“I would be glad.” Every line of Zeng Han’s face was smiling, radiant and animated in a way that was nothing like the man from a moment ago. “I would be glad. I just want to watch him slaughter every loyal subject he has until his kingdom totters. Watch him ruin a fine realm. Watch those worthless excuses for sons of his invite wolves through the gate and tear each other apart. I would be glad — I dream of seeing that day.”

“Yet you still pulled back.”

“I did not!” Zeng Han roared. “I did everything I was meant to do! I had Wu Rong poisoned, I brought those strongmen together into one force, I successfully placed agents in every key position, I struck a deal with the grassland tribes outside the pass — and then Hua Yizheng cleared out every single one of those agents without difficulty. And Wu Rong — it was you who cured him, wasn’t it? You were here with Hua Zhi before the new year. There’s no one else I can think of who could have done it.”

“It was me.” Gu Yanxi confirmed it with the same quiet calm. “And you still pulled back.”

“I did not!” Zeng Han still refused to admit it. The desolate grey crept back across his features, and his vigor seemed to drain away in an instant. He looked at his son, hand lifting halfway before stalling in the air, then falling to rest on the arm of the wheelchair.

“Everyone at the Ministry of Finance was corrupt — and they had to be corrupt. Not joining in meant being shut out, treated as an outsider, someone who couldn’t be trusted. So I was corrupt too. But that particular sum wasn’t mine. Everyone above and below knew it wasn’t mine. And yet they all said it was. Convicted, sentenced, family assets seized, exile decreed — all in less than two days. They gave me no chance to see anyone. And the moment I was past the city gates, I saw my wife — heavy with child — bound and waiting for me on the road.”

Zeng Han smiled a smile that was indistinguishable from weeping. “She was three months along. Because she’d miscarried before, she had trusted the old custom from her hometown and kept silent until three months had passed. We had even prepared the red eggs. And then, instead, this catastrophe arrived. Along the way I begged those men — I begged them to send word up the chain, to let my wife go. Do you know what they told me? They said it had been ordered from above. They said it was deliberate, that there were people who wanted to cut off every last branch. Ha. Ha ha — they meant it.”

Zeng Han threw his head back and laughed, and the laughter broke midway into a wracking, lung-tearing cough. Blood seeped from the corner of his mouth in a thin thread. Zeng Han looked at it. His small hand reached out and touched it blankly, then stared at the red on his fingertips.

“Do you think that was the end of it? No. They were given orders to destroy the child. How? They violated my wife — right there in front of me. Right in front of me. Ha ha ha. But my son’s life was stubborn. He refused to miscarry. My wife secretly let her own blood, little by little, to make them believe the child was gone. It was only because they found her unclean that they left her alone after that. That is how Han’er survived. Even then they would not leave us be — near the end of the road, they threw me out in the open. My legs froze. They rotted from the cold while I was still alive. They assumed I would die. But I didn’t die. My wife died. She died giving birth to Han’er. She had wanted to die long before — she only held on through those last breaths to bring the child into the world. Ha ha ha. She died. She is gone.”

Zeng Han laughed until his voice scraped raw, while tears ran down his face unchecked. All his anguish, all his despair — it was all there in those tears.

“I always believed Han’er had no future. I had long since decided that when I died I would take him with me — spare him from being disgusted by this world. But then Hua Zhi said something to Han’er. She told him to grow up well. She said he should grow up well…”

Zeng Han laughed until he doubled over. “I had never once thought Han’er could grow up well. No father. No mother. How was he supposed to grow up well?”

So it was A’Zhi’s words — grow up well — that had saved them both? Hua Yizheng did not know whether to mourn Zeng Han’s suffering or to count himself fortunate — fortunate that the Hua family had escaped this calamity, and more fortunate still that he had such a granddaughter as this.

“Whatever the case, the Hua family…”

“That is not needed.” Zeng Han cut him off with finality, blood still seeping steadily from the corner of his mouth, though he seemed to feel nothing of it, as though all sensation had left him. “What is owed to me — that is owed by Hua Zhi.”

Hua Pingyu immediately objected. “We will take responsibility—”

“By Hua Zhi. This has nothing to do with the rest of the Hua family. So — it is Hua Zhi’s responsibility to make sure my son grows up well.”

Gu Yanxi had already opened his mouth to refuse — when the hand inside his own stirred. He turned at once toward the bed. And indeed — A’Zhi had opened her eyes.

Gu Yanxi forgot everything else in an instant, leaning over the edge of the bed, his voice soft. “You’re awake? Does anything hurt? Is there anywhere that pains you?”

Hua Zhi, in truth, was not well anywhere — her whole body had a feeling of pain so pervasive it had gone numb. But she had caught a few words through the haze just now. Whatever Zeng Han had done before, the fact that he had sent his son to warn her, that the Hua family had been spared because of it, was real. If the debt had to be placed on her — she did not consider it an unfair weight to carry.

She could not yet speak. Her fingers moved slightly, curling gently around Yanxi’s fingers.

Gu Yanxi sighed inwardly — he should not have let Zeng Han be brought here just because he himself had not wanted to leave A’Zhi’s side for even a moment.

He took the water Hua Pingyu passed him, helped her sit up partway against him, and fed her a small sip. Seeing her begin to drift again, he said quietly, “Sleep. I’m here.”

Hua Zhi blinked once more. And through the exhaustion on her face, there was the faint trace of a smile.

Gu Yanxi felt something soft and aching in his chest, and wished he could give her everything she wanted. He looked back at Zeng Han, who was holding on by a last thread of will. “A’Zhi says yes,” he said. “She will make sure your son grows up well.”

The world had gone dim and blurred before Zeng Han’s eyes, a ringing filling his ears, yet he still heard those words. He had long since half-guessed who this man was. If it was truly him, then he should be capable of making that person pay the price. Good. That was why he had cooperated with him — hadn’t he wanted exactly this? To see that man fall beyond all reckoning?

They thought he didn’t know which pocket that final sum of silver had ended up in. He knew.

Zeng Han strained to open his eyes wide, wanting one last look at his son. But in the end all he could see was a blurred shape. This child had his mother’s face — even without seeing it clearly, he knew it by heart.

His trembling hand reached out, and stopped midway — when a pair of small, ice-cold hands took hold of it. Seeming to know what he wanted, they placed his hand upon the child’s head, then guided it slowly down along the cheek. After that, the hand lost all its strength and slipped away.

The small boy froze for a moment, then took his father’s hand and pressed it back against his own cheek. It slipped away again. He lifted it again. This happened again, and again.

Some in the room had already turned away, unable to watch. Even Wu Rong, who had been furious, quietly let out a long breath and set the past aside. Those things, in the end, had nothing to do with the child.

He crouched down before the boy. “Your father…”

“I know. He’s dead.” Zeng Han looked up with wide eyes that held no childlike innocence, no expression of any kind. “Dead means gone. I know where Father is to be buried.”

Wu Rong paused, and after a moment asked, “Did your father leave instructions?”

Zeng Han nodded, and pointed toward Hua Zhi on the bed. “After the burial, I’m to follow her.”

Wu Rong suddenly thought that Zeng Han had made a rather sound arrangement. This child had seen far too much of the world’s ugliness far too young — without someone to guide and hold him, there was every chance he could become a scourge to others in time. But if he followed Hua Zhi, she would not let the only son of someone who had shown her kindness become that kind of person.