Rebirth of the Three Kingdoms: Da Qiao doesn't want to be a widow anymore

Chapter 357 Patricide and Brother Killing (2)

"Enough!" Liu Biao struggled on the bed and roared, "Liu Qi, you have no respect for your elders! You used to have some filial piety, but now you're completely blind and arrogant. Are you trying to kill your father and mother?"

Liu Qi looked at his father with eyes full of sorrow, as if an endless grief was engulfing him like a sea.

“Father, I am your son. When Mother passed away, you would often hold me in your arms and reminisce about her in the courtyard.”

There is no animosity between us, father and son. You call me your beloved son and bestow upon me the name Aiyu, meaning that a son is the father's most precious treasure. I also wholeheartedly admire and respect my father, and secretly vow in my heart to follow him in achieving great things throughout my life.

I don't know when it started, but it must have been when Cai gave birth to Congdi that Father forgot Mother and gradually forgot his son.

Father, you were so focused on having more children that you never thought about Mother's death anniversary. In these past years, on those misty, rainy days, only your son's incense has been burning before Mother's memorial tablet.

Father's vow of never forgetting was no match for the warmth of the new bride's bed, sweet words, and honeyed promises concealing a dagger!

Mentioning his first wife, Lady Jing, and looking at his eldest son's face, which was increasingly resembling his wife's, his previously furious expression froze for a moment.

Liu Qi was his eldest son, born in his middle age. He still remembered that when he first entered Jingzhou, Lady Jing was already pregnant with Liu Qi.

Unfortunately, the powerful clans in Jingzhou were constantly engaged in open and covert struggles, and Liu Biao had to go to great lengths to navigate between them, even surviving numerous assassination attempts.

Liu Qi was not yet full-term when the couple was injured by assassins on their way back to the mansion. Jing Shi gave birth to Liu Qi after several days of difficult labor. After that, she was often bedridden. Liu Biao also suffered from a hidden injury and would fall ill every winter.

When Liu Qi turned five, Lady Jing finally passed away, unable to close her eyes as she looked at Liu Qi before she died.

Liu Biao knew that Lady Jing was worried about Liu Qi. The child was still young and without the protection of his biological mother, he didn't know if he would become the next target of those powerful clans in Jingzhou.

Liu Biao grasped Jing's hand and made a solemn vow that he would do everything in his power to protect the child as he grew up.

At that time, he hesitated to remarry because of his eldest son, and he held grand celebrations for every birthday banquet, expressing his love and expectations for his son both in public and in private.

Liu Qi was also very filial. When Liu Biao was sick, he would personally serve him medicine, feeding him spoonful by spoonful, and would do everything he could to please him.

Marrying Lady Cai was a gesture of surrender to the powerful families represented by the Cai family. Lady Cai was beautiful and resembled Lady Jing from back then. What was even more remarkable was that she treated Liu Qi very well, and Liu Qi was also very willing to be close to her.

All the changes stemmed from the fact that Liu Qi pushed Cai down the steps while she was still pregnant.

He initially didn't believe that a seven or eight-year-old child like Liu Qi could have such malicious thoughts and actions, but when Liu Qi cried and hid in his arms, murmuring that she didn't want a younger brother, he confirmed the child's undisguised malice.

Disappointment, heartache, shock, and disgust mingled together, forcing him to re-examine the eldest son he had raised with his own hands.

Despite countless lessons, warnings, reprimands, and scoldings, his teachings and discipline ultimately only earned him immense hatred from his son, who then conspired with an outsider to imprison him.

Looking into Liu Biao's cold eyes, Liu Qi saw no trace of fatherly love or wavering. Instead, he could see hatred for his son, as if Liu Biao wanted to devour him alive and wished he had never had this son.

This scene once again deeply wounded Liu Qi's heart.

The father and son have now truly become mortal enemies.

Outside the houses, the city of Xiangyang welcomed its first snowfall of the winter.

The leaden sky was like a thick, waterlogged cotton wadding, pressing heavily overhead. Large flakes of snow fell haphazardly, carrying a biting cold as they pelted Liu Qi's hair and shoulders.

Liu Qi stood in the courtyard. In the corner lay a rocking horse, made by Liu Biao himself when he was young, with a wooden sword hanging on its side. He gently brushed away the snow. The rocking horse, which his father had to lift him up when he was young, now seemed so small, too small to accommodate even a little of his weight. It would fall apart at the slightest touch, all its parts lying scattered on the snow.

The moldy and rotten marks on the wood told Liu Qi that the wooden horse was already completely rotten, but he was unwilling to go closer to take a closer look.

Standing in the snow, he felt that the snowfall today was exceptionally heavy, as if it were a net that had trapped him in Jingzhou, trapped him in Xiangyang, and trapped him in the small courtyard of the governor's mansion.

He tried to brush the snow off his shoulder, but as soon as his fingers touched the cold surface, he abruptly pulled them back.

My fingertips were already numb from the cold, and my chest felt like it was soaked in snow, with waves of cold seeping into my bones.

Until a pair of hands gently brushed away the snowflakes from his body.

Liu Qi turned around and saw Zhuge Liang.

"Sir?" Liu Qi was not surprised by Zhuge Liang's appearance at this time; he had come to say goodbye.

Liu Qi sighed, and a thick white mist rose, blocking their view of each other.

"Is the gentleman leaving too?"

Even if Zhuge Liang didn't say it, he knew that Zhuge Liang did not approve of imprisoning his own father, stepmother, and younger brother.

He was grateful that Zhuge Liang never tried to dissuade him, because both he and Zhuge Liang knew that the resentment that had been building up for so many years had to be vented eventually.

If not today, then someday.

Zhuge Liang patted Liu Qi on the shoulder and said, "Everyone has their own opinion on right and wrong. You have things to do, and I understand."

Xu Shu had already gone north, and Liu Bei was wary of Zhuge Liang because Zhuge Liang was someone close to Liu Qi.

If we don't escape now, our future is uncertain.

As long as Zhuge Liang leaves, it will be as if he has severed Liu Qi's arm.

Liu Qi looked up at the snow falling all around him. Snowflakes landed on his eyelashes, turning into water that blurred his vision, making it difficult to even distinguish the color of the sky.

Zhuge Liang parted his thin lips slightly, "Does my lord still remember what I said when I left Xiangyang?"

of course I remember.

Shen Sheng died inside the palace, while Chong Er was born outside.

Zhuge Liang nodded, "This saying remains unchanged even today."

Liu Bei used Liu Qi's name to place Liu Biao under house arrest, but since the military force was in Liu Bei's hands, military and political orders were also in Liu Bei's hands.

As for what Liu Bei would do next, Liu Qi was not entirely oblivious.

"Sir, you have the Zhuge family to rely on, and you were able to extricate yourself from the situation. But I am different..."

Having lost his father's protection and left Xiangyang, where could he go?
"Jiangdong".