Commanding Wind and Cloud
chapter-130

“You.” Qian Jin flashed Julius a glance. “Wash off your make-up, and then come back and kneel down.”

Julius gnashed her teeth, took a peep at the gate where Caesars was carried through, and then lowered her eyes at the baby in her arms, gathering some courage in herself.

“If you were waiting for me to dispose of you, I would throw you into the well.” Qian Jin ignored Julius and turned her eyes on Rollin. “Even if he was still alive, he couldn’t stop me from doing so. If you don’t believe it, you can have a try.”

Julius had a look at her baby, and then turned her eyes to Rollin lying in the coffin before looking back at Qian Jin. After giving her baby to Rosella, she swiftly ran for the backyard.

The mourning hall turned silent again. Rosella held the baby with one hand. Using the other hand to lift herself up, she slowly walked towards Qian Jin with sorrow filling her wet eyes.

One step, two steps, three steps…

Rosella came to Qian Jin and raised her head to observe the man who had become much taller and stronger during the past two years’ departure. This was the one his brother insisted on marrying her to. She suddenly lost all her strength, and collapsed into Qian Jin’s arms.

She was too tired after everything that happened in the past few days.

Everything that occurred in the Roll Family had to be shouldered on her own. The guardians her father hired at a huge expense all fled secretly, leaving her to face all these tough enemies.

Eventually… Rosella leaned by Qian Jin’s arms and lightly blinked her slender eyelashes as she closed her eyes. She had seen enough of the cruel world.

She could lay down all her burdens now as he had come back. Rosella leaned across Qian Jin, feeling so content that tears were drooping down from her half-closed eyes, wetting Qian Jin’s clothes.

The mourning hall was still as silent. Qian Jin held Rosella’s emaciated body which gave out a light aroma around his arms. He took a look at his hands filled with blood and gave up his impulse of touching her smooth hair to comfort her.

“What a dauntless girl.” Qian Jin watched the pretty girl leaning by him and had a glimpse at the baby who resembled Rollin to some extent in her arms. “Is the baby Rollin’s son?”

Rosella, leaning across Qian Jin, raised her head lightly to him and nodded her head firmly. “Yes. My brother called on a mage to confirm that he was my brother’s biological son.”

“Really?” Qian Jin put out his fingers to tease the baby who was observing him with curiosity. “You little thing, call me godfather.”

Rosella’s eyes which were full of tears twinkled with surprise hearing this. Qian Jin gazed at the “sleeping” Rollin in the coffin. “We once pledged to each other that if he had a baby, I would be the baby’s godfather.”

Rosella forced a smile on her face and turned her eyes at Rollin, wondering what it would be like if her brother was still alive.

“I want to know the truth,” Qian Jin looked at Rosella who was in his arms. “As well as what had happened just now. Tell me everything that happened.”

“The truth…” Rosella sighed gently. “I didn’t see it with my own eyes. Brother told me several times before he passed away that you would definitely come back, by which time the whole family would be under your control, and that I should believe in you unconditionally.”

Qian Jin gazed at Rollin who was lying in the coffin silently and sighed softly, “You…”

“There’s a letter.” Rosella gradually left Qian Jin’s hug and walked towards the backyard. “My brother left a letter for me, warning me that I had to hand it to you in person without anyone else knowing.”

Qian Jin watched Rosella turn away, leaving him alone to accompany Rollin in the mourning hall. He gently sat down by the narrower side of the coffin, leaning by its edge and looking up to the blue sky with the coffin cover on his head. The image of the fat Rollin flashed in his mind when they got drunk, carried wine bottles, and loafed around on the street against the beautiful moon while singing and shouting loud unrestrainedly. He reminisced about the way he smiled sadly, and the day he solemn swore to marry the campus beauty Julius.

“I, Rollin, swear that I will marry Julius by any means…”

“Boy, copying and cheating in the exams shows the friendship between men. How can you make a business out of that? I am a man of integrity! You are destined to be my brother-in-law!”

“Guy, you are destined to be my brother-in-law. Just acknowledge it.”

“Buddy, we made a pledge that when you become a grand warrior, you will be the prime guardian of my family. And by that time, we will go out and drink! Take it easy. I will not report your misdeeds to my sister, namely your wife, as we will be family by then…”

“Buddy…”

“Buddy…”

“Buddy…”

The face and voice of the fat bloke were still lingering, but the person had already gone away…

Qian Jin laid his right hand on his curled knees as a stick of tobacco was passed to him from nearby. It was Julius, who still looked gorgeous in her plain dressing after washing off the make-up. She forced a smile and said, “It’s tobacco, a rare good. It’s much more enjoyable than pipes. Rollin adored it greatly.”

Qian Jin took it from Julius, lit it with Julius’s lighter, and inhaled deeply. As soon as the he did so, a spicy taste was spread throughout his lungs, which made him cough heavily. He threw away the tobacco, and knocked his head on Rollin’s coffin, “Is your taste always going to be that eerie?”

The coffin produced a heavy dull sound in response to Qian Jin’s question.

Instead of flashing a look to Julius who was kneeling down by the coffin docilely, Qian Jin looked up to the slowly moving clouds in the sky in silence, recalling the past two years… After being tortured in the Four Season Valley for two years, he intended to drink with his bosom friend for a whole night, however…

Julius’s head was lowering so down that it had nearly touched her plump bosom. While kneeling on the ground, she furtively peeped at Qian Jin, begging that he wouldn’t go! When Caesars, on behalf of the Cae Family, came with the aim of extorting the Roll Family, she had promised to become an accomplice with him. But now, Caesars was carried back to the Roll Family in such a shameful manner. If this guy left the Roll Family, she couldn’t resist the revenge of the Cae Family.

A small sound echoed in the mourning hall. Julius shivered and raised her had to take a quick look at Rollin, who was lying in the coffin.

“Did you murder Rollin?”

“Um? No…” Julius looked to Qian Jin scarily, hand pressing on her heart and eyes vigilantly fixing on Qian Jin, who was leaning across the coffin. She was frightened by Qian Jin’s sudden arrived, who questioned her when she was lost in a stupor.

Qian Jin didn’t turn back at Julius. Rather, he tapped the ground with his forefinger and made an incessantly heavier sound, “When you replied to my question just now, your heart was beating at a speed of nearly five times faster than normal. Your voice sounded firm, but you were quivering. As explained in the infallible Inquisition Records written by Magic Touch, the greatest inquisition policer of the Zence Empire, you are lying.”

“I didn’t…” Julius shook her head repeatedly.

“Alas…” Qian Jin sighed while looking up to the sky, “You are the mother of Rollin’s son. Whether for Rollin’s or his son’s sake, I won’t hurt you so long as you speak the truth. Otherwise, if you continue lying to me, I promise that you will end up even more miserable than Caesars and that warrior.”

Julius kept shaking her head as she remembered that Qian Jin dared to beat Caesars and hospitalize him to avenge Rollin, regardless of the blood-tie relationship between Caesars and Caeller… Speak the truth? Even if Qian Jin didn’t ask for her compensation, as long as she was sent to the mayor and dealt with the legal proceedings of Zence Empire…

Life for a life! The same was true in the ferocious Demons, the uncivilized Barbarians, and also Zence Empire.

Qian Jin gazed at the sky while leaning across the coffin, with his right arm resting on his knees and his two fingers protruding. He said in a light voice as if speaking to himself, “There are two kinds of people in this world. The first kind being Magic Touch and other similar people who won’t carry out his obligations until he was provided with precise proof. But the second type of people, like Blood Miles, who was thought to be a bloody slaughter in the history of Zence Empire, would create a massacre regardless of whether they were provide with enough evidence or not.”

Julius’s hands which were propping on the ground trembled severely. She hadn’t heard of Magic Touch, but the name Blood Miles, a desperately heinous bandit who was wanted by the Demons, Barbarians and Zence Empire, was not something strange to her.

He once penetrated deeply into the Demon’s territory to behead a demon governor, and succeeded in getting through the siege of the Demons, thus becoming a huge pain for the Demons.

He also once finished off a governor’s entire family in Zence Empire and inscribed on the wall, “Blood Miles was the killer.”

Similar things also befell the Barbarians’ territory. The reason for the killings was that as long as he believed that something related to him was done by someone, he would behead that person.

It was a time which the later generations thought to be interesting when they read of the past. Whenever anything involving Blood Miles happened, the governors would stand out, claiming that such things had nothing to do with them.

Even if a killing happened in Zence Empire, the demon governors who tortured humans in a beastly way would declare their independence from such things.

“I am an admirer of Magic Touch. If possible, I also prefer taking measures after getting evidence, however…” Qian Jin shook his head while wearing a cold sneer, “If the evidence was inaccessible, I wouldn’t mind behaving like Blood Miles.”

“Killing… killing…” Julius didn’t doubt what Qian Jin had said, “Killing is illegal.”

“You’re aware of that?”

Qian Jin laughed and didn’t say anything more. He continued gazing at the sky with a blank look. The mourning hall became silent again. However, Julius felt throttled by such ambience, as if thousands of eyes were fixed on her.