Chapter 97 Xi Yuan, I am the son of the Emperor of Xia.
Eleven years have passed over the green tiles and white walls of Xilin County, transforming the child who needed his father's portrait for comfort into a young man with clear eyes and a noble character.
The morning mist was like gauze. Xi Yuan carried a bamboo book box and walked alone on the winding path to the school.
The fourteen-year-old boy stood tall and straight like a bamboo stalk, his plain clothes fluttering in the morning breeze, revealing a calmness far beyond his years.
His features were strikingly handsome, and the curves of his brows and eyes hinted at a subtle resemblance to Emperor Zhou Ling of the Xia Kingdom. Fortunately, Xilin County was far from the capital, and the people had never seen the emperor's face. No one would associate this exceptionally talented young man in the academy with the emperor thousands of miles away.
The school bell rang out, piercing through the morning mist, its sound lingering and melodious.
This is the largest school in Xilin County. It was built by Sheriff Fangru after she took office, despite opposition from many people.
Xilin County was once an important town of the Western Rong. Although it is now part of the Xia Kingdom, it is still governed by the Western Rong people as is customary, and the imperial court has never sent any officials to it.
The sheriff who always dressed as a man and managed Carletown so well was none other than Xi Yuan's mother, Fang Ru.
Over the years, she has run schools, built clinics, and set up soup kitchens, devoting all her energy to maintaining her integrity, and her family has not accumulated much wealth.
In the afternoon, Xi Yuan sat in the shade of a tree, with Xuan paper spread out on his lap. The tip of his brush flowed across the paper, leaving behind elegant and upright characters.
That was a problem-solving outline he had specially prepared; not only were the answers accurate, but the reasoning process was also detailed and easy to understand.
A gentle breeze rustled the pages, revealing dense ink marks. The younger students playing nearby couldn't help but keep their eyes glued to this senior student who was the center of attention.
An older student strode over, looked around, and then lowered his voice: "Have you finished writing?"
Xi Yuan looked up, and sunlight danced on his thick eyelashes, casting a light shadow.
He nodded and took out a stack of papers covered with writing from his blue cloth bag.
The student took the money, examined it closely, counted out a few copper coins, placed them on the stone steps, and hurriedly left.
Xi Yuan picked up the copper coin, his fingertips tracing its cool lines. He weighed the remaining twenty-odd sheets of paper in his bag. These meager earnings were gradually filling the travel expenses for his journey to the Central Plains.
A burning gaze suddenly fell upon him.
Xi Yuan looked up and saw the girl Xiang Na standing under the moon gate.
She wore a light pink silk dress, and the jade hairpin in her hair shimmered white in the sunlight. Her eyes held unspoken emotions.
Xi Yuan knew her feelings, but he was preoccupied with his "father" in the Xia Kingdom and had no time to care about these vague romantic feelings.
After tidying up his writing implements, he got up and walked towards the classroom.
The bluestone path winds between the houses, and the hibiscus blooms brightly on the walls.
As we turned the corner of the corridor, a quarrel broke the afternoon's tranquility.
A burly student was grabbing his thin classmate by the collar, roughly snatching the item from his arms, his tone fierce: "Give it to me! Did you hear me?"
The bullied students trembled, tears welling in their eyes, like frightened fawns.
Just as Xi Yuan was about to step forward, a pink figure had already taken the lead.
Xiangna floated over like a light cloud, stepping between the two without hesitation, her voice clear and melodious: "Stop!"
The burly student was stunned for a moment, then became furious and embarrassed: "How dare you interfere in my affairs?"
"I said, stop!" Xiangna stood firm, her eyes resolute.
Seeing this, the student reached out to push Xiangna.
Xi Yuan strode forward, firmly gripped his wrist, and said in a cold voice, "Don't be rude!"
To everyone's surprise, Xiangna stubbornly avoided his hand and looked up, saying, "No need for Senior Brother to trouble himself."
The burly student scoffed, "What? Trying to be a hero and save the damsel in distress?"
Xi Yuan calmly sized up the other party, who was a head taller than him; a direct confrontation was definitely not the best strategy.
A self-deprecating smile played on his lips as he said calmly, "If you were to lay a hand on me, you would likely be branded as a bully who preys on the weak."
This calm and unhurried response made Xiangna chuckle, but it only further enraged the student.
He stepped forward, looking down at Xi Yuan with a haughty gaze: "Who do you think you are?"
"I am the son of the Emperor of Xia Kingdom"—for a moment, Xi Yuan almost blurted out the secret in his heart, but he swallowed the words back and said only lightly, "If you don't want to be punished by the Dean, you'd better think twice."
Before he could finish speaking, a heavy punch landed squarely on his cheek.
Xi Yuan's vision went black, and he fell backward.
The luggage was unpacked, and the assignments written by the ghostwriter fluttered down like fallen leaves, the neat handwriting standing out in the sunlight.
Before losing consciousness, he vaguely saw the dean bend down to pick up the pages, his withered fingers turning the pages gently, his gaze deep and unfathomable.
When Xi Yuan woke up again, he was lying on a rattan chair in the Dean's quarters.
His cheek still throbbed faintly, and the stinging pain when he touched it with his fingertips made him frown.
The dean sat in the armchair opposite him, carefully reviewing his coursework.
Seeing that he had woken up, the dean put down the paper and said with a serious expression, "Xi Yuan, you're in trouble."
Xi Yuan covered his swollen and painful cheek, a bitter smile playing on his lips: "The dean doesn't ask why the student was injured, but instead brings up trouble first?"
"The physician has examined you and there's nothing seriously wrong," the hospital director said calmly. "Xiangna said you accidentally bumped into a pillar."
Xi Yuan was speechless for a moment.
He never expected that the seemingly kind girl would come up with such a far-fetched excuse.
“The student knows he is wrong, but bullying in the school should be stopped, shouldn’t it?”
"Others might favor you because you are the son of a sheriff, but I will not," the dean said, his tone suddenly turning cold.
Xi Yuan knew that this former official of the Western Rong harbored resentment towards the court, and consequently, he was always particularly harsh on him, the "son of an official appointed by the court."
Ultimately, he was punished by being sent to a quiet room to reflect on his actions.
As dusk settled, Xi Yuan walked home along the bluestone path. Shops along the road were gradually closing their doors, the creaking sounds mingling with the smoke from cooking fires and the aroma of stewed meat, spreading through the alleyways.
He walked very slowly, as if he wanted the gentle twilight to quietly soothe the day's frustration and anger.
As I pushed open the familiar wooden door, the last rays of sunset disappeared behind the mountains.
Virei's busy figure at the stove was illuminated by the firelight, and the clanging of the iron pot and spatula, along with the aroma of food, filled the small courtyard with the warmth of home cooking.
"You're back?" Fangru sat at the stone table in the courtyard, holding a scroll of official documents in her hand.
An oil lamp was lit on the stone table, its dim yellow light dancing on her slightly tired face. Her gaze swept over her son's disheveled clothes and slightly swollen cheeks, pausing for a moment. "I heard you were punished by being sent to meditation at school today?"
Xi Yuan gently placed the bamboo book box on the low stool under the eaves and sat down opposite her mother.
"I just wrote a few problem-solving outlines for my classmates." His voice was very soft, as if he didn't want to break the tranquility of the twilight.
Fangru slowly put down the official document, reached out and turned on the oil lamp. The warm light instantly filled the table and also illuminated the lingering redness and swelling on her son's face.
"Do you think that writing for someone else and helping them cheat is a trivial matter?" Her tone was calm, but there was a hint of disappointment that was hard to detect.
The boy suddenly raised his eyes. "I don't think cheating is wrong." His voice suddenly became firm. "I was punished with quiet reflection because I tried to stop a student from bullying a classmate and almost broke his nose."
He paused, gazing at the deepening night in the courtyard, his tone tinged with melancholy, "Perhaps, you really won't understand."
Fangru gazed at her son and suddenly felt that the stubborn yet aloof air about him was becoming more and more like that person.
She unconsciously gripped the official document in her hand, a complex mix of emotions welling up inside her.
"Are you too eager for quick results, or have I not taught you thoroughly enough?" she asked softly, her voice carrying a hint of melancholy that she herself was unaware of.
“You’ve always been like this.” Xi Yuan’s tone suddenly became impatient. “You ignore the actual bullying that happened, but instead focus on trivial things like whether I’m memorizing or whether someone else is writing for me.”
Fangru looked at her son seriously. "An arrow is only useful if it is aimed at the bullseye. When doing things, you should also distinguish between primary and secondary tasks and stick to the bottom line." Her voice was still calm, but it was a few degrees lower than before. "It is inappropriate to have someone else write for you, and to take action is even more inappropriate."
Xi Yuan didn't want to argue anymore, so she suddenly got up and started clearing the dishes.
The soft clinking of the earthenware bowls was particularly clear in the quiet courtyard.
The candlelight danced on his handsome profile, reflecting a stubborn curve.
After tidying up the dishes, he suddenly turned around and looked directly at his mother: "You yourself disguised yourself as a man to act as a sheriff, deceiving the entire city. What gives you the right to expect others to listen to your reasoning?"
Fangru's fingers, gripping the bamboo chopsticks, turned slightly white, and her knuckles turned bluish. "I did not choose this path willingly."
Her voice was filled with undisguised weariness. "This is the way of the Xia Kingdom. If a woman wants to realize her ambitions and protect the people of her region, this is the only path I have.
"So you should go to the capital of Xia!" The boy's voice suddenly rose, startling the night birds perched in the trees in the courtyard. "Go change this damned system, instead of sitting here and spouting these useless platitudes to me!"
Fangru remained silent for a moment, and the only sound in the courtyard was the faint sound of Weilei tidying up the dishes in the kitchen. The silence made the air seem even more heavy.
She looked up at her son, her gaze sharp as a blade, the melancholy gone, replaced by an unyielding sternness: "Does being wronged give you the right to speak recklessly and talk back to your elders? Does it give you the right to cross the line and resort to violence?"
She slammed the bamboo chopsticks down on the rim of the bowl. "I taught you to read and be polite so that you could know right from wrong and keep your distance, not so that you could act on impulse! What happened today was wrong—writing for someone else was wrong, but taking action was even more wrong. The confinement punishment is entirely justified!"
After saying that, she picked up the bamboo chopsticks again, but didn't look at Xi Yuan again. Her tone was as cold and hard as iron: "There's no need to say anything more now. Reflect on your mistakes. If you can't figure it out, don't come out."
Only her figure remained quietly eating in the courtyard, as if the argument just now was not a tender quarrel, but an unquestionable admonition.
Xi Yuan clenched his fists, finally suppressing the thousand words surging in his heart, and silently turned to walk into his room.
The wooden door closed gently behind him, shutting out his mother's worried gaze and the secret that had lingered in this family for the past eleven years.
In the room, the boy sat alone for a long time before finally taking out the sandalwood box he had treasured for eleven years from under his pillow.
The box was somewhat old, its edges smooth and warm from being rubbed, yet it still exuded a faint sandalwood scent, just like the story my mother had casually told me from the depths of my memory.
His fingertips trembled slightly as he gently opened the box lid.
A yellowed portrait lay quietly inside, depicting a man in a nine-dragon robe with a majestic expression; he was none other than Zhou Ling, the emperor of the Xia Kingdom.
“Father…” he murmured, his fingertips gently tracing the outline of the portrait, a gesture as precious as if he were touching a fragile dream.
The candlelight cast dappled shadows on his trembling eyelashes, illuminating his profile as he gazed intently.
He carefully compared the eyebrows and eyes of the person in the painting with his own, and his fingertips unconsciously touched his cheeks, searching for similar traces in every tiny line.
For the past eleven years, he has repeated this action hundreds of times, but he still cannot find the exact answer.
"If I am truly your flesh and blood, why should my mother bear all of this alone?" His voice was exceptionally clear in the still night. "Why should a woman be forced to disguise herself as a man and struggle to survive in this remote border town?"
The humiliation he suffered in school during the day, the headmaster's unfair punishment, and his mother's tired eyes all now felt like sharp blades piercing his heart.
He remembered his mother getting up at dawn every day to carefully tie up her long hair in front of the mirror and use dark makeup to cover her delicate features; he remembered that in order to maintain the dignity of a sheriff, she had to deliberately lower her voice and straighten her shoulders and back, which should have been delicate.
"I must go to the capital of Xia." This thought had never been so strong. "I must see you with my own eyes and ask you directly. If I am truly a prince, there is no reason for my mother to continue suffering; if not..."
He dared not think any further, and simply pressed the portrait tightly against his chest, as if in this way he could feel the strength given by his father whom he had never met.
The moonlight outside the window grew stronger, and its clear light shone through the window frame, casting a persistent silvery-white glow on his face.
This question had lingered in his mind for eleven years.
Tonight, the daytime conflicts and his mother's forbearance have made this longing more intense than ever before, almost burning away all his reason.
“No matter what,” he whispered to the portrait, “I must find the answer, I must make my mother take off this heavy disguise.”
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Author's Note: Something came up tonight, Zhou Ling will appear in the next chapter. I'll update again tomorrow.
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