The End of an Era

The winter wind brushed past the old tree, sending its last withered leaf drifting down.

The courtyard was as it had always been. Scenes from the years gone by surfaced before Xu Yuan's eyes like a dream; from childhood to adulthood, he had stepped into this courtyard countless times.

When he was a child, he had come running to this study mostly to find his father.

Back then, he had not harbored many thoughts. In a child's eyes, a father was a figure who held up the sky and stood upon the earth, capable of anything, and he had instinctively wanted to be close to him.

As a youth, his temperament had gradually changed, and so had his desires.

The reason he came to the study was no longer to find that old man. Though his father remained capable of anything, he no longer wanted to run into him in the study at all.

After all, he had come to steal things.

What my father thinks becomes national policy.

If he stole even some minor scrap from this study and sold it, it would be earth-shattering insider information.

Later still, he had returned to how he was at the beginning.

Because his father had remained as omnipotent as ever.

The man was like a towering tree, sheltering the entire Prime Minister's Mansion. So long as he remained, those beneath his branches would possess an incomparable sense of security.

Xu Yuan had once believed time would continue passing like this forever, but all things invariably went against one's wishes.

Entering the study, he found everything within unchanged.

Just as during the countless times Xu Yuan had entered this room before, his father still sat quietly behind his desk, reviewing memorials. Seeing him enter, he neither raised his eyes nor paused his