After training Li Weifang, Wu Long t with Zhao Xieren who arrived at the Oak Fortress.
"How was it?", Wu Long asked the old man who just t with Ko Fuan for the first ti since they confird that the latter switched sides.
"Hmph, the mongrel thinks he can play both sides", Old Man Zhao snorted with a smirk, though his eyes weren’t laughing at all, "That little snake’s too young to be so ambitious"
"I appreciate you didn’t cut him down on the spot, thank you for holding back"
"And ruin Valley Master’s plan? I’ve had enough screwing up on this already", Zhao Xieren chuckled, slightly amused this ti, "Besides, hehehe, that would be letting him off too easy"
"I take it to an that we’re in play?", Wu Long asked, a light smile appearing on his lips.
"Yes, the snake bastard ntioned his oldest brother’s falling out of favor. I suppose he thought he couldn’t hide the news in case we sohow learned about it ourselves, it isn’t exactly a big secret in the City Lord’s Manor either - he would’ve been suspected if he didn’t bring it up. This gave the perfect pretext..."
—
Ko Fuan returned to his residence in a slightly fidgety mood, constantly checking his surroundings for signs of surveillance until he finally arrived in his study through a secret passage. This was indicative of his usual behavior as of late as he beca overly cautious and always on edge.
"Foo~", he loudly exhaled, placing his hands on his desk and leaning over it. There was a bit of expelling nervousness, a bit of frustration, and a bit of calming down in that exhale.
eting the old man was always nerve-wrecking, after all it always involved risk of being discovered doing it by his father, but now it was on another level as more risk kept adding up. And the conversation this ti went in a direction he didn’t expect.
He stayed like that, slightly hunched over for so ti, seemingly deep in thought.
His head then suddenly snapped upward as his eyes opened to look at the larger table for etings with his personal force’s captains, a detailed map of the city on top, with wooden figures in various colors placed all over it.
In his eyes was resolve, as a mory flashed within them.
—
That night, Ko Fuan ca back to this sa room, soaked in rainwater, but full of doubts and thoughts. It was the first ti he saw his father this way. Vulnerable, more human, but also more open and honest. It struck him like a bolt of lightning.
He stood then in the sa pose as he stood now, leaning over his desk and looking at the map table as droplets of water were falling from his hair to the desk top below him, waiting for Zhao Xieren to give him a signal for a eting, and thinking about what he saw, but more importantly, what he felt.
’Was I... mistaken?’, he thought, ’Father didn’t lash out at for no reason... he was disappointed, but... isn’t disappointnt only possible when there’s...’
As he thought to there, a word ca off his lips in a whisper, "...expectations"
Yes, perhaps he saw the entire situation wrong from the very beginning. He just lacked a puzzle piece.
Perhaps his father wasn’t as cold and hateful as Ko Fuan made himself believe. There was even a chance he expected more of Ko Fuan than of any of his brothers, which led him to lash out.
Wasn’t this what Ko Fuan always wanted? To know why he was the ’wrong one’, to know why his father was always lashing out on him specifically. And thus, have a chance to prove himself. To earn at least the sa treatnt as his older brothers. To earn his place among the sons.
And finally, he had it. It was right there. The solution Ko Fuan sought for so long. He knew now what he had to do to gain his father’s approval. What he always wanted, within his reach.
And then there was that strange turn in their conversation.
Toward the end of that conversation with his father, he glimpsed sothing in his eyes, and felt sothing in his words.
At first it terrified him.
But on his way back, and now that he had so ti to think, he gained more and more clarity of what it might an.
And the prospect turned that terror into nervous anticipation, even excitent.
Suddenly, he thought that he might’ve made a terrible mistake by conspiring against his father. If only he could have this mont happen earlier, if only he knew then what he knew now, if only... but it was useless to think that now.
It was a foregone deal.
He closed his eyes and grimaced, feeling his mind go numb from all the confusion, overflowing thoughts and growing feeling he made the wrong turn he now regretted.
"Or is it...? Is it really useless?", his eyes suddenly snapped open.
His fingers, wet from the rain slid back while arching on the desk top, leaving wet trails. A sudden idea ca to his mind. A wild, outrageous idea. But he couldn’t let go of it. It captivated his mind. If soone could look into his eyes right now, they could almost see the gears of his mind begin to turn faster and faster.
Shudder.
He flinched, a bolt of panic going through his entire body like electric shock, but he realized it was his secret communication jade from Zhao Xieren that sent out a fluctuation that spooked him.
He straightened up, taking it out of his robes, and looked at it with a strange, unreadable look in his eyes, and then hurried out through the secret passage.
During that eting, he did the unthinkable.
He didn’t even really think it through, he just did it on sudden impulse. Relying on that sudden inspiration of an idea that ca to him earlier.
He lied to Zhao Xieren. He concealed not only his conversation with his father, but omitted his father’s reaction to the events of the evening completely.
It was a split-mont decision, but now there was no way back.
And then he ca back to his study through the secret passage, and slumped down in his armchair.
It was done. His choice was cast.
But strangely, aside from nervousness, his heart was light. His eyes were bright from excitent.
’Don’t bla , Old Man’, he thought, ’It’s only natural. I thought that I made a mistake to join you, but it was an opportunity’
Yes, he saw an opportunity in knowing two things now. One was about an imminent threat to his father, that no one in the City Lord Manor knew about. The other, although not confird, was almost certain to be true, about his father’s secret ambitions. And wielding these both secrets an audacious plan was ford in that mont of inspiration.
’I only rebelled because I wanted the kingdom my father has now, but why rebel if I can have the kingdom my father intends to build from now, willingly handed to by him? Or should I say, he wouldn’t even have a choice, I will make it that I am the only reasonable choice to hand it to’, he thought, his eyes burning with greed and ambition.
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