Pei Xiao’s heart skipped a beat. He turned his face toward Xie Zhifei with a deep look: Surnamed Xie, can you not provoke him?

Xie Zhifei also saw that mouthful of blood. Regretting his earlier impulsiveness, he guiltily glanced at Yan Sanhe, only to find her staring at him thoughtfully…

Xie Zhifei quickly picked up his teacup, using drinking to cover his guilt.

After Wu Shunian stopped coughing, his originally fairly upright back suddenly hunched over, his complexion extremely poor—no words could adequately describe it.

Pei Xiao, having been steeped in a medical family for twenty years, could tell at a glance that this person harbored severe pain.

He was just forcibly enduring it.

“You…”

Pei Xiao thought for a moment. “If you trust me, send someone to the prefect’s office. In the innermost layer of my bundle are two resurrection pills that could make you more comfortable.”

“No need.”

Wu Shunian’s palms were cold with pain sweat. “Life and death are ordained, wealth and honor are heaven’s will. If the King of Hell wants me at the third watch, he won’t wait until the fifth. I accept my fate.”

Pei Xiao: “Then speak of what’s important, skip what’s not.”

Yan Sanhe looked up at Pei Xiao.

This fellow really was cold-faced, sharp-tongued, but soft-hearted—not bad inside.

Wu Shunian drank a mouthful of freshly poured warm tea, but his voice was still dry.

“My father never intended to oppose your Hua Kingdom. He’d already calculated how to deceive heaven and cross the sea, but he made one fatal error.”

Pei Xiao asked: “What was it?”

Wu Shunian: “The Wu bloodline survived because the Li clan didn’t exterminate them completely.”

“I understand!”

Pei Xiao suddenly realized: “He also learned from the Wu clan and left a branch of the Chen clan alive? Right, it should be that Chen king’s illegitimate younger brother?”

Wu Shunian nodded slightly.

“This person, being illegitimately born, never participated in court struggles. When he saw my father, he didn’t dare make eye contact, only dared avoid him from afar. So my father spared his life. Who would have thought…”

Yan Sanhe said calmly: “Can only say your father’s heart wasn’t hard enough.”

“Yes!”

Wu Shunian bit his graying lips, intense emotion showing in his eyes.

“Countless people advised my father that not exterminating them completely was like releasing a tiger back to the mountain. Yet my father stubbornly persisted.

I truly don’t understand him. He’d planned for so long, everything was foolproof—how could he commit such a basic error?”

“Because people who read too many books often have a scholar’s idealistic temperament.”

Wu Shunian was shocked. He looked up at Yan Sanhe, seeing her eyes were clear black and white, neither evasive nor avoiding.

“These are my grandfather’s words. He also said that people with too many principles can’t reach high positions. Even if they do, they can’t sit firmly.”

She looked back at him, her gaze calm.

“Your father not taking San Mei as wife, not letting concubines bear his children, not exterminating the entire Chen clan… these were all his principles as a person.”

Wu Shunian’s dim eyes suddenly flashed with light.

How many years had it been? He’d never understood why Father, clearly knowing that leaving that person alive was a disaster, still let him live.

If not for that person, Sun Bin alone wouldn’t have amounted to anything…

The deception could have succeeded smoothly…

Wouldn’t have alarmed the Hua Kingdom emperor…

There wouldn’t have been that later egg-against-rock war…

So—

Father’s life’s turning point began on Old Street, but his life’s fate was already arranged by heaven when he was born and given the Wu surname.

“Destiny!”

Wu Shunian cried out in grief and looked up, laughing loudly.

Laughing, laughing, tears came.

Tears kept flowing from the corners of his eyes. At the same time, the unwillingness that tormented him day and night also dissipated.

Where is the heart most wounded? Seeing autumn moon at the passes and mountains!

Where is the heart most wounded? Seeing autumn moon at the passes and mountains!

Accept fate!

In the laughter, Pei Xiao glared at Yan Sanhe: Why are you also learning from Xie Fifty to provoke him?

Yan Sanhe pretended not to see.

The laughter gradually weakened. After Wu Shunian breathed rapidly several times, he called out: “Aye?”

Zhou Ye squatted down. “Are you tired?”

“Mm!”

Wu Shunian’s face lost all expression, leaving only unspeakable deep exhaustion.

“Let you tell the rest of the story!”

“Good!”

Zhou Ye straightened up, gently drawing Wu Shunian’s head to his waist.

As the head leaned over, Wu Shunian’s eyes slowly closed, motionless.

Pei Xiao saw Wu Shunian’s chest rising and falling less and less, truly afraid he’d die right then, wanting desperately to reach out and check his breathing.

Didn’t dare!

Zhou Ye looked down at the three from above, his voice unspeakably cold.

“I have only one thing to say—the Zheng family’s annihilation. This is also my ultimate purpose in luring you here.”

This truly was earth-shattering. The three at the table found it incredibly unbelievable.

What more was there to say about the Zheng family’s annihilation?

Why did they need to be lured here?

Could there be…

Some twists and turns in this case?

Just then, Zhou Ye’s voice rang out with conviction:

“Every word I say next is true. If even half a word is false, may my intestines rot and belly burst, may I die a horrible death; after death, may I fall into the eighteen levels of hell, never to be reborn.”

“…”

The three exchanged glances.

Taking such a poisonous oath—what was Zhou Ye trying to do?

“In the second year of Yonghe, the Master launched a coup and bloodily purged the Chen royal house. At that time, I was serving as magistrate in Shanglin County, Nanning Prefecture, twenty-five years old.

In the third year of Yonghe, our dynasty sent troops to Great Qi. I was still serving in Shanglin County, twenty-six years old.

In the fourth year of Yonghe, the Master and his son were defeated and fled. It was I who secretly received them and hid them in Shanglin County, twenty-seven years old.”

“On the winter solstice of Yonghe’s fourth year, the Master quietly passed away in the night. When I pushed open the door the next day, he lay on the ground, body ice-cold, long without breath, fifty-five years old.”

Not a single superfluous word.

Every word was like hammering heavily on the three people’s heads, making their scalps split open, their souls scatter.

Yan Sanhe could hardly believe that the ambitious hero of a generation had died quietly on a winter solstice night.

“By what did he die?” Yan Sanhe’s voice trembled slightly.

Zhou Ye lowered his eyes, concealing the emotion within.

“That war consumed all his spirit. If I must name a cause of death, it should be melancholy death.”

“How long after his defeat and flight?”

“Only four months.”

Four months and he died of melancholy?

Yan Sanhe was momentarily speechless.

“In the sixth year of Yonghe, I was transferred from Shanglin County to Nanning Prefecture as magistrate, a minor ninth-rank official, and bought this residence to settle him in.”

Speaking here, Zhou Ye quickly glanced at Wu Shunian.

“On the tenth of the seventh month in Yonghe’s eighth year, the weather was abnormally hot. Someone in this residence passed away.”

“Who?”

All three asked almost in unison.