Huo Qiyuan clenched and unclenched his fists. He had endured for a long time before finally asking.
"Did my father treat you poorly? That you would collude with Emperor Rui to kill my entire family! He's your own uncle!"
Huo Qixiao's eyelids trembled a few times, appearing reluctant to answer. After a moment, two people carried a person dressed in white, frozen into frost, into the main hall.
Huo Qixiao felt a chill from behind and slowly turned his head. When he saw the person on the stretcher already covered in frost, his composure finally broke.
"Wen Tu! Wen Tu!" He crawled on his knees, trying to embrace the person, but Wang Bingchang was already stiff and frozen, leaving Huo Qixiao no way to handle him.
After Huo Qixiao held on for a while, Huo Qiyuan's cold voice sounded in his ear. "If you still refuse to speak, I will have Wang Wentu's corpse chopped up, or burned. The cremation pyre is still burning. However, I don't think he's worthy of being burned with those wronged commoners. I'll prepare a separate pyre just for him, to burn him into ashes!"
"No! Don't chop him up, don't burn him! I'll tell you, I'll tell you everything… He's already dead, don't do this to him!" Huo Qixiao frantically pushed away the two soldiers standing by the stretcher, his eyes pleading with Huo Qiyuan.
Seeing Huo Qixiao acting like this for an outsider, Huo Qiyuan, who had been calm for a long time, finally became angry. He swept the teacup to the floor and waved for them to carry Wang Bingchang's body further away.
He felt disgusted seeing the two embracing each other for another moment!
Huo Qixiao reached out to pull the stretcher, but his shoulders were held firmly. Watching Wang Bingchang being carried away again, he couldn't break free.
Finally, he stopped struggling, turned to point at Huo Qiyuan, and roared hysterically, "You want to know why? I'll tell you! Because I hate you, I hate your father, I hate everyone in the Huo family!"
"If you weren't a member of the Huo family, if you weren't Huo Qiyuan, if you didn't have a father who was a prince, do you think you'd still be anyone?" Huo Qixiao shouted as if he were mad, his sudden outburst of strength almost making the two soldiers lose their grip on him.
"You hate me? Hate my father? Don't tell me you've forgotten who brought the Huo family its glory! If not for his life of military campaigns, if not for his lifelong support, could you have lived the life of a decent noble son? Could you have had the opportunity to collude with the emperor to frame him? Could you? Why do you hate him? Why!"
Huo Qiyuan roared back, his composure lost for the first time in years.
What a laughable and far-fetched reason! He couldn't describe his feelings upon hearing this, a deep sense of unwillingness! How could Huo Qixiao hate his own father?
"So what! All I know is that he never intended to marry and have children from the start. All I know is that he intended to groom me as his successor! All I know is that everything was originally mine, mine! Then he got married and had a son, do you know what kind of life I had afterward?" At this point, Huo Qixiao had nothing left to hold back.
He yelled and shouted as if he were mad, as if his loud voice could drown out Huo Qiyuan's, making what he said the truth.
"Even if he got married, even if he later had me… but has he ever wronged you?" Huo Qiyuan truly didn't understand his thoughts.
"Wronged? He indeed never wronged me! He taught me martial arts, hired famous teachers for me, he treated me very well. But this kindness was too brief! Since he was good to me, why couldn't he be good to me forever?"
"Heh heh heh… Huo Qiyuan, it's all your fault! You stole everything that should have been mine, you had to be born into the Huo family! If you hadn't appeared suddenly, I would be the one upholding the Huo family's honor. If it weren't for you, I would be the sole young master of the Huo family. If it weren't for you, I would be the young general known throughout the land…" Huo Qixiao cried and laughed, looking completely insane.
Huo Qiyuan felt a pang of sadness. He sank back into his chair, supporting his forehead with a weak hand. Only after Huo Qixiao's emotions had calmed down a little did he ask again, "You harmed your own uncle's family for these trivial things?"
"Trivial? Heh heh heh… Hahahaha… You call these trivial? How dare you say that!" Huo Qixiao finished his near-mad laughter, wiping the tears from the corners of his eyes.
"Everything I've strived for in two lifetimes, you call trivial? That's right! Since you were born, you've been surrounded by endless pampering, supreme glory, and all the good things I could imagine! That's why you can brazenly call those trivial things now. Because you don't even have to reach out, they shove the best into your arms! But I don't have that! No! I had it too, but after you appeared, I lost it… You stole everything from me!"
"I didn't try hard? I followed my father to military camps from a young age. Others practiced martial arts for a few hours a day, but I spent all my time learning except for eating and sleeping! What were you doing at six years old? Don't blame your own incompetence on others! The excuses and reasons you're giving are just to cover up the fact that you are inherently greedy and ungrateful!"
"You're talking nonsense! You're talking nonsense! I struggled too… You were born to the legitimate wife, but I was just a son of a concubine. Your father was a renowned prince, my father was a useless lame man… I really struggled!"
Huo Qixiao was the son of a concubine? Wasn't he born to the second aunt? He genuinely didn't know about this. Huo Qiyuan looked at Xu Fu, who nodded silently.
In Huo Qiyuan's impression, although the second aunt didn't dote on Huo Qixiao particularly, she had acted impeccably in major matters. "Even so, the second aunt never…"
As soon as Li Shi was mentioned, Huo Qixiao jumped up as if his tail had been stepped on. "Don't mention that disgusting woman to me! She's a promiscuous slut who's always thinking about other men! Hahahaha…"
"Oh! You don't know yet, do you? Do you know Leng Muran knows about this? That woman was personally chosen by your father! That woman was also foolish. She thought Huo Sizhun was proposing for himself, but when she married in, she discovered the groom had been changed to my crippled father… Hahahaha! Isn't it laughable?"