Chapter 91.2: The Truth is Just That Cruel
[And why had our Imperial Father been so heavy handed with Ah Chi who had not even been a full ten years of age back then?]
[Such a young child and he was given fifty lashes. The whip was filled with hooked barbs throughout its length and every single lash from it would hook up slivers of flesh and blood. How had Ah Chi managed to survive through that? !]
He only remembered that when he returned back to the palace, the bright grisly red trail of blood had stretched from the main hall to reach a very far distance, and the palace servants were wiping up the bloodstains on the floor, which took them a very long period of time.
He had been greatly shocked by the scene. He did not know just how much blood Ah Chi had shed but the one thing he knew was that all that blood had been from Ah Chi, the person he cared for the most.
He heard from people in the palace that the Sixth Prince had left immediately after receiving his punishment.
The tiny frame had taken each highly laborious step slowly and painfully as he walked towards the doors out from the palace. It was probably due to the gravity of his wounds that he would waver and fall after moving some distance, but would pick himself back up again to carry on. In the end, he was already practically crawling when he went out of the palace.
Just hearing that and he was able to imagine that scene. Just how painful had it been for Ah Chi? And how was he really feeling in his heart when he was leaving the very place he had grown up in?
Just overnight, his mother who loved him so much had died, and even his Imperial Father had abandoned him.
Everytime that Xuanyuan Che thought about what Mu Chi went through, it was so heartbreaking that he would feel the pain right into his bones.
Mu Chi looked at Xuanyuan Che’s sad and solemn face, his eyes serious. A good while passed before he then brushed off Xuanyuan Che’s hand on him. He then downed the wine in the cup before he said: “You asked me here just to ask me this? That happened ten years ago and why are you still asking about such small old matters that had already gone rotten? Aren’t we still good brothers all the same?”
“You are lying.” Xuanyuan Che’s gaze turned cold. “You hate me, don’t you?”
He had not forgotten back when they had seen each other for the last time, how Mu Chi’s eyes that were always prone to smiles had been filled with unbridled murder. Although it had been just a passing instant, he had still caught that fleeting look.
It was probably because they had spent such a long time with each other and he cared for Mu Chi greatly, Xuanyuan Che still remembered that look in Mu Chi eyes till this day.
But they had once been so very close. Throughout the vast and enormous Imperial Palace, with so many princes and princesses in there, only the two of them were able to chat with each other amicably, and that was also a kind of affinity between them.
This mystery had troubled Xuanyuan Che for many years and it was still a heavy knot in his heart today.
“Big Brother, there are some things that you does not require you to pursue till you get to the bottom of it.” Mu Chi said softly. “It was only because of your invitation that I came to set foot into this place again this time. But, there will not be a second exception.”
“Just what could have caused Father to fly into such a rage that he would denounce your status as a member of the Imperial Family, and also about your mother…..”
“Xuanyuan Che, I’m telling you not to ask anymore. Don’t you understand?”
Finally, the young man’s face no longer had that lazy and indifferent smile hanging upon it and his voice had turned chilling as he spoke, his gaze icy as he stared at Xuanyuan Che.
“Unless you tell it to me.” Xuanyuan Che furrowed up his brows, and replied with steely resolve.
He did not want a barrier to forever remain between them and did not wish to see Mu Chi face him with that fake and perfunctory smile on his face.
After a long silence, Mu Chi finally stood up from the lounge chair and his tall slender frame stood straight as a rod in his spot, the air suddenly turning stifling around him.
“What do you want to know?” The young man then leaned in close, his full red lips slightly open. “Why my mother took her own life? Because her scandalous deed had been discovered when the Imperial Concubine of the kingdom had not been able to endure the loneliness while she was pregnant and had illicit relations with another man which caused her to miscarry? And in order not to shame Xuanyuan Ao, the ruler of the kingdom, besides dragging her own battered and wretched body to end her own life, was there even a better way for her to resolve the problem?”