The Cemetery at Night
Stealthily sharing the cemetery with Mu Clan without their knowledge, Mu Yu had been wondering how to face Mu Zhexing, who usually spent time away from everyone else and accompanied the grave of Zhu Qiuqi, a simple grave consisting of just a mound of dirt, a strip of timber as a gravestone and covered in weeds. The other graves were taken care of and even decorated, creating the distinction between someone Mu Clan acknowledged and someone they didn’t.
Nobody knew where Mu Zhexing had money to keep on buying his wine from, but they were in no mood to ask. He’d keep his late wife company whether he was sleeping, drinking or eating one of the three meals Mu Xin delivered to him. Often times, Mu Yu stared at his mother’s “gravestone” and spaced out as his father did from a tree branch he rested on.
As Mu Yu had barely interacted with his father, he didn’t feel the connection to his father. If he had to name someone as his father, he’d name Ku Mu.
Mu Tianhe dragged his feet through the cemetery, indifferent to the whistling wind, toad croaks and rustling leaves that would’ve spooked an ordinary man out. Mu Tianhe’s spirits fell just as Mu Clan did, haggard and defeated. After sitting there in silence for some time, he struggled to his feet, only to kneel back down before the gravestone, an action that Mu Yu didn’t see coming.
“Zhexing, I’m sorry. Had I not placed so much weight on my pride, you wouldn’t be in your current state. Zhu Qiuqi didn’t do anything wrong. I was wrong to separate you two.” Mu Tianhe exhaled into the sky. “Hao told me he no longer dreams his idolised Brother Mu Yu will help us and will learn to do things himself. He’s already learnt to not be unreasonably stubborn at such a young age; I need to take a page out of his book.”
Though Mu Zhexing, who hid his face in the shadows, trembled lightly, he refused to acknowledge the man he disowned as his father.
The moonlight highlighted just how despaired Mu Tianhe felt.
“Because of my pride, I continued to err until I ruined us. I’m sorry. I’ll go see Mr. Yan tomorrow to ask if I could work for him as a steward. I can’t bear to watch all of you suffer with me. If can’t do that much, how am I going to be a role model for Mu Hao? There’s nothing more important than living on.”
Mu Tianhe breathed heavily when he stood up.
“Change out Qiuqi’s gravestone. She deserves better than that. Give her one based on our clan’s style; one the same as the ones we have here,” Mu Tianhe stated in a raspy voice.
In the past, the extent of Mu Tianhe’s guilt was permitting Zhu Qiuqi a spot in their cemetery and only her name on her gravestone. It was only tonight that he felt her grave was out of place.
Mu Tianhe didn’t get to see Mu Zhexing, who had waited eighteen years for the apology and for his father to admit to his wrongs, tear up as he already left. Mu Zhexing shakily caressed his wife’s tombstone and, in a croaky voice, muttered, “When I used to get drunk, you’d always snatch my gourd, pinch my ear and tell me off for drinking. It’s been twenty years since the last time you did that. Why don’t you pinch my ear anymore? I’ve never been drunk; not once since you left despite how much I drank because you would scold me for getting drunk. What do they mean I should come to my senses when my senses were never dulled?”
The eighteen years came from subtracting the two years prior to Zhu Qiuqi’s short-lived return.
“I won’t touch alcohol again from this day forward.” Mu Zhexing stood up and ran his hand down his wife’s name. “He’s acknowledged us. You’re now officially my wife and an official member of Mu Clan. I will ensure you are shown the same respect as everyone else in the clan.”
Mu Zhexing crushed his wife’s gravestone to dust. He hadn’t forgiven his father, and he still was ready to call Mu Tianhe “Dad”. He said to his wife, “Wait here,” and flew off.
The dragon vine asked, “Did Mu Tianhe’s speech count as an apology?”
Mu Yu didn’t answer. For whatever reason, the moon appeared rounder than usual. As if they were an audience cheering him on, the leaves rustled. Upon touching an autumn leave, he revitalised it with life. Just as he could give life to a withered leaf, he could revive a clan all the same. He said it himself: he’d consider himself part of Mu Clan when Mu Tianhe could set aside his pride.
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