Can't a princess ascend the throne?

Chapter 429 What qualifications?

When they finally sat down inside, Jiu Que also felt strange. When exactly did Xie Mingchen discover that the two of them were hiding under the window listening to each other's whispers?
Xie Mingchen had regained his usual good temper. He sat there quietly, seemingly looking at something, and took a sip of the now-cold tea, ignoring the two of them.

The two sighed, exchanged a glance, and finally Jiu Que forced himself to speak.

"Well, Mingchen, we heard about your injury and wanted to come visit, but we didn't expect to encounter this situation. At first, we were hesitant to speak, and the more we talked, the harder it became. We didn't mean to..."

So can you say something to us? Let's just be normal, that's all we ask for.

Xie Mingchen sighed softly and put down his teacup. He didn't really mind his friend seeing this scene. It was just that he hadn't thought about those things for so long, and now that he mentioned them, it felt like a lifetime ago. But those wounds were something that time could never erase.

The window was still open, and a gust of cold wind swept in from outside, making the three people inside shiver. The next moment, they watched helplessly as the window slammed shut.

It's Senior Cui.

Jiu Que gratefully expressed his thanks, and then invited Senior Cui into the house, where there was a brazier, which was much warmer than the freezing cold outside.

The closed door did indeed open and close once. The three of them only felt a blur before their eyes, but they didn't see anyone else present. It seemed that Senior Cui was still uncomfortable with being watched and had found a corner to hide in again. However, after this little incident, Xie Mingchen completely calmed down, carefully considered his words, and slowly began to speak.

"Those two just now were my biological father and my half-brother. You heard it yourself; our relationship isn't good. Or rather, they unilaterally believe I'm throwing a tantrum. Little do they know that I've already said something like this about severing ties once, but they just don't take it seriously. After all, in their minds, the Five Surnames and Seven Families represent such prestige and glory; no one in the world would refuse to be born into such a powerful family. Just like how I've said countless times that I won't participate in the competition for the family headship, they habitually ignore these words and then use their own conventional thinking to judge other people's thoughts."

Jiu Que and Chunyu Shuang looked at Xie Mingchen with supportive and gentle eyes, letting him know that he wasn't alone. Fortunately, Xie Mingchen was completely absorbed in his thoughts and didn't care about the criticism he had just received.

"As you've heard, my mother also came from the prestigious Wang family. She was the youngest daughter and always received the love and care of her parents, elders, and siblings. Before her marriage, she thought she had finally found a good man, after all, that man was very good at pretending. Even the Wang family was fooled by him, happily marrying their beloved youngest daughter to him. Who would have thought that the man had a so-called true love before the marriage, and even to give his true love an explanation, he specially married two women on the same day, claiming they were so-called concubines. I don't know who he was fooling with that."

"That man was utterly shameless. After deceiving my mother, he didn't think about taking responsibility. Instead, he blamed my mother for not being gentle and virtuous enough. Tell me, what adult man in this world would marry two wives on the same day? This is an insult. But I think what pained my mother the most wasn't the Xie family head's deception or the difficulties faced by the concubines in the inner courtyard. It was that, after learning the whole story, the Wang family gave up on pursuing the matter simply because of some benefits offered by the Xie family, and even went so far as to advise my mother to live a good life with him." "My mother was pampered and loved in her childhood, and she thought the Wang family would be her solid support. She never expected that she was also a pawn that could be traded, sold off as long as the price was right."

"I suppose my mother was utterly despondent back then, which is why she chose to enter the small Buddhist hall and never come out again. My birth was a complete accident. If it weren't for Granny Liu betraying my mother and telling the Xie family head about my existence, I probably wouldn't have been born into this world."

“I didn’t lie to those two men just now. I’ve been able to remember things since I was very young. That’s why I find the Xie family so disgusting. To instill in a child who doesn’t know the ways of the world how much his mother doesn’t love him is such a despicable thing to do. And I don’t think that my mother has to love me just because she gave birth to me. Because she didn’t give birth to me willingly, she just had no choice.”

"Actually, I don't dislike Xie Mingli. From his perspective, as an illegitimate son, and the eldest son at that, since he has the ability to compete, why shouldn't he? It's just that I don't like his way of doing things; he's too suspicious. I've said countless times that I won't compete with him for the position of family head because my ambition lies elsewhere, but he just won't believe me. Actually, it doesn't matter, but the thing he shouldn't have done was try to murder my mother."

Xie Mingchen was surprised to find that when these things were mentioned again, his memory was actually very vivid, even though he subconsciously wanted to forget them.

Perhaps he will never forget these things.

Everyone said that his mother, as the matriarch of the Xie family, failed to fulfill her responsibilities, was disrespectful to her parents-in-law, neglected to raise her children, and did not love her husband; she was not a qualified matriarch. Whether those people spoke with malice or not, they completely disregarded the profound impact such words would have on a young child.

If he didn't have an exceptional memory and had never seen his mother looking so haggard, perhaps he would have really changed his mind because of these words and harbored resentment towards his mother from the bottom of his heart.

But his mother did nothing wrong, so why should she bear these unfounded criticisms?

Tsk, they're just inexplicably disgusting. The faces of those people kept flashing before his eyes, and over time, Xie Mingchen grew increasingly averse to returning to the Xie family. What was so good about the Xie family? They were nothing more than a family that reeked of decay from the inside out. They always took pride in the longevity of their family line, considering themselves incomparably noble, even looking down on the royal family during the previous dynasty simply because the royal family hadn't lasted as long as theirs.

This idea is actually quite ridiculous.

Isn't that right? Emperor Jingtai rose from humble beginnings to the throne through sheer fighting. Those so-called powerful families and clans were powerless in the face of such a struggle. Even with their supposed strength, during the late reigns of previous dynasties when the people were displaced, foreign enemies invaded, and war raged, they could only cower in their own homes, unable to do anything. So what right do people like that have to look down on others?