessons in the morning, noon, and night. It was the same every day for thirty years, until I succeeded in my studies …"
Ding Meng didn't reply. He just listened quietly.
Long Lin spoke as if she was describing something very ordinary. "It wasn't until I married into the government at the age of forty-five and gave birth to Xiao Lin that I finally had some time to myself. Of course, that was a very happy time for me …"
Ding Meng could imagine it. Chuangyu had just been established, and business was booming. The Long family and the government were a perfect match. Guan Lin had just been born, and everything was thriving.
Long Lin's tone finally changed. "But I don't want Xiao Lin to walk down the same path. I always feel that freedom is more precious for a woman. She should do what she likes and chase after what she likes, and not be trapped on a fixed path because her life has been designed from the moment she was born …"
Ding Meng sighed sadly. "Sometimes, the more one looks forward to it, the more things tend to go in the opposite direction."
Long Lin's gaze fell on the small bottle on the wooden table again. There was a hint of sadness in her eyes. "I really didn't expect the Hidden Front to happen."
Ding Meng said, "It's been ten years since then, right?"
"Yes, there are still two months and three days left. It'll be exactly ten years." Long Lin's expression was a little absent-minded.
Guan Lin had been kidnapped by the Hidden Front and separated from her mother for ten years. During these ten years, Long Lin had probably spent most of her time in the ancestral hall, chanting scriptures and praying for her daughter's safety.
Now, she had returned, but she had turned into ashes. This mother's heart might have died with her.
Ding Meng pondered and said, "Miss Guan didn't die in pain."
Long Lin stared at him. "Oh?"
Ding Meng said, "Later on, Mr. Ding avenged her and helped her fulfill her wish. In the end, she only left one sentence. She said that she would love you forever!"
No matter how calm Long Lin was, she seemed to have aged by decades at this moment. She was like an old woman on the verge of death. After a long time, she said, "Please tell Mr. Ding Meng that I'm very grateful to him."
Ding Meng said, "Second Madam, you're too polite. Mr. Ting and Miss Guan were friends."
Long Lin sighed. "She was really lucky to have a friend like Mr. Ding Meng."
Ding Meng could only thank her again. "Madam, you flatter me."
At this time, Long Lin did something that was beyond Ding Meng's imagination. She returned to the wooden table and sat down. She slowly unscrewed the small crystal bottle and poured out a small part of the ashes into the teacup in front of her. Under Ding Meng's shocked gaze, she drank the tea in one gulp.
Ding Meng was rarely shocked, but at this moment, he felt an inexplicable chill rising from the bottom of his feet.
These were Guan Lin's ashes. Guan Lin's mother drank her daughter's ashes with tea. If he couldn't see through Guan Xinqing's true colors before, then Long Lin in front of him was a complex existence that he couldn't see through.
Long Lin and Guan Lin were like a combination. He seemed to see Guan Lin sneering at him, and also seemed to see Long Lin staring at him. It was simply an illusion...
Ding Meng was moved. "Madam, why are you doing this?"
Long Lin was so calm that it was frightening. "Because I love her, too. I love her very, very much!"
Ding Meng suddenly felt helpless and sad. This mother missed her daughter too much. This kind of longing was so deep that she couldn't accept the news of her daughter's death. She couldn't even extricate herself from it.
Ding Meng said helplessly, "Madam, please restrain your grief!"
Long Lin ignored his words. Instead, she asked, "You're going to report to the parliament this time, right?"
Ding Meng was shocked. Even though the Ancestral Gragon's purpose for heading to Planet Norland was no secret, even someone like Long Lin, who rarely left the ancestral hall, knew about it. Wasn't this government a little too powerful?
Long Lin sighed. "Over the past few years, the empire has been constantly retreating from the front lines of the Fertile Chalk System, and this has caused the parliament to shift. Xin Zhiyao has always been obedient to Xin Qing, so you'll be one of the government's representatives if you go to the parliament. The conservative faction has been strengthening, and the radical faction will keep an eye on every newcomer …"
Her words contained a lot of information, and Ding Meng had a hard time digesting it. He still didn't know what was going on with the upper echelons of the empire.
Long Lin said seriously, "Mister Zu, I hope that you'll have a safe trip this time. If you ever have the chance to come to Xingwu City again, I hope that you'll come back alive, and not ask someone to give me a bottle."
Ding Meng seemed to understand something. She was implying that he wouldn't be able to return from this trip.
Sure enough, Long Lin continued, "This is my way of expressing my gratitude to Mister Ting."
Since you brought back Guan Lin's ashes, I'll give you some information. Consider it my repayment to Ding Meng.