Chapter 125: Rope on the Beam

“That person lived for almost a hundred years?”

As she said this, her expression was truly one of stunned disbelief. The impression Xie Liusheng had left on her was truly not good. Whether it was his actions under the alias “Qi Si” in the first shop, the wretched remains of Xie Liang seen in the second shop, or the final image of Xie Liusheng seemingly reborn, he never resembled someone who should have lived through a century of life.

A person who had walked alone through nearly a hundred years should be wiser, a more cunning and calculating figure, Jiang Zhique thought. No matter how she looked at it, Xie Liusheng was not such a person.

“It can’t be confirmed. After all, this is just a diary. Even if he claimed to be the last emperor, we couldn’t verify it,” Qi Ran shook her head. “But from the content, I feel his claim is true.”

“Why?” Hearing Qi Ran’s words, Jiang Zhique calmed down slightly, asking with a confused tone, “What else did he write in the content?”

“Read the first half and you’ll understand—of course, you can completely skip the first ten pages,” Qi Ran pointed to the diary. “He spent nearly ten pages summarizing his background. Every line drips with resentment and sarcasm. He wasn’t born in Zhongnan, but in East China. His mother was the second daughter of the fifth generation Head of the Xie Family. She met his father during school, and they felt like old friends at first meeting. A year later, his father married into the Xie Family as a matrilocal son-in-law. Another year later, his mother gave birth to him and named him Xie Liang. Guess what’s interesting in this passage?”

Jiang Zhique shook her head; she didn’t hear anything amiss in this story. She already knew that Xie Liusheng had a connection to the Xie Family.

“His father’s surname was Su, given name Youwei,” Qi Ran said. “Perhaps you’ve heard it put another way: Su Youwei had a grandson. That grandson’s name is Su Decai.”

“Xie Liusheng is the uncle of Su Family Head Su Decai, the granduncle of that Su Hui?” Jiang Zhique felt her worldview suffer another mental shock.

Qi Ran nodded. “That’s also why the Su Family, a new surname with not a penny of savings, was able to rise to become one of the Three Major Families of Zhongnan after the Xie Family fell. Su Youwei’s descendants gnawed on the Xie Family’s corpse; they ate until their mouths dripped with grease and their bellies were round.”

“What… a messy web of relationships,” Jiang Zhique could only say.

“It’s not hard to understand,” Qi Ran shrugged. “Power is like HIV; it can only be transmitted through maternity, blood, and sex. Not to mention that The Circle has always continued its legacy in the form of families. Like when you look up famous people in history, you find they’re all related to each other. Their relationships are just as messy. It’s always been this way, and it will be the same in a few hundred years.”

“Although Su Youwei was a matrilocal son-in-law, he was quite capable, an ambitious and ruthless hero. Under the Xie Family’s arrangements, he took Xie Liang and his mother to Northern China to build a career, achieving some status within the Beiyang Government. That was the peak of Su Youwei’s life. He made many connections; the Tao and Jiang families were both on good terms with him,” Qi Ran said calmly. “At that time, Su Youwei made a decision cold-blooded to the point of rationality. He decided to divorce Xie Liang’s mother—she was about seven months pregnant then. She used a rope to hang herself from the beam in the house. But even so, Xie Liang was still born. The first image he saw upon being born was his mother’s legs hanging down, and the umbilical cord connecting them.”

“His exact words in the diary about that scene are: ‘I cannot remember things before I was four, but that image alone is carved into the deepest part of my Mind Lake—Mother was hung by a rope on the beam, and I was hung by a rope from Mother. That umbilical cord saved me, preventing me from falling to the ground. That was the first time I experienced maternal love, and also the last.'” Qi Ran’s voice was very soft.

“…Truly hellish,” Jiang Zhique murmured. Her words were meant for both Xie Liang’s mother and Xie Liang himself. “A mere matrilocal son-in-law dared to do such a thing? Was he not afraid of the Xie Family’s retaliation?”

“Honestly, in Su Youwei’s eyes at the time, there really was no need to be afraid,” Qi Ran shrugged. “Because the woman he remarried was nine years younger than him, and her name was Yuan Xiaozhen.”

Connecting the year, Jiang Zhique almost blurted out, “He attached himself to Yuan Shikai?”

“He participated at the scene of the election on February 15, 1912,” Qi Ran nodded. “He also organized the Citizens’ Group during the 1913 Republic of China presidential election, trapping the assembly members at the scene. The voting was held three times, and finally, the members had to recognize Yuan as the Grand President. He didn’t just attach himself to Yuan Shikai; he rendered tremendous service for him.”

“Yuan Shikai died four years later…” Jiang Zhique said quietly.

“But Su Youwei was different. As early as May 6, 1915, before Yuan Shikai’s abdication, Su Youwei predicted this development. So, he made a clean getaway with himself intact. It wasn’t until 1923 that he died in a power struggle… The one who killed him wasn’t the Xie Family, but the newly appointed Grand President at the time, Cao Kun.”

“Not the Xie Family?” Jiang Zhique whispered. “The Xie Family could tolerate such a disgrace?”

“Unlike what you think, the Xie Family actually didn’t hate Su Youwei that much,” Qi Ran sighed. “Because after they brought Xie Liang back, the Xie Family’s entire attention was absorbed by him. They discovered with wild joy that this child, born beneath his mother’s hanging corpse, possessed astonishing talent. They prophesied that this child would lead the Xie Family to unimaginable heights, expanding the Xie Family’s influence beyond just Zhongnan to the entire world.”

“They decorated Xie Liang’s mother’s death with the most magnificent, grandest embellishments. The protagonist of that story was no longer a pitiful abandoned woman, but a saint who sacrificed herself for humanity’s future, comparable to Mary birthing Jesus in a manger. Amidst death, retain life—’Si zhong liu sheng.’ That’s how Xie Liang’s courtesy name, Liusheng, came about.”

“The first ten years of Xie Liang’s life were excruciatingly painful. He used the coldest ways he could imagine to antagonize everything around him. But the old fogies of the Xie Family decreed that everything Xie Liang wanted would be granted. At the age of nine, he had an argument with his older cousin, Xie Yuan. The reason was that Xie Yuan mentioned his mother in front of him. So, during the Xie Family’s banquet for guests, he publicly stabbed his cousin, who was serving him food, with a pair of scissors. He also flipped over the table, causing the Xie Family to completely lose face.”

“Just when he thought he would finally be punished this time, that very night, his trembling servant girl delivered a box to him. Inside that box was a tongue, and ten fingers. They were Xie Yuan’s tongue and fingers. The person who sent this box was Xie Yuan’s father, Xie Liang’s Cousin Uncle. There was also a letter in the box. Its meaning was roughly that if he still felt the sincerity wasn’t enough, he could send even more of his son’s apologies to him.”

Jiang Zhique fell silent. She was completely unable to offer any appraisal of this story.

Qi Ran paused for a moment, then continued, “The most vicious, most brutal acts of revenge a ten-year-old Xie Liang could imagine were simply no big deal to those old codgers of the Xie Family. Wasn’t it just a bit of wantonness, a bit of mischief? Forget ten fingers, even if he said he wanted to collect enough fingers to fill an entire room, those old bastards could fetch them back after a casual stroll outside. Back then, the Xie Family in Zhongnan was no different from a local tyrant emperor, and Xie Liang was the crown prince. Whatever the crown prince wanted to do, he could do. Whomever he wanted to kill, he could kill.”

“He wanted revenge on Su Youwei, but Su Youwei died when he was eleven. He wanted to kill Yuan Xiaozhen, but Yuan Xiaozhen died along with Su Youwei. In the end, all the Xie Family could find were a six-year-old boy and a four-year-old girl. Those two children were Su Youwei’s two children,” Qi Ran said calmly. “He stood in the courtyard holding a knife for an entire night. In the end, he couldn’t bring himself to strike those two trembling children kneeling on the ground and finally let the brother and sister go.”

“That six-year-old boy was Su Decai’s father?” Jiang Zhique didn’t find it hard to guess the answer.

“Yes,” Qi Ran nodded. “After that, Xie Liang was completely disheartened. All he wanted to do was escape from everything, escape from this circle nauseating to the extreme. He wanted to flee to a place where he would never have to see these people again. In August 1935, he escaped onto a ship. The name of that ship was the SS President Jackson. Its destination was Seattle, USA.”