437: Chapter 447 The End of a Hero

The Execution Supervisor gave a sharp shout and threw down the final red-tipped tally, the symbol of death.

Thud!

The red-tipped tally hit the ground.

The broad-shouldered, thick-waisted executioner standing beside Chen Yuan took a sudden swig of strong liquor. With a flash of blinding cold light, he raised his blade and brought it down with the force of a thunderbolt, hacking savagely at the back of Chen Yuan's neck!

Crack!

The dull sound of bone and flesh parting.

A spray of scalding blood erupted like a fountain, reflecting a bewitching red light in the sun. It splattered across the mottled wood grain of the execution platform and onto the executioner's bare torso.

A head with graying hair rolled across the ground. Those sunken eyes remained wide open, staring fixedly at the sky with endless resentment and confusion.

Bravo—!!!

The Marketplace of Executions instantly erupted into deafening, sky-shaking cheers of fervor! The commoners embraced and wept, while countless people knelt to kowtow at that moment, offering solace to the wronged souls who had died tragically in the Northern Frontier.

At the very front of the crowd.

Xu Qing stood silently in place, watching the rolling head and the headless corpse geysering blood.

The surrounding revelry seemed to have nothing to do with him.

He felt the world around him become incredibly quiet at this moment.

A gust of autumn wind swept past, swirling a few yellow leaves from the ground and fluttering his somewhat thin green robes.

At some point, two lines of clear tears silently slid down Xu Qing's face, which was usually as calm as a deep well.

Men do not shed tears easily; it is only that they have not yet reached the point of heartbreak.

Five whole years. Over eighteen hundred days and nights.

He had been like a rat hiding in a gutter, camouflaging himself with extreme caution and calculating as if treading on thin ice. Every day he danced on the edge of a cliff, and every night he was unable to sleep.

He had lost his dignity, his friends, and even the aloof self he once was.

All of this had finally come to a complete end today.

Brother Su...

Xu Qing closed his eyes, letting the tears flow. He silently called out that name in the depths of his heart.

You can... rest in peace now.

He thought Su Ming had died in the ice and snow of the Northern Frontier; he thought this revenge was his final account to his dear friend. But he did not know that at this very moment, not far from him, a pair of eyes was quietly watching everything.

...

The moment Chen Yuan's head hit the ground.

Su Ming's finger, which had been tapping on the windowsill, also paused.

He watched the spurting blood, the cheering commoners, and Xu Qing, who was weeping silently in the crowd.

His gaze was as calm as water.

There was no ecstasy of a great grudge avenged, no condescending pity, not even a ripple of emotion. He was like a passerby who happened to glimpse a fallen leaf drifting onto the water's surface, nothing more.

Su Ming slowly withdrew his gaze, no longer looking at the noisy scene outside the window.

He turned and walked to the table.

On the table sat a cup of tea that had already gone cold.

He took a few copper coins from his robe and placed them gently and neatly on the tabletop.

His movements were meticulous, as if he were inscribing a basic protective rune—precise and natural.

Then, he pushed open the door of the private room and blended into the crowd of people dispersing outside the teahouse.

His gray robe was unremarkable in the crowd; he was like a drop of water merging silently into the ocean, without causing a single ripple.

The moment he stepped out of the teahouse and onto the bluestone road.

Su Ming pressed down on the brim of his bamboo hat. Facing the slightly chilly late-autumn breeze, he spoke in a low voice that only he and the one inside the xuantian ring could hear:

Master.

Marquis Yongchang... is dead.

...

The capital of Daxing, which had been noisy all day, finally fell into a deep sleep amidst the sobbing of the autumn wind. The earth-shaking revelry and spurting blood at the Marketplace of Executions during the day seemed to have been covered by this cold night. However, for some, this night was destined to be sleepless.

Xu Qing's residence, the study.

The sand in the clepsydra made a faint rustling sound, as if time were flowing ruthlessly by his ear. Not many candles were lit in the study; only a lone lamp on the desk emitted a dim, flickering yellow light.

Xu Qing did not attend the celebratory banquet his colleagues had specially organized to celebrate his bringing down Marquis Yongchang. After returning from the execution ground, he locked himself alone in this study that had witnessed his days and nights for five years. He hadn't even changed out of his green official robes, which were stained with a bit of autumn dust, and sat quietly before the large red sandalwood desk, his entire being seemingly merging into the surrounding shadows.

His gaze passed over the dancing candlelight and lingered for a long time on the calligraphy hanging on the opposite wall.

Shen Du.

The brushstrokes were powerful and vigorous, penetrating the paper, yet they carried a hint of indescribable endurance and restraint. He had written this himself five years ago, when he learned that Su Ming had been exiled to the Northern Frontier and decided to lie low in this man-eating capital.

Every night during these five years, when he felt despair amidst the mountain of Ministry of Revenue ledgers, when he bowed and scraped before the carriage of the Marquis Yongchang's heir and felt humiliated, when he faced assassination and intimidation and felt fear, he would look at these two characters.

Five years. One thousand eight hundred and twenty-five days and nights of suffering, calculation, endurance, and disguise.

Finally, it was over.

Xu Qing closed his eyes slightly and raised his slender fingers to gently rub his aching brow. The study was so quiet that he could hear his own slightly heavy breathing and the faint sound of the remaining agarwood in the incense burner burning out.

Suddenly, an extremely faint autumn breeze blew into the tightly closed study from somewhere.

The candlelight on the desk flickered violently, stretching Xu Qing's shadow on the wall into a distorted and elongated shape. In that wind, there seemed to be a hint of the chill belonging to a late autumn night, along with an indescribable, familiar aura.

Xu Qing's fingers rubbing his brow suddenly paused.

He was in a state of high mental tension year-round and possessed a sensitivity to changes in his surroundings far beyond that of ordinary people. He had personally checked the doors and windows of the study; it was impossible for any wind to blow in.

He did not turn around immediately but instead slid his right hand silently toward the defensive short blade beneath the desk.

Just then, the sound of a faint stream of water rang out abruptly in the deathly silent study.

Drip... splash...

Someone had picked up the purple clay teapot in the corner of the desk and was pouring tea into a white porcelain teacup.

Xu Qing's muscles tensed instantly. He whipped his head around, his right hand already gripping the hilt of the short blade. However, when he saw the sight behind him, the blade, which had already been drawn half an inch, came to a dead stop.

A figure dressed in green robes had, at some unknown time, quietly stood in the shadows of the study's corner.