Chapter 200: Sudden Death

Chapter 200: Sudden Death

It all happened too fast—nobody even had time to react.

That night was pure chaos.

By the time Si Lu and Wu Tuyin hurried back to the main tent of the royal court, the "what if" never happened.

There was nothing they could do about it now.

The main tent, usually dim, was now lit up bright—several candles flickered and danced, casting their light on Wulige's old, withered, and lifeless face.

There was a bouquet of wildflowers in the tent, one that Wuliel had picked for his father earlier that day.

Through the shadows of the pink-and-white flowers, Si Lu saw Qin Jiao kneeling with his head down in front of the blood-stained low couch. He looked frail, his clothes dirty and messy, kneeling there like a soulless puppet. Beside him knelt Wuliel, crying his eyes out.

High Priest Wu Fei was the first to notice Wu Tuyin's arrival. "My condolences, Chieftain!" Wu Fei cried out, then prostrated himself, performing the traditional Mengqin funeral rite before Wulige's body.

"Wulige..."

Wu Tuyin gazed at the man lying on the bed. Years of illness had wasted him down to skin and bones—time had stripped away his flesh, leaving just a thin layer of skin to cover his bones. "Wulige, you can't die!" Wu Tuyin's voice was shaking a little.

You haven't even seen me become ruler of the world yet...

"Get ready to send your father off."

Wulige had been gravely ill for a long time, so his death surprised few of the Mengqin people. Qilan, the foreign woman who Qin Jiao had met earlier, patted Wu Tuyin's back and said, "Your father said he should be part of the farewell too."

Qilan's gaze swept over Qin Jiao. In Mengqin custom, when a father dies, his biological son must hold the sacred branch to send him off. When someone dies, their soul is gone, and the sacred branch blesses their children—it's the dead person's last blessing to their kids.

"Him?" Wu Tuyin sneered at the words. "What right does he have to send the old man off? He'd be better off buried with him!"

Right then, Qin Jiao's hands were still covered in the blood Wulige had coughed up. Earlier, Ha He had kicked him, and then Wuliel had knocked into him. While the shaman was treating him, Wulige had dragged his sick body over to see him.

At the time, Qin Jiao was lying on the bed in agony.

Qin Jiao was in real pain.

As the shaman treated him, Qin Jiao felt like his whole back, chest, and every rib were being stabbed over and over by red-hot steel needles—each one piercing his skin with unbearable pain.

"Ah...!" Qin Jiao couldn't help letting out a cry, and Wulige, who was already on his last legs, saw this and, in a rage, coughed up a mouthful of black blood!

"Father!" Wuliel shouted in alarm. "Someone! Quick, someone!"

"Qin Jiao..." A guard moved to help Wulige, but Wulige pushed him away. "Don't be scared, Qin Jiao. Daddy's here..."

Wulige tried to go to Qin Jiao, but he was unsteady on his feet—he stumbled the second he took a step. Wuliel quickly grabbed him. "Quick, take Father back! Get the High Priest!" Wuliel ordered the guards sharply.

After all the chaos, Wulige was carried back to the main tent. But not long after, Wuliel came himself to get Qin Jiao, who had just finished his treatment.

They helped Qin Jiao into the tent, where he noticed Qilan and Wu Fei looking serious. Then he looked at Wulige lying on the bed, barely breathing, and suddenly realized what was going on.

The shock of his own serious injury... Wulige's time was up.

"Is Qin Jiao here?" Wulige on the bed heard the sound and reached out a trembling hand. Qin Jiao hesitated for a moment, then ultimately raised his hand and took it.

Maybe the time it takes to drink a cup of tea passed, or maybe not even that long—Wulige, holding Qin Jiao's hand, used every second to tell him the story of how he first met, fell for, and loved Ning Xin all those years ago.

Wulige and Ning Xin had met during a hunt, and split up because Ning Xin couldn't accept Wulige being a foreigner.

Though Ning Xin loved Wulige, she had a strong sense of right and wrong. For years, the Mengqin had been eyeing the Tianyuan Dynasty greedily—even the first time Ning Xin and Wulige met at the hunting grounds was because Wulige wanted to dig up Tianyuan's secrets.

Love in the boudoir could never outweigh loyalty to one's country.

Ning Xin and Wulige loved each other briefly, then split for good. Ning Xin even made Wulige promise to never bother Qin Jiao for the rest of his life—and to be fair, Wulige did keep that promise.

Before Wu Tuyin showed up, Qin Jiao had never suspected he was also part foreign.

"Qin Jiao, Father's sorry..." In his last moments, Wulige gasped for air. "And... Lier, Tuyin..."

"Father, I'm here, waaah." Wuliel threw himself at Wulige's bedside, his eyes swollen red from crying, his voice trembling as he spoke. "Brother will be here soon. Father, please hold on a little longer..."

"Cough, cough..." Wulige coughed hard, his mind foggy and heavy. By now, he couldn't hear Wuliel's crying anymore.

Finally, Qin Jiao felt Wulige's hand go limp in his...

Time stops for no one, and everyone has to go eventually.

Qin Jiao knelt there and let out a long sigh. His chest ached with mixed emotions—a sadness he couldn't put into words wrapped around him, until—

"Since the old man liked you so much, go be buried with him." Wu Tuyin's voice was like an icy wind in the dead of night, cold to the bone. "And those red-eyed girls—kill them all as well!"

"Brother, no!"

"Wu Tuyin, you can't!"

Wuliel and Si Lu both spoke up to stop Wu Tuyin. "Those kids are innocent!" Wuliel said stubbornly.

Si Lu even stepped right in front of Qin Jiao. "Wu Tuyin, don't be so stubborn. You know damn well this has nothing to do with Young Master Qin! It was all because Ha He caused trouble that the old chieftain dropped dead!"

Wu Tuyin's fierce gaze landed on Si Lu and Wuliel. "Fine, you're all taking the side of outsiders..."

"Brother, I'm not—just calm down!"

Wuliel tried to defend himself, while Si Lu stayed put in front of Qin Jiao. The situation turned into a tense standoff.

"Enough. What's all this fighting about? Your father's body isn't even cold yet!"

In the end, it was Qilan who stepped in to "settle the fight," saving Qin Jiao and the red-eyed girls. "Go get the farewell ceremony ready now. Everything else, we'll talk about later." Qilan said to Wu Tuyin.

"Yeah, Brother. I'll go with you to get ready." Wuliel said, shoving Wu Tuyin out with effort.

Wu Tuyin looked around at everyone in the tent, and finally, as if giving up, he let out a sneer. "Fine. We'll talk about it later."

He put extra weight on the word "later." Qin Jiao heard it, and his heart suddenly jumped.

"High Priest, go get ready too."

After Wuliel and Wu Tuyin left, Qilan turned to Wu Fei.

"Yes, Khatun."

Wu Fei obeyed and left, leaving only Qilan, Qin Jiao, and Si Lu in the tent.

"Young Master Qin, are you okay?"

Si Lu tried to help Qin Jiao up, but the second he moved him, Qin Jiao groaned in pain.

"Don't—my chest hurts like hell. Don't touch me yet." Qin Jiao pressed a hand to his chest, cold sweat dripping down his face. He had to gasp for air between each word.

Qilan glanced at Qin Jiao and Si Lu. Both boys looked worse off than the other, each carrying heavier injuries than the last. Thinking about her son's nature, she sighed involuntarily.

"Why don't you two go get some rest?" Qilan said to them.

"No," Qin Jiao shook his head and looked toward Wulige. "I'd like to stay with him a bit longer."

Qin Jiao couldn't quite put his feelings for Wulige into words. Logically, his feelings toward Wulige should have been exactly what he'd told Wu Tuyin—he only saw Wulige as a stranger.

But just now, when Wulige had held his hand and kept comforting him in that raspy voice, saying, "Qin Jiao, don't be afraid, it doesn't hurt. Don't be scared—Father will protect you," Qin Jiao felt a deep ache in his chest.

People are complicated like that—saying they don't care on one hand, while grieving deep down on the other.

Seeing that, Qilan didn't push it further and simply said, "Suit yourself."

Qin Jiao leaned against the edge of the bed to rest for a bit, with Si Lu staying by his side the whole time. All the while, Qin Jiao was covertly watching Qilan.

"What are you, a thief? Why are you sneaking peeks at me?"

Clearly, Qilan had caught him staring.

"I just think it's weird that you don't seem to hold any hostility toward me," Qin Jiao thought to himself. It wasn't just Qilan—even Wuliel had shown him kindness. If not for Wuliel, Qin Jiao would already be dead.

And besides not being hostile toward him, Qilan didn't seem all that shaken by Wulige's death either.

Her husband was dead, and she hadn't shed a single tear.

"If you'd prefer I be hostile toward you, that can be arranged," Qilan said with a cold laugh.

Qin Jiao: "...No need for that."

Si Lu, standing nearby, wiped the cold sweat from his brow.

The truth was, Qilan did harbor hatred—but what she hated was always the faithless Wulige. Just now, listening to Wulige's "father-son heart-to-heart" with Qin Jiao as he lay dying, Qilan had wanted to laugh.

He'd painted himself as a remorseful, devoted father, yet never once mentioned that after leaving Ning Xin and returning to Mengqin, he'd immediately fallen for Wuliel's mother. Their "love affair" had caused quite a stir across all of Mengqin back then.

Qilan curled her lips in a cold smirk. If he were truly faithful, truly devoted, how could Wulige have fallen for another woman?

So, men—in the end, it's only what they can't have that they pine over for years and remember for a lifetime.

Still, Qilan had no intention of telling Qin Jiao any of that.

She and Wulige had been husband and wife, and this secret would be her final gift of dignity to him.

The tent still carried the thick, bitter smell of medicine. As Qin Jiao breathed it in, something suddenly occurred to him, and he spoke up: "By the way, Lady Qilan, may I ask you a question?"

Qilan's gaze drifted toward the distant rolling mountains. "Go ahead."

Qin Jiao: "It's about the red-eyed girls Wu Tuyin mentioned earlier. Do you know why they were brought to Mengqin?"

Could it be, as Qin Jiao and the others had speculated earlier, that Wu Tuyin was using people as medicine?

As Qin Jiao finished speaking, Si Lu also looked at Qilan with burning intensity.

This was a question he wanted answered too.

"Because of him." Qilan's gaze withdrew from the distant mountains and settled on Wulige. "Those red-eyed girls were prepared for him."

Qin Jiao's expression stiffened at these words. After a moment of silence, he said:

"Please, do elaborate..."

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