The hall was empty, dimly lit, and silent.
A fourteen-year-old boy, with mourning clothes as white as snow, a pale face and a thin and frail figure, knelt quietly in front of the eternal tablet of his mother who had died ten years ago.
In front of the tablet, there was a long-burning lamp, which was lit day and night. In front of it was an altar, on which was placed a small tripod stove with burning incense sticks, and nearby there was a pot of wine and a plate of fruit.
The young man stared at the ever-burning light, motionless.
At the entrance of the hall, the sound of footsteps gradually came from afar.
His father, the founding emperor of the Great Zhou Dynasty, walked through the snow late at night and finally arrived at his mother's tomb.
But he did not come in, but stopped outside the temple.
The emperor was in his prime, the most vigorous age in a man's life. Although he was in mourning for the empress dowager and looked tired, his majesty as the emperor was still so great that people dared not look directly at him.
He glanced at the dark inner hall, then turned to Mother Mu and asked, "What's the matter?"
Mother Mu, who had been accompanying Xi'er all these years, knelt inside the threshold and whispered, "Your Majesty, tomorrow is the tenth anniversary of Empress Yuan, so Your Highness dares to invite Your Majesty to move here tonight."
Behind him, a howling wind swept the snow from the dark night sky, rushing from the tall palace eaves to the open door of the palace. The wind lifted the emperor's sleeves, revealing a corner of the yellow dragon robe he was wearing underneath his mourning clothes.
His figure froze for a moment, and finally he took a step and stepped over the threshold.
"All of you get out."
Mother Mu kowtowed, stood up and walked out.
A palace door kept the wind and snow outside the palace.
The emperor followed the guidance of the dim, flickering lamp deep in the hall, slowly walked behind the young man and stopped.
The young man stood up from his mother's throne, turned to face the emperor, knelt down and kowtowed again.
He can't speak.
Since escaping from Pucheng ten years ago, he has been unable to speak.
Once such a smart and lively child, overnight, completely lost the ability to speak and became a mute.
Later, although the imperial physician tried every possible method, nothing worked.
The palace servants secretly spread the rumor that the eldest son of the Emperor Dao had suffered a great fright when he was young, causing him to lose his voice and become unable to speak.
The emperor looked at the longevity tablet, was silent for a moment, and said to the thin figure in front of him who was bowing to him on the ground: "Tomorrow my father will ask people to come here to pay tribute to your mother."
The young man was still prostrated on the ground, as if he hadn't heard anything.
The emperor walked up to the young man, bent down, reached out and gently grasped his shoulders, trying to help him up from the ground.
The boy slowly raised his face.
This face is pale and thin, but the eyebrows, eyes and facial features are really handsome and beautiful.
The emperor rose from humble beginnings and soon seized the world. He was regarded by his ministers as a wise and great ruler who had never appeared in the world. But it is said that when he was young, he was handsome and had the demeanor of a scholar.
The boy's facial features were very similar to the emperor, but palace servants rumored that his eyebrows and eyes were more like those of the empress.
Empress Yuan died ten years ago. According to people who have seen her, Empress Yuan was known as the most beautiful woman in Changsha State, a beauty of her generation, and as beautiful as a fairy.
His Royal Highness the Crown Prince's appearance is naturally outstanding, combining the strengths of his parents' dragon blood and phoenix marrow.
The only regret is that he lost the ability to speak.
The emperor looked at the pair of clear eyes in front of him that seemed to be looking at him before. A complicated expression flashed across his eyes. He said softly, "Xi'er, I know you must be feeling a little unfair. Don't blame your father. You are my eldest son, and I also know that you are very smart. If you were not unable to speak, why would I not let you be the crown prince?"
He paused.
"Although you cannot become the crown prince, I will ensure that you live a happy life. If your mother still has a spirit, she will be relieved."
The young man stared at the emperor with a smile on his lips. He kowtowed to the emperor, then stood up, walked to the altar, picked up the wine jug, turned up the three inverted cups, and poured wine one by one.
He took the first cup and poured it on the ground to commemorate his deceased mother. With the second cup, he respectfully offered it to the tablet of longevity and drank it himself.
After doing this, he stepped aside, knelt on the ground again, looked at the emperor, and kowtowed to him solemnly.
The emperor hesitated for a moment, but finally stepped forward, picked up the third cup of wine, and drank it after paying tribute to the dead.
He put down the cup, turned around and said, "Get up. The ground is cold."
If there were outsiders around at this moment, they would be surprised.
The emperor's tone when he said this was unusually gentle.
The young man did not stand up, his eyes still looking at the emperor.
"Father, thank you for your consideration. But I don't want to be the crown prince."
He actually spoke.
"I just want to ask Father, tomorrow is the tenth anniversary. It's such an important day. Why don't you come to pay tribute to my mother yourself?"
The boy's voice was a little low, but every word he spoke was exceptionally clear.
The air in the hall seemed to be frozen by ice and snow in an instant.
The light in front of the throne of immortality suddenly shook and flickered.
The emperor looked at the young man for a long while, and then seemed to come back to his senses.
"Xi'er! Can you speak now?"
"When were you able to speak?"
For a moment, he ignored the implied disrespect in the boy's words and took a step forward with an expression of great surprise on his face.
"I could have spoken years ago. I just didn't want to."
The young man said, glancing at the longevity tablet.
"Father, if I remember correctly, you have never been here in all these years! Tonight, if it weren't for my request, you probably wouldn't have come here, right?"
The emperor looked at the indifferent young man, the joy on his face disappeared, and he said nothing.
"Father, are you too disdainful to come, or do you not take my mother's death to heart at all, even a little bit?"
The young man suddenly raised his voice, and every word he spoke sounded like a question.
The emperor frowned as if he was pricked by a needle.
"How dare you! How dare you speak like that?"
The boy looked at the emperor and smiled.
"Yes, you are the founding emperor of the Great Zhou. Under your governance, this new dynasty is thriving and the people are at peace. In the future, you will surely achieve great success and prosper the country. I can foresee that many years later, when the historian compiles a biography of your achievements, even if your achievements are not as great as those of the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors, you will be comparable to the Qin Emperor and Han Emperor."
"You are not only the Emperor, but also my biological father. Without your blood and essence, how could I have the flesh and blood I have today?"
"But I tell you, no matter how they praise you and worship you, in my eyes, father, you are a cold-blooded person without conscience!"
The emperor stared at the young man in front of him, his face darkened, and there was a hint of anger in his eyes.
There was no fear on the boy's face. He slowly stood up from the ground and straightened his thin but straight waist.
"When the Hanlin editors were compiling your family tree, they carefully avoided mentioning your youth, saying only that you had great ambitions and were extremely brave since childhood. They did not dare to say a bad word about you. But you know in your heart that you were born a bandit! You entered the official career with the help of my grandfather, and have been rising rapidly ever since. It should not be unfair to say that my mother married down at that time, right? But how did you treat her? In the first year after she married you, you couldn't wait to take another woman in!"
"During those years, I can't remember what my father looked like. When I was a little older, I only remember that every morning, regardless of the weather, my mother had to get up early to serve tea and food to my grandmother. But the concubine Qi was able to stay by my grandmother's side, watching my originally noble mother with a smile, enduring all kinds of criticism from my grandmother under her nose!"
The emperor's brows were still furrowed, but the anger on his face seemed to fade away gradually. He looked at the young man silently without interrupting him.
"That's all. Father, my mother died later! After she sent me away, she didn't want to be a burden to you, and she knew you wouldn't give in for her, so she committed suicide!"
"I will never forget that day when General Yuan took me to escape and I broke free from his hand that was covering my eyes. What I saw when I turned back!"
The boy's eyes were red and his voice trembled slightly.
"She was the princess of Changsha, a beautiful and noble woman. She shouldn't have been treated like that! Even after she died, those people didn't let her go. It was so cold, but she didn't even have a decent piece of clothing on her. She was covered in blood from being chopped by the swords of the enemies who hated her. She was hung upside down on the top of the city wall with ropes tied around her feet. The wind blew her so hard that she was so helpless and miserable amid the soldiers' wanton humiliation and laughter..."
The young man shed tears, his thin and lonely figure became as stiff as a rock.
The emperor's expression was stiff. He closed his eyes, then opened them again. He slowly walked towards the young man, raised his hand and held his arm.
"Xier..." He called the boy's nickname, his voice hoarse.
A trace of disgust flashed across the boy's eyes. He broke free from his father's hand and took a few steps back.
"Father, it's been ten years. You should have forgotten my mother a long time ago. But I can't forget her! I always dream about her. I will never forget the scene of her being hanged on the city wall!"
"I dare not blame you. During the one-year imprisonment, while you were fighting for your own world, did you ever try your best to save us? I am even less qualified to ask you to give up the city that was won with the sacrifice of soldiers for my mother and me. You have your considerations and weighings, and I understand! But what I cannot forgive, father, is what you did afterwards? How did you treat my mother?"
"You give her the empty title of Empress, add a string of beautiful posthumous titles before her name, and build a place for her to place her tablet. From then on, you think you can feel at ease, right?"
The boy's tone became intense, and a blush appeared on his pale face.
"I always feel that she has not left here. She is looking at me and also at you, my father!"
"Xi'er! That's enough!"
The emperor shouted suddenly.
"That's far from enough! If you hadn't used her, married her, and harmed her, how could she have ended up like this? If you still felt a little guilty about her all these years, I would have let it go. But you are so heartless and ungrateful that you didn't even come to pay your respects in person on her tenth anniversary!"
"Thank you, Chang Geng!"
The young man's eyes were red, as if stained with blood. He stared at the emperor in front of him and called out his name word by word.
"Not only are you unworthy of my mother, you are the one who caused her death!"
"How dare you! If you continue to talk nonsense to me, I will punish you severely!"
The emperor's face turned livid.
After a pause, he slowed down his tone.
"You don't know yet, the one who caused you and your son to fall into the hands of the enemy was Qi. It was this bitch who leaked the news to the King of Qi. I only learned about this later. Just now, before I came here, I had already ordered her to be executed."
The young man stared at the emperor with a strange expression, and suddenly laughed.
"Father, do you think that if you do this, my mother will finally be able to rest in peace and even be grateful to you for avenging her?"
He laughed wildly, almost crying, and then he stopped.
"Ten years! My mother has been dead for ten years, and you are only taking action now..."
"Father, let me ask you, are you really seeking revenge for my mother, or are you waiting until the Queen Mother is gone to take action out of hatred for Qi's betrayal?"
The emperor frowned and said coldly: "After your grandmother suffered a stroke, she became confused and you can't leave her. She is just a living dead, why bother about the time. It's getting late, you should go back and rest!"
After he finished speaking, he turned around and walked out of the shrine. However, after taking a few steps, his steps gradually slowed down and his figure flickered.
He calmed himself down and slowly turned around.
At some point, a long sword appeared in the young man's hand.
The candlelight flickered and the sword shone brightly.
The emperor quickly glanced at the pot of wine on the table, then stared at the young man, his eyes filled with disbelief, shock and anger.
"How dare you attack me?" He gritted his teeth.
The boy laughed.
"Father, do you feel weak all over, having difficulty breathing, and even unable to stand? Let me tell you, I often read the medical books left by my mother. One day, I saw a very powerful prescription in the book, and I learned to prepare it myself..."
"You evil creature!"
The emperor's face was distorted.
"Someone come!"
He shouted loudly towards the outside of the hall.
After shouting, the emperor suddenly remembered something.
Over the years, his eldest son would never allow any outsider to set foot in the tomb of his deceased mother, considering it an insult to his mother.
How could he not know this? So when he came just now, in order to avoid his eldest son, who he always felt he owed, he deliberately left all his entourage outside the palace gate.
It was not until then that the emperor suddenly realized.
In order to wait for this moment, his son must have been preparing for a long time.
His son's forbearance and scheming were so deep and terrifying!
The emperor's roar echoed in the hall.
The door was pushed open and Mother Mu rushed in. Seeing the emperor's staggering back, she was horrified and didn't know what had happened.
The long-burning lights were shaking violently in the night wind. Among the swaying figures, the emperor glared at his son and instead of retreating, he moved forward towards him, stumbling and approaching step by step.
"Evil creature! I don't believe you dare to kill me!"
He walked up to his son, could no longer hold on, and fell to the ground.
The young man looked at him coldly, as if he was looking at a lifeless sacrifice placed on the sacrificial table. He did not smile until the emperor fell at his feet.
He raised his hand, and his slender fingers gently stroked the cold sword edge.
"Father, do you still recognize this sword? This is the sword you took off from your body and gave to me when you saw me after you captured Pucheng. It is stained with the blood of countless people. You asked me to be a real man."
The boy slowly squatted down in front of his father who was lying on the ground, and looked him in the eye.
The emperor glared.
The smile on the boy's face disappeared, and he raised his arm, swinging his sword at the emperor.
Amid Mother Mu’s screams, the emperor felt a cold sword blade brushing across his face.
There was no blood.
There was a soft "ding" sound.
The crown of hair on his head broke in two.
His hair, which was tied in a crown, broke off at the roots and scattered on the ground.
The emperor stood motionless, looking at his son, and slowly stood up from the ground.
"Father, I heard that when you were my age, you killed someone to avenge your father. Although I am useless as a son, my desire to avenge my mother is no less than yours. If it were my own character, I would have killed you by now."
"But I can't take your life. If you die, the world will be in turmoil again. I'm afraid that when I see my mother, she will blame me."
"Listen, if I cut your hair right now, it will be like killing you. It is unjust for a son to kill his father. From now on, I have no father, and you have no son like me!"
He used the tip of his sword to pick up the black hair on the ground. Without looking at the emperor again, he turned around and walked to the empress's tablet and placed it on the altar. After he bowed and kowtowed, he stood up and asked the tablet word by word, "Mother, is it right for my son to do this?"
There was no echo in the hall. Only the suppressed sobbing sound of Mu's mother kneeling beside him could be heard.
The long-burning lights flickered violently.
The young man looked around slowly and said sadly, "Mother, over the years, I always feel that you are by my side. I remember when I was little, he was never at home. Sometimes I woke up in the middle of the night and saw you were still awake, so lonely. In fact, you shouldn't have let General Yuan take me away that day. I don't want you to leave alone. I'm here to accompany you. From now on, I will never be separated from you again!"
He closed his eyes, raised his head suddenly, and swung the sword across his neck.
"Xi'er!"
The emperor roared, his eyes were bloodshot, and he didn't know where he got the strength from, but he struggled to his feet from the ground, and together with Mother Mu, he pounced towards the young man in white in front of him.
But it was too late.
The sword cut through, blood splattered on the altar, and the eternal lamp was extinguished in an instant.
The hall was plunged into darkness in an instant, with only the emperor's heart-wrenching roar remaining.
A moment later, the palace servants who were finally alarmed rushed into the palace gate with lanterns in their hands, and were stunned by what they saw.
The emperor, with his hair disheveled and holding the eldest prince in his arms, fell in front of the empress's tablet and murmured, "Xi'er... it's not that I don't want to come... it's that I don't dare to come..."
The sword was lying on the ground, and the two men's bodies were covered in blood.
…
The pain that felt like a thousand arrows piercing her heart came to her again.
Mu Fulan's body slowly slid down.
She closed her eyes, curled up tightly, and lay on the couch, motionless.
Mother Mu was waiting outside, feeling very nervous, when she suddenly saw the door open and Xie Changgeng came out. She hurriedly came to greet her and was about to speak when she saw his face was gloomy and he walked out with big strides. She didn't know what had happened just now and couldn't take care of him for a moment. She hurriedly turned inside to see how the princess was first.
Xie Changgeng went straight out of the palace, returned to the posthouse, and ordered to set off overnight.
His followers were very surprised.
He usually doesn't show his emotions, but at this moment, his face is quite ugly. Everyone was secretly shocked, and they didn't know what happened at the banquet that made him so angry. But how could they dare to ask more questions? They hurriedly packed up their luggage, and soon they left the posthouse and headed for the city gate.
When we were almost at the city gate, we heard the sound of chasing horses behind us.
Changsha's Prime Minister Lu Lin rode up on horseback and shouted, "Thank you, Governor! Stay!"
Xie Changgeng slowly stopped his horse.
Lu Lin caught up with him, dismounted, and ran towards him breathlessly.
He was not wearing his official hat, and his boots were worn wrongly.
"Thank you, Jiedushi. What's the matter? Why do you have to leave at night?"
Xie Changgeng's expression had returned to normal, and he smiled and said, "Before I left, I left a letter with the postmaster, asking him to pass it on to him tomorrow morning. The purpose of my trip is to pay homage to the late king and to bring back my wife. I have already paid homage to the late king, but as for my wife, she has not been well since she arrived in Kuizhou due to the unfamiliar climate. Now that she is back, I will let her stay and recuperate for a while. I have other important matters to attend to, so I left overnight. Thank you very much for the hospitality of the King of Changsha and the Prime Minister. I am very grateful. Prime Minister, please stay. I will take my leave now and will see you later."
Lu Lin had just returned home and had just laid down for a while when she had to thank Chang Geng and his group for leaving overnight. For some reason, she hurriedly caught up with them.
Originally, he was worried that he had offended him again, so he left in anger at night. Now he caught up with him and was relieved to see him talking and laughing. He tried to persuade him to stay, but he gave up and said that the King of Changsha was drunk at the night banquet, so he would take care of him and send him out of the city.
Xie Changgeng did not refuse and let Lu Lin take him out.
The city gate opened, and Lu Lin saw him out. There were some more polite exchanges, and finally, she watched his figure disappear into the night on horseback. Then she slowly let out a breath, half believing and half doubting, and returned to the city without mentioning it again.
Xie Changgeng rode his horse for a while and suddenly stopped.
Seeing that he seemed to be in trouble, his followers also stopped their horses and looked at him.
Xie Changgeng turned his head and looked at the city behind him, which was outlined in the dark by the night. After a while, he turned his head and instructed an attendant named Zhu Liuhu who was good at tracking intelligence: "You stay here and hide your whereabouts. If there is any news from Changsha State, pass it to me."
"Especially the princess. Keep an eye on her movements. The more detailed the better."
Xie Changgeng ordered calmly.