Liu Cheng had certainly not felt like an old friend upon first meeting Huan Qian. He did naturally prefer dealing with these Elite Soldiers, and liked seeking out people who did not belong at social gatherings dominated by scholarly pure conversation. But he was also, quite deliberately, tending a cold hearth.
He had realized something was wrong the previous night. Huan Qian should not have been here: he was Huan Huo's eldest son by a concubine, and Huan Huo was perfectly well, serving as a regional commander in northern Jingzhou. Huan Mi and Huan Chong lived in Jiangling, so naturally they brought their children over for the New Year. But what was Huan Qian doing here?
Instead of spending the New Year with his father, he had brought several younger brothers to stay with his uncle? He was not like the three of them, effectively fatherless children here in Jingzhou.
Only after asking the maid who led him to the privy had Liu Cheng learned what was going on-Huan Qian spent every New Year with his uncle, because he really was a fatherless child. Or rather, he was not yet his father's child.
That sounded strange, but what it meant was that although Huan Wen and Huan Huo, the two most important members of the Huan family, both liked Huan Qian, and Huan Qian himself had proved worthy, serving as an Elite Soldier without complaint or shirking toil, his birth was so lowly that his name still had not been formally entered in the Huan family Clan Genealogy.
The maid had not dared explain why. Liu Cheng, however, dared to guess.
Judging by their ages, Huan Huo himself had still been a minor when he fathered this son. Most likely, he had just reached puberty, known no better, and used