Special Chapter 1 part I In the thirteenth year of Jingyan reign, on the fifteenth day of the seventh month. At General Zhao Manor. General Zhao Yangshi, the General of the Region, and Zhao Yong Saiweihao, 5-year-old boy, paced anxiously back and forth in front of a residence. Why had it taken so long for them to come out? The intermittent screams made the father and son restless, taking turns standing and sitting, making the servants dizzy. "She’s here. She’s here, Master. Both mother and daughter are safe and sound," a servant hurried out to inform Zhao Yangshi and Zhao Yong Saiweihao of the good news. "Good! Very good," Zhao Yangshi finally smiled, the first time in a day after being tense since noon, and it was now *zi period[1]. The father and son rushed into the residence but were momentarily halted by a servant who cautioned them. "Master, the room is filled with the smell of blood, which is not auspicious for men." "Hey! What auspiciousness? My furen and daughter are inside!" He raised his voice, frustrated. How could he wait outside when he was so worried for his furen? The servant had no choice but to step aside. Inside the room, the air was thick with the smell of blood. Zhao Furen lay pale on the bed, surrounded by blood-soaked cloths scattered across the floor. However, Zhao Yangshi paid no mind to it as he rushed to Zhao Furen’s side. He took her hand and kissed it gently. "How are you feeling? Does it hurt much?" His gaze made a woman who had just given birth to their second child be able to smile, despite the unbearable pain. "It’s alright, I’ll feel better soon." "Mother," the little Zhao Yong Saiweihao, seeing the floor covered in blood-soaked cloths, teared up. The process of childbirth required so much blood loss from his mother. Did it happen the same way when she gave birth to him? "Hao’er, why are you crying? Aren’t you happy to have a little sister?" Zhao Furen asked. "Sob... Does it hurt, Mother?" The boy’s tears fell faster. "Oh, my dear boy, come here, let your mother hold you," Zhao Furen opened her arms wide, and the boy threw himself into them, crying. "The little lady is here," a wet nurse came in after cleaning the newborn, handing the baby to Zhao Furen while Yong Saiweihao stepped aside to look at his sister wrapped in a cloth. "Why is she so ugly?" He was taken aback by the sight of the tiny, wrinkled, red face. Was this his sister? She was so ugly. The source of this content ɪs 𝓷𝓸𝓿𝓮𝓵✦𝕗𝕚𝕣𝕖✦𝙣𝙚𝙩 "She’s still very young. She’ll look better as she grows. Hao’er, you looked the same when you were born," Zhao Furen chuckled at his reaction. "I looked too?" The boy was shocked. "Yes, you did. And you grew up to be very adorable," Zhao Furen assured him. Yong Saiweihao smiled sheepishly, then turned his gaze away as Zhao Furen gently stroked his head. "Hao’er, you are a big brother now. You must take good care of your sister. Will you help your father and me?" "Yes, I will take good care of her," the boy promised solemnly. Following his promise, Yong Saiweihao did everything to help his mother care for his sister without complaints—bathing her, changing diapers, wiping her down. He even learned to calm her when she cried. Since then, little Zhao Lisi became very attached to her brother, refusing to be held by anyone else but her mother and brother. Even their father could make her cry by just holding her, she noticed the scent. When she was three months old, Yong Saiweihao had practically become her second mother. "Mother, she’s hungry again." "Mother, she’s soiled her diaper again." "Mother, she seems uncomfortable." Yong Saiweihao knew his sister’s needs well. As winter approached in the eleventh month, Yong Saiweihao ordered more charcoal to prevent his sister from getting cold. Worried about the quality of the charcoal and the risk of sparks injuring his mother and sister, he decided to pick the charcoal himself. When he walked out to the front of the manor, he saw his father was leaving too. "Where are you going, Father?" "I have urgent business at the military camp and must leave for a few days. Take care of your mother and sister for me." "Understood," Yong Saiweihao replied firmly, earning his father’s satisfied nod before he rode off. Yong Saiweihao then went to the market to personally select the charcoal, needing a larger quantity for the cold weather. Additionally, he planned to buy soft fabric to make clothes for his sister, whose skin was delicate and required gentle care. "A’Hao, A’Hao, what are you doing here?" a familiar voice called from behind. When he turned around, he saw a sharp-faced boy in an old coarse hemp outfit. "Your Highness, how did you end up here?" "Keep your voice down. Talk normally, or others will hear," Shi Wenlang quickly covered his friend’s mouth. "How did you manage to leave the palace?" "Don’t be loud, I sneaked out." "You’ll be punished if the empress finds out," Zhao Yong Saiweihao’s eyes widened. "If you don’t tell, and I don’t say, no one will know. Come on, let’s go play in the city," Wenlang hurriedly dragged his friend around the town. Yong Saiweihao sighed deeply and reluctantly led Wenlang around until sunset, when the prince finally agreed to return to the royal palace. Zhao Yong Saiweihao hurried home, fearing his mother would worry. However, as he approached the residence, he stopped in his tracks, greeted by a faint smell of blood carried by the wind, making his heart skip a beat. Yong Saiweihao, taking advantage of his small size, slowly cracked open the manor door and then rushed to hide in the bushes nearby. Inside, the manor was as silent as an abandoned house. The usual cries of Lisi that filled the mansion every day were conspicuously absent today. The guards usually stationed in front of the manor were nowhere to be seen. The little boy cautiously emerged from the bushes and stealthily approached his mother’s residence. As he entered, the smell of blood intensified. His little feet stumbled upon something; bending down to look, he discovered a man lying there, his body soaked in blood. This man, one of the garden servants, had been stabbed to death. Yong Saiweihao’s face turned pale, and the bundle of cloth he was holding dropped to the ground with a thud. He ran into his mother’s residence, only to find the servants sprawled across the floor, some injured by weapons, others unconscious. Yong Saiweihao rushed past the screen to enter the room, but his mother was nowhere to be found. Only his little sister Lisi, wrapped tightly in cloth and sleeping soundly, was there. If not observed closely, one might not even notice a baby lying there. Where was his mother? "Cough!" A guard, who had been stabbed but was not yet dead, crawled towards him. "Y... Young Master, F... Furen has been taken." The little boy was shocked upon hearing it. "Y... Young Master, they went out the back of the manor. Hurry and fetch Master to save Furen," the guard said with a trembling voice before coughing up blood and dying right in front of Yong Saiweihao. The young boy, seeing someone die right before his eyes, was both panicked and scared, unsure of what to do next. Was his mother taken out through the back of the manor? Being young and shocked by the events, he didn’t stop to think. The young boy hurried to the manor’s back gate. The back gate of the Zhao Manor wasn’t far from the city’s eastern gate. Once he passed through the city gate, he saw an old carriage, unremarkable, surrounded by about a dozen burly men. "Hurry up, don’t delay," one of the men said. "Master, will Zhao Yangshi surely follow?" "He will definitely come after us. Zhao Yangshi adores his wife too much. If he hears the news, why wouldn’t he rush here? Let’s go, no more questions." The old carriage slowly moved away. Yong Saiweihao, hiding behind the wall, was certain his mother must be in that carriage. What should he do? The military camp where his father was, was too far. If he ran to find his father, he would lose track of the carriage and wouldn’t know where they took his mother. The young boy, tearful and never having faced such a situation before, decided to follow the carriage. The young boy clumsily followed from a distance, stumbling over the rugged path, falling and getting up repeatedly, causing his knees and hands to bleed. Despite his exhaustion and barely being able to move, he continued to follow the carriage uphill, driven only by the need to at least know where his mother was being taken, so he could fetch his father to help. But, although he ran after that carriage till dark, the carriage did not look like it would stop. As darkness fell and only the moonlight guided him, surrounded by dense forest on either side, his exhaustion became unbearable, and he couldn’t take another step. Thud! The young boy finally lost all his strength. His small body crashed to the gravelly ground below. Unable to move even an arm, tears slowly streamed down his dirty, grimy cheeks. Yong Saiweihao was furious that his body was still just a weak child’s. Soon after, he heard approaching horse steps in the dark, unable to identify who was coming. "Hmm, run out of strength to follow any further, have you?" a man’s harsh voice sounded. "Master, it’s just a little boy. That he managed to this far is impressive enough. He must be truly exhausted." "Tie him up and throw him in the carriage with his mother." "As you command." In truth, they had been aware of Yong Saiweihao following them since leaving the city. How could they, as trained spirit energy cultivators, not notice a child sneaking behind? Yong Saiweihao was bound hand and foot and thrown into the carriage. Inside, it was pitch black, not even the moonlight could penetrate, leaving him unable to see if the person lying there was truly his mother. "Hao’er!" Zhao Furen was shocked to hear her son’s voice. How could he be here? "Hao’er, how did you get here?" Zhao Furen asked in panic. It was bad enough she was captured alone, but why was her son taken too? But with her hands tied, she couldn’t hug him, and the darkness inside the carriage prevented them from seeing anything. "I sneaked after you, afraid they’d take you far away." "Oh, my child," Zhao Furen’s heart was filled with dread, fearing they might kill her son as well. After a while, the carriage stopped, then Zhao Furen and Yong Saiweihao were carried out to a brightly lit stone courtyard surrounded by torches. They realized they were on a rock outcrop above a deep chasm. "It’s a pleasure that furen still remembers me.," Luan Sun smirked. "Release my son!" Zhao Furen shouted, trembling with fear. Luan Sun was brutal, the only remaining member of the Huishan Mountain Rebels not yet captured by the authorities. His audacity to create such a disturbance near the capital under the Emperor’s watch was alarming. "Scared now, Zhao Furen?" "Luan Sun, I beg you, let him go. He’s just a child." "Mother," Yong Saiweihao weakly called out. "To think he followed all this way, why would I let him go so easily? Ha, ha, ha!" Luan Sun laughed maniacally, determined to make Zhao Yangshi suffer as he had. Luan Sun was once a General of the West, with ambitions. He used to control two hundred thousand soldiers. When Han Wang rebelled, Luan Sun joined with his two hundred thousand soldiers, hoping to assist Han Wang usurp the throne and got a title of General of the Region, replace Zhao Yangshi. But his dreams were shattered when Zhao Yangshi successfully quelled the rebellion, with only one hundred and thirty thousand soldiers. Escaping the city, Luan Sun became a fugitive, constantly hunted for treason. That night, the official soldiers received an order to execute the Luan family, nearly 300 of his family members, including his wife who was pregnant with their first child, brutally. Luan Sun’s grief and rage for his murdered wife and unborn child. He was going to become a father. Why did his unborn son never get a chance to cry? After the incident, he learnt that Zhao Yangshi was the executioner. He wondered about the terror his wife must have felt in her final moments. Now, he intended to make Zhao Yangshi know how it was to lose his loved one. [11] Zi period is a time between 23:00 – 24:59 P.M. Read ‘Rebirth: This Farmgirl Has Spirit Fish Scales’ before anyone else with more Chapters at https://www.jinovel.com/en