Chapter 15: Provocation
979 Words
“He’s here, he’s here—I wasn’t mistaken! That useless eldest young master has truly come to the ancestral ceremony. What a spectacle awaits!” A burly man clad in black martial garb exclaimed to his companion, his voice alight with fervor.
“A spectacle? What’s there to see? With that frail frame, a gust could topple him. Hoisting a hundred-pound stone for an hour—I wager he can’t even lift it!” Another hulking figure, his beard a rugged thicket, scoffed. His attire mirrored the first, save for three stars adorning his shoulder—emblems of a third-rank warrior in the Qin clan, a modest yet respectable mastery.
“Hush, enough!” interjected a man in his thirties, his tone a hushed reprimand. “Say what you will, he’s still the eldest of the Qin family. Such reckless prattle, if overheard by the patriarch, will land us all in dire straits!”
The pair shrugged off the caution, heedless as ever. The third-rank warrior cast a disdainful glance at Qin Mufeng’s approaching form and sneered, “Trash is trash! No lofty title can alter that truth. A weakling unfit to inherit the Qin legacy—what have we to fear from such a powerless whelp?”
Their discordant murmurs pierced Qin Mufeng’s ears without omission. A haze of rancor clouded his heart, his chest ablaze as if flames scorched his vitals. He smelled the singe of his own flesh, tasted the blood surging to his throat. He yearned to flee, yet his spirit balked at retreat.
His face remained an impassive mask, as though their barbs were beneath notice, but the resolute cadence of his steps betrayed the storm within. Steadfastly, he reached the heart of the Ancestral Hall, his gaze sweeping the throng until it alighted upon Qin Mujian.
Draped in a robe of pristine white, Qin Mujian radiated brilliance wherever he stood. Positioned on the hall’s western flank, he was preceded by elders in their fifties and sixties. Observing the boy’s precocious poise, a faint smile graced Qin Mufeng’s lips.
Approaching Qin Mujian with measured calm, Qin Mufeng addressed an elder before him with a subtle chuckle. “Sir, pray step forward—I claim this spot.”
The old man faltered, his keen eyes appraising Qin Mufeng’s slight frame. Words hovered on his tongue, yet he merely sighed in silence and shuffled ahead.
“My thanks,” Qin Mufeng replied, his smile poised with neither servility nor arrogance. Meeting Qin Mujian’s defiant glare, he assumed the position with serene indifference. The Qin clansmen, primed for a drama, froze as the elder yielded—a taciturn shift that defied their expectations of the irascible Qin Jing.
As astonishment rippled through the onlookers at Qin Jing’s quiet compliance, Qin Mujian’s visage twisted with fury at being upstaged. Gasping in indignation, his sapphire eyes bulged as he barked, “Qin Mufeng, do you even know where you stand? This place isn’t yours—step back at once!”
His near-roar failed to ruffle Qin Mufeng’s composure. With unruffled grace, he turned, casting a frigid glance over Qin Mujian. “Little brother,” he intoned coolly, “allow me to remind you: I am the Qin family’s legitimate eldest son. This position is mine by right. You, born of the second wife, would do well to mind your place and show due respect.”
Qin Mujian hadn’t foreseen such audacity from the once-timid Qin Mufeng. Each syllable struck like a dagger, every word a honed blade plunging into his core.
Ever the radiant star, Qin Mujian had basked in near-unassailable pride. Even before Xijiangyue’s father—the ninth-rank titan Xi Jinglei—vanished, he’d been hailed as the Qin family’s rising luminary, heir apparent to its mantle.
Now, Qin Mufeng’s rebuke struck a tender nerve. Not the eldest legitimate son, his mother—though of the esteemed Green clan, third in Frey’s hierarchy—remained but a second wife. His face, lashed as if by a whip, flushed crimson then paled, his voice a blaze of outrage. “Qin Mufeng, you insolent cur! Dare you repeat that?”
“Qin Mujian,” Qin Mufeng countered, his tone a steely whisper, “I warn you: this is the Ancestral Hall, hallowed ground for our forebears’ spirits, not your playground for tantrums. Persist in this clamor, and I’ll see you chastised by clan law!”
Whether such a rule against uproar in the hall existed, he knew not—nor cared. His aim was singular: to quell Qin Mujian’s arrogance, and the sanctity of the Ancestral Hall offered a lofty pretext.
The hall’s occupants, agape at the duel of wills, dared not intervene. The once-meek eldest young master now stood unyielding, exuding an unexpected mantle of authority.
Was this the timid shadow who trailed Xijiangyue? A child long subdued, now roused in a sudden tempest of defiance? As the crowd grappled with this upheaval, reevaluating the erupted heir, a clang of iron resounded. Qin Yinghuan, clad in sable robes, emerged, pushing a wheelchair forth.
Qin Mujian, poised to spar further, shrank at his father’s arrival—like a mouse before a cat, his bravado extinguished. The clan’s ranks aligned in orderly silence, the vast hall falling still.
Over a hundred Qin luminaries stood poised within, their visages mingling solemnity with nonchalance—a casual mastery over the clan’s fate. Yet their eyes converged upon Qin Yinghuan and the elder in his charge.
Today, Qin Yinghuan reigned as the ceremony’s linchpin, yet Qin Mufeng’s scrutiny lingered on the gaunt figure in the wheelchair. Amid the throng’s gazes, he discerned a truth: though Qin Yinghuan wielded the family’s reins, this elder was its soul, steering all by his indomitable will.
As Qin Mufeng studied the wizened man, Qin Yinghuan’s voice reverberated through the silence.
“The ancestral ceremony commences now!”
- Writer
