Chapter 29

Wei Donghe is dead.

I did not live to see his execution three days later. That day, just as Zhang Yunhuai and I left, he died in prison soon after.

He could not hold on any longer. He really went home, and did not wait for me.

Gouer’s tears kept falling. He gestured, asking me why I wasn’t crying.

I patted his head and simply said, “Live well.”

I left the Yizhuang and waited for An Huaijin by the riverside at the pier for several days.

He was about to leave the Capital, demoted to take up a post outside the Capital.

I boarded that boat as well, hiding in the cabin.

As night fell, he returned to his room.

I kicked open his door, closed it behind me, and approached him step by step.

I asked him, “Do you still remember my elder sister, Sun Qiuyue?”

He panicked, retreating again and again, trying to avoid me. “To murder an official of the Imperial Court is a capital crime! Don’t make another mistake.”

He thought I didn’t know. That year, when the Guodao Army entered the city and killed people in Shitou Lane, in order to save his own life, he fearfully told those men that only poor families lived here, with no surplus grain.

In Qiaodong, in Guizi Lane, there were many merchants, and even a rice shop.

As fellow survivors from Qingshi Town, I once thought I could let it go.

But blinded by greed, he seized every opportunity to climb higher, even going so far as to side with the Loyal and Brave Marquis, volunteering to hunt down us old acquaintances.

So be it. He was always a selfish and cold-hearted man, never truly considering us as friends.

Then I need not show mercy.

A scholar is ultimately weaker. I kicked him to the ground, stomped on him hard, and drove my blade through his body again and again.

Blood seeped into the deck, and onto my hands and face.

“You grew up in Qingshi Town. Did your teacher ever tell you that a gentleman dies for his principles, not for mere survival?”

“Looking northwest toward Chang’an, so many mountains in the way… All rivers flow east to the sea, when will they return west?”

“The books you read should have taught you to be a virtuous man, not a petty one. A true gentleman holds jade in his hand-how are you worthy of your name?”

His eyes widened in terror as he collapsed in a pool of blood, like a fish gasping its last.

I gave him the final blow.

“My sister liked you. I’ll send you to see her.”