Firmament Sword

Xu Jie stood, his eyes still red-rimmed as he raised his wine cup. Looking at everyone at the table, he said in a heavy voice, ”I’m sorry. I’ve let my brothers down!”

Huangfu Chongzhi shook his head slightly. ”We’ve been brothers since we were kids,” he said softly. ”You don’t need to say that. None of us have ever blamed you.”

Little Fatty chimed in from the side, ”What do you mean, no one’s blamed him? I’m very unhappy with Second Brother!”

Xu Luo shot Little Fatty a glare, but Little Fatty just stared back stubbornly. ”You can glare all you want, Third Brother, but I’m going to say it!” he declared. ”I have to get this off my chest!”

Huangfu Chongzhi started to speak, but Xu Jie stopped him. ”Eldest Brother,” Xu Jie said, ”since we’re all brothers, there’s nothing that can’t be said. Let him speak.”

Huangfu Chongzhi sighed softly, shook his head, and said no more.

Little Fatty snorted. ”Second Brother, when you ran away from your wedding, we, as your brothers, didn’t blame you. After all, matters of the heart are personal. If someone tried to take Lan Xin away from me, I’d do anything too! But you shouldn’t have left without a single word to us!”

”Yes, Third Brother figured out you were going to leave based on your actions, but that’s a world apart from you telling us yourself!”

”That’s the first thing I’m angry about!”

”Second, Liu Ruyu is a good woman. Back then, she endured immense pressure and the ridicule of all the Imperial City People to marry into your family, becoming a daughter-in-law of the Xu Family in name only. But all this time, she took far better care of your mother than any of us ever did! You could say she fulfilled every duty expected of a daughter-in-law!”

”The Royal Family suffered a calamity. Eldest Brother and Third Brother were away. Uncle Xu and Uncle Sui were killed in the Imperial Palace. The entire Imperial Capital descended into chaos, and every family on our side was targeted for slaughter! At the most critical moment, she was the one who stepped forward, turned the tide, and saved your entire family!”

”Afterward, Third Brother returned and Eldest Brother ascended the throne. And while she was rewarded for her deeds, she remained extremely low-key, hardly ever leaving the Xu Mansion. Do you know... why that was?”

Xu Jie kept his head down, silent.

Little Fatty sneered. ”She was afraid of damaging the Xu Family’s reputation!”

”Meanwhile, you were having a grand time, playing out your tragic romance all the way to the Northern Desert Grassland. You got the girl, your beloved Second Sister-in-law, and the two of you were inseparable. She even made a fine name for herself as Hong Niangzi. Tsk, tsk... Truly awe-inspiring. Everyone on the Northern Desert Grassland fears you, right? But back then, did you two ever once stop to think about what was happening at home?”

”You heard there was trouble in the Imperial Capital, and yes, you rushed back immediately. But what did you do when you returned? You brought your darling Second Sister-in-law to kneel at your own front door and beg for forgiveness. It looked very sincere, didn’t it? But do you have any idea that single act is what drove Miss Liu away?”

Growing more agitated, Little Fatty slammed his hand on the table and glared at Xu Jie. ”Even as she was leaving, she was still thinking of you! She left a letter for your mother and a letter for her father, and her whole point was to absolve you of blame! Second Brother, oh, Second Brother... you’re sitting here drinking with us, but have you ever once considered how Miss Liu’s parents must be feeling right now?”

”Have you really... never once thought about going to apologize to her parents?”

As Little Fatty finished, the other four men in the room fell silent.

Xu Luo let out a soft sigh. ’On the surface, it might seem like Xu Jie did nothing wrong,’ he thought. ’But in reality, just as Little Fatty said, there were some things he handled very poorly.’

’The entire Xu Family truly owed the Liu Family a debt that could never be repaid.’

Huangfu Chongzhi sighed faintly, a hint of admiration in his eyes as he looked at Little Fatty. ’Among the five of them, Little Fatty seemed the most unremarkable,’ he mused, ’but when it came to understanding people and the ways of the world, he was truly the most brilliant.’

Sui Yan glanced at Little Fatty and said softly, ”He has a point.”

Little Fatty looked at Sui Yan and suddenly broke into a grin. ”Fifth Brother, you finally agreed with your Fourth Brother for once! That’s a rare occasion!”

Xu Jie’s eyes were rimmed with red. He lifted the cup before him, drained it in one gulp, and slammed it down on the table, staring at Little Fatty.

Little Fatty flinched. ”Second Brother... you’re not angry enough to hit me, are you?”

Xu Jie shook his head, then gave Little Fatty a deep, formal bow.

Startled, Little Fatty scrambled to hide behind Xu Luo. ”Third Brother, has he lost his mind?”

Xu Jie straightened up. ”Fourth Brother, thank you,” he said earnestly. ”If it weren’t for you, I’m afraid I would have stayed muddle-headed... You’re right. All this time, I’ve been running away, too scared to face the truth. I shirked my responsibilities as a man. In that, you are far stronger than I am!”

”You all carry on drinking. I’m going to the Liu Family to apologize right now!” With that, Xu Jie strode out of the room.

The four remaining brothers looked at each other, all speechless.

After a long moment, Huangfu Chongzhi finally spoke. ”This is for the best. Otherwise, it would have always weighed on his mind.”

Xu Luo nodded. ”I could tell, actually. Even though Second Brother was back, he wasn’t happy. Even if Fourth Brother hadn’t said anything, he would have eventually had to face his guilt toward the Liu Family.”

”I just couldn’t hold it in any longer,” Little Fatty said. ”To be honest, none of us have anything against his Second Sister-in-law. We even respect her. Her choice to run away back then wasn’t necessarily wrong. But Second Brother’s choice... that’s harder to justify. If none of this other stuff had happened, the most people would have said is, ’That Miss Liu is quite the fool for love, and so is Xu Jie...’ But after everything that’s happened, when you look back, their personal romance seems utterly insignificant by comparison!”

”That’s right. The very first thing Second Brother should have done after returning to the Imperial Capital was go to the Liu Family to beg for forgiveness. Liu Ruyu truly sacrificed too much for the Xu Family,” Sui Yan said, speaking up uncharacteristically. Clearly, Liu Ruyu’s past actions had left a deep impression on the taciturn young man.

”In any case, at least Second Brother is taking responsibility now. It was a messy situation, so you can’t put all the blame on him,” Little Fatty sighed. ”As long as Liu Ruyu’s parents can forgive him, I think there might still be a chance for things to work out.”

Everyone knew what Little Fatty was referring to. No matter what, Liu Ruyu’s status was official; her identity as a daughter-in-law of the Xu Family could not be changed.

Xu Luo, however, shook his head slightly. Though he’d had almost no interaction with Liu Ruyu, he’d always had a feeling about this talented, beautiful woman from a scholarly lineage: ’She’s no ordinary person!’

’You could see it from the way she ignored all the gossip and chose to marry into the Xu Family. Then later, how she single-handedly turned the tide and saved them... And now, with Xu Jie’s return, she simply leaves two letters and vanishes without a trace. For a sheltered young lady from a good family, such behavior is strange no matter how you look at it. But if it were someone like Huangfu Chongzhi’s lover, Li Yueru... it would seem perfectly normal!’

’Could it be... that Liu Ruyu... is also a disciple of some great sect?’ Xu Luo wondered, then immediately shook his head, thinking the idea was absurd.

’How could a woman who has never even left the Imperial Capital, who rarely even steps out of her own home, possibly be a disciple of a great sect?’

...

Little Fatty’s words were a wake-up call for Xu Jie, finally giving him the courage to face the Liu Family.

When he knelt at the main gate of the Liu Family estate to beg forgiveness from Liu Ruyu’s parents, he caused quite a stir.

”Hey, isn’t that Xu Jie, the young master of Duke Jingguo’s Family? What’s he doing...?”

”Haven’t you heard? He came back with that Great Yan Female General and drove away his legitimate wife. And wasn’t she the Liu Family’s daughter?”

”Now that you mention it, I remember! The Liu Family’s daughter, the talented and beautiful Liu Ruyu. Sigh, I have no idea what she was thinking back then, being so set on marrying into the Xu Family. In the end, the marriage was in name only.”

”That’s right. Now Liu Ruyu has left the Xu Family, and no one knows where she is. What a shame!”

”When the Xu Family faced that great disaster, if Liu Ruyu hadn’t stepped up, the entire Duke Jingguo’s Mansion would have probably been wiped out!”

”A descendant of Calligraphy Master Liu Bai is truly something else!”

”Well, whatever you say, this young master of the Xu Family is doing the right thing. At least he knows to come and apologize.”

”Exactly! If he didn’t come, he’d be truly heartless!”

The crowd’s chattering and all their various comments reached Xu Jie’s ears, making the tough-as-nails man flush with shame.

When Liu Xuan and his wife received the servant’s report that Xu Jie was kneeling outside their home to beg forgiveness, their hearts filled with a complex mix of emotions.

Tears streamed down Madam Liu’s face as she said angrily, ”He still has the nerve to come to our home? If it weren’t for him, our daughter would have never left!”

”Xiaoyu’s departure... doesn’t really have anything to do with him. You read the letter too, didn’t you?” Liu Xuan, surprisingly, spoke up on Xu Jie’s behalf.

He had originally been furious as well, wishing he could kill Xu Jie to vent his frustration. But after reading his daughter’s letter, he understood a great deal more. Now that Xu Jie had come to apologize in person, the resentment in Liu Xuan’s heart had mostly dissipated.

After all, the Xu Family could now be considered one of the top aristocratic families in the Cangqiong Empire. Even if Xu Jie hadn’t come, no one could have forced him.

But Xu Jie had come. By kneeling at the Liu Family’s gate to beg forgiveness, he had given them an immense amount of face and demonstrated a man’s sense of responsibility.

It’s said a man’s knees are worth their weight in gold—that he should only kneel to Heaven, Earth, and his parents. Even so, kneeling before the parents of the one who saved his entire family was something Xu Jie absolutely had to do.

”How is it not related? Even if... even if Xiaoyu wanted to cultivate some ’Way’... she could have at least done it at home!” Madam Liu wept. A daughter is a mother’s precious child. With her daughter gone, her heart felt like it was being torn apart.

”Sigh... let it be. Whether or not Xiaoyu and Xu Jie were fated to be together, we are still technically his parents-in-law. If you don’t want to go out, you can stay here. I’ll go take a look.” Liu Xuan sighed. He looked as if he had aged a dozen years in an instant. His daughter’s departure had been a massive blow to him as well.

”I’ll go with you.” Madam Liu was, after all, a well-educated and reasonable woman. She was not the type to make a scene or throw a tantrum. Though her heart was full of resentment, her reason ultimately won out.

By the time Liu Ruyu’s parents came out, a large crowd had already gathered.