Unsheathed

Was Sui Xinyu a bad person? Of course not. As Hu Xinfeng had said, he was a passable official and an exceptional Go player. His only flaw was that he liked to avoid trouble a little too much, to the point that he was willing to compromise on morality.

Even Hu Xinfeng didn't think that he deserved to die. Of course, unbeknownst to him, his answer to that question had just saved his life a second time. This, coupled with the flash of humanity that he had displayed on the verge of death earlier, made up for the three times that he had attacked Chen Ping'an, but if he were to answer the next question wrong, then he would still end up dead anyway.

If Hu Xinfeng had escorted Sui Xinyu safely to and from the capital of the Great Seal Script Empire, and he hadn't been forced to show his true colors earlier in the pergola, then he would've remained the reputable hero that he had always been.

Just as Du Yu of the Ghost Axe Palace had said, only in crises of life and death did true heroes come to the fore. Having said that, it was often the case that such true heroes perished in said life and death crises, so did it really that they had ended up with a heroic reputation?

There had been three important players in the game at the pergola, namely the clueless Sui Xinyu, the scheming Cao Fu, and Yang Yuan, who, in hindsight, had most likely been an accomplice to Cao Fu, helping him put on this act.

Out of the three men, Yang Yuan possessed the worst reputation, but he had spared the life of a scholar that he could've crushed like an ant. In fact, he praised Chen Ping'an for displaying some backbone while mocking Sui Xinyu for his cowardice.

Hu Xinfeng was seated across from Chen Ping'an. The medicine had stopped his bleeding, but he was still in immense pain.

"Let's say there was a wandering hero that encountered a group of evil-doers," Chen Ping'an suddenly said. "He killed the leader of the evil-doers, but he deemed the transgressions of the others to not be deserving of death, so he merely punished them before departing, while the victims that he saved knelt down and kowtowed to him in gratitude. Do you think that hero is a man of virtue?"

"Man of virtue my arse!" Hu Xinfeng blurted out without thinking.

He then slapped himself in admonishment before hurriedly amending, "What I meant to say is that I don't believe him to be worthy of the title of a man of virtue. If he were a local hero, then his treatment of the situation would've been adequate. The leader of the evil-doers is dead, while the others have been punished and most likely wouldn't dare to target the same victims again.

“However, if that hero was a traveler that was merely passing through and doesn't ever return, then who's to say that the victims that he saved wouldn't suffer an even more terrible fate following his departure? Perhaps it was only a robbery to begin with, but the desire for retribution could easily escalate the situation into one in which the victim's entire family is murdered in cold blood.

“In that scenario, would that hero not at least be partially to blame? I think so."