Chapter 60 The Source of Tragedy

“I don’t understand.” Li Jin looked at him. “A person who kills his own mother who gave him life and raised him, who doesn’t mention the kindness of his upbringing, who doesn’t remember the debt of gratitude he owed her, and who is willing to hurt others again in order to escape punishment, what right does he have to kneel here and say that we don’t understand?”

Xia Xiaowu paused.

"When you killed her, did you ever think about the laughter you heard when you were a child, playing on her back?"

"When you killed her, did you ever think of the lingering warmth of a bowl of hot porridge and a blanket?"

"I don't understand," Li Jin sneered. "They repay kindness with enmity, they don't care about their parents, and they only care about their own pleasure."

"Why should beasts understand?"

In the small guest room with two large windows on all four sides, Li Jin's words instantly brought the atmosphere in the room to a fever pitch. Like a dagger, right in front of Xia Xiaowu, she was ruthless and unhesitating, piercing through the protective layers of what he thought was armor, one by one.

Xia Xiaowu collapsed to the ground, his expression blank and wooden. He bit his lip, lowered his head, and curled up there without saying a word.

Li Jin wasn't in a hurry. He simply lit a lamp, picked up a boring book from the bookshelf next to him, and started flipping through the pages one by one.

He was waiting, waiting for the man's guilt and remorse to reach a breaking point, waiting for him to be overwhelmed and drive himself to his death.

Time flows by like water, and the last rays of the setting sun disappear into the boundless darkness at the edge of the earth.

A crescent moon hangs high in the sky, stars fill the air, and the bustling inn blends into the night, filled with the fragrance of grass and the constant chirping of insects.

Inside the room, Xia Xiaowu was tense, afraid, worried, and a thousand complicated thoughts were etched on his face.

Li Jin is right. He has the guts to kill, but not the courage to bear the guilt of murder.

The murder of his mother became a mountain weighing on his head.

He is unwilling to face this version of himself, and even now, he still tries to excuse himself.

He didn't do it on purpose. It all happened too fast and too suddenly. He didn't know how to start or how to describe it.

But since he didn't do it on purpose, is it understandable?

"I didn't mean to." After a long while, he raised his head, his expression a mixture of pleading and grievance, like a child who had done something wrong. "I, I just didn't mean to, I couldn't control myself for a moment."

Looking at Xia Xiaowu's appearance, Li Jin put down the book in his hand and said nothing.

Seeing that he remained silent, Xia Xiaowu began to panic.

"I really didn't mean to, I really didn't mean to!"

"Whether it was intentional or not, it doesn't change the fact that you killed him with your own hands." Li Jin's voice rang out coldly. "Even a three-year-old knows that he will be beaten for doing something wrong. You, an adult, actually dare to try to excuse yourself by saying it wasn't intentional."

"You're really something." Li Jin sneered. "I advise you to tell the truth and stop trying to be clever."

Cold words and sarcastic remarks, as if they were an insurmountable wall.

At this moment, Xia Xiaowu looked at the imposing Li Jin, and at the three-meter distance between them, and in a daze, he thought of his mother.

If she were still alive, she would surely be spreading her arms wide to shield him right now.

But……

Xia Xiaowu's mental defenses collapsed at that moment.

He raised his hand and watched as large tears fell into his palm.

It was warm, just like a mother's warmth.

He gradually curled up into a ball and began to wail loudly.

Under the utterly silent sky, these cries sounded so mournful and plaintive in the darkness.

After an unknown amount of time, the distraught man finally spoke with a soft laugh.

“Originally, as a son, it is my duty to take care of my mother, who is getting old.”

His lips were dry and pale, and his tone was terribly indifferent, like that of a bystander, calmly and rationally recounting everything that had happened.

“She was originally in Guanzhong. I wrote to her to tell her that I was doing well in the capital and that she shouldn’t worry about me. I also saved up all the money I earned and would go back to see her every year and give her the money.”

He paused for a moment at this point: "Perhaps my mother wanted me to do better, so she would tell everyone that I had acquired a large business in the capital and was doing well. At the time, I was so blinded by greed that I didn't even tell her the truth in order to make her happy."

Xia Xiaowu gritted his teeth, looked at the deep marks on the floor, and sighed heavily.

Li Jin took out a small cup from the side, poured a whole cup of tea himself, walked up to him, and squatted down.

He took the hand that was twisted and deformed from years of working as a porter and placed the cup of water into its palm.

In the reflection on the water, Xia Xiaowu looked at Li Jin's size in surprise, her eyes welled up with tears, and she drank the tea in her cup in one gulp.

“She suddenly came to the capital right after the New Year.” He laughed, tears streaming down his face like broken beads. “She wanted to find me a good wife.”

"She...she wants to hold her grandson as soon as possible..." Xia Xiaowu raised her hand and covered her eyes.

"I'm sorry to her, I'm really sorry to her." He shook his head, looking dejectedly in Li Jin's direction.

“I used to tell her that the Xia family mansion in Jia Hui Fang in the capital is my home, and that I have a large business and am not at home during the day. But actually…” At this point, Xia Xiaowu seemed to have something stuck in her throat and could not make a sound for a long time.

He sat there, as if he had lost his soul.

Li Jin knew what was holding him back: his past glories.

That was the version of himself he remembered as having truly worked hard.

It was his resentment at being repeatedly defeated by reality.

That day, when Shen Wen handed the information from his investigation to Li Jin, he was indeed shocked by what he saw.

"You'd never guess, he's a porter!" Shen Wen chuckled as he looked at him, anticipating a fascinating expression on his face.

After waiting for a long time, Li Jin remained unchanged, smiling faintly and silent, showing no emotion whatsoever.

On the paper, the spirited and adventurous Xia Xiaowu who first arrived in the capital is in stark contrast to the disheveled and lifeless man before us now.

He was not uneducated; he studied for ten years, and his first job in the capital was teaching young children to read.

At that time, his neighbors respectfully called him "Mr. Xia".

Originally, this should have been a bumpy but smooth road leading to the light.

But for some reason, Xia Xiaowu gradually went astray, becoming greedy, lustful, and lazy.

In order to make money quickly, he started gambling. When he won, he would spend lavishly in brothels. When he lost, he would cheat and swindle, and ask rich girls for money by playing the victim.

The hole from the losses kept getting bigger and bigger, and the amount of money borrowed kept increasing.

It wasn't until the New Year that the young ladies of the capital were visiting each other, and people started talking about Xia Xiaowu's misdeeds. When he could no longer get a single copper coin, he had no choice but to borrow money at high interest rates and become a porter.

Li Jin originally thought that he worked as a porter only to escape his debts, but now it seems that there was another big reason: to escape his biological mother who had traveled a long way to see him, thinking that he had become successful.

When these words came out of Li Jin's mouth, Xia Xiaowu showed neither joy nor sorrow, nor surprise.

He admitted it.

“That night, my mother found out about my lie,” Xia Xiaowu said. “She found out that I wasn’t the head of the Xia family, and she started making a scene with me.”

"She said she had raised me for nothing, that I was so worthless, that my current situation was all my fault, that she didn't want to live anymore, and so on..." Xia Xiaowu's voice gradually faded. "She went into the house, took out a rope, wrapped it around her neck, and pulled on the end of the rope with both hands, aggressively saying that she didn't want to live anymore, that she had no face left, and that she couldn't live anymore."

At this point, Xia Xiaowu pursed his lips, took a deep breath, and continued after a long while: "I was furious at the time. All the bitterness of not being understood by my mother over the years came rushing back to me."

"It's all her fault, all I can think about is her fault!" Xia Xiaowu curled up, clutching his head, as if he was using all his strength to remember.

"For so many years! She wanted me to do everything her way, to be exactly as she wanted me to be, otherwise I would be unfilial!" Xia Xiaowu cried out. "In her eyes, it's all black and white!"

“She supported my studies, and I am very grateful to her, but if I cannot become an official in the court, I will be unfilial.”

“She told me to befriend the daughters of wealthy families. If I don’t marry one of them, I’m being unfilial.”

"She likes to eat okra, I like to eat river fish, and it would be unfilial of me to eat fish."

“As long as it’s not what she wants, as long as it doesn’t meet her requirements, I’m unfilial.”

"It's always her telling me what to do; she never thinks about what I want or how I want to live my life! Why should I need her to tell me how I should live it?!"

Xia Xiaowu trembled all over, his eyes wide with anger, tears streaming down his face: "So that day, I was inexplicably possessed, I just reached out my hand, just like that, just like that..."

He lay on the ground, howling and crying, in unbearable pain.