The auras of the two men were quite powerful. They confronted each other tensely, and the originally rather spacious tent seemed to become cramped.
"Please, both of you, stop fighting, okay?"
Song Wanchu was really afraid that once she turned around, the two of them would go at each other in a fit of rage.
Since her elder brother returned to the capital city, they had only met a few times, and every encounter was like a battle.
"Only kids solve problems by fighting. You two are almost fifty years old combined. Don't be so childish."
The expressions on their handsome faces both twitched a bit.
Liang Yuzhou sneered at Shi Luohan, but his gaze towards Song Wanchu was gentle, "I'll listen to my wife. Whatever my wife says goes."
Just a moment ago, he had been so overbearing that he wouldn't let her say a single word, but now he was like a big dog with its fur smoothed.
Hearing Liang Yuzhou call Song Wanchu "wife", Shi Luohan's face darkened even more.
Song Wanchu was still worried. She gave them both warning looks in turn before walking out.
The door of the tent closed.
Shi Luohan grabbed Liang Yuzhou's collar. His face was clouded with anger, "What are you so smug about?"
"Childish." Liang Yuzhou brushed off his hand, a cold arc curving his lips.
In Shi Luohan's eyes, anger was surging. He tried his best to suppress it, "Do you think you can trap Wanchu for a lifetime with just an imperial edict? She said it herself that she doesn't love you. The so - called glory and dignity you gave her are exactly the things she never cared about."
He watched as Liang Yuzhou's eyes gradually turned cold, feeling a sense of revenge, "Maybe you once had her, but now you've lost her forever."
Liang Yuzhou's hand hanging by his side suddenly clenched tightly. The veins on the back of his hand bulged, as if they were about to burst at any moment.
Although his face remained calm, his hand movement had already betrayed his emotions.
Shi Luohan's words were like knives, stabbing precisely at his sore spots.
When Wanchu came in just now and solemnly wanted to talk to him, he had already guessed what she was going to say.
He didn't want to listen, so he rudely interrupted her, naively fantasizing that as long as she didn't say it out loud, it meant she had already accepted the fact that she was going to be elevated to the main wife.
Then she would never leave.
Shi Luohan's merciless words shattered his fantasy.
However, he didn't want to admit his failure. He wanted to fight and grab.
His cold eyes suddenly became sharp. Liang Yuzhou looked at Shi Luohan contemptuously, "And what about you? Are you more noble than me? You've been by her side under the guise of an elder brother, but you've harbored dirty thoughts about her. Wanchu is a pure person. How could she possibly accept you as anything other than her elder brother?"
Shi Luohan felt as if he had been splashed with a basin of ice - cold water. His face stiffened.
His sensitive nerve was touched, like a tiny wooden splinter piercing into his flesh. The more he tried to pull it out, the deeper it went.
A sneer curved Liang Yuzhou's lips, "I may have lost, but you could never win from the start. When you used your identity as an elder brother to show concern for Wanchu, your ulterior motives were forever imprisoned by your identity."
Looking at Shi Luohan's ashen face, he felt elated, "Even if she doesn't want me, you'll never get her either."
After saying that, he even imitated Wanchu's tone and playfully called out, "Elder brother."
Shi Luohan's expression was murderous.
Liang Yuzhou was also disgusted by himself.
The two "old kids" who were almost fifty years old combined and each had won a round stared at each other, neither willing to yield.
"The death of my adoptive father was no accident. You've known it all along but kept it from Wanchu."
Suddenly changing the subject, Shi Luohan's tone became even colder. He stared intently at Liang Yuzhou, not missing any subtle expression on his face.
"How much responsibility did your father bear in the Battle of Pingsha Pass? If you weren't guilty, why did you cut off all the clues? Liang Yuzhou, what are you afraid of?"
After following the crown prince for a while, Shi Luohan had gradually learned more about the inside story of the Battle of Pingsha Pass.
The crown prince already had solid evidence that the military rations in the army back then had been mixed with sand and gravel, which had shaken the morale of the troops. It was Yu Jingnian who had pulled the strings behind the scenes.
As the Minister of Revenue, he had replaced most of the rations with silver and dedicated it to the eldest princess for building a mansion.
Over the years, Shi Luohan hadn't been idle either. Under the guise of a bodyguard escorting caravans, he had traveled all over the world. In the area around Pingsha Pass, he had inquired from the villagers who had experienced the battle that it was his adoptive father who had been in charge of collecting the rations back then.
However, there were still too many twists and turns as to why the old lord hadn't stayed in the headquarters of Liangzhou City but had gone to Pingsha Pass, and why he had suddenly been attacked by the Hu people.
Shi Luohan suspected that it must have been the old lord's miscommand that had led to the heavy losses in Pingsha Pass and the sacrifice of his adoptive father.
After returning to the capital, the old lord had petitioned for his adoptive father to be posthumously named a third - rank general, and his memorial tablet was enshrined in the Lingxiao Pavilion. Obviously, it was a form of compensation out of guilt.
His deputy general, Han Cheng, who had also sacrificed in the Battle of Pingsha Pass and had a higher official position than his adoptive father, hadn't received such an honor.
If it wasn't out of guilt, what else could it be?
Liang Yuzhou felt as if an iron hand was squeezing his neck. The iron hand tightened bit by bit, and his breathing became rapid. His chest heaved violently.
Shi Luohan was getting closer and closer to the truth.
Once the bloody truth was revealed, he would lose Wanchu forever.
In every sense.
He would be doomed.
Shi Luohan slightly raised his eyebrows. This time it was his turn to sneer contemptuously, "Although Wanchu is gentle, her character is stronger than anyone else's. If she knew that your so - called deep love was based on deception and lies—"
The unspoken second half of his sentence was what Liang Yuzhou was truly afraid of.
His words seemed to carry an aftertaste, constantly torturing Liang Yuzhou's nerves.
"If I take Wanchu away right now—"
"Don't even think about it." The words gritted out by Liang Yuzhou were like icicles. If they had a physical form, Shi Luohan would have been riddled with holes by now.
The coldness at the corner of Shi Luohan's lips deepened, "You're playing with fire and will burn yourself."
He snorted disdainfully and turned to leave.
Song Wanchu was standing outside the tent. The autumn wind was slightly cool, and her thoughts were blown into even greater chaos.
Seeing Shi Luohan come out, she quickly stepped forward to greet him.
"Elder brother." She nervously scanned his body up and down, as if looking for traces of a fight.
Shi Luohan pouted, feeling annoyed for not being trusted, "I didn't fight with him. I'm an adult now."
He wouldn't fight with a man who was like a rabid dog. That would make him look so ungentlemanly, wouldn't it?
Seeing that his expression was relatively calm, the tense string in Song Wanchu's body finally relaxed.
She was a bit curious about what her elder brother and Liang Yuzhou had talked about.
Shi Luohan gently brushed the stray hairs on her temples that had been blown by the wind with his fingers. His voice was soft and gentle as it slowly reached Song Wanchu's ears.
"Wanchu, in the courtyard in the south of the Yangtze River, the peonies have been in bloom for a whole summer. It's a pity they missed you."
A dull ache welled up in her chest. Song Wanchu lowered her head and bit her lips.
She understood what her elder brother meant.
"Three years ago, the biggest mistake I made was letting you go. This time, I will never make the same mistake again."