"Being able to make a person who doesn’t like to talk do so, I felt a great sense of accomplishment, and then, I said that as long as he occasionally spoke, I would not bother him,"
An Jing: ...You’re really something.
"He reluctantly agreed," the Emperor of Xiyun continued. "Later on, I slowly discovered that he had a natural gift for deploying troops, and he could learn anything at once, truly a once-in-a-lifetime genius."
"I had him learn martial arts with the generals, and he learned better than any of them; there was not a single person in the military who could defeat him."
"I tasked him with leading troops in battle, and he never failed his mission, returning victorious each time."
"But after every triumphant return, while the whole army celebrated, he would never join the celebration; he remained expressionless, as if it had nothing to do with him. He would just take the horse I had given him and leave for a ride."
"Once, when I went out of the camp to find him, he and that horse were standing by the riverbank, one person, one horse, nothing else. The setting sun’s afterglow scattered over them, and seeing that, how lonely he must have felt."
"The child was truly alone. Everyone in the military respected him, but he shared his heart with no one. It was as if he had nothing but that horse. It seemed only that horse could accompany him."
Listening, An Jing’s heart ached unbearably. Then she felt grateful. She was there; she accompanied him, and would always be there for him, in life and death, never leaving his side.
"With him commanding the three armies, I was at ease, and I no longer needed to lead the troops directly. I entrusted everything in the military to him and returned to the Capital. Before I left, I told him that I wanted to recognize him as my adopted son. But he disagreed."
"I know he was afraid of causing my death."
"I personally led the troops for five years, and I fought side by side with him for nearly four years. I talked with him about everything, and he learned all his characters from me. Rather than considering him my son, it’s better to say that he and I were brothers. On the battlefield, he saved my life more than ten times. After he saved me so many times, how could I believe that he would cause my death? If it weren’t for him, I would have been long gone. Therefore, I insisted on recognizing him as my son. I even drafted the imperial decree."
"But he still disagreed. He was very firm in his decision. He said that if I dared to issue the decree, he would leave, no longer be the Commander of the three armies, and let me continue leading the troops without being able to return to the Capital."
"I would not joke about the fate of Xiyun Kingdom. Only he could be the Commander of the three armies, so the matter of recognizing him as my adopted son had to be put aside."
"But three years ago, Prince Li rebelled, holding me and Chengyu hostage. Yi Er tried to save me and was stabbed by an assassin of Prince Li. I was unharmed because of Yi Er’s protection, but Yi Er himself collapsed, unconscious. The Imperial Physicians all diagnosed his condition as beyond hope."
"I couldn’t bear to let Yi Er pass away like that. I wanted to give Yi Er a family, so I issued an imperial edict, proclaiming to the world that I recognized Yi Er as my adopted son and allowed Yi Er to take the imperial surname, granting him entrance to the imperial mausoleum after death."
An Jing’s heart was twisted into knots.
Even if the Emperor of Xiyun didn’t mention that the blade was thrust next to Xiao Changyi’s heart, she knew that it was at that spot.
She had thoroughly studied the scars on her husband’s body and knew them like the back of her hand. Her husband had a very noticeable knife wound next to his heart, a wound that must have grazed the heart-very dangerous indeed.
Saving the Emperor of Xiyun was true, but...
Perhaps... it was her husband who intentionally aligned his heart to the assassin’s blade...
After all, her husband had once desired death so deeply, yet he had never died.