Chapter 136

Fan Changyu froze on the spot like a stunned goose.

Seeing that she remained rooted in place, Xie Zheng said, “There's no need to be shy.”

Fan Changyu shot him an annoyed glare. Since they were standing before General Xie and Madam Xie's grave, however, she couldn't help feeling somewhat restrained.

She looked away and turned toward the gravestone of General Xie and his wife.

The moment she remembered that she and Xie Zheng had practically been wrestling in front of the grave just moments ago, she felt even more embarrassed.

Bending her knees, she knelt down.

“This junior, Changyu, descendant of Meng Shuyuan, pays respects to General Xie and Madam Xie.”

After speaking, she bowed and knocked her head three times against the ground.

Her grandfather had once been a prominent general under Xie Linshan's command. The ties between their two families could hardly be called shallow.

Hearing her pay respects as a descendant of the Meng family, Xie Zheng showed no reaction on his face. He merely looked toward the silent gravestone standing in the darkness and said:

“This is your future daughter-in-law.”

For what was perhaps the first time in her life, Fan Changyu blushed.

After standing up, she glared at him fiercely.

“Stop talking nonsense.”

Xie Zheng raised a brow.

“If I don't marry you, who else could I possibly marry in this lifetime?”

“Sooner or later, you'll be their daughter-in-law. How is that nonsense?”

Fan Changyu simply stopped responding to him altogether and looked toward the path they had come from.

“We've already delayed long enough. Let's head down the mountain. Otherwise Uncle Zhong will start worrying.”

The overturned lantern had long since burned out.

Under the moonlight, however, one could still vaguely see her ears flushed bright red.

They resembled clusters of fiery red berries hanging from a firethorn tree covered in snow—so vivid and tempting that one almost wanted to bite them.

Xie Zheng's gaze deepened as he stared at her reddened earlobes.

The moment Fan Changyu turned back after speaking, she met his unfathomably dark eyes.

Startled, she instinctively covered her burning ear.

“Hurry up and go.”

After saying that, she immediately strode away first.

Watching her retreating figure—which looked suspiciously like she was fleeing in panic—Xie Zheng's lips curved slightly upward.

Then he leisurely followed behind her.

—

After the Hour of the Dog had passed, the street where the Prime Minister's residence stood had fallen completely silent.

Even the sound of barking dogs was rare.

Wei Yan's carriage stopped before the residence gates.

A gust of cold wind swept through the long street, sending frost-covered yellow leaves from the elm and poplar trees drifting to the ground, creating a bleak and desolate scene.

The moment Wei Yan stepped down from the carriage using the footstool, Wei Xuan hurried out through the mansion gates.

His expression was anxious.

“Father, you've finally returned—”

Wei Yan's aged yet imposing phoenix eyes swept toward his only son.

The first thing out of his mouth was a reprimand.

“Panicking like this. What sort of behavior is that?”

Wei Xuan acted arrogant before others, but his fear of Wei Yan seemed etched into his bones.

Gritting his teeth, he said with visible distress,

“Mother is ill. You…”

Wei Yan stepped onto the stone stairs leading into the residence and instructed the old servant behind him:

“Wei Quan, take my token and invite Imperial Physician Hu from the Imperial Medical Academy.”

Wei Xuan followed closely behind.

When he saw Wei Yan entering the residence and heading once again toward the study, he clenched his fists at his sides.

Finally, he shouted toward Wei Yan's retreating back:

“Can't you at least go see Mother?”

This outburst was entirely on behalf of his mother.

The servants accompanying them immediately felt their scalps go numb and dared not even breathe loudly.

This was the first time Wei Xuan had openly defied the father he both feared and admired.

Stubbornly staring at Wei Yan's back, he choked out:

“The physician already came. He said Mother became ill from excessive worry.”

“Mother wouldn't let me come find you…”

“She said she couldn't cause you any trouble.”

“Please… go see her.”

Embarrassed, Wei Xuan wiped at his eyes with the back of his hand.

Before outsiders, he was as domineering as a tyrant.

Yet before Wei Yan, no matter when, he remained as constrained as a child.

Wei Yan stopped walking.

He merely glanced coldly at Wei Xuan and said nothing before continuing toward the study.

The attendants hurried after him.

Only Wei Xuan remained standing alone.

He curled his lips into a self-mocking smile that looked uglier than crying.

After everyone else had gone, Wei Quan approached him.

“Young Master, please don't worry. This old servant has already sent someone to fetch Imperial Physician Hu.”

“The Prime Minister has been overwhelmed with affairs lately. He truly has no energy left for household matters.”

A vein bulged on Wei Xuan's neck.

Grinding his teeth, he asked:

“Is it because I'm not as capable as Xie Zheng?”

“Father dislikes me, so he's taking it out on Mother too?”

Wei Quan hurriedly replied,

“Young Master, please don't say such things. If the Prime Minister hears them, you'll be punished again.”

Wei Xuan burst into loud laughter.

His eyes were filled with bitterness.

“Then let him punish me!”

“All these years, the only times he ever looked directly at me were when he was punishing me for mistakes.”

“I can't compare to Xie Zheng.”

“I can't compare to those talented disciples under Father either.”

“Other than carrying his blood in my veins, what do I have that's worth him looking at me one more time?”

Wei Quan watched the young man, who seemed on the verge of either laughing or crying, with a complicated expression.

He only said:

“Young Master, don't belittle yourself.”

“People in the Prime Minister's position have too many things to consider. Neglecting the inner household is only natural.”

“Allow this old servant to escort you back.”

How could Wei Xuan not understand that Wei Quan's words were reasonable?

Sometimes, even he wasn't sure whether he hated Wei Yan or hated himself.

Aside from Madam Wei, his lawful wife, Wei Yan had never taken another concubine.

Yet ever since Wei Xuan could remember, Wei Yan only visited his mother's courtyard for the New Year's Eve dinner each year.

He never stayed the night.

For more than a decade, he had lived in the study.

The servants of the Wei household were extremely disciplined.

No one dared show disrespect to either him or his mother.

His mother possessed all the prestige and honor due a First-Rank Imperial Lady.

Yet as Wei Xuan grew older, he felt increasingly heartbroken for her.

Wei Yan had never had room for her in his eyes.

He seemed born without any interest in women.

The only thing he loved was power.

Yet his mother's family background had been entirely ordinary.

Only through Wei Yan's support had her natal family risen high enough to secure a fifth-rank official position in the capital.

Wei Xuan used to act out repeatedly in hopes that Wei Yan would pay more attention to him.

He had spent nights in brothels, kept singing girls, and committed every sort of outrageous behavior imaginable.

Even now, his courtyard remained filled with beauties.

He understood the relationship between men and women all too well.

What he could never understand was this:

If power was all Wei Yan cared about, why had he married his mother in the first place?

The Wei family was one of the capital's great aristocratic houses.

In his youth, Wei Yan and Xie Linshan had been known as the Twin Pillars of Civil and Military Excellence.

Had he wished to marry, countless noble daughters would have lined up for the opportunity.

Since he had married his mother and never taken another woman afterward, Wei Xuan believed that Wei Yan must once have cared for her.

Perhaps he himself had simply disappointed him.

And because of that, his mother had been neglected as well.

Before others, Wei Xuan always behaved recklessly.

Only before Wei Quan, the old servant who had served his father for decades, did he reveal his childish side.

Sitting down on the stone steps, he covered his eyes with one hand and said bitterly:

“If only I were Xie Zheng.”

“If Father had a son like him, he'd probably be happy.”

His mother spent her days praying and eating vegetarian meals.

Whenever she spoke of Wei Yan, her voice was filled with respect.

The thing she told Wei Xuan most often was:

Study hard.

Practice martial arts diligently.

Become someone capable.

Become useful to your father.

Yet Wei Yan never seemed to like children.

Wei Xuan had always feared him.

Because of the way both his mother and everyone else treated Wei Yan, however, he had also admired him deeply.

As a child, he had genuinely wanted to excel at everything and earn a few words of praise from him.

Before Xie Zheng arrived at the Wei residence, Wei Yan would occasionally treat him warmly.

Although strict when reviewing his studies, he was never overly harsh.

After Xie Zheng arrived, however, Wei Xuan never saw Wei Yan smile at him again.

The two boys ate and lived together.

Whenever Wei Yan saw them, his expression remained dark and gloomy.

Xie Zheng was always intelligent.

No matter what the tutors taught, he learned it immediately.

Whenever Wei Yan tested them on their lessons, Xie Zheng could answer thoughtfully and even infer additional conclusions despite his fear.

Wei Xuan, on the other hand, would start trembling like a sieve the moment Wei Yan lifted his sharp phoenix eyes from the book and looked at him.

He couldn't even utter a complete sentence.

He hated Xie Zheng for making him look foolish.

He hated him for making him seem like an incompetent idiot.

After that, he never again saw approval in Wei Yan's eyes.

More than once, he had wished Xie Zheng simply didn't exist.

That was why, as a child, he bullied Xie Zheng relentlessly.

A few times, Wei Yan found out and punished him by making him kneel in the ancestral hall.

Afterward, however, he only doubled down and took his anger out on Xie Zheng even more viciously.

Eventually, Xie Zheng stopped reporting it altogether.

Yet Wei Xuan never felt any happier.

At first, stuffing snakes and insects into Xie Zheng's bedding would frighten him into screaming.

Later, Xie Zheng would simply crush them to death without even blinking.

During the freezing winter, Wei Xuan would pour icy well water onto Xie Zheng's bed.

Xie Zheng would toss the soaked bedding aside and sleep fully clothed on the bare wooden boards.

The next day, despite burning with fever, he would still defeat Wei Xuan on the training grounds.

At the academy, Wei Xuan gathered a crowd of sycophantic officials' sons.

They dumped ink all over Xie Zheng's desk.

Behind the artificial rock gardens, they beat him savagely.

Wei Xuan stepped on his face and ground it into the mud while sneering:

“So this is all the son of Xie Linshan amounts to.”

How wonderful it would have been if Xie Zheng had truly become nothing more than a lump of mud.

But Xie Zheng never begged.

Even when his lackeys pinned his arms and legs down and he himself ground Xie Zheng's face into the dirt, the look in Xie Zheng's eyes remained cold.

Pitch-black.

Terrifying.

Later, Xie Zheng joined the army.

When they met again, he had returned from the battlefield covered in glory and military achievements.

He made Wei Xuan seem even more worthless than before.

It had also been a rainy day.

Several of Wei Xuan's ribs had been broken by Xie Zheng.

His face had been ground into the muddy earth beneath a torrential downpour.

Xie Zheng had mocked him coldly:

“So this is all the son of Wei Yan amounts to.”

Everything Wei Xuan had once done to Xie Zheng had been returned to him, one by one.

From that day onward, he hated Xie Zheng even more.

When news came that Xie Zheng had died on the battlefield at Chongzhou, no one knew how happy he had been.

And yet, even after Xie Zheng's

“death,” when Wei Xuan went northwest, he still failed to take control of the army Xie Zheng had left behind.

Instead, he turned the entire northwest into a disaster.

As a result, Wei Yan was once again given ammunition for impeachment by the Li faction.

After so many years, Wei Xuan finally admitted the truth.

He was simply jealous of Xie Zheng.

So jealous that he hated the fact he wasn't Xie Zheng himself.

Hearing his words, Wei Quan only said:

“The Marquis is the Marquis. Young Master is Young Master.”

“You need not compare yourself to anyone.”

Wei Xuan lowered his head with a bitter smile.

Looking at the shadows of bamboo reflected upon the ground, he no longer wished to embarrass himself further before Wei Quan.

He stood up.

“I'll go stay with Mother.”

Wei Quan bowed and watched him leave.

—

Before Wei Xuan even entered Madam Wei's courtyard, he heard violent coughing from inside.

Remembering Wei Yan's cold, departing figure, his heart grew even more bitter.

Seeing a maid carrying freshly prepared medicine from the small kitchen, he said:

“I'll take it to her.”

The maid was obviously afraid of him and dared not refuse.

She respectfully handed him the tray.

Wei Xuan's skin was thick enough that he simply lifted the blue porcelain bowl with gold trim directly from the tray and strode into the room.

“Mother, it's time for your medicine.”

As soon as he entered, a servant brought a round stool and placed it beside the bed.

Madam Wei looked rather poor in health.

She was not considered beautiful in the traditional sense.

Her features were ordinary.

But years of vegetarianism and Buddhist devotion had given her an air of kindness and compassion.

She comforted her son:

“It's an old ailment. Nothing serious. A few days of rest and I'll be fine.”

Wei Xuan lowered his head and stirred the brown medicinal liquid with a spoon.

“Father was very concerned when he heard you were ill.”

“It's just that the political situation at court is unstable right now.”

“There are still many officials discussing matters with him.”

“He truly couldn't get away.”

“That's why he couldn't come.”

“But he's already sent someone to invite an Imperial Physician.”

The moment Madam Wei heard those words, the calmness in her eyes changed.

“You went to see the Prime Minister?”

“Didn't I tell you not to bother him with such trivial matters?”

Wei Xuan replied:

“I didn't go looking for Father.”

“The residence isn't that large.”

“You were sick and needed a physician.”

“How could it possibly be hidden?”

Madam Wei began coughing even harder.

Looking at her son, she spoke with difficulty.

“Don't lie to me… You…”

She sighed helplessly.

“Why won't you ever listen to your mother?”

Caught in the lie, Wei Xuan lowered his head awkwardly.

His grip tightened around the medicine bowl.

“Mother…”

“Is it because your son is useless that you're too ashamed to seek Father out?”

Madam Wei covered her mouth and coughed several times.

Then she said weakly:

“Silly child, what nonsense are you saying?”

Wei Xuan raised his head.

His eyes were red.

“It's because I'm incompetent and Father doesn't like me.”

“That's why you've been neglected too.”

Madam Wei froze.

Complicated emotions churned in her eyes.

Then she gently said:

“Don't overthink things.”

“The Prime Minister is a man destined for great undertakings.”

“A true man does not concern himself with romantic attachments.”

“You must never say such things in front of him.”

Wei Xuan replied bitterly:

“But for all these years, Father only comes here during festivals to share a meal.”

“Mother, don't you feel wronged?”

A trace of melancholy flashed across Madam Wei's face as if she were recalling something from long ago.

Then she simply said:

“Silly child, don't think that way.”

“I've never felt wronged.”

“The Prime Minister is my benefactor.”

“You should become successful.”

“Become someone like your Cousin Xie and help carry the burdens on the Prime Minister's shoulders.”

Madam Wei, as a woman of the inner household who paid no attention to politics, still knew nothing of the falling-out between Wei Yan and Xie Zheng.

She simply assumed Xie Zheng remained in the north and had not returned home for years.

Wei Xuan immediately caught a detail in her words.

“Mother, why do you call Father your benefactor?”

Madam Wei lowered her eyes and did not answer immediately.

After coughing for a long time, she finally said:

“For a woman, marriage is like being reborn.”

“When I was young, I was born to a concubine. I had to depend on others for everything, even food and clothing.”

“These twenty years in the Prime Minister's residence, the Prime Minister has never treated me poorly.”

“I am content.”

Knowing his mother's uncompetitive and gentle nature, Wei Xuan silently fed her medicine and asked no further questions.

—

By the time Fan Changyu and Xie Zheng returned from the Xie family cemetery, it was nearly the Hour of the Pig.

The city gates had already closed.

Fan Changyu would have to wait until morning before returning to the diplomatic hostel.

Fortunately, before leaving, she had already informed Xie Qi. Even if she failed to return for a night, nothing major should happen.

Xie Zhong drove them back to the estate outside the city.

As soon as the carriage arrived at the entrance, a rider from the Blood-Clad Cavalry was already waiting there.

He presented a letter.

“Master, a message from the Grand Princess. It was sent out from the palace.”

Xie Zheng took it.

After tearing open the envelope, he quickly scanned the contents by lantern light.

His expression instantly turned icy.

Fan Changyu had already found it strange that he was exchanging letters with the Grand Princess.

Seeing his face change, she asked:

“What happened?”

Xie Zheng handed the letter to her.

Through gritted teeth, he forced out several words:

“Wei Yan once had an illicit affair with an imperial consort!”

Fan Changyu had not yet read the letter, but her heart still skipped a beat.

If Wei Yan had truly been involved with an imperial consort, then perhaps the truth behind the Jinzhou case seventeen years ago finally had a trail to follow.