Chapter 123: A Family Destroyed

Chapter 123: A Family Destroyed

It was a month before Le Wuya saw Zhong Guotai again.

His hair was a wild mess. He looked like a beggar. His eyes were bloodshot from sleepless nights, and the easygoing swagger of a rich young master was gone.

All the flesh he had gained at the Nanting coal mine had melted off.

...

After the Zhong family left Nanting, they had planned to stay with an old friend of Zhong Junxiong.

Zhong Guotai's wife was still young and unwilling to leave her parents behind. Having no children to tie her down, she steeled herself and filed for divorce, going back to her own family.

They hadn't been on the boat long before Zhong Junxiong came down with a strange illness, saying his abdomen felt heavy and he could hardly breathe, so he was stuck in bed.

His condition worsened, and his face would turn purple before he could gasp for air.

Seeing how bad off Zhong Junxiong was, the boatman feared it might be some unknown plague and told them in no uncertain terms to stay in their cabin.

Zhong Guotai was stuck. Nowhere to go.

So he watched helplessly as his father struggled for five or six days before he finally gave out.

Before dying, Zhong Junxiong let out mournful cries, a pitiful sight.

Lady Zhong tugged at his sleeve, sobbing and demanding, "What did you do? Tell me! Tell me! Who wants to harm you?"

Zhong Junxiong clenched his teeth, refusing to confess: "I have wronged... you all... I got greedy for a quick buck, let my heart turn rotten, and wrecked the family legacy..."

He dug his fingernails into the bedboard, leaving deep scratches. It was like his lungs had turned into a wad of rotten cotton, rattling and wheezing.

That sound, along with his final words, would haunt Zhong Guotai's dreams for the rest of his life: "Don't go back to Nanting. No matter what, don't go back!"

Seeing the mess of a death, the boatman cursed his bad luck and grew even more suspicious of plague. He refused to let the Zhong family keep the body on board and made the mother and son throw Zhong Junxiong's body into the water.

Lady Zhong was unwilling to let her husband's body float away downstream, so she steeled herself and got off the boat halfway, hoping to find a peaceful spot to give him a proper burial.

The boatman had thought about robbing them, but seeing that Zhong Guotai was already a grown man—dark-skinned and stout, not someone you'd want to mess with—he dropped that idea and instead charged them a fat "docking fee" before letting them go.

But the real problem was closer to home.

The boatman didn't know how gutless Zhong Guotai really was, but the household servants who carried the luggage knew it all too well.

The second they got off the boat, most of them bolted with the money and valuables.

Zhong Guotai couldn't hold them together—chase after one, and another would slip away. He finally came back empty-handed. All that was left was his mother, a grim-faced steward, the steward's son, and two young servants who had nowhere else to go—so they stayed loyal.

Zhong Guotai was at his wit's end, waiting for his mother to make the decision.

Lady Zhong wiped away her tears and spit out three words like they were chiseled in stone: "Back to Nanting!"

Her husband had told her not to go back, and he must've had his reasons.

But she had her own reasons, damn it.

If she didn't get to the bottom of this whole mess, she wouldn't have a moment's peace for the rest of her life!

Her husband had always been tough as nails—in his youth he'd forded rivers on horseback and climbed over mountains. He wasn't exactly strong as an ox, but to suddenly "fall ill" like this and die like that, all alone on a stranger's boat—Lady Zhong refused to accept it, refused to believe it.

Before they got on the boat, an old friend from Nanting had come by and shared a few cups of wine with him.

At the time, Lady Zhong had been too busy grieving over the lost family fortune and counting their luggage to speak with her husband, scurrying around to make sure the servants didn't steal anything. So she hadn't paid attention to who'd come to see him off.

If they didn't go back, how would they ever find out the truth?

You can't catch a tiger cub without going into the tiger's den.

But when one of the young servants heard that the lady wanted to return to Nanting, he was terrified. He dropped to his knees with a thud, begging her not to walk into a trap.

Something about his words set off alarm bells. Lady Zhong immediately demanded to know what he knew.

This young servant was the one who had accompanied Zhong Guotai on that trip and seen the severed head of the Liao tribesman.

He was young and couldn't stand up to the lady. Weeping, he knelt and confessed everything about how the master had taken in and hidden the Liao assassin.

Knowing he couldn't hide it anymore, the steward had no choice but to confess as well, saying that the master had taken out money to fund the Liao man.

Lady Zhong and Zhong Guotai just stared, dumbstruck.

Zhong Guotai stammered: "Could it be... Master Wenren...?"

Lady Zhong was quiet for a moment, then said flatly, "I don't think so. Wenren Ming Ke must have investigated and found out the gist of things, but without solid evidence, he couldn't go through official channels. So he went the shady route instead and forced your father to flee..."

And with that, the grief hit her all over again.

She shook it off: "Your father's scheming against Wenren Ming Ke didn't happen overnight—he must have been planning it for a long time. But why? Just because of the taxes...?"

Lady Zhong knew a person could only be so brave. Even people who scheme and plot rarely pull off anything truly huge.

There are people in this world who can get big things done, but Zhong Junxiong was never one of them.

Lady Zhong had shared a bed with Zhong Junxiong for many years and knew he had a mean streak and could be ruthless when he wanted to be.

But without someone egging him on, he wouldn't have gotten that brave.

Something clicked, and she locked her bloodshot eyes on the steward: "Earlier... around tax season, your master went out drinking and feasting every day. Who was he so chummy with?"

...

After learning the names Hou Peng and Shi Liangyuan from the steward, Lady Zhong had Zhong Junxiong's body cleaned up and dressed, and brought him back to Nanting.

She was full of plans, grudges, and fury.

But fate came crashing down on her.

A simple cold turned into typhoid fever.

In the end, there was nothing the doctors could do.

Lady Zhong lay in bed, breathing in shallow, ragged breaths. The breath from her nostrils was like two small dragons of fire, scorching Zhong Guotai's tear-soaked face.

She tilted her head, looking at her good-for-nothing child. All her big plans melted into a mother's soft, gentle love: "Dabao, how old are you now?"

Zhong Guotai sobbed so hard he couldn't lift his head, like the whole world was caving in: "Tw—twenty..."

Lady Zhong made a soft "oh" sound and murmured, "Come with Mama, okay? If you stay alone in this world... Mama's scared, really scared..."

Zhong Guotai nodded, still sobbing, and went to find a rope to hang himself.

To his shock, when he returned, his mother had already passed away on the inn's bed.

Zhong Guotai wanted to hang himself quickly and follow his mother, but a servant caught him in the act.

The servant kicked up a fuss and summoned the innkeeper.

The innkeeper walked in, saw the scene, and flew into a rage.

One death was already bad luck enough; if he ended up with another corpse hanging around, how was he supposed to stay in business?

Zhong Guotai was forcibly thrown out of the inn.

He stood there, dazed, feeling utterly lost in the world.

His father's body was on one side, his mother's on the other.

He was the only one still alive.

Seeing both masters dead, leaving only a worthless good-for-nothing, whatever loyalty the steward had left went up in smoke.

He went ahead and bought a donkey cart for the family, doing things decently, then took his son and said goodbye to Young Master Zhong.

The fact that he didn't take the chance to loot the Zhong family's property already counted as decent behavior.

One of the other young servants, seeing the Zhong family's complete ruin, refused to go back to Nanting with Zhong Guotai and asked to leave with the steward instead.

In the end, the only one left by Zhong Guotai's side was that young companion.

With his parents gone and no one to protect him, Zhong Guotai finally learned what suffering really meant.

He was used to throwing money around, and at first he still tried to stay at inns and hotels, but he didn't have his mother's gift of gab or his father's mean streak—he could only stammer out, "I've got money."

The innkeepers were running a business—they weren't about to listen to his worthless crap.

He got kicked out of one inn after another, with nowhere to go, and ended up crashing in a rundown temple.

He didn't know better than to flash his money around, and that very night, he got robbed in the temple.

The donkey was gone, and so was all the gold and silver jewelry.

All he had left was a beating, two straw mats, and a wooden cart.

One disaster after another quickly burned away whatever naive innocence Zhong Guotai had left.

He didn't dare boss his young companion around anymore—this was his only friend—if he drove him off, he'd truly be all alone in the world.

Tears in his eyes, he strapped the donkey harness onto his own back like a draft animal and dragged his parents' bodies all the way south to Nanting.

His young companion pushed the cart from behind, silent the whole way.

He begged for food and, shameless as could be, joined the refugees fighting for porridge at the town relief stations.

When people made fun of him for begging when he had working hands and feet, he kept his mouth shut.

If refugees tried to fight him for porridge, he didn't take it lying down anymore—he'd grab whatever he could get his hands on and smash it over their heads without a word.

He wasn't afraid of dying. Dying just meant going to see his mother.

But the more vicious he got, the less people dared to mess with him.

And so, weighed down with all that on his mind, he made it back to Nanting.

When he saw the city gate with "Nanting" carved on it in the distance, he stopped dead in his tracks.

A month and a half ago, he'd left this place where he was born and raised.

Now he was back again.

With his parents gone, he was like a piece of drifting duckweed with no roots.

Zhong Guotai went straight to the yamen to file a report.

When he picked up the drumstick at the yamen gate, a mess of emotions hit him, and two streaks of dirty tears ran down his face.

Along the way, he'd cursed the heavens and the earth, blaming everyone he could think of.

The only one he didn't know what to say about was Wen Renyue.

If it weren't for him, his father wouldn't have been run out of Nanting, and his mother wouldn't have died.

But Wen Renyue had almost died because of his father's greed.

He'd taken all their cash and let them leave with their stuff—honestly, that was already letting the family off easy.

Zhong Guotai hated him, but he couldn't really hate him.

—Because, as he'd dragged his parents' bodies along the road, more than once wanting to give up and report to the nearest officials, he'd realized with a pang of grief that only in Nanting could he beat the grievance drum without having to pay the yamen runners.

Caught up in a swirl of emotions, Zhong Guotai once again stood before Le Wuya in court.

Le Wuya was genuinely surprised to see Zhong Guotai again.

When he learned that Zhong Guotai had walked all the way here, step by step, from over five hundred li away, the look in Le Wuya's eyes changed, just a little.

It was the dead of winter, freezing cold, and Zhong Junxiong's body was frozen stiff, but his face looked even fresher than his wife's, who'd died after him.

Seeing that, Le Wuya furrowed his brow a little.

He asked Zhong Guotai, "Do I have your permission to cut open the body for an autopsy?"

Zhong Guotai nodded, dazed.

As Le Wuya stepped past him, Zhong Guotai suddenly grabbed his robe.

Le Wuya looked down.

His fingers were bony and covered in dried, burst blood blisters—no trace left of the soft life he used to live.

Zhong Guotai said quietly, "Sir, did you know all along that my father meant to kill you?"

Le Wuya looked down at him and, in those hollow eyes, saw a reflection of his own younger self, the one who'd once wanted to die.

Le Wuya tilted his head, almost casually.

Everything in front of him really was the result of his own letting things go.

If people's hearts weren't so greedy and vicious, how could things have come to this?

So, toward Zhong Guotai, he felt guilty, but he didn't regret a thing.

When Zhong Junxiong allied with the Liao people who dealt in drugs to kill him, he should have foreseen the possibility of "bringing calamity upon his descendants."

Once the skin's gone, what's left for the hair to cling to?

Le Wuya shot back, "What do you think?"

A cold glint flashed across Zhong Guotai's empty eyes.

Gradually, the cold glint turned into a blaze, spreading like wildfire, bearing down on him.

"Help me get revenge..." Zhong Guotai clung to Le Wuya's leg—the one that had just healed from a bad injury—"I want... I want Shi Liangyuan and Hou Peng to get what's coming to them..."

His voice choked with tears as he lamented, "It was I who told them the day my father set out, and it was I who told them the ferry crossing he would depart from... They played me for a fool, they played me for a fool so cruelly..."

"Old Master, I have nothing left to hold onto anyway. If you avenge this wrong for me, my life is yours—I'll take it—"

Le Wuya raised a hand and ruffled his tangled hair, saying without any emotion, "Very well."