Chapter 18: Shocking! His Birth Mother Was a Princess of the Xiyuan Tribe

Feng Changye glanced sideways at the sea of blossoms in the General’s Estate rear garden.

It was only when his mother, furious, had blurted it out that he learned the truth: Old General Zhu Huaining carried the blood of the Xiyuan tribes.

Zhu Huaining’s mother had been a princess of one of the twenty-seven Xiyuan clans.

Years ago, rebellion broke out among the tribes. This unfortunate princess, gravely wounded, fled from Xiyuan and reached Great Ning’s borderlands.

There, she happened to be rescued by the previous Old General Zhu Qilin.

At the time, Old General Zhu Qilin did not know she was a princess—he assumed she was merely an ordinary Xiyuan woman displaced by war.

Gentle in temperament and strikingly beautiful, she and Zhu Qilin grew close, and he eventually took her as a concubine.

But six months later, the princess’s elder brother had quelled the rebellion and secretly sent word, summoning her back to the tribe.

Though she had developed feelings for Zhu Qilin, her yearning for her homeland outweighed her budding romance.

While Zhu Qilin was away on patrol, she fled the camp and, under escort from tribal warriors, returned to Xiyuan.

Yet upon her return, her life was far from blessed.

She soon discovered she was with child.

Her brother, now the clan chieftain, needed to secure alliances and sought to marry her to a tribal warrior. He ordered her to abort the child fathered by a Ning man and marry as commanded.

She refused utterly. She would rather mar her own beauty than give up the child.

Her brother despised her for it. From a princess held high, she fell into slavery.

She endured, bitterly, and months later bore her child. She named him Huaining—“longing for peace.”

Longing for the brief half-year of happiness in Ning. Longing for her husband, Zhu Qilin.

With her son, she lived a life of hardship, tending horses and doing the filthiest, hardest labor.

When Huaining was six, their tribe was conquered by another.

In Xiyuan, tribes often slaughtered or enslaved each other. The defeated faced not only slavery but, under cruel leaders, wholesale massacre.

Unluckily, they fell to such a cruel commander.

Thousands were bound together, while mounted soldiers circled them from afar, loosing arrows as though hunting game, reveling in their torment.

Mother and son nearly died in that bloodbath.

At the last moment, Zhu Qilin descended like a thunderbolt, cutting down the Xiyuan warriors and rescuing the few dozen survivors.

He recognized her and brought her and the boy back to the Ning camp.

But she had already taken an arrow to the abdomen. Not long after, she breathed her last.

Before dying, she had her son Huaining acknowledge Zhu Qilin as his father.

Through tears, she urged her child: Xiyuan was no longer his home. His clan had been exterminated. The only home he had now was by his father’s side in Ning.

After she passed, six-year-old Huaining, fierce as a wolf cub, drew a dagger and slashed his wrist before Zhu Qilin!

Kneeling, holding his bleeding wrist aloft, he cried: he would purge himself of Xiyuan blood; he was no longer of Xiyuan. He would be a subject of Ning, obedient to his father, loyal to Great Ning for life!

He swore he would trample the twenty-six remaining Xiyuan tribes, avenging his mother, his friends, and his people!

Old General Zhu Qilin admired such a nature.

The Zhu family were generals by blood. Only a child this ruthless and unyielding was worthy of carrying on the Zhu name.

Thus, under Zhu Qilin’s rigorous tutelage, the boy endured over a decade of harsh training, becoming the fearsome general Zhu Huaining who later struck terror into Xiyuan!

…

Feng Changye’s thoughts ran swiftly back over what his mother had said of Zhu Huaining’s past.

It was precisely because he suddenly learned Zhu Huaining carried Xiyuan blood, and because of the border dispatch reporting that this “traitor” had colluded with Xiyuan, ambushing and slaughtering forty thousand Ning soldiers—turning the frontier into a river of blood—that he flew into such rage and decreed the execution of the Zhu family.

He had wanted to trust the old general who had fought for Ning for decades.

But with two separate urgent dispatches arriving in the capital at the same time, both reporting Zhu Huaining’s betrayal, along with the blood-written testimony of his deputy general, how could he not believe it?

He could no longer trust the man.

At this thought, Feng Changye recalled what the transmigrator Zhu Wuhuan had said about Zhu Huaining’s feigned surrender.

Clutching his teacup, his feelings grew tangled.

In history, he had truly wronged the Zhu family, slaughtering them unjustly.

He had betrayed the loyal heart of Old General Zhu Huaining…

“Emperor?”

The Empress Dowager, noticing her son silent, softly called him back.

Feng Changye started and returned to himself.

He looked at her and smiled. “Mother, rest assured. I will not spare the Zhu clan. I brought you here only to watch which of their accomplices dare attempt a rescue—so we can seize them all in one sweep.”

The Empress Dowager’s eyes lit in realization. “Ah, so that’s it! Good. Then let us watch here. We’ll see who has the gall to defy imperial command and come save them!”

Seeing her reaction, Feng Changye’s gaze softened faintly.

So—his mother knew nothing of Prince Jin’s treasonous ambitions.

He truly feared she might one day, like some consorts of old, help her younger son slaughter the elder and usurp the throne…

He lifted the teapot and poured her a cup.

“Mother, the day is hot. Please drink more tea.”

“Very well.”

The Empress Dowager smiled, enjoying her son’s attentiveness. Sipping happily, she soon thought of her younger son.

She sighed. “Jin’er suffers in summer heat. Each year, when the weather turns hot, he can only find relief living near the cold pool at the countryside estate… ah!”

She looked hopefully at Feng Changye.

“Later, let’s go visit him there, shall we? Your brother has no one at his side to care for him, no children at his knees. Alone at that cold pool, how lonely he must be.”

Feng Changye lowered his eyes, thinking: No need, Mother. We don’t have to go to that countryside estate. He’ll soon come running, full of energy, to put on his act for you!

But when he lifted his gaze, he smiled gently.

“Of course. I miss Changjin too. Later, I’ll accompany you to see him—let’s even bring him some fresh fruits and vegetables.”

The poor Empress Dowager, not knowing her elder son had brought her here merely to watch a play, was overjoyed, believing her two sons to be harmonious brothers.

As the two most exalted figures sipped tea, before long the Zhu family’s garden next door stirred with activity.

The Empress Dowager turned her head—and saw a young man’s figure amidst the blossoms.

Her heart leapt!

The Zhu family truly had an accomplice!

Such a scoundrel deserved to be seized and executed with them!

Excited, she suddenly realized—the figure looked familiar.

Wait!

Wasn’t that the very Jin’er she had just been talking about?

What was he doing in the General’s Estate?!