"SHE MUST BE EXECUTED!" Elder Xu roared. His face was filled with fury. Someone who dared poison the Clan Head deserved the harshest punishment!
None of the elders opposed his opinion.
Lord Pei, who had already awakened and learned what had happened, wore a conflicted expression.
They were currently gathered in the meeting hall. All the elders, Concubine Qin, Lily, and even the High Priest were present.
At the center of the room knelt Concubine Wei, her hands bound behind her back.
"High Priest, are there any side effects to the Lord's condition?" Concubine Qin asked worriedly.
High Priest Agennon hesitated.
He wasn't sure whether he should reveal it in front of everyone. However, when he noticed Lily urging him to speak, he cleared his throat.
"Lord Pei is... now infertile."
Concubine Qin froze.
The elders gasped.
Lord Pei, however, slammed his palm onto the table, reducing it to splinters. His face twisted with rage the moment he heard those words.
Infertile.
He had become infertile?!
His anger flared instantly.
"Concubine Wei committed a grave crime," he said through gritted teeth. "She must be exe—"
"It's just infertility," Lily interrupted dismissively. "What are you so angry about? You already have fifteen children. Do you really expect to have more?"
"Lily! This is not the time for you to speak!" Lord Pei shouted.
"I am genuinely asking a question," Lily replied, without the slightest hint of humor on her face. "It seems to me that Concubine Wei's purpose was to prevent you from having more children, not to kill you. I don't think that alone warrants a death sentence."
"Young Heir, that is not the point," Elder Changhe said. "If we allow someone like Concubine Wei, who dared harm the Lord, to live, others may follow her example."
"Then this is Father's lesson."
The room fell silent.
"Your father was poisoned, yet you do not seek justice for him?" Elder Xu asked, his voice filled with disappointment.
"A household filled with concubines and half-siblings," Lily said as she slowly stood up. "What kind of family did you think that would become? A loving family?"
No one answered.
Lily looked directly at Lord Pei.
"You are a good Clan Head and a good father. But you are not a good husband."
Lord Pei stiffened.
Lily slowly swept her gaze across everyone present.
"Concubines poisoned one another's children. They schemed against each other. Some even tried to kill innocent children. All of this happened, yet I never heard anyone here speak of stopping it."
Silence filled the room.
After a long while, one of the elders finally spoke.
"That is precisely why the Lord took a main wife and established you as his successor."
"Did that erase the sins that had already been committed?" Lily asked calmly. "Did it undo everything that happened before?"
And do not fool her. She knew the history of her parents' marriage.
She looked at everyone in the hall.
"Concubine Wei chose to poison Father. That is her crime, and she must answer for it." She paused. "But Father must also bear responsibility."
Everyone fell silent once more.
"This household became what it is because of his choices."
"Lily..." Lord Pei's voice trembled.
"Father," Lily said, meeting his eyes, "you didn't poison yourself. Concubine Wei made that choice. But this household...
"…is the household you created. So you must take responsibility for it."
Concubine Wei sat alone in a cold, dilapidated courtyard. She had heard that it had remained abandoned for decades.
Because of Lily, her punishment had been delayed.
But...
She was exhausted.
More than anything, she wanted this life to end.
She lifted her gaze toward the ceiling as memories came flooding back.
The first time she met Lord Pei.
The moment she said yes to him, despite knowing he already had other women in the clan.
The day she stepped into this household.
And the moment all her happiness and dreams shattered.
She could feel the tears welling in her eyes, yet none fell.
Then, she heard approaching footsteps.
Her thoughts came to a halt.
Turning toward the entrance, she found Lily standing there, looking at her with her usual clear, emotionless eyes.
"What do I owe this visit, Young Heir?" Concubine Wei asked. "If you've come expecting my gratitude for what happened in the meeting hall, you won't receive it. I don't feel grateful for what you did."
"Do you long for death?" Lily asked.
"Have I lived enough to long for death?" Concubine Wei let out a mocking laugh. "Have I even lived?"
She stared at her hands as tears finally began to fall.
"I only wanted a family with the man I loved."
"I had no family or prestigious clan to support me."
"I never sought power or status."
"Yet I was reduced to a woman who could never bear a child."
"And the man who promised to love me never gave me justice."
She had once been a lively and kind-hearted girl.
Because she had no family, she had always longed to have one of her own.
She didn't mind that Lord Pei already had other women. She loved him enough to accept that.
But the day she entered the clan was also the day the schemes and struggles over succession reached their peak.
She was poisoned, leaving her infertile for the rest of her life.
When she sought justice from the man she loved, the priest declared that it was merely a natural condition—that she had been infertile from birth.
Lord Pei believed the priest's words.
Her insistence became nothing more than a scheme in his eyes.
And she was forgotten.
Her suffering was forgotten.
She became nothing more than a ghost living in the lonely courtyard she had once hoped would become her home.
Lily listened in silence.
"If you wish to die, then I don't care if you die," she said, "But do you want your death to be decided by this clan as well?"
Concubine Wei stiffened.
Lily turned toward the exit.
"If you die," she said, "I think it would be far more meaningful if your death were the result of your own choice."
When Lily left the courtyard, she found her father standing beneath the night sky with his hands clasped behind his back.
As soon as she reached him, she said nothing. Instead, she quietly took his hand.
Lord Pei pursed his lips.
Father and daughter walked side by side without any particular destination.
"Your eyes and judgment are better than mine," he said after a long silence. "How about I hand the Clan Head position over to you now?"
"Is that you speaking out of bitterness?"
"It is."
Lily continued walking ahead before replying,
"I am merely a bystander in your life. That is why I can see the things you cannot."
She paused for a moment.
"A person often fails to notice their own shortcomings because they only see things from their own perspective. A bystander, however, can observe everything from the outside and come to a different conclusion."
She looked ahead as she continued,
"It is the same for me. I make decisions based on what I see, but there are also things I cannot see because I am standing in the middle of them. That is why you always give me guidance and advice whenever I make mistakes."
She had lived three lives.
Her first life had been her father's lesson.
Her second life had simply passed her by.
And this life...
Perhaps she had become a little wiser.