HNYWEF -Chapter 205 Sudden Illness

Zhenguan Year 5, July 18

It was still before dawn.

The Marquis’s residence was pitch dark. The lanterns under the corridors had long since gone out, leaving only a faint yellow glow from the direction of the kitchen.

When Zhou Yi stepped out of his room, he was already fully dressed. Not the usual outfit he wore to the Ministry of Works, but formal court attire.

He walked quickly, his steps urgent. As he passed through the corridor, he kicked up a gust of wind, tearing through a spiderweb hanging there. A broken thread swayed in the air.

He stopped at the door of the main hall and took a deep breath before raising his hand to knock.

“Father!”

No response from inside.

He knocked again. “Father! It’s time to get up!”

A muffled groan came from within, like someone turning over in bed.

Zhou Yi pushed the door open and went in.

The room was dim; the windows were shut and nothing could be seen clearly. He felt his way to the table and lit the lamp.

The flame flickered, revealing the figure on the bed.

Zhou Xiong was lying on his side, the blanket bunched up under him, exposing one arm and half a shoulder. His eyes were closed, breathing steady.

Zhou Yi walked over and stood by the bed.

“Father, it’s time for court.”

Zhou Xiong didn’t move.

Zhou Yi waited a moment, then repeated, “Father, it’s time for court.”

Zhou Xiong’s eyes slowly cracked open.

He looked at the person standing by the bed with that expression of “I have serious business to attend to.”

After a couple of seconds, he slowly sat up.

The blanket slid off him. He was wearing his inner robe, hair loose, with faint red marks left by the bedding on his face.

He sat on the edge of the bed and looked at Zhou Yi for a moment.

Then he spoke. His voice was rough and hoarse, still thick with sleep.

“Are you out of your damn mind?”

Zhou Yi froze slightly.

Zhou Xiong didn’t give him time to react.

He pointed toward the door, his fingers trembling—not from anger, but because his body hadn’t fully woken up yet.

“You’re telling me to go to court? I don’t go to court—everyone in the entire court knows that, and you don’t? You’re a Ministry of Works official! A court officer! And you don’t know your own father doesn’t attend court? You go to the Ministry every day—haven’t your colleagues ever told you?”

Zhou Yi opened his mouth slightly.

Zhou Xiong didn’t stop.

“Did the paperwork in the Ministry rot your brain, or did Li Er feed you some kind of damn spell? Ever since I was granted this marquis title, I’ve only missed court once—and that was for leave. The entire court knows this. And you? You’re practically begging to make your father famous, aren’t you? You want me to show up at the Taiji Hall in court robes so everyone can stare and say, ‘Oh look, Marquis Zhou’s here, what a rare guest’?”

Zhou Yi’s face began to turn red.

Zhou Xiong stood up and walked right up to him.

“Let me ask you—what exactly is being discussed at court today? Do you know? Do you even know what the court is debating this morning? You don’t. You know nothing, and you came here to wake me up?”

He finished speaking and stood there, chest rising and falling, staring at Zhou Yi.

Zhou Yi stood frozen. His face went red, then white, then red again. His mouth opened and closed several times before he finally forced out a sentence.

“Father, I…”

“What ‘father’?”

Zhou Yi lowered his head and stared at his own shoes.

Under the lamp light, his purple court robes shimmered faintly. His jade belt was perfectly fastened, his hair meticulously tied.

Dressed like this, standing in front of his father, he suddenly felt that he had done something profoundly stupid today.

Unforgivably stupid.

His father didn’t go to court. He knew that. So how could he have forgotten?

How could he have rushed over at dawn, fully dressed in court robes, and stood by his father’s bed saying, “It’s time for court”?

What exactly had been going through his mind?

He stood there, wishing he could find a crack in the ground to crawl into.

Zhou Xiong looked at his expression for a couple of seconds.

Then he turned around, sat back down, and lay back down on the bed again.

The quilt was pinned under his body; he couldn’t pull it out, and he didn’t bother trying. So he just lay there, one arm draped over his forehead, covering his eyes.

The room fell quiet for a while.

Zhou Yi stood there, unsure whether to leave or stay.

He opened his mouth, wanting to say something, but he didn’t know what to say.

Then he heard his father mutter something. It was quiet, muffled, coming from under his arm—like he was speaking to himself, or maybe to the ceiling.

“Besides, my philosophy… Li Er can’t handle it.”

Zhou Yi froze.

He stood there, looking at Zhou Xiong lying on the bed.

The arm still covered most of his face, leaving only his chin and mouth visible. His lips were closed. He didn’t speak again.

Zhou Yi stood in place, something in his mind suddenly tightening like a taut string.

Philosophy? What philosophy? His father’s philosophy? What philosophy did his father even have?

His father was a blacksmith, a Shaojiang of the Ministry of Works, a marquis who never attended court. What kind of philosophy could even be beyond the emperor’s grasp?

He stood there and thought about it for a while. He still couldn’t understand.

Then he turned and quietly walked out.

At the doorway, he paused and looked back.

His father was still lying there, unmoving, as if he had fallen asleep again.

Zhou Yi withdrew his gaze, pushed the door open, and stepped outside.

The sky outside was still gray, not fully bright yet.

A morning wind poured in from the end of the alley, cool against his face, dispersing the last trace of redness on his cheeks.

He stood under the corridor, straightened his collar, took a deep breath, and then headed toward the main gate.

The carriage was already prepared. Zhou Yi got in and sat down inside.

The carriage moved.

Its wheels rolled over the blue stone road, the sound echoing especially far in the quiet morning streets.

Zhou Yi leaned against the carriage wall, looking out the window at the sky.

That sentence was still turning in his mind.

“My philosophy… Li Er can’t handle it.”

Philosophy. When his father said those words, there was no anger, no complaint—no emotion at all.

Just a simple statement, like saying: the sky is blue, the water is green, and Li Er can’t handle my philosophy.

Then he suddenly remembered something else.

It had been a long time ago.

Back when his father took him away to avoid trouble, in an inn in Bianzhou, he had asked his father what else he could do.

His father had said: music, chess, calligraphy, painting—everything, mastered.

At the time, he thought his father was bragging.

Later, his father did many more things.

Forging laminated steel blades, quenching them in oil, saying things the craftsmen couldn’t understand; writing poems that even officials from the Ministry of Rites couldn’t trace in any classical texts.

Music, chess, calligraphy, painting—mastered in everything.

He had thought that was all there was to it. But now his father mentioned “philosophy”?

Philosophy wasn’t music, chess, calligraphy, painting. It wasn’t forging iron or treating illness. It wasn’t anything tangible he could see or touch.

Philosophy was something hidden underneath. It was invisible. It was the root of all those things.

What, then, was his father’s root?

He thought about it for a long time—from the Marquis’ residence to the imperial city, from the imperial city to the palace gates, from the gates to the square outside the Hall of Supreme Harmony.

When the carriage stopped and the driver called out, “Sir, we’ve arrived,” he finally came back to his senses.

He stepped down and stood in the square. Officials were gathering from all directions, dressed in various court robes, talking in small groups.

Zhou Yi stood there, looking at the towering palace, at the officials filing inside, his mind still circling that sentence.

Suddenly, he felt that what his father had said was not a mutter at all.

It was something meant for him.

But he… hadn’t understood it.