Fan Xian’s reaction was fast enough. Shooting out like a shadow, he pushed the Eldest Princess to the ground. Striking out like the wind, in an instant he had used zhenqi to seal the important meridians near the wound. However, he saw faint black lines were already slowly enveloping her bright face.
This black dagger had been in Li Yunrui’s abdomen for a while. It had simply been hidden by the wide sleeves. What shocked him even more was that the Eldest Princess had pushed the dagger into herself but was able to talk to him freely, without revealing a glimmer of pain and successfully hiding it from him.
The poison had already flowed around her body with her blood. It had entered her heart and risen faintly into her face. Even if Fei Jie appeared in Jingdou right now, he still wouldn’t be able to save her life.
Fan Xian lowered his head and stared bewilderedly at the dagger in her abdomen. Looking at the hilt of it, he couldn’t help but feel a chill in his heart. It looked familiar. Now was not the time to think about it. With one hand, he held the Eldest Princess’s shoulder. With the other, he pressed down on her soft abdomen. With Northern Qi’s ultimate Heart of Tianyi Dao, he poured it without thought into her.
A moment later, the Eldest Princess, who had been silent the entire time and not shown a trace of pain, finally furrowed her brows and glanced at him with a strange expression. “I just want to properly savor the taste of pain and death. Why are you bothering me?”
All her life, she had lived a lofty life. As the little princess of the royal family, loved by her father, mother, and brother, who dared to make her hurt? Other than the four slaps the empress dowager had given her and the Emperor’s rage that night in the thunderstorm, Li Yunrui had not known what bone-wrenching pain felt like.
These words were truly quite crazy, but Fan Xian did not have time to spar with her. Silently, he pushed the zhenqi into her and forcefully pushed the poison in her body into one place. Gradually, the faint black in Li Yunrui’s face grew deeper, but it gathered near her temples. The skin on the rest of her face regained its usual brilliance.
Fan Xian gave a muffled groan and slapped his right palm against her soft abdomen. Li Yunrui’s cinnabar red lips opened slightly. Immediately after, his left hand flashed into his clothes and took out a pill, forcing it into her mouth.
He was familiar with the poison on this dagger because he had made it himself. Thus, this medicine immediately began to have an effect. However, Li Yunrui had hidden it for too long. The poison had already entered her heart, so there was no way to force it out.
The sweat on Fan Xian’s forehead surged out all at once. Involuntarily, he thought of the movies and novels from his previous life, those scenes that made one feel a chill in their bones. His left hand gripped her shoulder tightly, and he screamed, “Where is Wan’er? Da Bao?”
In those stories, often after the male protagonist was finally victorious. He realized, painfully, that the enemy would never tell him where they had hidden his family and whether or not they were dead as a way to torture him for a lifetime.
The separations and reunions in those gloomy and dark movies and screens made Fan Xian scared. With a trembling voice, he angrily and helplessly yelled at her, completely forgetting the reaction he should have.
Li Yunrui glanced at him with ridicule. The tip of her brows twitched again. It seemed like the poison on the dagger had already spread through her body. A sharp feeling of pain had begun to assail her nerves.
She lowered her head and looked at the black dagger sticking into her abdomen. She said in a quiet voice, “Don’t always use your clever but petty tricks. Those are only used by people who are incompetent.”
Fan Xian’s body was covered in cold sweat. He knew what the Eldest Princess meant by these words. This black dagger was familiar to him because he had personally made it. The dagger was exactly the same as the one Sir Fei Jie had given him in his youth. Even the drugs spread on it were exactly the same.
There were three daggers like this. Fan Xian had one hidden in his boot. The Third Prince, Li Chengping, had one hidden his boot. The third one was hidden in Lin Da Bao’s boot. Of all the people Fan Xian cared about, only the young Li Chengping and the simple-minded Da Bao didn’t have the ability to protect themselves. He had carefully given these two daggers to them, waiting until the last moment to give their enemy the most unexpected strike.
In the Palace, Li Chengping had used this black dagger to protect his life. Da Bao’s black dagger was in the Eldest Princess’s hand and abdomen.
“You thought that I would use Da Bao to threaten you. When Da Bao was standing at my side, you thought you could suddenly give an order for him to pull out the dagger and stab me…” Li Yunrui coughed and coughed out a trace of blood. Looking at Fan Xian mockingly, she said, “Of course, no one would search a fat idiot seriously or guard against him.”
The light in Li Yunrui’s eyes gradually scattered. She slowly said, “These years, you’ve always been with Da Bao. Was it just for that one moment? You told him that I killed Lin Gong, so he hated the person called Li Yunrui. No one in the world dared to say my name in front of that idiot, except you…”
She looked at Fan Xian like she was looking at an idiot. “Too many petty tricks. Your thinking is too complicated and not impressive at all.”
Fan Xian had not thought that his last pawn would be so ridiculous in the other person’s eyes and be so easily seen through. He took a deep breath and forced down the fear in his heart. In an even voice, he begged, “Tell me where they are.”
Li Yunrui didn’t look at him. Her body gradually became cold. She unconsciously pulled up her shoulders. “I am going to die, why should I leave Wan’er alone in the world to be bullied by men?”
“She is my wife. I will protect her.”
Li Yunrui’s eyes were looking off to the side. She said in a trembling voice, “I had wanted to kill your concubine, but I didn’t manage it. In the future, you will have many more women. Why should I allow Wan’er to continue suffering?”
She turned back and looked calmly into Fan Xian’s eyes. “Don’t worry, I won’t use her life to threaten you into becoming an Ascetic Monk.”
Fan Xian’s heart trembled as he stared at the beautiful visage in front of him. The poison had now completely gathered at her temples. Following her blood vessels, there were a few traces of blue like two blue flowers at her temples. There was a strange charm to the beauty.
Li Yunrui looked at him mockingly and slowly raised her right hand to pull Fan Xian over. Weakly, she leaned against his shoulder and placed her face and body next to his, which appeared very intimate. Using this intimate posture, she moved closer to his ear and quietly said, “Why did the Qin family rebel? Go as Chen Pingping. I can only guess.”
An exceptional beauty, even right before her death, her breath was still like a flower. The slightly warm air blew on Fan Xian’s ear and felt strangely charming. He looked at the blue flower near her temple in front of his eyes and listened to the sound gradually entering his ears. His gaze became increasingly serious, shocked and pained.
Li Yunrui laughed gently by his ear. “Although I have died, I have left the Emperor a most powerful enemy. That way, in a Qing Kingdom without me, it won’t be too boring.”
Fan Xian’s mouth was dry. He couldn’t speak for a moment. He could only lower his head in disappointment. Although silent, he still expressed a powerful hesitation and confusion.
“This was once your mother’s courtyard. I had thought to burn it, but I decided to leave it to you. This place is very beautiful. More importantly, I think you will need this place to understand some things.”
“You won’t disappoint me,” Li Yunrui glanced one last time at her son-in-law and said slightly mockingly. “To use even Da Bao… In this world, there are only two people who are so shamelessly hypocritical. One is the Emperor, and one is you. That is why I have such a high opinion of you.”
Fan Xian’s body was frozen. He completely missed these last words. Immediately after, a strange sound came from behind him that shocked him greatly. Turning his head to see, he saw the shrubbery behind the broken guqin move and reveal a small pit.
Inside the pit were Wan’er and Da Bao. The two of them had been tightly bound. Their mouths were stuffed with strips of cloth, making them unable to speak. Wan’er’s eyes were slightly red. She looked at Fan Xian with great worry. Seeing that Fan Xian was not harmed, two lines of tears flowed down. Da Bao’s gaze was muddled. After he saw Fan Xian, it filled with a simple-minded joy.
Immediately after, Wan’er saw her mother in Fan Xian’s arms and discovered her unusual condition. Her eyes became filled with terror.
Fa Xian pushed away the Eldest Princess in his arms and charged to the tree. Pulling Wan’er and Da Bao out, he flicked his fingers and sliced through the ropes that bound them.
Escaping a great calamity, Wan’er didn’t have time to pull the strips of cloth from her mouth before she ran over from Fan Xian’s side. Throwing herself to the Eldest Princess’s side, she knelt there and cried.
Fan Xian sighed in his heart and began to head over. However, he found the corner of his clothing being pulled. Turning his head, he saw Da Bao smiling at him in a silly manner and pulling at him as if he never wanted to let go. Fan Xian felt a great sense of guilt and then a faint sorrow.
Li Yunrui was pushed to the ground by Fan Xian. The poison had long reached her heart. The two marks at her temples woven by the poison appeared even darker compared to her tender white skin. They were like the beautiful blue flowers on delicate pottery that had been broken.
However, these blue flowers were poison, just like the person. Even though she died, she would have more people die because of her words.
One of Wan’er’s hand grasped her mother’s. The other pulled out the strips of cloth in her mouth, crying out loud. Although this mother and daughter were not like other mothers and daughters in the world or particularly close, they were, after all, connected by blood. In her last moment, Li Yunrui chose not to use Wan’er’s life to threaten Fan Xian. Wan’er looked at her dying mother as sorrow welled up involuntarily with an unstoppable pain.
Li Yunrui’s icy right hand tightly gripped her daughter’s hand. She smiled with difficulty and raised her hand for the last time to press down on her temple. It was as if she wanted to maintain her beautiful image when she left the world.
The tip of her fingers brushed past the grimly colorful blue flower, contrasted with the mocking smile on the corner of her lips.
No one knew who she was smiling at. Perhaps she was smiling at the fact that Fan Xian had been holding her in his arms, but once he saw Wan’er, he had pushed her onto the grass with unusual cold-bloodedness. Or, perhaps she was thinking of the night of the thunderstorm in the Royal Palace, that timid but emotional nephew, or stories from her childhood many years ago.
Then, she smiled disdainfully and said her last word.
“Men, ah…”
…
…
Looking at the Eldest Princess’s gradually cooling body on the grass, Fan Xian’s heart was also gradually growing cold. He knew that the most powerful and sinister enemy in his life until now had finally concluded her difficult-to-judge life. From formulating the Dong Mountain incident to the rebellion in Jingdou, and then to this dagger in Taiping Courtyard, Li Yunrui had died to her own hand. Her heart had died long ago.
This was a remarkable and powerful woman. If Fan Xian didn’t have that black chest, he would have died long ago at Yan Xiaoyi’s hand. Then, the entire situation in Jingdou would have fallen into the Eldest Princess’s control.
In the end, she was still a woman. She was the most powerful person in the world. Compared to the unfathomable Emperor, who had somehow survived Dong Mountain, the Eldest Princess had a fatal flaw. Perhaps it was better to say that she had one more weakness than the Emperor, which was the love.
Perhaps this love was absurd and somewhat uncomfortable, but it was still love. What is love that it makes people live and die for it? When Yuan Haowen wrote these two lines, presumably, he had not thought there would be so many people putting this into practice to develop the meaning of these words.
Among them, there were sentimental people. Without question, the Eldest Princess was one of these sentimental people. But, had she truly lost? Covered in cold sweat, Fan Xan thought that might not be the case. Everything she had wanted to do in her life, she had basically accomplished it. Although the last words she had said by Fan Xian’s ear did not clarify everything, it had planted a poisonous flower in Fan Xian’s heart. It was just like the poisonous blue flower that had appeared at her temples in the last moments of her life.
Wan’er lay on the Eldest Princess’s body crying endlessly. Lin Da Bao was behind Fan Xian pulling on his clothes, looking at the scene with nervousness and confusion. He thought to himself, Mother princess was sleeping, so why was sister crying?
The Eldest Princess’s appearance was still beautiful. With long lashes and blue flowers at her temples, she was like a deeply asleep beauty waiting for someone to kiss her awake.
Fan Xian looked at this scene with a blank mind. Unconsciously, somewhat unfamiliar words came out from his mouth, “Je suis comme je suis…”
This was a poem by a fourteenth-century Frenchman. In his previous life, he had watched a movie and remembered fragments of it. At this moment, those words newly appeared in his mind with unusual clarity.
“I am what I am.
I am what I am.
I was born this way.
When I want to laugh, I erupt with laughter.
I love those who love me, this shouldn’t be a fault.
Every time I love someone, I will love them every time.
I am what I am.
I am what I am.
I naturally make people happy, nothing can change that.
I try to please those who make me happy, what can you do about it?
I love someone, someone loves me.
Like children love each other.”
…
…
Jingdou sank into chaos. Although the Ye family and imperial soldiers had already chased the Qin family’s remaining soldiers out of Jingdou and gained control of the nine city gates, the situation in Jingdou was more chaotic than before. Earlier, when the two armies had confronted each other, the people of Jingdou had hidden in their homes and under their beds with fear, not daring to make a single noise. However, the situation at hand had calmed. The terrified people had finally screwed up their courage and were fearfully surging toward the city gates.
Often the people in Jingdou had poor relatives in the countryside. At such a dangerous time, they thought all off kinds of ways to escape there to avoid the calamity. Otherwise, after victory had been decided, no one knew if these soldiers would suddenly have the urge to loot Jingdou.
Their worries were not without reason. Some of the remaining soldiers and soldiers from squads with lax rules began to loot at the same time as they pursued each other. There was chaos in the streets and alleys. Periodically, a woman’s high-pitched scream would ring out. Occasionally, a spark would shoot into the sky.
The Qing military had always been strictly disciplined. One of the reasons for the chaos was the inevitable negative consequences of war. Another reason was because the battle was an internal rebellion. Regardless of whether it was the Ye family, Qin family, or Garrison soldiers, there would always be some level of disillusionment in their hearts. The deepest and darkest parts of people’s hearts were beginning to rise.
Gong Dian did not take his troops out of the city in pursuit. At the first opportunity, he began to bring order to Jingdou. However, Jingdou was too big. It was impossible to control it all at once. The people of Jingdou were unable to wait for the General Gong Dian’s clean-up operation. They knew the danger remaining soldiers could cause after a major battle. Fighting for their lives, they surged toward the palace gates that Gong Dian held.
A silent Fan Xian entered Jingdou from a different city gate under the escort of a small troop of Dingzhou soldiers and Overwatch Council secret agents. He didn’t rush to return to the Palace or see Ye Zhong. Instead, he went directly back to Fan manor. Without time to comfort Wan’er, he only quickly asked after his father and King Jing. He then pulled Teng Zijing to the side and gave him orders in a low, serious tone.
Ever since Fan manor was surrounded, Teng Zijing had picked up a wooden stick and organized the family servants and guards, welcoming round after round of summons and harassment. Fortunately, Fan Jian himself was not in the manor, so it did not experience any major attacks. However, the remaining soldiers were not a match at all for the Fan manor servants.
Fan Jian had always known how to train soldiers.
Teng Zijing listened to the young master’s orders. His expression became cautious. Nodding heavily, and without asking the reason or bringing too many obtrusive manor servants, he headed urgently toward the direction of Twenty-eight-Li Hill.