Chapter 269: Chapter 264 Blood Debt
Deep into the night, Lian City lay still.
Xie Jue stood on the city wall, gazing into the distant direction of the Capital City. Xie Xun ascended the wall and stood alongside him. Starlight illuminated the night path, yet they no longer had a way home.
"Second Brother..."
Both dressed in plain white, of similar height and build, their faces carrying five parts resemblance. From behind, one might mistake them for twins.
The family destroyed, lives lost, calamity thrust upon them—from Xie Jue to Xie Xun, none could fully accept the deaths of their parents nor the absence of their elder brother. Yet, neither clung to the faintest, nearly impossible hope that this was all but a nightmare.
"Is your injury better now?"
"Much better!" Xie Xun’s expression was one of despair, a faint layer of moonlight resting on his figure. The once high-spirited brother had lost the light in his eyes. This upheaval had twisted their lives beyond recognition. Xie Jue had anticipated it, but he had also hoped that he was merely overthinking, that reality wouldn’t be this dire, that they might still have a chance to salvage the devastation.
But reality proved far worse than he imagined!
"If Father had listened to your advice, would we have ended up like this?" Xie Xun muttered, half torturing himself, half unable to let go.
"I don’t know." Did Xie Jue regret?
Of course, he regretted it. He regretted his journey through the night, being too slow. He regretted not being more cautious in Xiyanshan, losing his sight, delaying treatment by a mere couple of days. He regretted failing to insist more when suggesting troop adjustments while Father disagreed. He regretted compromising too easily. Before leaving the Capital City, he had repeatedly warned Father not to reduce the army’s numbers—three thousand cavalrymen inside the city, two thousand five hundred outside—until their elder brother married and left the Capital City, there must be no changes. Father had agreed! If he had agreed, why then did he allow them to take leave and return to their countryside homes? This was a game of gambles, and Father had lost. When making his decisions, had he truly thought them through? On the day of the wedding, everyone let their guard down—precisely providing Yuwen Jing with the perfect opportunity to strike.
Xie Jue replayed the entire sequence of events—from their triumph to the calamity. Truthfully, he had too many chances to alter fate; every single time, they fell short—just slightly, just by a little. He lost to his Father’s loyalty towards the Yuwen Royal Family, lost to his Father’s devotion to the people of the realm. Before his Father’s death, what was he thinking?
"We may need to become unfilial sons!" Xie Jue declared.
Years of brotherhood allowed Xie Xun to understand his meaning. "A hundred years from now, we’ll kneel with guilt and ask for forgiveness. Or maybe... we won’t even live that long."
Even if wrongly accused of regicide, even if cut to pieces by blades, their Father, before dying, had wished for nothing more than for them to avoid rebellion. He did not want them to incite war nor bring ruin upon Yanyang. He wanted them to live their lives in obscurity, peacefully and anonymously.
"Zhixu, do you want to be Emperor?"
"I’ve never thought about it!" Xie Xun replied. "I only want revenge!"
"It’s alright. From now on, begin to think about it slowly!" Xie Jue fixed his gaze toward the direction of the Capital City. "One day, our armies will trample those walls again!"
"Why did he commit patricide?" Xie Xun could not suppress the wrath in his heart. Though he held no particular love for Emperor Jianming, at least Jianming was mild-tempered, obedient, adept in keeping peace, and had never committed acts of slaughter. Jianming and Yuwen Jing shared a deep bond—it was Emperor Jianming himself who had held Yuwen Jing in his arms and raised him. How could Yuwen Jing commit such a heinous act of ultimate betrayal?
"After the negotiations, a new policy would have been implemented, allowing the Yuwen Royal Family to consolidate power, free from the control of noble families. Troops in Ningzhou would have been reduced, and we brothers would have been relocated to Ningzhou to garrison, serving generations of duty at the frontier under the Yuwen Royal Family. When Yuwen Jing ascended the throne, he would have broken free from all restraints, commanding absolute obedience when he spoke. Why did he do this, even going so far as killing his father and Emperor?"
This pain—this unanswered agony—lay heavily within Xie Xun’s heart.
When his elder brother sent him to Gaoping, the stationed troops appeared peaceful and calm, leaving him in a mood to accompany Fengyu to explore the mountains and rivers. In truth, Xie Xun believed that the Yuwen Royal Family and Marquis Mansion had already put down their swords for olivine branches and that ruler and vassal were on harmonious terms, with no further calamities in sight.
The Marquis Mansion had acted impeccably, with loyalty to their lord, without committing a single disgrace. What reason could Emperor Jianming possibly have to make things difficult for them?
Unprepared, he found himself with his home destroyed and his family annihilated.
Xie Xun was consumed with guilt and regret—blaming himself for his lack of attentiveness. If he had detected abnormalities with the stationed troops in Gaoping, even the slightest hint, perhaps he could have warned his Father in time.
"Zhixu, don’t mistake others’ ambition and greed for your own fault," Xie Jue spoke softly. "Let’s both accept the reality. Blood debts must be repaid with blood!"