Duke Yan slowly raised his eyes, two streams of murky tears falling as he looked at the Empress Dowager. "Yes. It was him!"
The Empress Dowager trembled and closed her eyes.
No one present spoke.
In the silence, the little girl suddenly asked, "Who was it? Who?"
Xia Siheng pinched her little cheek and said gravely, "My maternal uncle, the Ruler of Eastern Lin."
As he spoke of his relationship with that man, Xia Siheng's eyes were icy, without the slightest ripple of emotion.
"Then why fifty-nine cuts?" Xia Wanwan asked, her eyes full of curiosity.
"Among the death warriors who tried to assassinate the Late Emperor, their leader was a man named Wushuang. He was handsome and highly skilled in martial arts. He was the one who fought my father to the very end. He suffered fifty-nine cuts, and so did my father. They were evenly matched, and in the end, they perished together!"
Speaking of this sent wrenching pain through Duke Yan's heart. He continued, "Only after they killed my wife and children did I learn that this man was actually the person the Ruler of Eastern Lin loved most..."
"To avenge him, the Ruler of Eastern Lin first targeted my wife and children..."
Duke Yan raised his head and gazed at the grand, lavish beams of the Imperial Study, his thoughts mingling with his tears as they returned to that year.
When he was twenty, his wife and son went to the outskirts to worship Buddha. On their way home, they fell victim to an East Lin spy, and both mother and son plunged off a cliff.
When he heard the news, he rushed to the scene like a madman. Dozens of guards lay dead atop the cliff, each bearing a full fifty-nine cuts!
He dared not