For more than a month, Zhang Tie had been searching throughout Passage Province for the child he had with Ma Aiyun. At a time like this, perhaps only by immersing himself in that mindless bustle could he free himself from the سلسلة of blows he had suffered over the past two months.
The past two months had been a low point in Zhang Tie's life. In that abyss, he had lost his family, lost two beloved senior sisters, lost the woman who loved him, and perhaps even lost a son. He had been betrayed and sold out by those around him, while he himself had personally killed the head of Huaiyuan Hall, turning Lan Yunxi from a woman who loved him into an enemy.
For the head of a family to plot against and murder the family's supreme elder—such a scandal would deal a fatal blow to Huaiyuan Hall's cohesion. Once it got out, it would be enough to plunge the current Huaiyuan Hall into the peril of division.
Even now, Zhang Tie had not told anyone the whole truth about Zhang Taixuan. Nor did he know how much Lan Yunxi knew, or how much she had heard that day.
As a descendant with Duke Huaiyuan's blood flowing through his veins, the last thing he did for Huaiyuan Hall was bear this "family shame" in silence—a shame enough to disgrace the entire Huaiyuan Hall, make it the laughingstock and cautionary example of other families even centuries later, and leave every Huaiyuan Hall descendant unable to lift their heads in Great Xia.
Though rumors and speculation had already begun to circulate outside, so long as he did not admit it, those rumors and guesses would forever remain gossip unfit for the light of day.
Time would wash away those rumors and