63: The saddest thing in the world is that the elderly have to send off the young with their own hands!

In his eyes, there was no pleading, no fear, only an extreme, pure hatred!

He hated that his father didn't discipline him when he needed it most.

He hated that his father didn't help him when he needed it most.

He hated that his mother didn't stop him when he first started making mistakes.

He hated that his mother doted on him when he needed a lesson.

This gaze was like a red-hot iron skewer, fiercely stabbing into Zhou Wenqing's heart.

What is the greatest sorrow in this world? It is for white-haired people to bury black-haired people.

What is the greatest, greatest sorrow in this world? It is for white-haired people to personally send away black-haired people.

Prefect Zhou Wenqing's heart twitched, but he knew he couldn't show any abnormality.

Sword Devil Lu Jiuyuan had the authority to execute first and report later for anyone below the fourth rank.

If he dared to show any sign of impropriety, Lu Jiuyuan would dare to stab him to death with a sword right there in the prefectural yamen.

He clenched his hands, gritted his teeth, sat up straight, and couldn't lose face.

"Great Hero Lu, this humble official feels unwell; may I be excused?"

"No!" Lu Jiuyuan shook his head. "If you want to vomit, just vomit. After a few times, you'll get used to it."

"This beast defiled hundreds of daughters, causing hundreds of families to be torn apart. Do you think he deserves this punishment?"

"He does!" Prefect Zhou gritted his teeth and said, "Zhou and this lecherous thief are irreconcilable.

Catch one, kill one; apprehend one, execute one, no leniency!"

"Lu certainly didn't misjudge Prefect Zhou!" Lu Jiuyuan nodded in approval. "It's just that in this small Hangzhou City, there are an awful lot of lecherous thieves.

We just caught Seven Wonders Langjun, and then I caught Jade Faced Fox."

"Jade Faced Fox? The Jade Faced Fox who preys on both men and women, who demands the chastity of women and the chastity of men alike?" Prefect Zhou was greatly alarmed.

"Exactly, it's him! It took quite a bit of effort to catch him."

Lu Jiuyuan said, "As the saying goes, don't trouble a second master with a task for the first. Since we're carrying out an execution today, why not bring him along as well?

Same as before, you write the application, I'll stamp it. Quick and decisive, how about it?"

"Good! I'll listen to Sword Saint Lu."

Prefect Zhou suppressed the churning in his stomach, tried to maintain his official dignity, and nodded in agreement.

To end this hellish scene as quickly as possible, dealing with another lecherous thief didn't seem entirely unacceptable.

Lu Yuan said to the constable beside him, "Go to Room Jiazi Two at the Datong Inn and bring Jade Faced Fox here!"

As the order was given, the crowd stirred again.

Jade Faced Fox!

The ill repute of this name was no less than that of Seven Wonders Langjun. Because he preyed on both men and women, he loved to seduce people, but after a successful seduction, his jealousy was extremely strong.

After sleeping with someone, when he saw their spouse, he would feel a sense of jealousy, as if he had been cuckolded.

This habit of seducing someone's spouse and then killing their original partner added a few more layers of evil and terror to the legend.

Everyone craned their necks, eager to see what this second villain, who was about to be 'lit with a sky lantern,' looked like.

Several constables took the order, quickly walked down the execution platform, and entered the passage opened by the crowd.

Before long, they returned, dragging a figure who was also bound with five ropes, his limbs dangling.

That person wore a brocade robe, his limbs dislocated at the joints, dangling uselessly.

The constables brutally pushed Jade Faced Fox to his knees before the main platform!

Prefect Zhou looked at the prisoner kneeling below the platform and sternly said, "Raise your head!"

"Wait a moment!" Lu Jiuyuan stepped forward, reached out, grabbed and tore at his chin, and a human skin mask was pulled off.

"You can ask now!"

"Thank you, Sword Saint Lu. Raise your head, let this prefect see you, you treacherous scoundrel..."

His words stopped abruptly.

As if struck by an invisible bolt of lightning!

His already pale face, from suppressing nausea, instantly lost all color, becoming ashen like a corpse.

His hand, propped on the desk, trembled violently, causing his entire body to shake like a sieve.

Those eyes, which had just been trying to maintain composure, were now wide open, almost bursting from their sockets, filled with disbelief, utter horror, and despair!

The prisoner kneeling below the platform, called "Jade Faced Fox," was forced to raise his head by the constables' rough pulling.

That face, though stained with dust and bearing a few fresh bruises, and with disheveled hair that couldn't hide its contours,

was a face Zhou Wenqing knew intimately, a face he had watched grow up!

It was his only surviving son, the one he had been thinking of just these past two days to inherit the family business and carry on the ancestral incense for his "heroically sacrificed" elder brother, Zhou Jingxing—Zhou Zhiyao!

"Zhi... Zhiyao?"

Zhou Wenqing felt his voice squeeze out from a broken bellows, hoarse and distorted, carrying a sense of defeat as if his Soul had been torn apart.

He suddenly sprang from his seat, knocking over his chair, and staggered to the edge of the platform, pressing his hands tightly on the table, his knuckles white from the force.

"Father... Father!"

Zhou Zhiyao saw his father, like a drowning man grasping at a last straw, tears and snot streaming down his face, his voice sharp and distorted from extreme fear:

"Father, save me! Father! I am Zhiyao! I am not Jade Faced Fox! I am not!

Lu Jiuyuan is slandering me! He tortured me into confessing! Father! Save me! I don't want to be 'lit with a sky lantern'! Father—!"

Zhou Zhiyao's desperate wails echoed over the execution ground, intertwining with the crackling of the flames on the tall pole and Zhou Jingxing's dying gasps, forming a bizarre scene.

Boom!

The crowd completely erupted! Even more fervent than when Liu Yulang was burned to death just now!

"Zhou Zhiyao? Prefect Zhou's son?"

"Jade Faced Fox is Zhou Zhiyao?!"

"Oh my god! The Prefect's youngest son?!"

"A Young Master from the Prefect's family, what woman couldn't he have? How could he be Jade Faced Fox?!"

"Prefect Zhou sentenced Seven Wonders Langjun to be 'lit with a sky lantern,' now will his son also be 'lit with a sky lantern'?!"

"How do I feel like Sword Devil Lu... bah, bah, bah, Sword Saint Lu did this on purpose..."

The discussions surged like a tide. Countless gazes shifted from the burning Liu Yulang to the distraught Prefect Zhou and his wailing, begging son, Jade Faced Fox Zhou Zhiyao.

Astonishment, disdain, mockery, schadenfreude... various complex emotions churned within the crowd.

Zhou Wenqing felt the world spin, a buzzing in his ears. Zhou Zhiyao's cries, the crowd's clamor, the crackling of the flames all became blurred and distant.

He looked at the young, terrified face below the platform, a face that had once made him despair of his son's potential, yet also held his Zhou family's last hope.

Now, this hope, fragile as glass, was cruelly and precisely shattered by Lu Jiuyuan right before his eyes!

He slowly, stiffly turned his head, his gaze sweeping over the chaotic execution ground, fixing on Lu Jiuyuan's still calm face.

That look could no longer be described as hatred; it was the look of a dying beast, its dignity utterly crushed, its Bloodline severed, everything destroyed.

"Great Hero Lu..." Every word Zhou Wenqing spoke seemed to be squeezed from between his teeth:

"This... what does this mean? My humble son Zhiyao... how... how could he be Jade Faced Fox?

There must be a misunderstanding! A huge misunderstanding!"

Lu Jiuyuan held his sword, his gaze calmly sweeping over the wailing Zhou Zhiyao below the platform, then returning to Zhou Wenqing's ashen face, his tone placid.

"Misunderstanding? Prefect Zhou, there is no misunderstanding! This one, like Seven Wonders Langjun, is a notorious lecherous thief in Jiangnan Dao, and this fellow who seduces wives and kills their original partners is even more ruthless."

"Pfft—!"

Zhou Wenqing could no longer stand, spitting out a mouthful of old blood, his body swaying violently. If he hadn't been gripping the table for dear life, he would have collapsed to the ground.

The look in his eyes as he gazed at Zhou Zhiyao was no longer one of horror and despair, but of utter desolation and deathly stillness.

So... so that's how it was! No wonder Jingxing's eyes were so strange before he died.

They say a Dragon begets a Dragon, a Phoenix begets a Phoenix... how could his Zhou Wenqing have raised two beasts in human skin!

One more vicious than the other, one more despicable than the other!

"Father! Father! He's lying! He's slandering me! I didn't!

They forced me to confess! Father! Save me! I was tortured into confessing, I don't want to die! I don't want to die, Father—!"