Chapter 690: Ten Days!

Even the ancestors did not get to pull rank in front of him.

That was the Emperor of Yan's true heart.

And the truest portrait of his entire life.

He knew perfectly well that he had only ten days left to live.

Yet he still held to the conviction of an Emperor.

Or perhaps... he had never intended to advertise any conviction at all.

Nor had he ever planned to follow anyone else's footsteps.

More precisely... he was not trying to be an Emperor.

He simply was the Emperor.

He had already given his guarantee.

Within these ten days... before he died... he would give Great Yan's future an answer.

You go fight the war.

Eliminate the greatest threat to Great Yan's future.

As for home... leave it to me.

We... will handle it.

Li Liangting pulled over a stool and sat down nearby.

Tian Wujing leaned lightly against the pillar behind him.

From beginning to end... he had watched everything with extraordinary calm.

The Emperor of Yan and Li Liangting had grown up together.

Tian Wujing, however... had merely walked the same road as them.

To insist that the three were personally intimate would clearly be false.

So even at a moment like this...

Tian Wujing still could not be bothered wasting emotion.

In this world... the people and things still capable of stirring his heart could be counted on one hand.

It was a pity Marquis Zheng had been sent away early with the First Prince.

If Marquis Zheng were still here and saw this scene... he would almost certainly feel the urge to paint it.

Or perhaps... that was simply the occupational instinct of his previous life.

The inner chamber was not spacious.

One man sat in a bathing tub... still discussing grand strategy... still imagining the future of an entire state and an entire people.

Beside him... an aging man sat on a stool.

There was laughter in his eyes.

And tears hidden inside the laughter.

Across from them... stood a cold-faced man.

Silent.

Expressionless.

If someone truly painted this scene... it would probably satisfy a certain kind of aesthetic perfectly.

Strip away their identities and there would be endless ways to imagine and interpret it.

Add their identities back in... and the flavor became even richer.

After all... to a true connoisseur... appreciating a painting was no different from appreciating wine.

In truth... from beginning to end... aside from discussing the Emperor's sons... none of them had said a single word about the next generation of the other two.

The past... had already been buried.

There was no need to dig up every tiny branch and twig again.

Li Liangting had once told Zheng Fan that all three of them were enduring torment.

Yet torment itself was not the most painful part.

The most painful part was that you were not allowed to choose an ending.

You had to wait.

Keep waiting.

Waiting...

And so... silence settled over them.

This would inevitably be the final time the three gathered together.

Next time... perhaps there would be only two.

Perhaps only one.

Perhaps... not even one.

Someone might return wrapped in horsehide.

Someone might move into the Imperial Ancestral Temple.

And yet... at this final farewell... there was almost no atmosphere of farewell at all.

What were they supposed to discuss?

Family trivialities?

And for the three of them... perhaps this silence was actually best.

Other people... did not even possess the qualifications to sit with them in silence.

At last... the time was nearly right.

And they simply allowed this final precious stretch of time to drain away.

They did not discuss the future of Great Yan.

Did not work out detailed arrangements for the army, the court, the provinces, Chu, Qian, or any particular people.

Nothing.

They discussed none of it.

Tian Wujing straightened.

He gave one final look at the man who had once sneaked into the Tian residence to secretly look at his elder sister.

Then... he turned around.

And walked out of the Imperial Study.

Li Liangting stood as well.

He wanted to say something.

But in the end... nothing came out.

At last... he merely patted the side of the bathing tub twice.

Then pulled another dry towel from the rack and placed it on the stool where he had been sitting.

Silence.

Because the three of them had already done everything they were supposed to do in this lifetime.

To later generations... one could only say they had done far too much.

No one could ever accuse them of doing too little.

So... the scattered scraps that remained... could be left for the next generation to handle.

And if those descendants could not even handle that much... heh.

Then if Great Yan disappeared... so be it.

A man lives one lifetime.

Managing that one lifetime is enough.

To imagine establishing rules for ten thousand generations... was dreaming too beautifully.

And just like that...

Great Yan's Prince of Jingnan and Prince Zhenbei left.

When Li Liangting walked outside, he found Tian Wujing waiting ahead.

Prince Zhenbei waved a hand and laughed.

"For generations, my household has passed down one saying. If you're in a good mood, if you're in a bad mood, or if you don't even know whether your mood is good or bad... then go kill Barbarians. Once you've killed some Barbarians... you'll definitely feel better."

...

At the grand palace banquet, the Emperor of Great Yan had suddenly spat blood.

To Great Yan's officials... it was like someone had dragged a thick shadow across an otherwise noisy and festive day.

In truth, ministers did not particularly like serving beneath an Emperor who truly stood supreme over everyone.

Great Yan was not the State of Qian.

But Great Yan's officials genuinely envied their counterparts in Qian.

Great Qian truly was a beautiful country for scholar-officials and bureaucrats.

Yet Great Yan's ministers had long since grown accustomed to the sovereign sitting on the Dragon Throne.

He brought not only a sense of security to the common people... but also a certain stability to the hundred officials.

Human beings were complicated creatures.

Many ministers supported the Crown Prince because he was benevolent and mild.

By comparison... the Sixth Prince's style and methods truly resembled His Majesty in his younger years far too much.

But those ministers still did not want this Emperor to leave like this.

Perhaps... it was simply the attachment beaten into them by the Son of Heaven's whip.

For the foreign envoys and the hidden agents of various powers lurking throughout Yanjing, however... the Emperor coughing blood was unquestionably tremendous good news.

He... was finally failing.

To sigh that all beneath Heaven had suffered beneath Yan for too long... was not exaggeration at all.

Great Yan had originally been the poorest of the four great eastern states in terms of land quality.

Its population had also been relatively small.

Its territory looked vast... but many regions were unsuitable for settlement or agriculture.

And in earlier years...

Great Yan had been crowded with aristocratic clans and divided by regional military powers.

Beifeng Commandery, where Marquis Zhenbei Residence stood... had nearly become a state within a state.

The appearance of this Emperor had changed everything.

Great Yan's territory expanded rapidly.

Great Yan's iron cavalry made the entire East tremble.

Some Emperors built great achievements because they inherited the accumulated strength of several generations.

Others simply received a rich family fortune.

When such men wished to act, matters naturally became easier.

When discussing their achievements... one inevitably had to divide some credit among their ancestors.

The Emperor of Yan was different.

Great Yan had not made him.

He had made Great Yan.

For every neighboring state... an Emperor like this should have died as early as possible.

Otherwise... who knew what the East, what the entire world, might look like if Heaven granted him another ten years?

But in the latter half of the night... news came from inside the palace.

First...

His Majesty's health was not in danger.

Second... tomorrow's grand court audience would proceed as scheduled.

No one believed the first point.

But the second... made many Yan officials release long breaths of relief.

It also washed away much of the excitement and joy the foreign envoys had felt earlier.

If the grand court audience would proceed... then the Emperor would necessarily appear in person.

His body... could still hold on.

The envoys felt a very particular kind of disappointment.

This Emperor... why wasn't he dead yet?

But no matter what... rivers continued to flow.

So long as the grand court audience continued... the undercurrents that had accumulated for so long would still rush toward the direction already set for them.

This was no longer something a faction leader alone could decide.

Even he... could no longer stop it.

The Emperor's condition tonight... had actually excited the Sixth Master's faction even more than Sixth Master's attempt at the banquet to suppress the Crown Prince and sound the signal for attack.

This excitement was not joy.

It was... urgency.

The general assault... had to begin.

Because the Emperor's weakness had now been exposed without any concealment at all.

If they failed to overthrow the Crown Prince before the Emperor died... then after His Majesty's death... the Crown Prince would naturally ascend the throne.

The Crown Prince's faction could afford to wait.

More precisely... waiting was the one thing the Crown Prince's faction had always been doing.

But for the Sixth Master's faction... victory or defeat... would be decided tomorrow.

There was no other path.

...

By ordinary logic... when an Emperor's health suddenly failed, his sons would naturally remain beside him.

At such a moment, no matter who tried to cut off communication between the palace and the outside world, that person would inevitably become the target of universal condemnation.

Every state had emergency mechanisms for dealing with the power vacuum that might emerge when an Emperor became critically ill.

The purpose was simple.

Prevent men with ulterior motives from exploiting the confusion and overturning the situation.

But when Wei Zhonghe produced an imperial decree ordering all the imperial princes to return to their respective residences, rest, and prepare for tomorrow's grand court audience... every prince obeyed.

First...

Wei Zhonghe was Imperial Father's trusted confidant.

Even the imperial princes themselves found it impossible to believe Wei Zhonghe would betray their father.

Second... whatever happened, Imperial Father was expected to appear at tomorrow's grand court audience.

If he failed to appear... they could discuss matters then.

Third... and most importantly... the princes themselves all knew their father's health had been terrible for a long time.

And yet...

Imperial Father had forced himself to endure for this long.

The story of the boy who cried wolf suddenly became extremely appropriate when applied to one's own father.

Before they could confirm that Imperial Father had genuinely died... jumping early would simply be volunteering to get slapped back down.

So... neither the Crown Prince nor the Sixth Prince expressed the slightest objection to the decree.

Neither shouted that they were imperial sons and demanded to see their father.

Neither questioned why they were being denied access.

No filial son remains long before a sickbed.

What remained... was reality.

Even among common households, when an old man neared death, daughters often cried because they would inherit nothing.

The sons... wore solemn expressions.

They wailed a few times for form's sake.

That was enough.

After all... they needed to save their strength.

There would still be property to fight over afterward.

...

Little Seventh lived inside the palace.

As the Emperor of Yan's youngest son, he had never been sent out to live in a separate prince's residence.

Of course... the prince residences were unusually empty these days.

The eldest had his Marquis residence.

The second lived in the Eastern Palace.

The third lived underground.

The fourth practically lived in his military camp.

The fifth was in Yingdu.

The sixth had his own princely residence.

If Little Seventh moved out too... he would be the only person actually living in the old cluster of prince residences.

Perhaps the Emperor had deliberately shown a little extra favor toward his youngest son.

Or perhaps... he had simply forgotten the matter.

In any case... the Emperor had never raised it.

Naturally, no outside minister or palace official would volunteer to mention it.

So Seventh Prince Ji Chengsu still lived with his birth mother.

More precisely... in a courtyard beside Shuxiang Court.

The Emperor's coughing blood at today's banquet had caused every minister, whether Yan or foreign, to react according to the interests of his state.

But to the consorts in the rear palace... the news had fallen like a bolt from a clear sky.

A new generation replaces the old.

Once the Emperor of Yan died and a new Emperor ascended... no matter which prince took the throne... these women would have to leave the palace.

Because the two men most likely to compete for the throne... both had dead mothers.

Normally, after a new Emperor ascended, he would promote someone as Empress Dowager to uphold the appearance of filial propriety.

Perhaps a senior consort who had raised him.

But the Sixth Prince had moved into his own prince's residence very early.

For years, he had maintained the reputation of an absurd, dissolute prince.

Forget raising him.

Because of what happened to Consort Min, and because of Sixth Prince's own personality, the palace consorts had almost no relationship with him at all.

The Crown Prince, meanwhile, had always been raised by the Empress.

No one had dared compete with the Empress for that right.

And by the time the Empress died... the Crown Prince had long since reached adulthood.

Without the grace of raising the future Emperor... one would have to choose among the highest-ranking surviving consorts.

And then... the truly awkward part appeared.

After the Empress died, the Emperor of Yan never appointed another Empress.

So the highest-ranking woman currently in the rear palace... was Noble Consort Ming, promoted last year.

And Noble Consort Ming... was the Third Prince's birth mother.

Ever since the Third Prince died protecting the sovereign that day, Noble Consort Ming had sealed herself inside her residence, eaten vegetarian food, prayed to the Buddha, and refused all visitors.

That meant there was not even an obvious Empress Dowager candidate to elevate.

So the likely fate of the late Emperor's remaining consorts... would be to be swept into the heap of fallen leaves.

Those with sons would fare somewhat better.

Their sons could petition the new Emperor for permission to take their mothers outside the palace and support them.

Those without children... might receive treatment only slightly better than ordinary palace maids.

The histories would not record them.

Outside ministers and commoners would not care about them.

And while the entire rear palace trembled with anxiety...

Eunuch Huang arrived at Shuxiang Court.

He brought an oral decree from His Majesty:

From this moment onward, Seventh Prince Ji Chengsu was to attend upon the Hall of Mental Cultivation.

When people grew old... or lay dying in bed... they often wanted a son beside them.

Most people spent half their lives laboring for their descendants.

Was that not what they hoped for in return?

It was perfectly understandable that the Emperor of Yan might want the same.

No matter what...

His Majesty was still human.

And at a moment like this... the prince allowed to remain at the sovereign's bedside naturally gained an enormous...

After Eunuch Huang led Ji Chengsu, who had only just returned from the banquet, away...

Consort Shu returned to her chamber.

She buried her entire face in the pillow.

Crying.

Laughing.

Unable to control her excitement.

She had endured.

Hoped.

Waited.

And now... perhaps... everything was right in front of her!

Every other prince had been sent away.

Only her own son was permitted to serve beside His Majesty.

If the Emperor softened his heart even once... anything could happen!

The entire Shuxiang Court suppressed an atmosphere of excitement.

Even the eunuchs and palace maids inside could not stop the corners of their mouths from turning upward.

If their young master truly became Emperor... their future lives inside the palace would inevitably become much better.

They lived in the palace.

Their lives were bound to the palace.

Even the lowest-ranking eunuch or maid... how could they truly understand nothing?

...

That same day... an imperial decree was proclaimed inside the Garrison Commander's Residence of Yupan City.

Ran Min knelt and listened.

"By Mandate of Heaven, the Emperor decrees: Garrison Commander of Yupan City Ran Min has labored diligently in the service of the throne and remained loyal to the court... He is hereby promoted to Guerrilla General of South Gate Pass and shall depart immediately to assume his post."

"General Ran, what are you staring at? Receive the decree."

"This minister, Ran Min, receives the decree and thanks the Emperor's grace. Long live Our Emperor, long live, long live ten thousand ten thousand years!"

...

After returning to his military camp, Fourth Prince Ji Chengfeng met Eunuch Qu, the same man who had delivered the imperial decree to the First Prince outside the city earlier that day.

Eunuch Qu conveyed His Majesty's oral decree.

At the same time... he carried a tiger tally and official seal.

Ji Chengfeng inspected both.

They were genuine.

The troop-transfer procedure was also proper.

Unless... unless Wei Zhonghe and the other inner-court eunuchs had imprisoned an unconscious Imperial Father and were issuing false orders to mobilize troops.

But with both Princes currently inside the palace... the eunuchs would never dare.

And even if they did... why would they choose this particular force, personally commanded by an imperial prince?

Eunuch Qu left.

Ji Chengfeng remained seated in his chair, stunned.

The oral decree was simple.

Fourth Imperial Son Ji Chengfeng was ordered to lead the five thousand troops under his command into Yanjing at dawn and station them at Huangji Gate.

That was the southern gateway of the imperial palace.

Once he brought five thousand soldiers inside and occupied it... he would effectively control the security of more than half the palace.

And there was another line in the decree.

He was to exercise authority over every palace gate bureau and assume overall command of palace defense.

In other words... the troops stationed at each palace gate... the palace guards... all of them would fall under Ji Chengfeng's command.

This was no longer control over half the palace.

Imperial Father had directly placed the safety of the entire imperial palace into his hands.

The Son of Heaven gravely ill.

A prince entering with troops.

Control of the palace.

It was a plot so familiar from opera that everyone had heard it until their ears went numb.

And yet... this time... it had genuinely fallen onto Ji Chengfeng himself.

But the problem was... on the second floor of the roast-duck restaurant, in front of Imperial Father and both Princes... he had personally said he would not covet that position.

For a moment... the Fourth Prince sitting in his chair felt not the slightest joy at suddenly being "entrusted with great responsibility."

The flame extinguished inside him at the roast-duck restaurant showed no sign whatsoever of rekindling.

Instead... it felt as though another enormous block of ice had smashed down on top of the ashes.

He felt cold.

And somewhere in the dark... he seemed to see Third Brother standing before him with a book of poetry in hand.

Walking.

Reciting as he came.

Ji Chengfeng wanted to refuse.

Instinctively... he believed this decree was a terrifying whirlpool.

One that might drag him inside... then grind him to pieces.

But he did not dare defy Imperial Father's command.

That man was their sovereign.

Their father.

He had given them life and raised them.

And therefore... he could toy with them however he pleased.

Sons... to him... seemed to be nothing more than snacks he could toss into his mouth when bored.

Chew them into pulp.

Then spit out the dregs with disgust.

And curse:

"Useless!"

"Fourth Brother... I'm so cold in the pavilion in the middle of the lake..."

Third Brother's voice sounded beside his ear.

"Fourth Brother... it's even colder down here than it was in the lake pavilion..."

"AAAAAAAHHHH!"

The Fourth Prince let out a low roar.

He slid from his chair.

Dropped to his knees.

Clenched both fists.

And hammered the floor.

Imperial Father.

Imperial Father.

Imperial Father... why couldn't you simply die a little earlier?

Imperial Father...

Ji Runhao... you old bastard.

You old beast.

Why won't you just die?

Die!

Just fucking die!

[End of Chapter 690]