Yun Bixue naturally did not miss the look in his eyes. She reached out to hold his hand as she said, "Limo, do you still not want to say it?"

Xie Limo let out a small sigh. He put his hand over Yun Bixue's waist and pulled her to sit on his lap. He did not let her see his expression and merely pressed her head against his chest, where his heart was at, to let her listen to his heartbeat.

"Ah, Xue, can you hear my thoughts?"

"Limo, don't try to change the topic." She knew that he cared about her. The more he was being like this, the more she wanted to hear his reason.

Xie Limo said tenderly, "Alright. Since you want to know, I'll tell you."

"Okay." Yun Bixue nodded and started to listen seriously.

Xie Limo started speaking in a pensive tone. "Actually, there are many rules and family laws pa.s.sed down from feudalistic dynasties throughout the thousand-year history of the Xie clan. The Xie clan had an Elders' Home too. The powers of the Elders' Home can even affect the decisions of the Master of the family now. While they balance each other's powers, this has also bred a compet.i.tion for power between the two. Some of the elders want to keep the status quo, while some want to break it and advance their own powers. However, the Elders' Home has yet to be abolished up until now. This was only because the Master did not concentrate all the power in his hands."

"So, it means that many decisions have to be subject for approval and interference from the Elders' Home?"

"That's right. Furthermore, there are many layers of complicated relations.h.i.+ps involved. It's difficult to describe it all in a few sentences. My mother…"

Hearing the hesitation in Xie Limo's tone, Yun Bixue immediately urged him to go on and asked, "What happened to Mother?"

Yun Bixue had a feeling that what Xie Limo was about to say would make him feel really upset. She suddenly felt that she was being a little cruel and said, "Limo, if it's something that makes you sad, you don't have to say it!"

Xie Limo shook his head and said, "I don't want you to have any ill feelings or feel estranged from me. I just thought that the time wasn't right to tell you back then. Now that I think about it, I figured that I have to tell you this someday."

Xie Limo sighed before he continued, "When Mother and Father were together, they lost a child once. At that time, Mother still had not managed to hold her ground in the clan. There was an incident where Mother and Father went out together and got ambushed by the enemy. That was when they lost their child. After that incident, Mother cried nonstop and even wanted to leave Father."

Yun Bixue felt a sudden, sharp pain in her heart when she heard this. It made her heart clench painfully. She felt sad for her mother-in-law. The pain of losing a child was indescribable for a mother!

She suddenly felt that she should not have asked. She did not want to listen anymore.

However, Xie Limo had planned to say it all at once. "Father was very determined and refused to let her leave him. Both of them shared a deep love for each other, so how could he let Mother leave? Father just kept staying by Mother's side. Though Father was also in pain, he was a man, so he could only swallow back his own pain and keep it in his heart. He remained strong and comforted Mother throughout this. Mother remained weak and fragile for half a year before she regained her senses and realized how thin and haggard Father had become. Her heart ached for Father. She felt that since she could not let go of their relations.h.i.+p, she could only move on and persevere. However, she did not want history to repeat itself again, so she forced herself to become stronger."

"So this was how Mother became so powerful and charismatic?"

"Yeah, Mother suffered a lot in the past. In the end, she managed to secure her power as the matron of the family. In the past, she would not even dare to kill a chicken. Afterwards, she even punished a lot of people who did not respect her authority."

Although Xie Limo did not further elaborate on it, Yun Bixue could tell that that struggle for power must have been a b.l.o.o.d.y one.