Bang!
The door of the woodshed was kicked open in an instant.
"Stop playing dead, trash. The Patriarch wants you in the Ancestral Hall."
The voice cut through the dark like a whip.
Lu Xuan opened his eyes.
For a moment, he did not know where he was. There was only straw, the smell of damp wood... and pain. So much pain that it felt like it he might die from the agony.
He tried to roll over and sit up but the moment his weight pressed against his ribs, pain shot through him like a knife twisting between the bones grinding, like someone is scraping the bones
His vision went black in an instant, cold sweat soaked through his back.
Yesterday, Lu Hao’s boots had found every rib he owned. Later that night, due to the heavy beating his body took the fever had come.
And no one... not a single person in this enormous family... had thought to bring him water, hell it is great that no one come to mock him.
He could have stayed down, committing suicide long ago, it would have been so easy. Just lie in the straw, let the darkness take him, let them drag his body out and call it an accident.
But his parents had not died so that their son could rot in a woodshed.
So he gritted his teeth.
He braced a trembling hand against the ground...
And slowly, painfully, sat up.
The Ancestral Hall.
When Lu Xuan walked in, every step felt like walking on broken glass, but he did not break down, not here.
Not in front of them, because he knew all of them will only be taking pleasure in his misfortune.
The moment he crossed the threshold of the Ancestral Hall, almost every gaze in the room fell upon him at once
They looked at him the way people look at a stray dog... the one specific dog that could be thrown out at any moment.
Someone in the back even wrinkled their nose showing clear disgust, as though he carried the scent of something foul.
Years ago, there had still been pity in those eyes.
When his father, the former Patriarch, had just died, a few of them had at least pretended to care or at least acted.
They had patted his head, they had said gentle things to sooth his gentle heart of childhood.
Lu Xuan remembered every word, the naive boy at that time has accepted it all with open heart, not knowing the black hearts of the people.
He seemed to mesmerized in some distant memory to remembere the exact moment those words had stopped.
Now... even the pretending was gone.
Only scorn remained.
At the center of the hall sat his second uncle, Lu Tianhe.
The current Patriarch of The Lu Family In Azure Sun City.
He was in his early forties, with a gentle face and a faint, kind smile always resting at the corners of his mouth. To anyone else, he looked like a caring elder who would give his own robe to a freezing beggar.
Lu Xuan had stopped believing in that face a long time ago.
Standing at Lu Tianhe’s left was his son, Lu Hao.
Fine silk robes. A jade belt. Chin tilted slightly upward, as if the world owed him money, his eyes could not hide the arrogance and mockery swimming behind them.
Lu Xuan looked at him... and his chest began to ache.
It all began with this person, his second uncle had extracted Lu Xuan’s heart vein... to nourish this pampered waste’s martial foundation.
Every time Lu Hao moved, every time he threw a punch or laughed at his misery, a piece of Lu Xuan was fuelling the power.
The thought made his stomach turn
Along both sides of the hall sat the clan elders.
They saw everything, and not one of them batted an eye.
Some rested with their eyes closed, as if the matter were beneath them. Others stared down into their teacups and pretended he did not exist.
They were not blind. They were not stupid.
They simply knew that the one who benefited from looking away... was them.
"Xuan’er is here."
Lu Tianhe spoke with a warm smile.
Lu Xuan had seen that smile too many times to be fooled by it. Every time his uncle smiled like that, something was about to be taken from him.
"I heard you and Hao’er had a little friction yesterday. Don’t worry... I’ve already punished him for it. I made him skip dinner last night."
Skip dinner?
Lu Xuan’s fingers curled slowly against his stick.
He had been beaten until his entire body was soaked in blood and bruises. Several broken ribs were still grinding against his insides at this very moment.
And the punishment for all of that... was Lu Hao missing a single meal?
And even that is not true at all, because as far as Lu Xuan knew, Lu Hao had eaten a full feast at the Drunken Immortal Pavilion last night.
Half the city had seen it, they could not even be bothered to tell a convincing lie.
Because to them, he was not worth the effort.
He lowered his eyes, hiding the fury under them
So this was his so-called second uncle.
Pathetic.
Lu Xuan did not speak, he did not dare to show even a trace of dissatisfaction.
Not out of fear... but because he knew that his anger was exactly what they wanted. It would only give them the pleasure of watching him squirm like a fish on a chopping board.
He refused to give them that.
Lu Tianhe did not seem to care whether he was angry or not. He continued, as casually as ever.
"I called you here today for the matter of your marriage."
Marriage?
The word hit Lu Xuan like a stone dropped into still water.
His brows tightened. "What marriage?"
"You’ve turned eighteen this year. It’s time to start a family and build your own family. You need to take the mantle of spreading the branches."
Lu Tianhe stroked his beard, fully depicting the picture of a loving elder.
"Don’t worry. Your second uncle went to great trouble to find you a good match. Consider it a way to bring comfort to your parents’ spirits in the heavens."
An elder beside him nodded approvingly.
"Your parents passed away early, leaving you alone. The Patriarch arranging this marriage... it shows how much he cares about you."
Another stroked his beard in agreement.
"With Tianhe as our Patriarch, it is truly the fortune of our Lu Family!"
Lu Hao stood off to the side with a wicked grin plastered all across his face.
Clearly he was enjoying all this.
Lu Xuan looked at these people, and doubt churned in his gut, since when had the smiling tiger, Lu Tianhe, ever been kind to him without a reason?
There was something fishy about this.
And Lu Xuan wanted to know exactly what it was before it swallowed him whole, without spitting even the bones.
"Second Uncle... do I have the honor of knowing which girl you are referring to?"
Lu Tianhe set down his teacup and answered in an unhurried tone.
"The eldest daughter of the Shen Family in the south of the city. What was her name again?... Oh, yes... Shen Yuyan."
"Pfft!"
Lu Hao could no longer hold back his laughter, he had been biting it back for a long while now.
Lu Xuan’s brows furrowed as he searched his memory.
Shen Yuyan.
The concubine-born daughter of the Shen Family in the south of the city, people said she was an ugly woman covered in red spots... the laughingstock of the entire city.
He waited for the anger to come, a bride like that was supposed to be an insult.
But it didn’t come.
After all... he was not much better than her.
She was a tragic person in her own way. Unfavored by the Shen Family, she scraped by selling embroidery on the streets. Wherever she went, people turned to stare, to laugh, to whisper behind their hands.
All because of her face.
Lu Xuan even pitied her.
She was someone who had been thrown away... exactly like him.
She probably didn’t even know yet that she was about to be used.
But pity did not mean he was willing to be a pawn in someone else’s game.
He lifted his head and looked straight at Lu Tianhe.
He was not going to back down without an answer.
"Why her?"
Before Lu Tianhe could respond, Lu Hao stepped forward.
"You, a piece of trash, and you’re still being picky about choosing a wife?!"
He said it as though Lu Xuan had insulted him personally.
Lu Tianhe coughed twice. "Hao’er. How can you speak to your older cousin like that?"
"Father, he’s being too ungrateful!"
As if on cue, an elder sitting off to the side turned toward Lu Xuan and spoke.
"Xuan’er, you should understand your own situation. That woman may be ugly, but she is hardworking and kind, and she even comes from a proper family."
His voice was soft. Reasonable. Patient.
It made Lu Xuan’s skin crawl from disgust.
"Furthermore... she doesn’t require a betrothal gift, and you can marry her immediately. So don’t be a ungrateful dog, you must not let down the Patriarch’s painstaking efforts."
Painstaking efforts.
Lu Xuan almost laughed.
"Painstaking efforts," he said through gritted teeth.
"No matter how nicely you put it... it’s just because at the end there’s no betrothal gift. Right?"
The words were not loud.
But the Ancestral Hall was quiet, and everyone heard them clearly.
For a heartbeat, no one moved.
Then Lu Hao’s face twisted.
"Presumptuous!"
He jabbed a finger at Lu Xuan’s face, and his voice cracked with anger and hate.
"Go find a mirror and look at your own pathetic face! You still think you can stay in the Lu Family and freeload off us for a lifetime? Get married and move out... Get out of the Lu Family!"
Lu Xuan stared at him, understanding dawning on him at once, it was never the marriage.
This marriage was nothing but a sham.
Kicking him out of the Lu Family... that was the real purpose of every person in this room. He was a burden to them. A reminder. A living piece of evidence that everything they had built was stolen.
As long as he stayed inside these walls, they could never sleep soundly.
So they had decided to get rid of him.
And Lu Tianhe... that gentle, smiling man... would not even say the word leave himself.
He let the elders do the reasoning. He let Lu Hao do the shouting. He wrapped it in the word marriage and called it kindness.
So that if anyone ever asked, his hands would still be clean.
Truly despicable.