Chapter 56 You must keep such a secret

"I was referring to the teacup, which was filled to the brim."

Xiao Xun approached, pulled out a handkerchief, and tossed it in front of him. "Wipe yourself off."

Qu Yang did not take it, letting the green tea drip down the back of his hand onto the table, then down the table and onto his prison uniform, leaving no trace of color.

"By the way, speaking of Qu Qingchuan, his head has been hanging on the Xuanping Gate city wall for forty days, and it's turned blue. You are his father, and I've come today to ask you another question: should he be buried in the Qu family mausoleum?"

Xiao Xun flicked his sleeves and said lightly, "It's better to just throw him into a mass grave as a traitor."

"I have said it before, he is not my son, nor a descendant of the Qu family, so how can he be enshrined in the Qu family's mausoleum?" Qu Yang practically spat out these words between his teeth.

Xiao Xun remained silent for a long while before replying, "Oh."

Qu Yang remained indignant: "I have no such son, nor does the Qu family have such descendants, nor does he have me as his father."

"He said the same thing."

Xiao Xun slowly picked up the teapot and refilled their cups one by one.

"However, I don't know if it was the truth or just said in anger. On the day of the execution, he kept looking in the direction of the Grand Marshal's residence. He was waiting for you. Unfortunately, you didn't come."

Qu Yang gritted his teeth and clenched his fists: "His cursing can be heard in every street and alley of Chang'an. Whether I go or not, what difference does it make?"

"no the same."

The teapot in Xiao Xun's hand crashed onto the table with a "clang".

Qu Yang's eyes were bloodshot as he met his gaze.

"What? Father and son have turned against each other, ruining His Majesty's chance to watch a good show, hasn't it?"

Xiao Xun stared at him for a long time before straightening up.

After a while, his voice returned to calm, and he began to recount an old story.

"When Qu Qingchuan was fifteen, he coaxed me into drinking. We drank until sunset, when the palace gates were about to be locked and curfew was about to be imposed."

He looked toward the narrow window, where fine dust motes swirled in the beam of light, seemingly endlessly.

"I asked him if he wasn't afraid of being late for his return home and being scolded by the Grand Marshal and General. I've heard that the Grand Marshal is strict in managing his household, and worried that his son might associate with bad people, so he set a rule that everyone must return home after dusk, and even that everyone must go to bed before nightfall. Qu Qingchuan said, 'What's wrong with that? I've always been a late sleeper. When I was little, I was busy counting the stars, then I read tales of the strange and supernatural, and as I grew older, I enjoyed cockfighting, dog racing, drinking, and listening to music. I'm used to my father's beatings and scoldings.' He said, 'Let him beat me, I'll do what I want.'"

Qu Yang slammed his fist on the table, causing the ear cup to vibrate.

"But he got drunk, even before I did."

"When you beat him later, he howled like a banshee, saying he had only drunk three cups of wine. You said he was making excuses, so you beat him even harder. Grand Marshal, you don't know, do you? He is arrogant, but he really can't hold his liquor. He got drunk after only three cups of Cangwu wine. When he was drunk, he put his arms around me."

After saying these words, Xiao Xun turned away somewhat awkwardly and continued pacing.

"This is outrageous!" Qu Yang's hand rested on the ear cup, almost crushing the lacquered wooden cup.

"He cried. Oh, Qu Qingchuan, he actually cried."

He said that when he was a child, he stayed up late to wait for his father to come home. And so, year after year, it became a habit.

"From the age of five or six, when he could remember things, he would sit on the stone steps at the door and wait. His mother, his tutor, and the guards all tried to persuade him to wait, but he insisted on waiting. He said that his father was a capable minister, a general, a very high-ranking official, and no one could defeat him on the battlefield. His uncle and his grandfather were also like that. He was very proud."

"The ancestors of the Qu family fought on the battlefield, while he was catching crickets in the garden of the Qu family. He wanted to show his father that he had caught a hundred or so crickets and arranged them into eight different battle formations, so that he might become a general in the future."

Qu Yang's hand trembled slightly as he held the cup and gulped down several mouthfuls of tea.

"As the weather grew colder, his mother couldn't bear to see him like this, so she coaxed him, saying that once he counted how many stars there were, his father would come back."

"He kept counting. The more stars he counted, the more there seemed to be, and he couldn't finish counting them all. As he counted, he drifted off to sleep. But before he could finish counting, his father wouldn't come back."

"Later he took a lantern, held a book of strange tales he had found in the market, and the golden cage containing crickets was still beside him. He sat on the steps, looking at the book and counting the silk paintings of stars and the moon that were in it."

"Following the silk painting, he finally counted them clearly: there were 1,365."

"Father did indeed return, even before nightfall. As soon as he came back, he walked over to him and picked him up in his arms."

Xiao Xun smiled, paused for a moment, walked to the table, picked up the teacup, took a sip of tea, and glanced at Qu Yang casually.

Qu Yang's brows furrowed deeply, clearly indicating that he had long forgotten this old incident.

He frowned and said in a deep voice, "Your Majesty, please don't make up such a story to deceive me. Is it funny?"

"Of course, I made this up."

Xiao Xun responded lightly, "One thousand three hundred and sixty-five stars. Who would actually count the stars? Who, after all these years, would still remember how many stars were in the sky the night his father held him?"

"That idiot Qu Qingchuan!"

Xiao Xun threw down the ear cup in his hand.

The tea had long since gone cold.

On a chilly spring day, even the finest tea can leave one feeling cold on the lips and teeth, chilling to the bone.

"This fool actually told me very seriously that his father was a general, so his way of holding people was very rough."

"Father is used to fighting, so he probably doesn't know that you shouldn't hold a child with one hand or by the collar. That's uncomfortable and makes it hard to speak. When you put him down, you should gently place him on the ground, not toss him aside like you would a sword or armor. That would hurt him."

"He fell to the ground, clutching his throat and coughing, still thinking that his father was used to using guns and treated him like a rifle. His father treasured his rifle."

Xiao Xun continued pacing, speaking casually, "Qu Qingchuan is too drunk, so drunk he's lost all manners, like an ignorant child. He's fifteen years old already. Fifteen years old, when I was fifteen, I was already of age and married, already knowing all about human affairs."

He said that day was the first time in his memory that his father had spoken so much to him, eloquently quoting classical texts. His father said that at his age, he should have started his formal education long ago. He should have been reading Cangjie, Jijiu, and Fanjiang. He should have been learning the way of the sages and the rites of Confucius and Mencius, not some deceptive and unsettling astrology, or the yin-yang magic of cultivating immortality and harming the country and its people.

“He remembered all those words, but they were too profound for him to understand.”

Xiao Xun paused for a moment, then sighed softly.

The room was silent except for Qu Yang's heavy breathing and the slight sloshing of water in his glass.

"He only saw you kick over that golden cage. General, you are indeed strong and powerful. With a light kick, the gilded iron cage door was bent crooked. He was very disappointed. The crickets that he had been holding for ten days all crawled out."

"Several flanks and rear guards, including one of his most valiant 'military captains,' were trampled to death by you. There were also quite a few crickets who had practiced military strategy with him for so long, yet they hadn't developed a single mind for leading troops and deploying troops. They even used the silk scroll that you tore into pieces as a place to hide."

"If he had taken action then and treated them as enemy troops, he could have wiped them all out, just like my father's famous Battle of Mobei when he was twenty-five years old."

A moment later, Qu Yang let out a soft snort: "Really, what an idiot."

Xiao Xun heard this and chuckled coldly: "He really is a fool. You came home early for three days in a row just to keep an eye on him and see if he was still indulging in playing and cooling off. He actually thought that by playing with crickets and looking at silk paintings, his father would come home earlier and be able to hold him. Which other father has such power, able to lift a five- or six-year-old, famously chubby little boy, with one hand? That's much easier than counting the stars. Utterly foolish. Isn't that right?"

Qu Yang's lips were pressed into a thin line, taut and trembling slightly upon closer inspection.

"To be honest, I really can't imagine him sitting quietly and obediently on the steps, waiting for his father to return."

"Qu Qingchuan has been my study companion and vice minister for so many years. Every single day he was like a mischievous monkey. Even when he was studying in Chengming Hall, under the watchful eye of Grand Tutor Su, he could hardly sit still."

"He always said that he came from a military family and was destined to be a general, to carry forward the name of the Qu family and awe the world. He should have abandoned his pen for the sword, so he threw down his pen and accidentally hit Su Taifu in the face. I don't know how many lashes he received."

Xiao Xun's smile deepened, but his voice faded. "However, at the execution ground, just as the guillotine was about to fall, he was very quiet. He stopped cursing and didn't move. He knelt on the ground, waiting expectantly. That's probably how it was, just like when he was a child."

Qu Yang sat rather awkwardly, his figure hidden in the shadows, as he leaned over to pour tea.

The room was quiet, except for the clattering of the kettle lid.

Finally, all that remained was the sound of tea dripping into the cup and then overflowing.

On the table, there were still Qu Yang's clothes, stained with water.

Xiao Xun stopped beside him and pressed down on the teapot: "You just guessed that Qu Qingchuan told me about your affair with Xiao Heng, is that right?"

Qu Yang didn't speak, his hands trembled slightly before he released the handle of the kettle.

"Grand Marshal, you really don't understand Qu Qingchuan at all."

Xiao Xun shook his head. "But Qu Qingchuan, he's the one who understands you best. He's not stupid, not foolish; on the contrary, he's very clever and perceptive. What he did in the end was unexpected for me, and it was also unexpected for you, wasn't it?"

"You're always so cautious, you never even keep a notebook, you wouldn't even utter a word in your sleep. Yet he guessed it. I don't know how he guessed it, but he had long anticipated that you wouldn't respond to him in Chang'an, nor would you rebel against me. So, he found a way, a desperate last stand, and that is—"

Xiao Xun sat down again in front of Qu Yang, looking directly into his eyes: "Xiao Yu. Establish Xiao Yu as the new ruler."

Qu Yang slightly raised his eyelids, his eyes flashing: "Nonsense. Xiao Yu, he's already dead."

"He died a month and a half ago, didn't he?"

Xiao Xun said dismissively, a glint of cold light in his eyes.

"At that time, I didn't understand why it was Xiao Yu. I'm afraid the Prince of Yan didn't understand either; according to seniority, it should have been him."

"Xiao Yu is a criminal, a traitor, and his son, whom the late emperor personally confessed to by decree. Even if there are some people in the army who are also orphans, close relatives, friends, or people who sympathize with him from the case of the third year of Tian Shou, fourteen years have passed. How many people still remember the rivers of blood and the wronged souls who died? None of this can be a reason for Qu Qingchuan to choose Xiao Yu and to dig three feet into the ground to find him."

Xiao Xun took a deep breath.

"The only reason is that only he, only Xiao Yu, could force you to take action. Qu Qingchuan, even he himself, as your own son, cannot."

Xiao Xun stared intently at Qu Yang, as if a fire had been lit in the cramped room.

"On the day of the execution, you dared not come out, not because you were afraid to see Qu Qingchuan, nor because you hated him so much that you hated him for ruining the Qu family's reputation, ruining the Qu family's ancestral foundation, and for ruining you."

“You hate him, but he is still your son. You are decisive and ruthless, which pleased and convinced the late emperor. But you are not like the late emperor; you cannot sever the bond between father and son.”

Xiao Xun's gaze swept over the top of Qu Yang's head.

"Otherwise, why would you still have this wooden hairpin in your hair even after you've been imprisoned? It's been worn for so many years and the paint has peeled off. It can't be to show your integrity as the Grand Marshal and General, can it? It's because this hairpin was made by Qu Qingchuan himself when he was a child and given to you, isn't it?"

“You don’t dare to see him because…” Xiao Xun suddenly stood up and grabbed the collar of the person opposite him.

Suddenly, blue veins crawled all over Qu Yang's neck, spreading upwards, forcing him to raise his equally scarlet eyes to meet his gaze.

"Because you also have to protect someone and keep that secret."

The secret is—

"In the tenth month of the third year of Tian Shou, on the day of Gengyin."

“You told Xiao Heng, ‘The world you desire is not like this. What you desire is a world where schools are everywhere, commoners can enter officialdom, the government is clean and efficient, and granaries are full. But commoners, scholars, and virtuous men die in war; how can they enter the court? Young students lose their parents at a young age, and cries of sorrow fill the land; how can they enter schools? With endless war and bloodshed, the land is barren; who will cultivate the land?’”

"You said, Xiao Heng, that too much blood has already been lost."

"You can't win a fight like a trapped beast."

"You said, if you believe in me, I will try my best to get the world you want."

"And your bloodline, I will protect with my life."

Xiao Xun released his hand.

Qu Yang leaned back and glanced at a corner of the sky, the slanting sunlight shining into the corner of his eye.

It's too bright.

He closed his eyes briefly, and a tear slid down his cheek.

“I believe you.” He heard that voice again.

"Forgive me," he said silently.

I don't know who to tell this to.

-----------------------

Author's Note: These last few chapters have gotten a bit more serious...

The next chapter will still be filled with sweet romance! Please, everyone, don't give up on me! [crying][crying]