Let Me Explain, Fairy
Chapter 729 - Four Hundred and Fifty-Four: The Letter

Chapter 729: Chapter Four Hundred and Fifty-Four: The Letter

A breeze wafted through the room, and the figure clad in blue had vanished.

Xu Changge had left.

For someone who was not good with words, Xu Changge preferred to express himself through body language. Having to muster the patience to share these heartfelt thoughts with his third brother already made him feel uncomfortable all over.

But these were words his father would not articulate, nor would his uncle consider speaking; it was up to him, as the eldest brother, to relay them to Changtian.

Seated alone at a mahogany desk, Xu Yuan gazed at the sunlight that filtered through the open door and thought back to that rainy night in the ancient temple deep in the mountains.

He still remembered the lightning that cleaved the night sky, illuminating the courtyard, the ground washed by the rain littered with severed limbs, and the blood plasma that continuously oozed from them.

He also remembered almost being scared breathless by such gore at that moment.

But now...

He had seen the devastation wreaked by Demonic Beasts in the border county towns, the flesh and blood strewn across battlefields, and the countless commoners struggling in anguish amidst the battles of high-ranking cultivators...

If he were to be confronted with the scene from that rainy night again, Xu Yuan thought that his current self probably wouldn’t even bat an eyelid.

Such was the so-called habituation.

Yet this cold-bloodedness seemed far from enough.

Xu Yuan lifted his gaze toward the study where his father was, through the open door.

That door remained ajar, and with his powerful Integration Body’s hearing, he could even pick up the soft rustling sounds of his father’s brush strokes on rice paper.

To turn over clouds with the flip of a hand, to transform rain with the cover of a hand, to treat the world as a chessboard, and to see all the myriad living beings as chess pieces...

That was what his father was occupied with doing.

With this thought, Xu Yuan lowered his gaze to his own palms.

Would he... truly reach a day when he could indifferently treat the names of millions as mere chess pieces to be played at will?

Silence becoming familiar, Xu Yuan’s lips curved into a smile, and he gently shook his head.

He felt the question was a bit too somber. When that time came, he would let the future self worry about it; why should he overthink it now?

As for now, Xu Yuan thought it was better to read something cheerful and have a good laugh.

With that in mind, his eyes fell on the stack of letters from his dear brother, and he pulled out the first letter in order.

The brownish-yellow envelope bore four words.

[Changtian’s Personal Letter]

After a quick glance, the smile on Xu Yuan’s lips became almost uncontrollable.

Such ugly handwriting...

It was unmistakably Li Junwu’s handiwork.

They say the handwriting reflects the person, but Li Junwu was an exception. Compared to her elegant and spirited visage, this woman’s handwriting was like worms in spring and snakes in autumn.

Though he was a wastrel incapable of cultivation, under the tutelage of various elders in the Prime Minister’s Mansion, his handwriting still matched the image of a noble son.

As a result, Xu Yuan remembered once teaching this woman calligraphy.

However, after a few days, the two of them parted on bad terms: he despised Li Junwu for being unteachable, and Li Junwu accused him of taking advantage of the teaching pretext to get close to his brother.

"Crack—"

A crisp sound gently echoed in the quiet chamber.

The seal was broken, and Xu Yuan pulled out a piece of rice paper filled with handwriting, briefly scanning it before chuckling and shaking his head.

Li Junwu must have been quite serious when she wrote this letter, as he could tell she had tried hard to make the text look as neat as possible.

But after reading the first line, Xu Yuan felt somewhat taken aback.

[Changtian, I went to the Mohuang Pavilion in Pingning Prefecture today, and they actually had dancers from the Great Desert there, I personally find it more interesting than the Hook Bars in Di’an City.]

No pleasantries, no circumlocution, she went straight to talking about visiting brothels.

The more Xu Yuan read, the stranger the expression on his face became.

The whole letter, written extensively and with thousands of words, analyzed in detail the differences between the Hook Bars of Di’an City and Xize State.

After finishing the first letter, although he had never visited Xize State, Xu Yuan felt he had a rather detailed understanding of the place’s brothels.

From the entire pleasure quarter industry in Xize State, starting with the Hook Bars’ decoration and layout, to the difference in musicians’ string performances, down to the potential "intellectual tax" one might encounter,

To the individual madams, from the dancers’ tawny skin and emerald green eyes to their exotic dance moves, as well as the services that the Hook Bars in Di’an City did not offer...

In conclusion, she didn’t forget to add:

[Changtian, when you return to the capital, come to Xize State and I’ll show you around the exotic pleasure quarters.]

Setting aside Li Junwu’s "exploratory dissertation", Xu Yuan shook his head, and while opening the second letter, he murmured with a smile:

"You said you wanted to lead soldiers into battle before leaving the capital, to become a commander no less formidable than Li Qingyan. Yet once you got to the place, you went back to your old habits, huh? How typical of you, Li Junwu."

[Xu Changtian, are you laughing at me now?]

"...." Xu Yuan.

His smile stiffened slightly, and Xu Yuan instinctively scanned his surroundings before realizing his action was foolish and continued reading.

[Don’t be surprised, I know you’ve gone to the Northern Frontier and won’t see these letters for a while. When you return to the capital, you’ll probably read them all at once, and given your nature, you’ll likely read them in order one by one, huhu, aren’t I clever?]

[But to tell the truth, I don’t want to spend every day among the women of the Hook Bars, but who can blame me when my old man is arranging a marriage for me?]

[No sooner had I arrived than he started lining up matches for me, from young army commanders to the direct descendants of the Sun family. I’ve been here for half a month, and apart from various matchmaking sessions, the old man won’t let me touch military power, so I have no choice but to rush him, to see who can outlast the other.]