Chapter 7 : Chapter 7
Chapter 7: Those Luxurious Ideals of Chivalry Were Things That Could Cost Him His Life
Beixuan City.
A grand procession advanced down the wide street with tremendous pomp.
Several powerful martial artists clad in iron armor and bearing weapons on their shoulders guarded it on both sides. Every one of them was an expert with Internal Energy brimming through his body.
Two crimson lions pulled an opulent carriage, their entire bodies radiating a terrifying aura.
At the center of the procession was the imposing Cheng Zhenjiang and his family.
Pedestrians on the road hurriedly got out of the way, terrified of being trampled to death if they were caught up in it, with no one to avenge their grievance afterward.
“Who are these people? Even when I was in the Great Qian Capital, I never saw princes and nobles travel with such extravagance. Is no one going to stop them?”
“Who would dare? That is the Martial Alliance Leader of the North, the Sect Master of the River-Severing Sect, one of the Nine Great Sects, and the head of the Cheng Family—Great Hero Cheng and his family. If Great Hero Cheng did not dislike ostentation, then with his status in the North, he could put on a display even grander than the Great Qian Emperor’s without any trouble at all!”
“Alliance Leader, Sect Master, Great Hero... There really are quite a few people inside that carriage.”
In the end, the procession came to a stop before the Beixuan City Jinyiwei Command Office.
The onlookers were all startled.
Why had Great Hero Cheng come to a place belonging to the imperial Imperial Hounds?
Didn’t he care most about preserving his reputation and disdain associating with people like them?
At the entrance to the Command Office, before any of Cheng Zhenjiang’s people could step forward, a middle-aged man in a dark red Flying Fish Uniform hurried out on his own and bowed deeply to Cheng Zhenjiang.
“Hu Er, Thousand-Household Commander of the Beixuan City Jinyiwei, greets Alliance Leader Cheng!”
“Has Alliance Leader Cheng come to my Command Office with instructions? I will certainly do everything in my power!”
He was a Commandant at the Sixth Rank, yet in the face of Cheng Zhenjiang, a super expert at the Ninth Rank, his legs would not stop trembling.
All the rules about how the Jinyiwei were not to kneel before outsiders were thrown straight out of his mind.
“I am looking for a Banner Captain named Cheng Yu. Tell him to come out and see me.”
Cheng Zhenjiang’s expression was cold, and he spoke with extreme economy, as though he did not wish to waste even half a sentence on a man of the Jinyiwei.
“Yes!”
The moment he heard Cheng Zhenjiang was looking for someone from the Jinyiwei, the Commandant privately wondered which blind fool had dared get entangled with a mere Banner Captain and a giant of the Jianghu.
He immediately sent a subordinate to fetch him.
“Banner Captain Cheng Yu... Why does that name sound so familiar?”
Not long afterward, the subordinate who had been sent to find him came rushing back alone, without bringing anyone with him.
“Hmph.”
Cheng Zhenjiang let out a cold snort. Had that unfilial son deliberately hidden himself to avoid seeing him?
He truly had no manners or virtue and did not know the first thing about respecting his elders.
Holding a grudge against his own parents over such a trivial matter—he was bringing shame upon him!
Naturally, the Commandant knew nothing of all this. When he saw that Alliance Leader Cheng’s expression had turned wrong, he jumped in fright.
He immediately turned a dark face toward his returning subordinate.
“Useless fool! Where is he?!”
His subordinate wore a bitter expression and hurried over to whisper into the Commandant’s ear.
The Commandant shuddered when he finished listening. No wonder the name Cheng Yu had sounded so familiar just now.
So it was that ruthless fellow who had made the Thousand-Household Commander under him fly into a rage.
The one who had killed his former superior and then swaggered off.
The man was already gone, and after an incident like that, the Commandant could only force himself to speak.
“Alliance Leader Cheng, Banner Captain Cheng has already left Beixuan City and gone to Jiangnan to take up his post!”
The moment those words came out, Cheng Zhenjiang had not yet reacted, but Zhao Xichun behind him instantly showed clear signs of agitation.
“My son is still injured. How could he have left so quickly? Does he truly despise us, his family, that much?”
As she spoke, tears began falling again.
Hearing that, the Commandant was so shocked that he nearly lost his soul.
That Banner Captain was Alliance Leader Cheng’s son?
His legs instantly gave way, and he collapsed to the ground.
It was over!
He had kept his head down his entire life. How had he ended up in a situation like this?
Everyone knew that within the Jinyiwei, the strong bullying the weak was something seen all the time.
Even Cheng Zhenjiang’s son had not been spared from being bullied.
The corner of Cheng Zhenjiang’s eye twitched as well, but because of his status, he did not show much reaction.
He merely looked coldly at the Commandant.
“Isn’t leaving to take up a post the most ordinary thing in the world? Why are you reacting so strongly? Do you have a guilty conscience? Speak the truth!”
His voice exploded outward, and the immense pressure of a Ninth Rank super expert spread in all directions. Even the people watching from dozens of meters away nearly lost their footing.
Many of them were Jianghu experts who had come specifically to catch a glimpse of the Alliance Leader, yet even they could not withstand it in the slightest.
As expected of a Heaven Ranking expert. A mere burst of aura from him was already this terrifying.
At the same time, they were inwardly astonished by Banner Captain Cheng Yu’s identity. As the son of a giant of the Jianghu, how had he ended up in the most despised arm of the court, only barely rising to the rank of Banner Captain?
The Commandant, already a spineless fool to begin with, was terrified out of his wits by a Ninth Rank expert. On the spot, he spilled everything he knew.
“On that day, Cheng Yu came back early in the morning to report to the Thousand-Household Office he belonged to. Then he accepted his orders and left for Jiangnan to take up his post. On the way out, he ran into his former superior. The two of them had some conflict, and then he killed the man, cut off his head, and left... Great Hero Cheng, that’s all I know!”
“Killed someone?”
Cheng Zhenjiang was inwardly startled, but what followed at once was shame and anger.
That unfilial son truly was a born killer, savage to such an extent. It had only been such a short time, and he had already killed his former superior!
How could he be so utterly different from him, a Great Hero, and from his younger son, the Young Alliance Leader?
“Why would Yu’er kill someone? Could it be that man bullied him first?!”
As his mother, Zhao Xichun did not think any farther than that. Her first reaction was to wonder why Cheng Yu had killed someone.
Who would dare bully Great Hero Cheng’s son? Did he not value his life?
The Commandant had just been about to instinctively deny it when another man came tumbling out of the Command Office in a panic.
“Great Hero, please forgive me!”
The newcomer was the Thousand-Household Commander above both Cheng Yu and Luo Xin. He fell to his knees, crying out to the heavens as he apologized.
“That Luo Xin was truly despicable. He was overbearing and unreasonable every day, bullied his subordinates, squeezed them for profit, and did every manner of evil. Banner Captain Cheng was bullied by him for a full four years. He was always assigned the filthiest jobs, the hardest labor, and the most dangerous tasks. He was beaten and cursed at the slightest provocation, and only after enduring all that was he finally promoted to Banner Captain.”
“Who would have thought that bastard would still be so brazen? He even tried to extort Banner Captain Cheng. The two of them clashed, and Luo Xin actually drew his saber and attacked first!”
“No one expected Banner Captain Cheng’s martial arts to be so formidable. With a single strike, he executed him and cleaned house for our Jinyiwei. He has already safely gone south to assume his post in Jiangnan.”
Cheng Zhenjiang and Zhao Xichun both trembled from head to toe when they heard this.
“You’re saying our son was bullied here for a full six years?!”
Luo Xin had been nothing more than an ant on the verge of promotion to General Banner Captain, yet he had dared bully their son for so long?
They were used to their other children being cherished and looked after wherever they went. They simply could not imagine such a thing.
The Commandant stared blankly at the Thousand-Household Commander under him.
He was going to be destroyed by this!
In his panic, he could only start kowtowing frantically, banging his head against the ground as he wept and begged forgiveness.
As Cheng Zhenjiang listened to what Cheng Yu had gone through, realization slowly dawned on him.
He had never known that Cheng Yu had been living such a life, ordered about, threatened, beaten, and cursed day after day.
Zhao Xichun was crying so hard that her tears fell like rain, her heart aching beyond measure.
It was at that moment that Cheng Si’s slightly weary voice sounded softly.
“None of you was willing to ask whether Second Brother had been living well. All you knew was how to blame him for being ruthless, decisive, and merciless in the way he handled things.”
“If any of you had only asked, how could he possibly not have told you? In the environment he grew up in, even living like a human being was a luxury he had to struggle for. If he was not ruthless enough toward others, then others would be ruthless toward him. Even a mere Banner Captain could bully him.”
“Father, all that benevolence, morality, and chivalry you keep preaching to him is far too extravagant for Second Brother—so extravagant that it would cost him his life!”
These few sentences came from Cheng Si, who had only just regained consciousness not long ago and was still enduring her illness and pain.
Cheng Zhenjiang and Zhao Xichun both began trembling all over.
“My son... How could I not have known you lived so bitterly? I even thought you were a bad child. I was wrong!”
Zhao Xichun wept bitterly.
Then she remembered that now she could not even produce a single thing that could serve as a keepsake of her eldest son, and grief overwhelmed her even more.
Cheng Zhenjiang was trembling as well, but he forcibly suppressed himself from showing too much, lest it damage the reputation of the Northern Martial Alliance and the River-Severing Sect.
Seeing that her father was still stubbornly refusing to wake up to the truth, Cheng Si shook her head helplessly.
“You used one of your disciples to deceive Second Brother and thought it was a small matter, but you never realized that to him, every little thing that escaped his control might bring mortal danger. How can you blame him for that?”
Faced with such blunt words, Cheng Zhenjiang could no longer maintain his expression. His stern brows drooped.
“I felt that his conduct was truly vile, so I used that method to test whether he would submit to me as his father. Who could have expected things to end like this? You must understand, the people of the Jianghu value benevolence, righteousness, propriety, and wisdom above all else, and filial piety comes first among them. As his father, what I did was not too excessive...”
“Benevolence, righteousness, propriety, and wisdom? Benevolence, righteousness, propriety, and wisdom?!”
“You can spend the rest of your life with your chivalry, then! Your son has been driven away by you. If you do not bring him back, then I cannot go on living with you either!”
Zhao Xichun trembled with rage. She stamped her foot and immediately used a superior movement technique to leave.
Seeing things turn out like this, Cheng Si and her elder sister Cheng Yue did not wish to remain any longer either. Cheng Si tugged lightly at her sister’s sleeve.
“I only came home this time because my health was having some problems. In a couple of days, come with me to Jiangnan, somewhere with a suitable climate, and while we’re there, let’s visit a famous physician.”
“This...”
Cheng Yue was normally busy managing the affairs of the River-Severing Sect’s disciples and rarely dealt with the concerns of the mundane world. As for her younger brother Cheng Yu, she too had always felt that he lacked any chivalrous heart.
For a moment, she found it difficult to understand Cheng Si’s thoughts, though she knew perfectly well that Cheng Si wanted to go find Cheng Yu.
In her view, when parents educated their children, it was only natural, whether right or wrong. Matters between Cheng Yu and their parents were not something that should fall to them, his elder sister and younger sister, to interfere in.
“Come on, Sister. I’m begging you.”
“All right, all right.”
Unable to resist her younger sister, Cheng Yue could only bid her father farewell and leave with her.
Cheng Zhenjiang’s thoughts were in utter chaos now. Hearing that his daughter wished to seek medical treatment, he did not stop them.
When he turned back to look at the broad avenue of Beixuan City beside him, it was clearly filled with people, and yet it felt utterly silent. He stood there in dejection.
He was the Martial Alliance Leader of the North, the master of a great sect. He had only ever tried to practice chivalry, so how had things fallen to this state?
The only one still left by his side was his youngest son, Cheng Feng. As Cheng Feng looked at the household that had turned desolate in an instant and at his father’s lonely figure, his resentment toward Cheng Yu deepened even further.
If that vicious man had never appeared, how could their happy and harmonious family have ended up like this?
What right did he have to appear and shatter that happiness?
“Cheng Yu! You shameless, heartless wretch, you ruined my happy family... I will never let you go! An evil man like you deserves the cruelest punishment of all!”
Five thousand li away, in the prosperous lands of Jiangnan, a tall figure wearing a bamboo hat, dressed in a jet-black embroidered Cold-Silk Flying Fish Uniform, with a Hundred-Forged Xiuchun Saber at his waist, arrived before a city gate.
Cheng Yu looked at the people coming and going before him. There were no shortage of the rich, the powerful, and those skilled in martial arts.
That matched Jiangnan’s reputation as a wealthy region.
And yet, something was distinctly abnormal.
The overwhelming majority of the ordinary people passing in and out were dressed in coarse hemp and gaunt from hunger, their faces sallow.
There was not the slightest trace of what one would expect from a land of abundance, a region famed for fish and rice.
He had only just stopped a white-bearded man in patched hemp clothing to ask a few questions when the man caught sight of the saber at his waist and instantly dropped to his knees, kowtowing and crying bitterly.
He kept saying that he truly had no savings or grain left and could not pay any more money.
Cheng Yu folded his arms and raised a brow slightly as he looked toward several buildings not far away that had been renovated into imposing grandeur.
In a world where martial strength reigned supreme, when martial artists lacked benevolence, ordinary people lived in hell.
“Heh. So this is the chivalry of the Jianghu? A pity the only thing I care about is the Xiuchun Saber in my hand.”