That night, Ye Yunting suddenly had another dream. And in the dream was Li Fengqi.
He was emaciated, half-leaning on the head of the bed, his whole person was shrouded in shadow, looking gloomy and cold. “Xuanjia Army… how many people are left?”
“There are less than two thousand people left.” Zhu Lie was kneeling in front of the bed. His only remaining arm was pressed against his left chest. His other arm was cut off at shoulder level and wrapped in a thick white cloth belt. The cloth belt was stained with blood and ashes. “They had been prepared for a long time. We were ambushed on the way. After two days of fighting, many soldiers were killed or injured. Yin Chengru, under the banner of pacifying the rebellion, joined forces with the forces of Luzhou and Lizhou to surround and massacre us. We couldn’t fight back. Finally, after my elder brother and his men were cut off, I led some troops to forcibly break through and turn back to Weizhou to call for reinforcements against our will. But we didn’t expect the city gates of Weizhou to be tightly closed. Yang Buwei defected and, together with Zhao Yan, wanted us to be executed on the spot as rebels and thieves.”
As he spoke, Zhu Lie wiped his red eyes and said hoarsely. “I fought my way out of the siege and hid in the mountains at the border of Xihuang, looking for opportunities to contact my elder brother. However, I heard that Yin Chengru forced them to a dead-end valley and killed with rolling rocks and arrows."
In the end, of the 100,000 Xuanjia soldiers, he was left with less than 2,000.
When he learned of the death of his elder brother, he could only suppress his grief and anger, and with a few elites in disguise, he returned to Shangjing after much struggle and found the prince.
However, looking at the prince’s current appearance, he only felt desolate.
Prince Yong’an and the Xuanjia Army, who had galloped on the battlefield and across the northern border, had finally come to an end.
Zhu Lie said bitterly, “The son of heaven treated the prince like this. I will lead people into the palace to kill him and die with him!” It would be his gift of vengeance for his eldest brother and the tens of thousands of soldiers!
“Zhu Lie!” Li Fengqi looked at him with a dark look on his face. “The lives of your elder brother and tens of thousands of soldiers have not yet taught you to remember the lesson of acting recklessly?”
Zhu Lie’s body trembled. His knees fell to the ground, and his eyes were wet. “It was this last general’s incompetence that cost the lives of so many soldiers in vain.”
Li Fengqi closed his eyes. He seemed to want to use his hand to help Zhu Lie, but his fingers were twitching and he couldn’t lift them up at all.
After a long time, he gasped out a breath and said, “Don’t worry. For the lives of the Xuanjia Army’s generals and soldiers, I will have Li Zong and the Yin family pay their debts in blood.”
“But my lord, your body…” Zhu Lie’s expression perked up, but when he saw that he couldn’t move, he hesitated again and said, “If I take the prince out of the capital first and leave the green mountains behind, I won’t be afraid of running out of firewood1.”
“No need.” Li Fengqi frowned, as if he was extremely uncomfortable, but he still endured the pain and said, “Prepare the medicine according to my instructions. I have a way, perhaps I can try to temporarily suppress the toxicity in the body.”
Zhu Lie was overjoyed when he heard this and left quietly after agreeing.
As soon as he left, Li Fengqi couldn’t help but spit out a mouthful of blood. He lay on the side of the bed, dark red blood overflowing from the gap between his teeth, staining the mattress red. But he seemed to be used to it. After lying down for a while, he tried his best to turn his body over. When he lay down again, the veins in his forehead bulged out alarmingly.
Even though he knew it was just a dream, Ye Yunting still felt his heart pounding when he saw this. He stretched out his hand several times to wipe the blood from the corners of his mouth.
But they all passed through his body and never touched him.
He sat dejectedly on the side of the bed, looking at Li Fengqi’s weak breathing. He wondered: In his previous life, had Prince Yong’an actually fallen to such dire straits?
However, before he could feel sad, the scene in front of him suddenly changed again. He was in a trance for a moment, not knowing how many days and nights had passed. And at this time Li Fengqi was supported by Wu Geng as he walked weakly towards a coffin.
It was dark at this time, but there were no lights in the courtyard. He could only see the scene through the faint moonlight.
The four people carrying the coffin carefully put it down and stood aside in silence, their hands down.
Li Fengqi stepped forward and struggled to push open the coffin lid, revealing the figure lying inside.
From Ye Yunting’s position, he couldn’t see who was lying inside, but he heard Li Fengqi call “Mother” in a trembling voice. He took a breath and stepped forward quickly, only to see the body of the elder Wangfei lying inside.
What did the elder Wangfei go through? Her body was in pieces, gathered together. It was shocking to see it in the dark night.
“What on earth happened?” Li Fengqi leaned over and stared at the person in the coffin for a long time, then straightened up with difficulty. His pale face looked terrifying in the darkness.
“We have been incompetent. Please forgive us, Wangye.” At these words, the four people who had been standing there knelt down, and their leader told the whole story.
After Deputy Governor Zhu Wen led a hundred thousand Xuanjia troops to rebel and were wiped out, the news that Prince Yong’an had been poisoned and died finally became widespread. The elder Wangfei, who was recuperating in Rongyang, heard the news and sent a letter to the Shen family in Nieyang for help. At the same time, she set off from Rongyang and rushed back to Shangjing.
They were originally assigned by Li Fengqi to protect the elder Wangfei in secret and escort her back when necessary. But they couldn’t wait for Li Fengqi’s summons; instead, since the elder Wangfei suddenly decided to go back to the capital, they had to protect her secretly. Unexpectedly, they were attacked outside the capital. They fought the attackers and let the guards escort the old Wangfei to escape first. However, by the time they finished dealing with the attackers and chased after them, they found that the guards had been slaughtered, and the elder Wangfei had been killed by unknown blades.
It took them a long time to piece the body together.
“We knew that we could not escape the penalty of death for failing to protect the elder Wangfei. Now that her body has been delivered, we are willing to apologize with our lives and deaths.” As the four said this, they placed their swords horizontally against their necks.
Li Fengqi had no expression on his face. He looked at the four of them intently for a few moments, then waved his hand. “You are still alive, so tell me everything that happened on the way from Rongyang to Shangjing.”
When the four of them understood the situation, they had no choice but to put down their blades and recount what happened along the way.
Li Fengqi looked confused. After a long time, he gritted his teeth and sneered. “It’s the Shen family again.”
“It seems that Wangye has already guessed it.”
Suddenly, a white shadow emerged slowly from the darkness. It was Han Chan.
“Had Wangye agreed earlier to cooperate with me, the elder Wangfei would not have had to die.” He held a letter between his fingertips and handed it to Li Fengqi.
“Wangye, please take a look. This is the letter of surrender that Shen Zhongyu sent to His Majesty a few days ago.”
Li Fengqi took it and after reading the letter, his expression became more and more grim.
Han Chan smiled and took out a small jade bottle from his sleeve. “This is the second antidote. This time, Wangye should be more willing to cooperate with me, yes?”
Li Fengqi lowered his eyes and looked at the antidote in his hand. After a long time, he finally reached out and took it.
He uncorked the bottle, poured out the antidote and swallowed it. There was blood on his lips, and against his pale complexion, it made him look like a bloodthirsty demon, full of evil intent.
Ye Yunting watched from the side, his heart pounding.
He looked at Li Fengqi’s demon-like face, and suddenly remembered something that Ji Lian had offhandedly mentioned when he paid respects to his tomb in his previous life.
Ji Lian once said that after Prince Yong’an became emperor, his temperament became colder and more violent than before. He killed many courtiers internally and used military force for endless conquests. Although this man rescued him from the Duke’s mansion, Ji Lian was fearful of his ferocious protection. Unwilling to stay in the palace, he was ready to go south to Nanyue to find a peaceful place and live out the rest of his life after treatment.
When he was about to be reborn, he was confused. Many things from his previous life filled his mind, which made him even more disoriented. Furthermore, later on, he had more contact with Li Fengqi, and felt that although he was aloof and taciturn, he was only cold on the outside was actually warm-hearted, not as vicious and scary as the rumors said. Hence, the the sporadic words that Ji Lian mentioned in his previous life were naturally forgotten.
But at this moment, looking at Li Fengqi’s expression, he suddenly remembered Ji Lian’s words.
Ye Yunting’s heart was trembling, and his eyes ached.
So that was it. That was it.
*
“Yunting? Yunting?”
Ye Yunting was immersed in a dream, dazed and confused, when he suddenly heard a gentle voice calling in his ear.
He opened his eyes in a blur, tears still on his eyelashes, and stared blankly at Li Fengqi.
Li Fengqi frowned slightly and put his hand on his forehead. “There’s no fever. It’s just a nightmare.” He stretched out his hand and touched his eyelashes. Wiping away a teardrop, he looked at his red eyes, raised his eyebrows and said with a smile, “What kind of nightmare did the Young Master have? He was so scared that he even cried.”
He had a gentle smile on his lips, which was completely opposite to the evil demon in Ye Yunting’s dream.
Ye Yunting came back to his senses, sat up hurriedly and wiped his eyes, but he didn’t feel any wetness. Only then did he realize that he had been deceived by him again.
He had not yet extracted his heart and soul from the sorrow and desolation in the dream, and his voice was still a little rough. “I didn’t cry.”
Li Fengqi saw that his eyes were red and wondered what he had seen in his dream. He did not dare to tease him anymore. He only called Ji Lian to bring him water, and handed him a handkerchief. “Yes, I’m just talking nonsense. The young master should wipe his face first.”
Ye Yunting took the handkerchief and pressed it on his face. It took him a while to get his mind out of the dream of his previous life. Putting down the handkerchief, he looked at Li Fengqi again, and there was something different in his eyes. He opened and closed his lips several times before hesitatingly asked, “Why didn’t Wangye cooperate with the Taifu in the first place?”
Li Fengqi didn’t know why he suddenly asked this question. He frowned and said with a little disgust, “Han Chan is hypocritical and cunning. The end justifies the means for him. What I hate most in my life are hypocrites like that. I don’t care to work with him.”
Ye Yunting’s heart thought that it was true. He lowered his eyes and asked, “What about a theoretical? Under what circumstances will Wangye be willing to cooperate with him?”
Li Fengqi frowned and thought for a while, then said offhandedly, “Unless I’m under his control and have no other choice, I would rather die than work with him.
“If I form an alliance with such a person, what difference would there be between me and him?”
Ye Yunting’s heart trembled slightly, and he knew that the speculation in his heart was true.
At that time, Li Fengqi must have been forced to the brink. The Xuanjia Army had been slaughtered, and the elder Wangfei was dead. Deep hatred drove him to vengeance, and Zhu Lie and the surviving soldiers were all counting on him, so he had to get back on his feet as soon as possible.
In the end, he had to cooperate with Han Chan. Or better stated, Han Chan took advantage of his weakness and forced him to give in.
He was caught up in his hatred, and in order to take revenge, he joined forces with Han Chan, and perhaps did many things that he used to hate and disdain.
And so, later on, he was no longer the Prince Yong’an who cared about the world, but instead became the merciless and tyrannical king that Ji Lian described.
===Author’s Notes===
The author has something to say:
#This must not happen
77: The Young Master has a dream?
Tingting: Yes.
77:What did you dream about?
Tingting: You.
77: …………..?
===Translator’s Notes===
:(
- 不怕没柴烧, idiomatic expression: not being afraid of the consequences of one’s actions. ↩︎
Go MC! You must warn ML!! Evil Emperor and HC is so hatefulll!!
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