Chapter 1113: Will He Hate Me?

Ximen Qingkong cupped her face in both hands, breathing hard, his expression like a man struggling at the edge of despair. He shouted, "I won't agree!"

Xuan Wei laughed through her tears. Looking up at him, tears spilling down her face, she nodded. "All right! If you won't agree, then I won't accept it!"

She answered so decisively and without hesitation that Ximen Qingkong, having finally received the answer he had desperately wanted, was instead left stunned. His next thought was: And then?

Seeing the love in her tear-streaked smile, like pear blossoms drenched in rain, Ximen Qingkong's heart ached unbearably. He had stayed beside her to protect her. He had never made her cry, nor had he ever seen her weep like this.

Even amid the upheaval before, even when she had confined her own younger brother, she had not shed a single tear. She had always been the strong one. Yet now she was crying like this.

A crushing tightness filled Ximen Qingkong's chest. Still cradling her face, he wiped away her tears with both hands.

But the tears seemed endless. Xuan Wei shook her head, refusing to let him wipe them anymore, then rested her head against his chest and apologized again and again. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry..."

As the two held each other naked, certain things gradually became clear to Ximen Qingkong. At last he understood the meaning behind the strange looks Jin Lingzan and the others had given him during the day.

Precisely because he understood, a bleak smile slowly appeared on his face. He did not know how things had come to this.

Xuan Wei had originally promised that after gradually handing over power, she would leave with him. Then the sudden upheaval came. Afterward she said that once the situation stabilized, she would marry him. And now Xuan Wei was going to become husband and wife with another man.

Why had things become like this? Gradually, he understood one thing. In the end, it was because he was useless.

He had once believed that with his martial strength, so long as he could protect her personal safety, he could protect her. Only now did he realize how powerless that strength truly was.

He possessed formidable cultivation and immense strength, yet he did not know whom his sword should point at, or whom it even could point at. Could his sword resolve Wei's crisis? Could it drive back Jin's armies?

Sword drawn, he looked to all four quarters, his heart utterly at a loss. His cultivation could not help Xuan Wei steady the hearts of Wei's people. Under the present circumstances, he could not help her in even the smallest way.

As a man, being this useless, what right did he have to demand anything of Xuan Wei?

"The number-one expert on the Golden Core Ranking..." Ximen Qingkong murmured. Suddenly he held her close, threw back his head, and laughed. It was a desolate laugh. "Number one! I can't even help the woman I love! Number one on the Golden Core Ranking! What a colossal joke... Haha..."

He laughed in desolation, in misery, until tears came. He was crying now, and the pain cut straight through his heart.

Only at this moment did he understand that those people he had always dismissed and looked down upon probably looked down on him just as much.

"No! That's not how it is, Qingkong. That's not how it is..." Xuan Wei hurriedly raised her head to comfort him. She cupped his face in both hands and wiped away his tears as well.

Ximen Qingkong caught her hands and pushed them away. "If accepting Qi's proposal can truly help you, then accept it."

After saying those words, all the vitality seemed to drain from him. He pushed her away, turned, and went to pick up his clothes from the floor.

Xuan Wei had never seen this aloof, solitary man like this before. Her own heart felt torn apart. Weeping as though her heart would break, she threw herself at him and embraced him. "No! I was wrong! I won't agree to it! I shouldn't have said any of this to you! I was wrong. I won't accept it. Why should family, state, and all beneath Heaven be mine, a woman's, to bear? I won't agree! I don't care anymore. I'll go with you. Qingkong, take me away. Take me far from here, right now!"

Then she tried to snatch the clothes from his hands to stop him from dressing, terrified that once he put them on he would leave, terrified that once he walked out he would never come back.

Unable to wrest the clothes from him, Xuan Wei suddenly wrapped both arms around his neck and pressed her red lips to his, kissing him fiercely.

At first Ximen Qingkong did not respond. Gradually he did, and then his response grew almost beastlike in its ferocity, as though he wanted to vent everything inside him.

Soon the two fell together onto the cold floor, entangled and rolling across it.

In the end, the man was spent, but the woman still refused to let him go, demanding him again and again, as though by endlessly taking from him she could keep him there, terrified he would leave...

Outside the courtyard, the guards stopped Tang Yi and the other Shangqing Sect cultivators who had come by on their nighttime patrol. "The Chancellor has ordered that no one enter tonight."

Tang Yi was somewhat surprised. Using her Dharma Eye, she looked into the courtyard. Outside the brilliantly lit bedchamber, there was not a single person in sight. Never mind guards—there was not even a eunuch or palace maid. That was unusual.

The night was quiet, and strange sounds drifted out from the bedchamber.

Tang Yi listened for a while. Though she had never experienced relations between a man and woman herself, she still understood what those sounds meant, and heat immediately rose to her cheeks.

Looking again with her Dharma Eye, she saw no sign of Ximen Qingkong. That was even more unusual. Whenever Xuan Wei rested, Ximen Qingkong normally stood guard outside her bedchamber without leaving her side for so much as a step.

"Where is Ximen Qingkong?" Tang Yi asked.

"Well..." The guard at the gate hesitated and said nothing, merely glancing toward the brightly lit bedchamber.

In an instant, Tang Yi understood who was making the sounds inside. She was rather taken aback.

She had stayed beside Xuan Wei for so long and had witnessed the relationship between Ximen Qingkong and Xuan Wei with her own eyes. Though the man had affection and the woman reciprocated, their feelings had always stopped at the bounds of propriety.

She had never expected that tonight, these two would finally come together.

More indecent sounds drifted from inside. Tang Yi was too embarrassed to imagine what was happening within...

The Shangqing Sect and the others stood guard outside all night. At a time like this, Xuan Wei's safety was of paramount importance.

Throughout history, there had been countless cases of leaders being directly assassinated during wars between states. Xuan Wei's fate was tied to the future of the entire Shangqing Sect. The sect did not dare be careless.

What happened in Xuan Wei's bedchamber that night was a secret, yet not really a secret. Word quickly reached the sect leaders of Wei's three great sects.

The three great sects showed no reaction. They permitted it and indulged it. So long as Xuan Wei handled the matters they needed handled, she could do as she pleased in her private life. As long as Xuan Wei was happy, it made no difference to them, provided she did not interfere with the interests of the three sects.

At daybreak the next morning, the bedchamber doors creaked open. Tang Yi, who had been sitting outside the courtyard gate with her eyes closed, suddenly opened them and looked back.

Xuan Wei and Ximen Qingkong walked out together. Both looked drained, as though neither had slept all night...

The sect leaders of Wei's three great sects were delighted. Xuan Wei had agreed to Qi's marriage proposal.

As they immediately sent their reply to Qi, they also ordered preparations for the grand wedding. They intended to make the ceremony lavish and ensure that everyone knew of it.

The moment Qi received the reply, it immediately offered up Seventeenth Prince Hao Cheng. Hao Cheng was only sixteen.

At the restricted military command compound inside the palace, a handsome, delicately featured and slender youth was stopped by the guards.

The youth was none other than Prince Hao Cheng. When the imperial decree arrived without warning, he had scarcely been able to believe it was real. It was like a nightmare descending from the sky.

He was an imperial prince, yet they actually wanted him to marry into the household of an old woman in Wei who was nearly forty!

He had long known he might have no say in his future marriage, and perhaps would have to marry a woman he did not like. But never in his dreams had he imagined that he himself would be the one marrying out, entering another household as a husband in Wei.

However unwilling he was, an imperial command could not be defied. He had no choice.

Not only did he have no choice, he was ordered to leave at once. He had to depart for Wei immediately, without delay.

Before leaving, he wanted to see his imperial father once. He only wanted one meeting, perhaps only to ask why.

But the guards stopped him, saying the emperor was occupied with grave military and state affairs.

Hao Cheng gazed toward the restricted compound. His eyes fixed on a pavilion, where he spotted Bu Xun, Chief Steward of the Inner Palace. After staring for a while, Hao Cheng slowly turned away and headed toward the inner palace.

Bu Xun, who had been watching from beside the railing, suddenly turned his head and bowed as he withdrew to one side. Hao Yuntu slowly stepped out from behind the doorway, expressionless as he watched his son's lonely figure recede into the distance.

"Will he hate me?" Hao Yuntu suddenly asked in a flat voice.

Bu Xun bent slightly at the waist and answered tactfully, "One day, the Seventeenth Prince will understand."

Hao Yuntu said, "I am not a good father. I have wronged him. But... that's what it means to be my son. Once Cheng'er and Xuan Wei are successfully wed, pass down my decree. Promote Consort Jing to Imperial Noble Consort and place the Western Palace under her charge!"

Consort Jing was Hao Cheng's birth mother.

"Yes!" Bu Xun bowed and accepted the command.

In the inner palace, Hao Cheng met his mother. He had originally wanted to ask her why, but one look told him that the bags beneath her eyes were swollen from crying, hidden beneath heavy powder as she forced herself to smile.

Seeing her like this, Hao Cheng said nothing more. He understood how things worked in the inner palace and did not want to bring harm to his mother. He merely said his farewells and told her to take good care of herself.

Consort Jing had no choice but to force a smile. The emperor had decreed that when she bade her son farewell, she was not to cry or show the slightest unhappiness. A marriage was a joyous occasion. She had to be happy, and she also had to persuade her son to go peacefully and marry into Xuan Wei's household.

The situation was urgent and time was short. With his attendants pressing him to leave, Hao Cheng's meeting with his mother was painfully brief.

He knelt and knocked his forehead heavily against the floor several times. Then he rose, turned resolutely, and walked away without looking back.

The moment her son was gone, Consort Jing swayed and could no longer maintain the facade. She collapsed into the arms of the people around her and wept as though her heart were being torn apart.

It was often said that a mother was ennobled through her son, especially in the inner palace. But setting that aside, he was still her son. With this departure, his whole life was ruined.

An imperial prince entering another household as a husband, and for a woman so much older than himself—one who, she had heard, even had a lover renowned throughout the world! The son in whom she had placed all her hopes would henceforth bear a stain that could never be washed away. He would become a laughingstock beneath Heaven. The mockery and pointing fingers were easy to imagine. How could he face anyone? Her son's life was finished...

Qi rushed Hao Cheng to Wei by air at the first possible moment. Apart from his escort, he brought almost no luggage.

He was taken directly into the imperial palace of Wei and given quarters. The moment he arrived, people measured him for new clothes. Hao Cheng cooperated with everything, letting them do as they pleased as though he were a puppet.

The next day, the entire imperial palace was hung with lanterns and festooned for celebration. Two people who had never met before were brought together and performed the wedding bows to Heaven and Earth.

The wedding was grand, festive, and lively.

Tang Yi looked at the newlyweds bowing to Heaven and Earth, then looked at Ximen Qingkong standing off to one side. Nearly everyone had put on fresh clothes for the joyous occasion. Only Ximen Qingkong still wore his old clothes, a sword on his back as he stood there silently.

How had things come to this? Tang Yi sighed inwardly. She could not imagine what Ximen Qingkong felt as he watched Xuan Wei marry another man with his own eyes.

The sight of the pair bowing to Heaven and Earth also stirred old memories in her. The image surfaced in her mind of years ago at Shangqing Sect, when she and a certain someone had bowed to Heaven and Earth together.

Nor was she the only one. Among the guests present, quite a few gazes drifted toward Ximen Qingkong from time to time, seemingly without intent.

[End of Chapter 1113]