The Abandoned Wife’s Rebirth - Chap 19

“I didn’t know about this matter.” Guan Tong looked like she was at a loss: “You said the longevity plaque sealed your spiritual energy? So you’re saying you originally had spiritual energy?”

She asked anxiously: “So, is it possible to break the seal on the longevity plaque?”

Wu Ruo nodded his head: “It’s possible, it just has to be broken apart. I’ve already broken the seal on my cultivation field.”

“So you can cultivate?” Guan Tong gripped his hand tightly, full of joy, and said while choking back a sob, “That’s wonderful, just wonderful! You can finally cultivate together with your older brother and the others.”

Ever since it was discovered through tests that her younger son had no spiritual energy, she had always been very heartbroken. Especially since her younger son kept getting fatter the older he grew, when more and more people looked down on her younger son, she would always feel like she was useless because she’d been unable to give birth to her younger son with a healthy body
.

Until now, she still often dreamed of her younger son crying as a child, asking her why he had no spiritual energy and couldn’t cultivate. Whenever she woke up, her heart would feel so anguished that she couldn’t bear it.

Wu Ruo knew that his mum, because of his health, often couldn’t sleep at night and helped her wipe away the tears at the corners of her eyes, feeling sorry: “Hn, in future, I’ll be able to cultivate with
dage
and the others. And from now, you don’t have to worry about my health either. Other than gaining my spiritual energy, I also gained 7 secret techniques in my mind.”

“What?” Guan Tong was stunned, anxiously asking: “What did you just say?”

“I said, I’ve also gained 7 secret techniques. Other than Shadow…”

“Don’t talk about it
,” Guan Tong covered his mouth in a flurry, looked around on all sides, and seeing that the main door was open, she hurried to check whether there was anyone outside. After closing the door, she looked at Wu Ruo with a cautious expression: “You absolutely cannot tell anybody that you have secret techniques in your mind.”

Wu Ruo asked: “Not even Dad and the rest?”

In his previous lifetime, his mum had also used this sort of attitude to say the exact same thing, yet he had believed Ruan Zhizheng worthy of trust and had stupidly told Ruan Zhizheng about this matter.

“You cannot.” Guan Tong shook her head no: “No matter who, you absolutely cannot tell them. At the very least, before you’ve become stronger, you cannot tell anyone at all, do you understand me?”

Wu Ruo nodded his head: “I understand, then does Mum know about Shadow…”

Guan Tong immediately cut his words off: “I can’t speak of any of it at all. You don’t have to bother asking.”

Wu Ruo didn’t give up: “You can’t talk about even a little bit?”

In his previous lifetime, because he didn’t know that the longevity plaque had been a gift from his maternal grandfather, so he’d assumed that Guan Tong really didn’t know anything at all and so didn’t probe any further. In this lifetime, he knew who had sent the longevity plaque, so obviously he wanted to clarify everything, and he especially wanted to know what was up with the Shadow Stealing secret technique.

Guan Tong smiled bitterly: “After I left the clan, I swore a blood oath
that I wouldn’t reveal anything about the clan.”

Wu Ruo was stunned, and sighed: “I understand.”

Guan Tong held onto his hand, speaking sincerely: “
Xiao
-Ruo, since you’re starting off much later than your peers now, in the future, whenever other people put their skills on display, you have to concentrate and take a good look at how they do it. This way, you’ll be able to improve quickly, do you understand?”

Wu Ruo impressed these words of hers deeply in his heart, because he felt that his mum was trying to imply something with her words that she couldn’t just explain to him straightforwardly.

“Mum, I’ll ask you something, if you can’t talk about it then it’s alright.”

Guan Tong considered it, then said: “Alright, ask it.”

Wu Ruo asked: “Did you also have spiritual energy in the past, and also knew magic
like others?”

All this time, his grandfather and grandmother looked down on his mum, assuming that his mum was a commoner who was not suited to his dad.

Guan Tong hesitated for a while, then nodded her head.

“…” Wu Ruo didn’t know what to say. His mum had sacrificed so much just to be with his dad, willingly giving up on her cultivation, her clanspeople and her family. No wonder his dad always said that he owed his mum.

“Mum, let’s head out.”

Just as Guan Tong supported Wu Ruo out to the gardens, a servant came forward to report: “Second Young Master, Young Master Ruan has come, he’s waiting at the main hall for you now.”

Notes:
Nothing urgent or important, but I just wanted to say that I’ll probably be releasing single chapters until after New Year’s. Also, there’s a bit of a mess up with Zhizheng’s name and I’ll be clarifying about it in chapter 22. In the meantime, his name should be written as Ruan Zhizheng.

Not sure if it’s like that in other cultures, but during a woman’s pregnancy in Chinese culture, they take a lot of tonics and enriching products to ensure that the fetus is well-nourished even during development. If a baby is born with health problems, the mother is often the one to blame even if it’s a hereditary health problem or something that is purely accidental. Generally, if anything goes wrong with a child, the mother is blamed first but it also reflects badly on both parents.
The same phrase as the title!
毒誓 (du shi): literally a “poison” oath. I’ve translated it as blood oath here for clarity, rather than retaining the direct translation. It’s the kind of oath where breaking the terms/conditions of it will lead to pre-established consequences. More on the consequences later, but the terms of the oath are that she’s absolutely not allowed to speak of any of her clan matters.
玄术 (xuan shu): translates to “fantasy skills”. It’s referring to their whole spiritual energy/cultivation shebang.