Chapter 9 — General, It's No Time Anymore... My Wife Has Remarried

He looked at me, with a rare childish pleading look in his eyes.

“Can you stay with me a little longer?”

I nodded slightly. We just stayed quietly next to each other, no one spoke, but the atmosphere was no longer as tense as before. The sunlight outside the window shines into the room through the bars, warm and gentle. He suddenly opened his mouth, his voice very soft.

“Is the courtyard in Ha Khe village… still there?”

I stopped.

“That old tree… is it still there?”

“It must be very pleasant to sit down there and enjoy the cool air in the summer, right?”

“There's also that rice field... by fall, will the whole area be golden?”

Just like that, he lowered his voice and kept asking me one question after another, as if he was personally sketching a picture that he had never seen with his own eyes in his entire life, but in his heart he yearned to the extreme. Only then did I know that after I left, he secretly went to Ha Khe village. He saw the small wooden house where Tham Khoat and I used to live together. Seeing the old tree where we used to sit and enjoy the cool air together. Seeing the rice fields that we used to harvest together. He finally understood what I really wanted. It's just a pity that it's all too late.

“Sorry, A Ly.”

He suddenly opened his mouth. Tears slowly fell from his hollow eye sockets.

“That year I… shouldn't have treated her like that…”

"Don't... take away her happiness..."

“Tham Khoat… is he still okay?”

Finally, I still ask the question that has been buried deep in my heart for many years. Hoac Dien's body suddenly stiffened. He looked at me, his eyes filled with pain and guilt. He opened his lips as if he wanted to say something, but then suddenly coughed violently, a mouthful of blood directly staining the blanket on his chest red.

"Master Marquis! Master Marquis!"

Deputy General Truong and Lang Trung immediately rushed in. The room suddenly became chaotic. I was pushed aside, looking bewildered at the man struggling on the edge of life and death. Intuition tells me that regarding Tham Khoat, Hoac Dien must have lied to me. In the end, Hoac Dien still couldn't stand it anymore. He passed away late at night, quietly without a sound. Before he died, he held my hand tightly and used his last strength to say one word to me.

“Go… find him…”

His funeral was held extremely solemnly. The Emperor himself came to pay his respects, and all the civil and military mandarins in the court also came to see him off. Princess Truong Ninh cried so much that she cried like a widow who had just lost the person she loved the most. I wore a snow-white mourning outfit and stood quietly in the corner of the palace, like an outsider, silently watching that extremely solemn farewell. After everything was over, Deputy General Truong came to me and gave me a letter. It's a handwritten letter from Hoac Dien. There weren't too many words in the letter, just an address and a name.

—— Land of exile, Ninh Co Thap. Tham Khoat.

My mind made a buzzing sound, completely blank. Land of exile... Ninh Co Thap... In that legendary cold northernmost place, if ten people go to hell on earth, nine people cannot return. Huo Dien, he actually... He actually banished Tham Khoat to that place! That year he was basic never let him go! A flood of hatred instantly engulfed my entire reason. I wish I could pull him out of the coffin and crush his bones into ash! But right after that, boundless fear and despair gripped me again. It's been almost four years. In such a cold and miserable place, a man lost his martial arts skills and was seriously injured... Is he... still alive? I don't dare to continue thinking about it anymore. I seemed to have gone crazy, despite everyone's efforts to stop me, I immediately prepared the carriage, carrying the huge fortune that Huo Dien left behind, and the command token that could mobilize the power of the Marquis Palace given to me by Deputy General Truong, all the way to the north, taking the road to Ninh Co Thap. Tham Khoat, you must wait for me. You must live and wait for me.