Chapter 434
Snow was falling.
The original salt particles turned into goose feathers, swirling down.
Young Master Fufeng was lying quietly on the high platform, his eyes half open and his breath weak.
Bloody stains were scattered around, dirtying his snow-white fur collar and dyeing his originally pure long coat red.
What a mess, Young Master Fufeng always loved cleanliness. Even three years ago in the dark and sunless manor, he wore white mourning clothes waiting for death.
Luckily there was still snow. The only pure color, sprinkling down, covering him deeply in this silent moment.
The world was especially tranquil, only a faint gasping could be heard, nothing else.
Snow butterflies fluttering their wings danced as if bringing along mother’s call, “Fufeng...Fufeng...”
Ridiculous.
He arduously raised the corners of his mouth, recalling that taciturn woman who always sat in the ancestral hall beating the wooden fish.
As a daughter of the Zhou family, she’d rather abandon her own child to seek blessings for the Zhou family.
Sometimes Fu Feng really envied his uncle for having so much of his mother’s love.
While he only had himself.
“You have such a frail body. Why bother holding power? You shouldn’t have been born. You should just die,” his father’s irritable voice assaulted him, full of resentment and dissatisfaction.
He was sickly. He wouldn’t live long. His fate had been set as soon as he was born.
He was useless. No one saw hope in him. No one cherished him. No one wanted him to stay alive.
If not for that ray of light he encountered, how could he have lived this extra three years?
“Fufeng...”
This time, the voice faded in and out. The stillness was shattered as liveliness and vigor surged in like a tide.
Someone picked up his body. Hot tears fell down. It was his cousin howling, “Fufeng, wake up!”
Someone grabbed his hand, trying to give him some warmth, with rare awkwardness, “Brother Fufeng, don’t die on me please. Stay alive, okay?”
Then there were his chirping younger siblings. Tears brimming their eyes, they surrounded him left and right, calling out one after another, “Brother Fufeng, Brother Fufeng.”
His name was Fufeng. He didn’t want to be surnamed Wang.
That’s why Xu Mo called him Brother Fufeng instead of Brother Wang.
That was why he spared no effort helping. That was why he burned so ardently in life’s final moments.
He must have thought about what his life could have been if not for his sickly body.
Yet no matter what, the life Xu Mo now possessed was something he could never have attained in this life. Only blessings remained to give.
Wang Mingyu’s emotions finally reached a breaking point as he turned his head away, sobbing.
Xu Mo stood frozen. Tears streaked down his cheeks in big drops.
Jiang Sheng held Young Master Wang’s hand as if trying his utmost to convey warmth.
Only Wen Zhiyun could feel the pulse fading away under his fingertips. He heaved a long sigh. “Brother Fufeng has passed.”
He passed away, without seeing the snows of his eighteenth winter in this life.
He remained as serene as if gratified to have a confidant friend by his side at the end.
There was little joy for him in this world. His mother’s coldness and his father’s mercilessness were all agony. His frail body made him able to only cower inside the manor. Sunlight never touched him. His sole delight was reading letters.
He possessed the remarkable talent and acute intellect admired in this world, yet the only thing he lacked was health.
He was too outstanding. Heaven wanted to reclaim him early.
The snowflakes grew heavier and heavier outside, as if celebrating the arrival of the new year, yet also concealing all disgrace.
The goose feathers knitted into a feather bed blanket, covering the nobly blanched young master.
Xu Mo bent down, his head full of white hair. He finally reached out and picked up the only soulmate he’d ever know in this life. “Let’s bring Fufeng home.”
The Wang manor was not his home.
So give him their home in its place.
At some unknown point, acquaintances had rushed over, some fearful, some anxious, some mocking, some derisive.
Xu Mo seemed oblivious as he marched ahead with the thin shoulders bursting with power, carrying the young master now skin and bones, heading for the carriages.
Wen Zhiyun slowed his steps as Jiang Sheng followed closely behind. Wang Mingyu escorted along tearfully.
The teachers who had hurried here together from Anshui Prefecture were also pained and distraught as they got up to chase after him with tearing eyes.
In the thirteenth year of Heqing, as the old and new years alternating, heavy snow fell upon the city, piling up over three feet deep.
The accumulated snow surpassed a wrist’s depth. It could easily cover a person whole.
In that year, Young Master Fu Feng passed away at the age of seventeen.