Chapter 1561
Xia Jingfeng let out a cold laugh.
"My body?"
"Since when did my body ever need your concern?"
"A filthy woman who even dares to harm her own kin—what right do you have to say such things?"
Xia Jingfeng was so furious he was almost beside himself.
Lady Jin shrank back a little, lowered her head, her gaze darting furtively.
After a long moment she nudged Xia Weifeng with her elbow and whispered.
"Husband, say something!"
"We didn’t do anything wrong, and for my lord to scold us like this is just humiliating, isn’t it? You’re also the legitimate young master of this household!"
Hearing her say that, and seeing how truly wronged she looked,
plus the fact that his second brother had dragged them to this wretched place without a word, he was indeed very displeased.
So he stiffened his neck and spoke in a sarcastic, sing-song tone.
"Second Brother!"
"I know you’re angry about Father’s death, but we really didn’t do anything wrong!" he boasted shamelessly.
Xia Jingfeng was so enraged he nearly coughed up blood, glaring fiercely.
"You didn’t do anything wrong? You’re sure about that?"
A flicker of guilt flashed through Xia Weifeng’s eyes.
But seeing Lady Jin kneeling beside him, looking so pitiful, he could only steel himself, puff out his huge greasy belly, and continue his brazen lies.
"Yes!"
"Before Father passed... we took great care of him. I even hired a physician for him. He had food and drink, and people to attend him—what more do you want!"
Xia Jingfeng narrowed his eyes.
"Oh? Is that so?"
"Then what about the wounds on Father’s body? His eye disease, his illness—how do you explain those?"
Xia Weifeng kept trying to argue his way out.
"Second Brother!"
"A physician isn’t a god. Birth, aging, sickness, and death are all part of life! Old people are prone to eye diseases, you know that!"
"As for the wounds on his body..." his eyes rolled quickly.
"I don’t know either. Maybe Father’s legs were weak and he fell somewhere. Old folks... they’re slow to heal, that’s normal..."
Before he could finish, Xia Jingfeng could no longer hold back.
He lifted his foot and drove a vicious kick straight into Xia Weifeng’s chest.
Xia Weifeng’s fat, pregnant body was like a sack stuffed with chaff; carried by the force of the kick, he rolled off to the side.
Hmph!
Even though he was a scholar and not trained in martial arts, Xia Jingfeng’s body was far stronger than Xia Weifeng’s.
The man before him was a complete and utter cowardly waste!
This pathetic and craven sight was so disgusting that he couldn’t help turning away, too disgusted to look at him any longer.
Lady Jin, however, was "worried" to death, and hurriedly crawled over on her knees to help him up.
"Husband!"
"Husband, are you all right!"
She lifted her tearful eyes to Xia Jingfeng, her voice tinged with sobs.
"Father was indeed very ill before he passed, but life has been truly hard for my husband and me!"
"The physicians we hired may have been a bit coarse, and the herbs we used were all cheap ones!"
"We feel guilty that we couldn’t cure Father’s illness; no wonder my lord is angry!"
"But my husband is truly frail and can’t withstand your anger. If you really must vent your fury, take it out on me! It’s all my fault..."
As she finished, two tears slipped from her eyes of their own accord.
It made Xia Jingfeng feel a burst of awkwardness.
This woman’s fake sentiments were practically written on her face, and yet she’d managed to wrap Xia Weifeng around her little finger. Clearly, Xia Weifeng really was an idiot.
"Hmph!"
Xia Jingfeng snorted coldly, narrowing his eyes as he swept them both with a sharp gaze.
"No need to rush. Your good days are still ahead of you."
"As for him?"
He gave a mocking smile. Frail? He was that fat and still called frail? Then what would that make Father, all skin and bones like a dry stick?
With one hand he hauled Xia Weifeng over and made him kneel before their father’s spirit tablet. With the other, at some point from somewhere, he produced a bloodstained cudgel.
Xia Weifeng took one look at it and completely lost his nerve.
Lady Jin wasn’t much better; she crawled on her knees, trembling with guilt, not daring to utter a word.
"Do you still recognize... what this is?"
Xia Jingfeng tossed the cudgel down in front of them and pressed them aggressively.
Xia Weifeng hurriedly shook his head, flustered.
"I... I don’t know!"
"And you?" Xia Jingfeng turned to Lady Jin.
Lady Jin also hastily bowed her head to the ground.
"I don’t know either!"
Xia Jingfeng didn’t get angry. He strode forward to stand beside his father’s spirit tablet and gave a chilling smile.
"Are you sure?"
"We’re sure, we’re sure!" the two spineless cowards answered in unison.
Seeing them refuse to admit anything with such shameless faces, Xia Jingfeng felt a bitter, cutting irony in his heart.
Father, do you see this?
These are the two wastes you risked your life to protect. They’ve lost all conscience, destroyed all filial piety.
Your son will let you see with your own eyes today that they are not worth it!
"Men!"
At his call, a sound of footsteps came from outside.
A moment later, a squad of ten guards stood inside the dim ancestral hall.
The narrow hall instantly felt even darker, even more cramped.
But that didn’t matter.
Disciplining unfilial descendants of the clan had always been done in the ancestral hall, under the watchful eyes of the forebears.
Xia Jingfeng had never intended to change the venue.
He stood beside his father’s spirit tablet, smiling down at the pair below with a ghostly, chilling grin.
As one torture device after another, borrowed from the jail in the small county town, was carried in,
Xia Weifeng and his wife were already scared stupid, kneeling on the ground, shaking like leaves.
Especially Xia Weifeng—he sensed that things were going very wrong and turned to Lady Jin for ideas.
Lady Jin had lost her wits as well; she knelt there trembling, not daring to meet her husband’s eyes.
Heh, weren’t you two so in love? Let’s see how long you can keep that up.
Xia Jingfeng looked at the two of them and sneered.
"Regarding the cause of Father’s death, whoever tells the truth first today can be spared punishment."
"If the two of you refuse to confess, I’ll punish you both together, double the blows, double the pain! No one will be spared, not until you open your mouths!"
He could obey his father’s wish not to shed his brothers’ blood.
But while a death sentence could be waived, living punishment was something they could not escape.
Beating them half to death to win some justice for Father would be worth it.
As soon as he finished speaking, the two of them exchanged a glance.
Before Xia Weifeng could react, Lady Jin eagerly crawled forward on her knees.
"I’ll talk, I’ll talk!"
Xia Weifeng was somewhat moved. He believed Lady Jin would surely shoulder all the blame herself to protect him.
After all, it had indeed been her idea, and she’d always loved him so much before, so gentle and understanding, treating him with such sincere devotion.
So he was utterly confident.
However... some things always turn out differently than one expects.
Lady Jin blurted out,
"It was all my husband. He couldn’t endure hardship since he was a child, couldn’t bear any suffering!"
"Ever since Father retired back home, the household’s situation has been far worse than before!"
"In order to get Silver to spend, my husband could only keep Father ’sick’ all the time, so he could use that excuse to ask Lady Wen for money!"
Xia Jingfeng narrowed his eyes.
"Insolent. Is that what you call her, Lady Wen? She is the Second Lady!"
"Yes, yes!"
Lady Jin quickly conceded, then continued,
"To make sure they had an excuse to call physicians every few days, my husband even used a cudgel to beat Father and injure him. That way, the money the Second Lady gave for doctors and medicine would be more, and my husband could skim off the top!"
Lady Jin rattled on and on, pushing every bit of guilt squarely onto Xia Weifeng.