ITF Chapter115

When Pei Ming presented the parchment scroll, he noticed several letters lying on the desk.

Bai Yi would only summon him alone to the royal bedchamber when discussing private matters, yet the downsizing of the standing army was a resolution already repeatedly confirmed during the imperial council. In other words, the king had another reason for calling him here this time.

Bai Yi, who was dressed in understated casual attire, sat by the window, still flipping through the text on the parchment as he questioned him, “Does it need to be cut this much?”

“I retained the low-maintenance branches of the military,” Pei Ming explained. “The border situation is stable now, and this configuration is enough to handle emergencies.”

The border he spoke of naturally referred to Urdan, which bordered Ximo.

After the war of national founding ended, Bai Yi had bestowed many fiefs upon Pei Ming one after another, but Urdan, a desolate place detested by everyone, was something Pei Ming had actively requested from Bai Yi.

This place had once been the main battlefield in the war against Ximo, and the locals had suffered years of turmoil. Upon receiving this territory, Pei Ming exempted the local commoners from miscellaneous taxes and distributed land to them, granting the civilians full control over their properties. Later, he invited many scholars and craftsmen from the south to teach the people of Urdan culture and technology.

It was often said among the populace that the people of Urdan might not be religious, but every single one of them was a believer of the Marshal.

Out of adoration for Pei Ming himself, the locals spontaneously organized many armed border defense forces. Over time, the border skirmishes between Ximo and Damasen gradually subsided.

Bai Yi placed the parchment back on the desk and handed him those few letters. Pei Ming skimmed through them at first, then read each letter carefully one by one.

It was his first time seeing any of these letters. The first few were addressed to him, while the final one was written to someone else in his name. This letter bearing his signature bore a high resemblance to his handwriting, and the phrasing and wording used were also his habitual expressions.

The person who forged these letters must be highly familiar with him.

“Colluding with Ximo, assembling private troops, seizing power by force.” He extracted the key points from these letters, but he did not understand Bai Yi’s intention in showing him such absurd things. “You don’t actually believe I did this, do you?”

After several spring rains, everything in the palace gardens had been nourished back to life, with vitality flourishing in every corner. Bai Yi looked out at the spring scenery through the window and did not reply.

Pei Ming knew he was cautious and suspicious, but he just hadn’t expected the suspicion to fall on his own head. He couldn’t help but chuckle in amusement, “We have known each other for nearly thirty years; what is there about me that you don’t know? If you need it, I can draw up a list of all my territories, assets, household servants, and guards for you, though it will take some time.”

Only then did Bai Yi turn his face, but the topic he brought up had nothing to do with those forged letters.

“You have an illegitimate son in Urdan,” he said solemnly. “I have never heard you mention it.”

The smile on Pei Ming’s face instantly froze.

He did indeed have an illegitimate son in Urdan, but no more than five people knew about this matter, and all of them were subordinates he was extremely close to and trusted.

He lowered his head and looked at the letters in his hand once more.

“When I heard this news, I was particularly shocked. I could not connect the words ‘illegitimate son’ with you at all,” Bai Yi looked at him and asked. “What kind of person is the child’s mother?”

Pei Ming replied vaguely, “A very brave person.”

This answer could not possibly satisfy anyone, but Bai Yi did not press for details. Instead, he threw out another question, “It is just an illegitimate son. Why keep it secret from me?”

His tone was casual, but Pei Ming felt as if he had already been pinned to an interrogation rack.

This was one of the few private matters he was unwilling to tell Bai Yi.

In the final phase of the war of national founding, the Ximo royal family, in a desperate, all-or-nothing gamble, orchestrated several assassination attempts against opposing military commanders. During the most critical incident, the mobile squad he led fell into an enemy trap, and in the end, he was the only one who successfully escaped.

On his path of flight while bearing injuries, it was an Urdan commoner who took him in, risking discovery by the enemy.

Pei Ming remembered that she was a cheerful young woman. Yet, by the time he regained consciousness, the farmhouse was completely empty. The Omega was presenting symptoms of a fever at the time, and Pei Ming merely assumed she had left on her own because she was unwilling to risk staying in the same room with an Alpha.

However, a year later, while inspecting his territory in Urdan, he stumbled upon a trace of Omega pheromones that left him bewildered.

Pheromones could not lie. That Omega’s pheromones were fused with the scent of his own.

That was an Omega he had marked.

Pei Ming did not seek confirmation from her, but he was certain that the infant she held in her arms was his own flesh and blood. Yet, everything was already irreversible. By then, he had already been granted a marriage by the king and had taken a wife of high standing.

“I know it sounds absurd.” Pei Ming threw the letters back onto the desk. He controlled the speed of his speech, but he could not conceal the remorse and agony in his tone. “She has never demanded anything from me, nor has she disclosed the child’s parentage to anyone. I let the child take my surname and privately arranged for a few reliable people to take care of the mother and son. That is all there is between us.”

Bai Yi listened to him impassively and concluded, “So, I was excluded by you from the ranks of reliable people.”

Pei Ming did not defend himself; he truly had been unwilling to proactively mention this matter to Bai Yi. Over the years, he could clearly feel that as his position grew higher and higher, the distance between Bai Yi and himself grew further and further apart.

He was already unable to lay everything bare without reservation to the king he pledged allegiance to as he once did.

“I simply felt that,” he explained properly to Bai Yi, “there was no need to trouble you with such an insignificant, trivial matter.”

He phrased this quite courteously. Bai Yi nodded, then once again caught him off guard by shifting the topic, “In that case, who have you told about the matter regarding Heting?”

Pei Ming froze.

“How could I possibly speak of this to anyone?” He asked in bewilderment. “I have never associated with that child in private, precisely because I was worried someone would grow suspicious of his identity. Surely you can see that, right?”

Bai Yi continued, “But I heard from your subordinates that you mentioned the matter of Heting’s mother to them.”

There were only three people who knew about that old affair: himself, Bai Yi, and that cleric whose whereabouts were unknown. He had never mentioned the past between Bai Yi and Luo Wanyin to anyone. If someone had learned of this, they must have found that cleric, or else…

Pei Ming suddenly realized the gravity of the situation.

No matter who this “subordinate” was, this person had already turned his mansion completely upside down.

Back then, Luo Wanyin had entrusted him to deliver a letter to Bai Yi. After reading it, Bai Yi had ordered him to burn it, but he had disobeyed and kept it. He didn’t do it because he wanted to hold something over Bai Yi; it was just that back then, he was still naive enough to believe that Bai Yi would one day grant status to Luo Wanyin and their child.

Pei Ming completely lost the desire to explain himself, feeling only an endless exhaustion. “Do you intend to hide that child’s identity for the rest of your life?”

Bai Yi replied candidly, “If necessary.”

“If you don’t intend to acknowledge him, why bring him back?”

“He is an insurance policy.”

Pei Ming let out a short laugh. Indeed, a kingdom could not be left without an heir. If anything were to happen to Bai Jiashu, Bai Heting could still step in to fill the void.

“But he shouldn’t be an insurance policy,” he said solemnly. “He is your only legitimate heir to the throne.”

Bai Yi cast an alert glance toward the entrance of the royal bedchamber.

“Watch your words.” He lowered his voice. “Do you have any idea how much chaos those words of yours could cause?”

“Have you not had nightmares all these years?” Pei Ming asked, looking at him with cold eyes. “His body wasn’t discovered until it was rotting. That child lived together with a stench-ridden corpse like that for several days—”

“You’re bringing this up again,” Bai Yi said irritably. “What would you have done in my place? Bring him back to be a mistress?” He wanted to call a servant in to pour him more wine, but after a moment’s thought, he held himself back. “It wasn’t that I didn’t want to help him, it was that he rejected every bit of assistance you and I offered. If he hadn’t been so stubborn, how could he have ended up with a fate like that?”

Pei Ming stared at him, dumbfounded.

He knew Bai Yi better than anyone, knew exactly how ruthless he could be to achieve his goals, yet he still fell into silence under this barrage of questioning.

“If I hadn’t accepted Lin Ce’s help back then, do you think your family could have escaped the royal family’s purges?” Bai Yi quickly calmed down, reminding him in a low voice, “You were all vassals of my father; not a single one of you would have gotten away. Pei Ming, do not forget that you are a beneficiary as well.”

Pei Ming agreed with every single one of these words. He did not absolve himself, but merely said slowly, “In order to prevent the two of you from being dragged to the gallows together, I made many efforts that I thought were righteous. But now, I know I was wrong. Compared to the state of his death in the end, being hanged together with you would actually have been a slightly happier ending.”

Bai Yi’s face grew increasingly unsightly under this repeated, boundary-crossing defiance. He said in a deep voice, “It is because I have been too indulgent with you all these years that you have forgotten I am your King.”

He swept a glance over the letters on the desk and threw out the question he had truly intended to ask when summoning Pei Ming today, “The mother of that illegitimate son of yours, is she a Ximo native?”

Pei Ming said, “I told you, she is just an Urdan commoner.”

Yet Bai Yi ignored this and pressed on, “What is her name, and where does she live?”

Pei Ming suddenly grew alert. “Why are you asking this?”

Bai Yi immediately countered, “Why are you afraid to say?”

Why…

Pei Ming let out a self-deprecating laugh.

He suddenly realized that perhaps, in his subconscious, he had noticed long ago—

The threat he posed to Bai Yi would sooner or later surpass the contributions he had made.

And the two of them would sooner or later arrive at this exact point.

When this day truly arrived, the further away someone was from him, the safer they would be.

He looked down at his feet, where the white marble floor was as smooth and clean as jade. Regrettably, once a crack appeared in this solid stone, even the finest craftsman in the world would be unable to restore it to how it once was.

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