Qiu Ling sighed and regained his focus, returning to the story itself.

[My father did not betray Jinde willingly but the demons have always known how to take advantage of our weaknesses and they did so with him. I have pieced this story together bit by bit only long after the fact, too late for it to heal my relationship with my family while they were still alive.

At that time, Jinde had become king already and my father served as one of his advisers. They had found a balance after a long struggle, allowing them to ignore the feelings that had long ago developed between them and focus on the cause of governing the country to the best of their ability.

Unfortunately, that balance was too fragile. While they might have convinced themselves that they could keep going like this, they still both desired to be with each other. This is what Biao Han made use of: When my father was vulnerable, she pretended to be the person he loved, and finally, she had me.]

Qiu Ling rubbed his forehead when he got to this point. All of this had happened before he was even born so he didn’t include too many details. He also couldn’t help but worry that Jing He might panic about this possibly happening to the two of them as well. His beloved liked to overthink so there was a chance of that. Still, he felt that he had to include the backstory of how all of this had started or it wouldn’t be understandable.

[My father didn’t like her but he was always a man of principle. Since they were technically married and she even carried his child, he finally chose her over the love of his life. When my mother and Jinde could not coexist peacefully, he even took her and me away from the capital, leaving his post as Jinde’s adviser, and moved us to a faraway valley.

I had liked life in the palace and I didn’t like the life out there all too much. There was nobody but the three of us and my parents obviously weren’t close. My father’s condition also started to deteriorate even though I couldn’t see that at the time.

Things went somewhat well though for about a hundred and fifty years. Then, Biao Han killed my father.]

He had to stop writing at this point, his free hand clenching into a fist. It had been so long but he still remembered the time he had found them. This was something he would likely never forget no matter how long he lived.

[It is hard for me to speak of this. Despite all his faults, he was still my father and while I was never as close to him as I was to Jinde, I still looked up to him and loved him. Seeing him perish in front of my eyes and not being able to save him might have been a big part of the reason why I never felt worthy later on no matter what I encountered.

You know from your trial what happened afterward and I’d like not to mention it again but I owe you this truth so I will not keep anything back: Jinde had always thought that something was wrong with my mother and I believe he once put forth the idea that she might be of the demon race. In fact, I believe that him saying this was the reason my father took us away.

I will never know but maybe he was of two minds at the time. He knew that he had to protect his wife from such accusations but, at the same time, if Jinde was right, then he was protecting his true love from the danger that a demon would have posed. Anyway, I like to believe that this is indeed the case.

When she killed him, he naturally realized that Jinde had been right and saw her for what she truly was. He asked of me to kill her and I complied.]

Qiu Ling paused once again and stared at the words that transformed such a big matter into such a small statement. To speak of his mother’s death, of how he murdered her, in such a matter-of-fact way … would that not scare his beloved?

He took a shaky breath and then exhaled, forcing himself to continue writing. No matter what, this was the truth Jing He deserved. He could not let anything out at will. Not to mention that he had already told Jing Yi during his trial so it wasn’t like Jing He didn’t know. He was simply doing him the courtesy of telling him personally again.

[To kill her, that was something I had to do. Please do not think for a moment that it was easy for me. Among those three people, I might have been the least close to her but she was still my mother, a person I lived with for more than three hundred years and whom I relied on while growing up. There were good things about her, things that I liked. I seldom allow myself to think back on them but I know that they existed.]

He fell silent and for just a moment, he indeed thought back to his childhood. These details, he had nobody to talk to about them. He wasn’t sure if he should tell Jing He either. He wanted to deny his demon blood so how could he speak about her this way? And yet, he suddenly wanted to mention it. After all, this might be the only chance he ever had to speak of her in such a way.

Yes, after this, he would likely put these memories to rest and let them slowly fade with the passage of time until nothing was left to remember. That was the way it should be.