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Ai!” Leaning under a tree, Liu Zhenqing sighed endlessly.

He could have left. From now on, the world would be vast, and he could ride on horseback with a raised whip and lie drunk in Jiangnan, never to meet again. He had already turned the horse’s head, but felt uneasy after walking halfway and was truly not prepared to face Huo Fenglie at the moment, so he could only go back and hide first.

In fact, Liu Zhenqing had realized one thing from the moment he knew Huo Fenglie was aware of his true identity. Huo Fenglie did not intend to retaliate against him, and didn’t even intend to reveal his disguise. Although he didn’t know what the child was thinking, he should at least mean him no harm.

Since he wouldn’t be harmed and was already exposed, he didn’t need to flee in such a hurry. Perhaps it would be more beneficial to his future to figure out Huo Fenglie’s intentions.

Just as he was pondering, he heard footsteps nearby.

Liu Zhenqing looked up and saw that Huo Fenglie had returned. His head drooped slightly, but his eyes were looking straight ahead as he took three steps and then paused, as if approaching cautiously.

At last, Huo Fenglie stood in front of him and said softly: “Young Master Liu.”

Liu Zhenqing was taken aback, and looked up at Huo Fenglie speechlessly with a complicated expression.

Huo Fenglie also looked straight at him, eyes flickering. Finally, he called out the name lingering on his lips that he wanted to call most of all.

“Qing-ge.”

Liu Zhenqing trembled when he heard it. He hadn’t heard this address in nine years. It seemed to span a long river of time, as if it was from a lifetime ago.

Sure enough, Er-gou was willing to call him Qing-ge.

Liu Zhenqing put it all out in the open and asked: “When did you know?”

Huo Fenglie replied honestly: “I confirmed it on the day I brought you back to the General’s Manor.”

Liu Zhenqing became even more curious: “I exposed so many flaws? And how could ordinary people believe this sort of supernatural talk?”

Huo Fenglie’s eyes were gentle. “Actually, there weren’t many flaws. It’s just that you told me a story before and I remembered it, so…..”

Listening to the words he had said to coax Huo Fenglie when he was sick with a fever, Liu Zhenqing didn’t expect that he had said such a thing. He said in disbelief: “You actually took those words seriously, and remembered them to this day…..”

Liu Zhenqing had said some trivial and meaningless things. He felt incredulous. Would anyone believe such words? Huo Fenglie nodded firmly. If he hadn’t taken it seriously, how could he persist?

After eight years of hopeless waiting, he never felt that he might be crazy, or have remembered it wrong, or that this person had only said it to coax him. He had extravagant hopes and fantasies, and felt that this person would come back, but reason said it was impossible. What person from another world, what rebirth, what time travel? With ridiculous expectations, he waited for the completion of his mission without seeking life or death. Unexpectedly…..it came true.

Suddenly, Huo Fenglie reached out and lightly took one of Liu Zhenqing’s hands, holding it gently just like he did when he was a child.

Liu Zhenqing was melancholy. When he was pulled by Er-gou like this, he couldn’t react immediately.

“You are…..my Qing-ge, right?”

Liu Zhenqing was a little amused by this question. “Aren’t you convinced? Why are you asking?”

“I want to hear it from your own mouth,” Huo Fenglie said seriously.

This small bit of willfulness really felt a little like when Er-gou was a child.

Liu Zhenqing entertained him. “I am.”

An indescribable smile slowly appeared on Huo Fenglie’s face.

But Liu Zhenqing’s expression paused when he said this and he opened his hand, saying earnestly, “But I’m also not. General Huo, I am Liu Xiaozhu now, a person who has lost his memory. You know what I mean.”

Huo Fenglie’s expression froze. “I understand.”

Liu Zhenqing breathed a sigh of relief. He had thought Huo Fenglie would understand since he hadn’t exposed him.

“So, do you still want to leave?” Huo Fenglie said in a low voice.

“I want a new life,” Liu Zhenqing said.

“You don’t want to see anyone else?” Huo Fenglie said in an anxious tone, even gritting his teeth as he said, “What about the emperor? The Empress Dowager?”

Liu Zhenqing’s expression shifted, and every change was caught by Huo Fenglie’s eyes. He knew that certain people were still very important to Liu Zhenqing, at least more important than him. He was very sure of this.

“If you want to see him, I can help you. He has regretted all these years that he was unable to protect you,” Huo Fenglie whispered.

Liu Zhenqing raised his eyebrows in surprise and chuckled carelessly.

“You blame him?” Huo Fenglie asked.

“No. I’ve already died once, and all my strong feelings have been blown away by the wind. If I wanted to see him, I wouldn’t have left the capital, so there is no need to say goodbye,” Liu Zhenqing mentioned casually.

Huo Fenglie looked at Liu Zhenqing’s calm and distant expression. It was as if a gust of wind would soon blow him away, and he couldn’t catch him no matter what. He understood that Liu Zhenqing wanted to leave all of them behind.

“Then why didn’t you leave just now?” Huo Fenglie asked with lowered eyes.

Liu Zhenqing didn’t answer, but suddenly gave Huo Fenglie a serious look and said, “Then why don’t you want to take revenge?”

Startled, Huo Fenglie instantly looked up at Liu Zhenqing. “What did you say?”

Liu Zhenqing touched his chin a little uneasily. “After I came back, I heard a lot. I thought you wanted to seek revenge against me.”

Huo Fenglie’s expression turned very ugly in an instant, which made Liu Zhenqing even more awkward. “Does your lack of revenge mean that you don’t hate me?”

“I have never hated you,” Huo Fenglie said urgently.

Liu Zhenqing gaped, not knowing what to feel. In fact, he still had some concerns about Er-gou digging up his grave, but after some thought, he was only eighteen or nineteen years old at the time. When he came back and heard everything, and there was evidence, no matter how he understood or thought about it later, whatever he did out of anger at the time was reasonable. And now Er-gou didn’t seem to want to give an explanation for this matter. After all, he should know that Liu Zhenqing had heard about it. Since he didn’t want to talk about it, wouldn’t he be asking for trouble if he got to the bottom of it now? He was not actually a person from ancient times, and didn’t really care that much about his own bones. It was good as long as he knew Er-gou didn’t hate him now.

Liu Zhenqing said: “Since you won’t hurt me, and you’ll keep my identity secret, there’s no need for me to work hard to escape. Moreover, the matters here are related to the Liu family, so it would be too shameful to leave it all to you. After the Liu family’s affairs are settled, we can catch up on old times before I leave, and see how much you’ve grown.”

In fact, the biggest reason Liu Zhenqing had stayed was because he was worried about Er-gou.

This matter was clearly not simple, and also involved the remnants of the Three Kings. These were all problems left over from his lifetime. Er-gou was suitable for fighting on the battlefield, but still lacked ability in this kind of thing. He couldn’t understand why Yuan Jue had sent Huo Fenglie to deal with it. Was it really because this would put too much power in other people’s hands, so he could only give it to Huo Fenglie?

Huo Feihan was gone. As the elder brother, Liu Zhenqing would be uneasy leaving his younger brother to deal with this matter alone. To do so would be his failure. He would just accept his fate, make up for his mistakes, and wait until the matter was settled before leaving.

Seeing Liu Zhenqing’s attitude, Huo Fenglie straightened the corners of his mouth and finally nodded, saying in a deep voice: “I understand. Can you inform me before you leave?”

Liu Zhenqing looked at Huo Fenglie, whose voice became even deeper as he said, “Don’t disappear suddenly.”

Now that they had spoken, this wasn’t an issue.

It wasn’t until Liu Zhenqing nodded that Huo Fenglie’s expression recovered somewhat. “Then you rest here. I’ll go…..”

“Wait, don’t you have anything else to say to me?” Liu Zhenqing was a little surprised. Even though he didn’t hate him or want revenge, how could he not ask about the truth of what happened back then?

As a result, Huo Fenglie thought about it and then spoke an unrelated sentence, “I…..kept my promise and guarded the western battlefield.”

Liu Zhenqing was taken aback. He remembered in a daze the last time they exchanged personal letters nine years ago.

At that time, Huo Fenglie was guarding the western battlefield for Huo Feihan, who had died fighting. In his last letter, Huo Fenglie seemed to have expressed his desire for peace talks.

When Liu Zhenqing learned of this, he was so angry that he immediately wrote a reply and scolded him.

He didn’t quite remember what he wrote, and only recalled asking him fiercely how he could have such an idea. Was he worthy of the Imperial family, Liu Zhenqing, and Huo Feihan? He warned him to put an end to such thoughts and guard the west, otherwise there was no need for him to come back.

At that time, he had been poisoned. He was very busy and his mind was restless, so his mood fluctuated greatly. Perhaps he had scolded him too much. After that, he never received any private messages from Huo Fenglie, only military reports from the army. That was also the last time they ever communicated, and it was not a good memory. After that, he died, and Er-gou was still fighting desperately on the western battlefield.

Now that he thought about it, he was also in the wrong. Maybe he took a gamble, and maybe his mental state wasn’t good and he became stubborn and paranoid. What if Er-gou had been allowed to persist at that time and something happened? How would he face Huo Feihan? Therefore, when he was first reborn, he wasn’t sure if Er-gou was still alive.

“You did a good job, and…..I’m sorry,” Liu Zhenqing said. Although there was really nothing that could be done at the time, and the battlefield in the west could absolutely not be lost, he still wanted to apologize to Er-gou. He should have been more patient, and comforted and supported the young man.

As soon as he opened his mouth, he looked up and saw that Huo Fenglie had suddenly frozen, his eyes turning red. It was not the red of his previous madness, but a flash of moisture, which alarmed Liu Zhenqing to the point of being at a loss. “Er-gou? You…..”

Had what happened back then made him so aggrieved? Had he really been too excessive? Damn it. Fuck!

“Don’t say those words to me. Don’t apologize, it was my fault.” Huo Fenglie finished speaking in a daze. He took a deep look at Liu Zhenqing, then turned around and left.

Liu Zhenqing was left alone, unable to react.

What the hell was going on, ah? Er-gou didn’t seem to have asked any of the key points that should be asked, and ended up getting emotional for no apparent reason, leaving Liu Zhenqing confused.

Let it pass, the past was like smoke, and if it made you sad when it was mentioned, it was better to let it leave with the wind.

The people who had gone out to search soon returned, but only brought back Magistrate Wang’s body.

It was not an accident. When they found him, there was only a corpse.

Huo Fenglie examined the wound while Liu Zhenqing touched his chin and pondered.

“What happened?” He Lan asked, limping over. “Why is he dead?”

“Was he killed to silence him?” Qin Yu frowned.

Not only was he killed and silenced, but the person who did it was the old man who was protecting him in the first place.

Huo Fenglie had fought against the old man, so it was not difficult to identify the wound, and Liu Zhenqing could also recognize it.

Killing one’s employer was unacceptable in the world of assassins, unless the person who hired the old man was not Magistrate Wang, but someone who wanted him protected but silenced if necessary.

That was tantamount to saying that it was the people behind the embezzlement of the disaster relief funds and food.

Sure enough, just as Liu Zhenqing suspected, things were not simple. Magistrate Wang was just a minion who was kept in the dark.

After the Heaven’s Blessing Sect was cleared out, the big army returned to the city in a majestic manner. Before dawn, the lifeless city suddenly began to boil. 

Some laughable people even tried to organize themselves and block the troops’ progress, demanding the release of the Heaven’s Blessing Sect. The ignorant were truly fearless.

Liu Zhenqing moved into camp with the troops, while Huo Fenglie began to work on the case and compile excerpts to report to the Imperial court.

Half a day later, an unexpected person came to visit.

“Huh? Brother Liu and Zhanyuan are sharing a tent?” The visitor spoke with a faint smile, then opened the curtain gracefully and walked inside.

Liu Zhenqing, who was reading a book out of boredom, was surprised upon seeing the visitor. “Brother Bai?”

Bai Su smiled and stepped forward to take a seat. After a few words of greeting, he learned that Bai Su was originally with Qin Yu and He Lan, but they didn’t have time to inform him in the Heaven’s Blessing Sect back then.

“I want to go south to pick up something from my brother’s old friend, so I went with them on the way. They couldn’t take me along when they were taking care of business that night, so I stayed in the city. I never expected to meet you. I’m truly lucky.” Bai Su said with a smile: “But so is Zhanyuan. How could he take you with him for such a dangerous thing? What if you were injured?”

Liu Zhenqing thought about how Huo Fenglie had to take him along wherever he went before. It was obviously because he was afraid that he would quietly disappear.

Now that they had spoken, it was all okay.

The two chatted about the case for a while, and Liu Zhenqing discovered that Bai Su had a keen sense of officialdom. He was not inferior to his brother, but it was a pity that he was the number one scholar yet was unwilling to serve as an official in the court. Liu Zhenqing wasn’t sure whether it was because of the shadow left by the incident with his brother, or whether it was just his nature.

And Bai Su also looked at Liu Zhenqing with admiration. When he was in the capital, he always felt that Liu Zhenqing was smarter than him. Sometimes he couldn’t keep up with his thinking and needed guidance from the other party.

“Who do you think is behind this matter?” Bai Su asked.

Liu Zhenqing said with a smile: “I can’t make a guess out of thin air, but…..there must be internal agents in the capital. Without the help of informants, Magistrate Wang wouldn’t have dared to put on such a big show.

Bai Su shook his head and sighed: “I didn’t expect that going south to investigate the Imperial Examination fraud would unearth corruption. It is heaven’s will.”

Liu Zhenqing smiled. If it was heaven’s will, then it must be the emperor’s will.

Yuan Jue had long known that there was a problem here and could have sent officials to investigate directly, but he didn’t dare to trust people casually. What if the people he sent were bribed? Therefore, Huo Fenglie was his best choice, and by discovering and solving the problem here in such a coincidence, it would not easily alert the people behind the scenes.

But this could only be used in the early stages. If problems arose one after another, the people behind the scenes were not stupid, and would definitely make arrangements.

Then, the person in the most danger would probably be Huo Fenglie, who was in charge of investigating secretly.

. . . . . . .

At the same time, in an exquisite garden in the capital, a slender hand slowly picked a flower and trimmed it carefully with a pair of golden scissors. “Was he killed?”

“The news came. He is dead,” replied the subordinate who was kneeling nearby.

“Actually, killing Magistrate Wang was useless. He will still be a suspect. What a bother, why not arrange for someone to kill Huo Fenglie as well?”

The kneeling man trembled all over. “General Huo still has Qin Yu and He Lan with him. I’m afraid…..”

“En?” The woman asked softly. The subordinate was frightened and immediately acquiesced.

Suddenly, a young male voice came from a pavilion not far away. “Isn’t this too much of a fuss? Perhaps it was just a coincidence, and they were lucky enough to discover it.”

“Hehe, a coincidence. You still have a lot to learn. There are not so many coincidences in this world. The emperor is very clever.” The slender white hand moved the flower to the tip of her nose, and she sniffed it gently. Then, with a snip, the golden scissors cut the flower in half. “Even if it was a coincidence, this will also prevent future trouble.”

“But without General Huo, who will defend the country?” the man asked again.

“Without the Huo family, how can the Yuan family fall? If they have such thoughts, sooner or later a traitor from the Huo family will replace your Yuan family.” After saying this, the woman coughed, seemingly in poor health. She waved her hand. “You go back, I have an appointment with my sister. And don’t forget to visit her, she misses you.”

“Yes.” The man stood up and respectfully said farewell, but when he raised his eyes again, there was dissatisfaction on his face.

. . . . . . . 

When night fell, Liu Zhenqing was already asleep. He vaguely felt someone pulling the quilt over him. Liu Zhenqing opened his eyes with difficulty and saw Huo Fenglie standing next to him. 

“You’re back?” Liu Zhenqing asked faintly.

“En,” Huo Fenglie responded.

Liu Zhenqing turned his head unconsciously. He recalled that this was the commander’s tent and there was only one bed, so he moved to the inside.

“Come sleep.”

Huo Fenglie froze and stared blankly at Liu Zhenqing, not making a move.

It came as no surprise to Liu Zhenqing that Huo Fenglie had arranged for him to be in the commander’s camp, because from Huo Fenglie’s perspective, the two of them were the most familiar with each other. Moreover, Huo Fenglie was so busy that he may not come back to rest at night. Why not sleep in a big bed by himself? Therefore, Liu Zhenqing enjoyed it without a care.

But now that Er-gou was back, it was impossible not to let him sleep.

Fortunately, two grown men could squeeze in and sleep well here.

But he didn’t sense Huo Fenglie move. Liu Zhenqing couldn’t open his eyelids anymore to see Huo Fenglie’s expression, and could only pat the empty space next to him. “Isn’t it enough?”

But this time, a feeling of oppression soon came over him. He heard a creak, and something rubbed against his arm, so he knew Er-gou had laid down.

The disoriented Liu Zhenqing pulled up the corner of the quilt to cover Huo Fenglie, just like how he took care of Er-gou when he was a child.

His arms seemed to reach over, and his fingers brushed against the other’s clothes. It didn’t feel right. “Why are you still wearing your outer layer to bed? Aren’t you uncomfortable? It will be wrinkled by morning.”

As he spoke, he instinctively began to help the kid next to him remove his outer layer, but in the next second, his wrist was grabbed by a large hand.

A hoarse voice rang in his ears.

“Qing-ge, don’t make trouble. Go to sleep.”

“Oh…..” Liu Zhenqing’s hand was placed back at his side. He vaguely felt that he had forgotten something, but was half asleep and couldn’t wake up.

He sensed the familiar yet unfamiliar atmosphere around him, yet felt strangely at ease, as if a stone somewhere in his heart had been lifted. He had a dreamless sleep for the first time in a long time, and his body felt so comfortable that even his spirit seemed to be soothed.

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Chapter Forty-One << Table of Contents >> Chapter Forty-Three