Chapter 270 - Chapter 270: Chapter 278: Hallucination Appears (1/2)

Chapter 270: Chapter 278: Hallucination Appears

Actually, it wasn’t that there were no useful pieces of information at all; to others, perspectives may differ, but to An Hu, all those obscure tricks played by the abbot old man were just to dupe people—unless Master Abbot explicitly told him where his wife and child were, which wasn’t asking the impossible. The Master Abbot had some religious prowess, sure, but he was no immortal; casting a divination to guess the will of heaven was one thing, but to actually calculate where someone was? Impossible, and even if somehow he did manage that, he couldn’t ‘reveal the secrets of heaven’.

“General, you should stop cursing. Everyone’s staring at us; it’s embarrassing!” a Vice General beside An Hu said. Used to the General’s temperament, the Vice General spoke quite freely and didn’t fear saying the blunt truth, even at the risk of reprimand.

“What’s there to be embarrassed about? The rage in my chest’s not yet quelled, goddammit. If we don’t find them soon, I don’t even know where my wife and children are suffering. The townsfolk said that my wife and son left with just two packages—inside were a few pieces of tattered clothes and some flatbreads, and with just those, they set out to find me. Who knows what hardships they endured along the way; just hope their luck’s strong enough to keep them safe.”

As An Hu spoke, his eyes reddened. Before, he hadn’t the means to keep his daughter-in-law from suffering alongside him. Later, after he joined the military, he ended up leaving her and their infant son at home. Now, after achieving fame and success, he couldn’t even find a trace of his dear wife and son. The only news he could scrounge up was that his wife, begging along the way, had come to the military camp to find him. The thought of his wife resorting to begging just to find him made An Hu’s heart feel like it was being scorched and fried in oil.

“General, what does it matter if you have no wife? There are plenty of women in the world. If you can’t find her, then so be it. Many people are eager to have their daughters share your bed. With your current social status, you could easily remarry a beautiful wife and have her bear you a son,” a soldier casually suggested, thinking An Hu’s desperate search was merely for the sake of finding an heir. An Hu, however, kicked the man so hard that he fell to the ground, spurting blood, the force of the blow revealing An Hu’s intense fury.

“Damn it, I will only have one wife in this lifetime. If anyone dares to utter such distasteful remarks again, don’t blame me for being rude. I’ll spare your life this time, but there won’t be a next time—you wouldn’t need your life anyway!” An Hu said, seething with anger. He had never entertained the thought of abandoning his family; such acts were for the conscienceless. Besides, he was clear-eyed: those women willing to marry him were only after his position and status, not out of any genuine desire to be with him, unlike his naive wife.

“Aunt, look how happy the sisters, Lan Xin and Lan Fang, appear, shopping with such gusto,” Su Wenyue said with a smile, watching them weave through the crowd. There was a time when she herself had been just like that, seizing the rare opportunity to splurge to her heart’s content. Now that she had the means to shop whenever she wanted, the thrill had faded.

At that moment, Aunt Feng had finished praying to the Bodhisattva, finding spiritual consolation and thus a lightness of spirit reflected in a smile on her face: “Indeed, daughters of a Wealthy Family don’t get out much. Everything is a novelty to them. After a few more outings, it won’t seem so rare.”

“Exactly, there’s something to be said for rarity in experiences… Aunt, what’s wrong?”

Feng Susu, who had been chatting with Su Wenyue, suddenly froze upon spotting a figure in the distance. Her eyes widened in disbelief; after double-checking to make sure she wasn’t hallucinating, she took off running towards it.

“Child’s father! Huzi!” Feng Susu called out while running. But there were too many people at the temple gate, and in her haste, she tripped over someone. By the time she got up and looked around, the familiar yet distant figure she had been searching for over a decade had disappeared.