In order to become a Heroic Spirit, I had no choice but to cause trouble in history.

"How about I shoot... Second Brother?" Xiang Jing was eager to try and reached for his bow and arrow, but found that Xiang An had already stood up.

"I...I'll go take a look. You guys grill the fish first." Xiang An hesitated for a moment, pressed his hand, and then turned and walked towards the direction of the strange bird.

Xiang Jing and Zi Juan exchanged a glance and shrugged.

"Hey, what do you think Second Brother is up to?" Zijuan pondered for a moment, then looked at Xiang An, who had already started running, with great interest.

"I don't know, maybe... he wanted to grab it with his bare hands?" Xiang Jing scratched his head.

I thought it would be more convenient to shoot with a bow and arrow.

"I feel like Second Brother might not want to eat that bird. It looks weird, so it might not be edible." Zijuan pouted and picked up her grilled fish. "Ah, mine is almost done."

Xiang An's current feeling is... very strange.

He thought that perhaps he had seen that strange bird before?

After running a few steps, Xiang An arrived below the strange bird. He looked up and saw the bird clearly, only to find that it was not a real bird at all, but an iron bird with a steel body.

"This..." Xiang An was dumbfounded.

"Kaka————"

Suddenly, the iron bird opened its mouth and made an unpleasant sound.

Then, it spread its wings and flew towards Xiang An.

"Hey!" Xiang Jing, who was in the distance, tensed up and stood up abruptly.

But Xiang An seemed unsurprised, simply extending one hand toward the iron bird.

The iron bird spread its huge wings and landed on Xiang An's arm.

Xiang An looked at the not-so-beautiful iron bird, his expression a mixture of confusion and complexity, as well as... a sense of relief that seemed to come from nowhere.

After hesitating for a moment, Xiang An touched the iron bird's head and felt only its hardness and coldness, but he couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief.

"Kaka ah————" The iron bird made another unpleasant sound, while its body continued to change.

Its energy was long exhausted, and it could no longer utter a single word.

It transformed and reassembled, returning to its small and exquisite form, just the right size to be held in the palm of your hand.

Xiang An clutched the small Zhi Xiang tightly, remained silent for a moment, and then sighed.

Zijuan and Xiang Jing looked at each other in bewilderment, completely puzzled as they watched Xiang An begin to walk back.

Where is that big bird? Where is the bird?

"Don't bother looking, it's right here." Xiang An roughly understood what his two younger siblings wanted to say. He opened his palm, and there stood a small, exquisite mechanical bird, motionless.

"Second brother, what is this...?" Zijuan saw the novel object and couldn't help but be excited. She poked the round, chubby thing with her hand.

Zhi Xiang was poked so hard by Zi Juan that she almost fell out of Xiang An's palm.

“It… is called Zhi Xiang, um, Zhi Xiang.” Xiang An opened his mouth and said with a complicated expression, “Zhi Xiang, who once brought my older brother and me home.”

......

On the other side, sand dunes.

The First Emperor had already passed away, and his remains were temporarily placed in the carriage that Zhao Gao had previously kept.

Zhao Gao sat outside the carriage, sweating profusely and looking extremely flustered.

He was clutching something in his hand.

It was the last edict of the First Emperor.

Apart from him, no one else knew the contents of the First Emperor's edict!

Zhao Gao looked around, his breathing already disordered.

Only he, only he, knows what's inside, but what's inside—is against him! Absolutely against him!

Then, is it...?

Sure, how about rewriting the content a little?

Just a little bit, anyway, no one else knows about this will.

Zhao Gao's son, Tong Kong, was trembling violently, his mind engaged in an extremely intense internal struggle.

Finally, a drop of sweat dripped down Zhao Gao's nose and onto the ground, wetting a small patch of ground.

He suddenly raised his head, his eyes flashing with a blood-red light.

I'm fed up with just pulling carts.

I want to... rule the world!

------------

I'm taking a day off (please subscribe).

As the title says, I'm a bit busy today, so I'm taking a day off. Sorry.

------------

Chapter 851 Get Your Hands Dirty

Xiang An still did not choose to spend the night outside, but returned to the village and showed Zhi Xiang, who had returned to her petite form, to Xiang Liang.

"Where did you find this?" Xiang Liang asked, holding Zhi Xiang with a nostalgic expression, his eyes filled with curiosity...and guilt.

"It flew here on its own, and then changed into this shape. It used to be very big."

Xiang An gestured to indicate roughly how big the original Zhi Xiang was.

Xiang Liang wasn't thinking about what Xiang An was doing beside him, or rather... he was a little afraid to look at Xiang An standing opposite him.

Xiang Yu stood beside Xiang Liang with his arms crossed, sighed softly, and glanced at Xiang An almost imperceptibly.

"Xiang An, here." After a moment's thought, Xiang Liang handed the document to Xiang An again.

"Huh? Uncle, you don't want it?" Xiang An was stunned for a moment, then subconsciously took Zhi Xiang.

"I...I don't want to, let's talk about it later." Xiang Liang shook his head with a complicated expression, looked at Xiang Yu, and then at Xiang An.

After pondering for two seconds, Xiang Liang sighed and patted Xiang Yu and Xiang An on the shoulder, then raised his chin.

"Let's go outside and talk."

The two brothers exchanged a glance and followed Xiang Liang out of the house, leaving Zijuan, who looked bewildered, standing or sitting in the room.

Xiang Liang walked ahead of the two brothers. It was already dark outside. It was a cloudy day with no moon or stars. The only light came from a few torches in the village.

Sitting on the bluestone steps by the door, Xiang Liang had his back to the two brothers, so their faces were not visible.

"Xiang Yu, Xiang An, what are your thoughts on my current actions?" he suddenly asked in a deep voice.

Before Xiang Yu could speak, Xiang An shook his head.

“I don’t have any particular thoughts. I just feel that this is indeed something Uncle would do.” Xiang An took two steps forward and sat down next to Xiang Liang. “But if what Uncle says is right or wrong…”

“From the perspective of our Xiang family and our Chu, it is absolutely right.” Xiang Yu sat on the other side of Xiang Liang, expressionless. “Right and wrong have always been just means to whitewash war. Ordinary people do not have the mind or vision to discern the purpose of war. Right and wrong have always been just the words of the victor.”

"We are all citizens of the Central Plains, and we can look at many issues from a leader's perspective. Before reaching an answer, we must first get our hands dirty." Xiang Liang lowered his head, looking at his calloused hands, and couldn't help but feel a little lost. "Clean and powerful figures can't survive long here..."

Point Guard Here

Suddenly, he clenched his fist, looked up, and said, "But—that's not what I want to talk to you about today."

"Xiang Yu, Xiang An, do you two... miss your father?"

"...Huh?" Xiang Yu and Xiang An were both stunned.

"Uncle, why are you suddenly asking this?"

“I just felt that… you two brothers lost your father at such a young age, and you never even saw your mother when you were very young. After being sent back to the Xiang family, you’ve been staying with me ever since. I’ve been too busy with other things to ask you about this…” Xiang Liang said somewhat incoherently, his unreadable expression clearly showing a hint of panic. “So I was thinking, you brothers… do you miss your father?”

“Uncle, if you say that…” Xiang An scratched his head. “If you say you don’t want to… that’s definitely impossible. Besides, my older brother and I have talked about it many times. We’ve talked about Father’s whereabouts, our lost memories, and… our obviously abnormal physical abilities, etc., right, older brother?”

Xiang Yu nodded: "Perhaps it's because the memory has been lost, but Xiang An and I... although we miss our father, we don't have any other special feelings."

Xiang Liang remained silent for two minutes, then finally sighed and reached out his two hands to pat the heads of the two young men who were taller than him.

“You...you’re all grown up now, you’re all sensible.”

"Although I adopted you all these years, I've never really cared for you, and now I'm going to bring you into the war..."

“Uncle, it’s best not to say such things now.” Xiang Yu slapped Xiang Liang on the shoulder abruptly. “This is not something an uncle should be saying right now.”

Xiang Liang stared blankly at Xiang Yu, and seeing the determination in Xiang Yu's eyes, he couldn't help but smile.

"Yeah... why would I say something like that..." His eyes dimmed slightly, and he waved his hand. "Alright, you two can get lost now. I... I'll sit here for a while."

Xiang Yu nodded to Xiang An, and the two brothers glanced at Xiang Liang before getting up and leaving.

As Xiang Liang listened to the footsteps of Xiang Yu and Xiang An fading into the distance, and after confirming that the two brothers had left, he raised his head and let out a long sigh.

In the sky, a wisp of thick cumulus cloud dispersed, revealing a bright moon that seemed like an eye staring at Xiang Liang, who was sitting on the ground.

"Brother, I don't really care whether those two brats miss you or not."

Xiang Liang braced himself with his hands behind his back, looking at the bright eyes in the sky, and spoke softly.

He recalled the mechanical bird that Xiang An was holding, and the mechanical bird that his older brother had shown him when he was a child.

"I'm not young anymore, and this time I'm preparing to start a war... to be honest, I don't plan to survive. I'm planning to go crazy one last time." Xiang Liang lowered his head again. "Now it seems, when I took in these two lads and said I'd take them to the southwest to find you... wasn't that just pure bullshit..."

"I...I'm really not cut out to be a parent..."

Then came an incredibly long silence.

"......elder brother."

Are you still alive?

Before Xiang Liang even realized it, tears were already streaming down his face.

I miss you, brother.

He looked up, and the moon in the sky was about to disappear again.

Xiang Liang didn't cry; he just looked at the sky and at those half-closed eyes, tears streaming down his face.