AUBTN -Chapter 310 Regret

The maids and servants around the hall were all dressed in mourning clothes. They were kneeling on the ground, crying in a heap.

When they saw Lu Yanchong rush in, everyone shuddered. The crying stopped abruptly, and they scrambled backward on their hands and knees to the sides.

In the vast mourning hall, only Lu Yan and that cold coffin remained.

“No… impossible…”

Lu Yan stared fixedly at the black coffin, his entire body trembling uncontrollably.

Tears burst out of his eyes in an instant.

The man in his memory—always standing straight-backed, always imposing and untouchable.

The man he had hated for over a decade, resented for over a decade, and sworn he would never call “father” again.

Just like that… silently turned into a cold corpse?

He didn’t believe it!

Lu Yan’s knees gave way, and he collapsed heavily in front of the coffin.

Behind him, Shen Jue, Su Hewan, and Yu Qing who had just entered the hall stood quietly at the doorway.

They watched as the ruthless commander of the Jinyiwei was now crying like a helpless child.

Su Hewan couldn’t bear it and averted her gaze, leaning toward Yu Qing and lowering her voice.

“Qingqing… did we… go too far?”

“What if Lu Yan finds out the truth later and gets furious?”

Yu Qing bit her lower lip tightly.

“Wanwan, you don’t understand.”

“The hatred between father and son is too deep—like a piece of rotten flesh. If you don’t use strong medicine and cut it out brutally, the wound will never heal.”

“Better a short pain than a long one. Taking one cut is worth it.”

At that moment, Lu Yan, who had been kneeling on the ground, suddenly seemed to go mad.

He abruptly stood up and lunged toward the coffin.

“I don’t believe it!”

“How could you just die like this!”

“You haven’t even knelt before my mother to apologize—what right do you have to die!”

He roared, trying to forcefully push open the heavy coffin lid.

“Your Highness! You mustn’t!”

Old Zhao was terrified out of his wits. He scrambled forward and tightly wrapped his arms around Lu Yan’s waist.

“The dead must be respected! The master has already passed—you cannot disturb his spirit!”

“Get off me!” Lu Yan’s eyes were blood-red, like a man possessed.

“Eldest Young Master!” Old Zhao suddenly shouted hoarsely and pulled out an envelope from his chest.

“This… this is a letter the master left behind before he died. He instructed me to personally hand it to you!”

Lu Yan’s movements froze.

He turned his stiff neck slowly, staring at the slightly yellowed envelope in Old Zhao’s hands.

On it were four trembling characters:

“To my son Yan, open personally.”

Lu Yan’s hands trembled as he reached out and took the letter.

He collapsed back onto the ground, his fingers shaking as he tore open the envelope.

On the letter paper, was Lu Zhixing’s familiar handwriting.

“Yan’er, as if seeing you in person upon reading this.”

“As your father, I know my sins are grave. I have no face to see you, nor any face to meet your mother in the afterlife.”

“You hate me, resent me. I bear no complaint—this is the retribution I deserve.”

“Back then, when your mother was critically ill and on the verge of death, I was not cold-hearted, nor did I abandon her.”

“That night, I entered the palace to request from the Emperor a life-saving Golden Elixir stored in the imperial treasury.”

“However… fate is cruel. That night coincided with a rebellion led by the remnants of Prince Cheng. The rebel forces surrounded the Taihe Hall!”

The ink on the letter suddenly deepened at this point, as if the writer had exhausted all his strength.

“As a minister of the Great Wei Dynasty, how could I stand by and watch His Majesty be assassinated?”

“Your father took a blade for the late emperor, led the imperial guards in a desperate battle without retreat, and finally suppressed the rebellion.”

“In gratitude for my loyalty in rescuing him, the late emperor immediately promoted me to the position of Chancellor.”

“But by the time I returned to the Marquis of Lu residence, it was already three days later…”

At the end of the letter, the handwriting had been blurred by water stains, becoming indistinct.

“You hate me for being obsessed with power, for neglecting your mother in pursuit of high office and wealth. Yes… I truly failed to save her. That is an undeniable fact.”

“My negligence is true. My inability to save her is also true.”

“For decades, I have suffered torment day and night. I wanted to explain to you, but every explanation felt so pale and powerless.”

“Shengzhi, I do not ask for your forgiveness. I only ask that… from now on, you let go of the hatred in your heart and live well.”

Lu Yan clutched the letter in his hands, sobbing uncontrollably!

The hatred and resentment he had carried all these years had become the hard shell he used to armor himself.

He knew, deep down, that the one he hated most… was himself!

He hated how weak he had been back then!

It turned out that in the despair he thought was abandonment, his father had also once risked everything to try to save them.

It was just… fate played tricks on them.

Just… destiny had made the cruelest joke of all.

Lu Yan covered his face with both hands and collapsed beside the coffin.

In the hall filled with mourning white, his cries were heart-wrenching and uncontrollable!

“Father, I was wrong… I was wrong! Please come back!”

“Father! It was my fault! I truly know I was wrong!”

Inside the mourning hall, Lu Yan’s cries echoed painfully between the fluttering white banners.

He clutched the soaked farewell letter tightly against his chest, as if it were the only salvation he had left in this life.

“I never hated you… I hated myself! I hated the powerless me who could only watch my mother die!”

Lu Yan poured out the pain and regret he had suppressed for more than ten years without restraint.

At that moment, a faint sound of footsteps came from behind the white curtain at the rear of the hall.

“Shengzhi…”

A hoarse voice—filled with deep concern and helplessness—suddenly rang out above Lu Yan’s head.

His hysterical crying came to an abrupt stop.

His body stiffened violently, and with a face full of tear stains, he slowly lifted his head.

What he saw shocked him to the core—

The living Lu Zhixing was standing right in front of him!

The old chancellor’s complexion was rosy, his breathing steady—he looked nothing like someone who had died!

Lu Zhixing looked at his son’s swollen, tear-soaked eyes, his own eyes filled with tears, guilt, and emotion.

The mourning hall fell into a deathly silence.

Lu Yan knelt there in a daze, a single tear still hanging on his long lashes, trembling but not falling.

He looked at his living father, then at the heavy black coffin beside them.

His mind completely stopped functioning.

After a long moment, Lu Yan finally managed to speak in a dry, hoarse voice:

“W-what… what is going on?”

His eyes were full of disbelief as he reached out, as if to touch the man before him—trying to confirm whether this was just a hallucination born from grief.

Seeing his son’s question, Lu Zhixing—who had just been immersed in father-son sentiment—suddenly flushed red with embarrassment.

As someone who valued integrity and propriety above even his life, he was utterly ashamed to speak of this “fake death” scheme!

As a dignified chancellor of the realm, he had actually cooperated with a group of younger people in such a disgraceful, theatrical trick… it was simply an insult to his scholarly dignity!

Lu Zhixing coughed awkwardly twice, not daring to meet his son’s shocked gaze at all.