“Mm.” Chu Li seemed unwilling to discuss it further, only giving a muffled grunt in response. He had indeed drunk a great deal – Qing Xia could clearly smell the heavy scent of alcohol on him, his skin burning hot beneath his clothes. He seemed to have just bathed, his hair still damp and his body emanating a pleasant fragrance. He held Qing Xia drowsily, appearing unsteady even while crouching.

Qing Xia quickly stood up, wanting to help Chu Li onto the bed, but as soon as she moved, Chu Li fell backward with a thud, lying straight on the ground.

Qing Xia was startled and hurried forward to pull Chu Li’s hand, calling out, “Chu Li, get up. Go sleep on the bed.”

“Qing Xia,” Chu Li was completely drunk, unable to open his eyes. Lying on the ground, a flash of pain suddenly crossed his face as he gripped Qing Xia’s wrist tightly, frowning in discomfort as he murmured, “Qing Xia, don’t leave…”

Qing Xia’s heart felt as if it had been stabbed hard. She allowed Chu Li to hold her hand without immediately pulling it away as she usually would. She said gently, “I’ll help you onto the bed to rest.”

It took great effort to get Chu Li onto the bed. Qing Xia was breathing heavily as she covered him with the blanket. Just as she was about to turn and leave, her sharp eyes suddenly caught sight of faint red marks on Chu Li’s neck.

Qing Xia’s body stiffened, and an inexplicable emotion suddenly struck her heart. She couldn’t describe the feeling – it was like a massive boulder crashing down on her back. Qing Xia’s hands trembled slightly as she slowly reached out and pulled open Chu Li’s collar at the neck.

Wusi Mei’er’s words instantly echoed in her ears like thunderclaps exploding beside her.

“Have you been drained dry by that old woman in the Chu Palace? Don’t you miss me at all?”

“You even dared refuse Empress Dowager Xiao – would I, Wusi Mei’er, even catch your eye?”

And there were the ambiguous words of the Nanfu captain she had beaten and the angry expressions of the black-clad guards.

…

Shocking deep purple kiss marks covered Chu Li’s neck, extending down toward his chest. Those kiss marks felt like flames burning her fingertips. Qing Xia suddenly recoiled, stumbling and falling to sit on the ground.

Qing Xia’s eyes were confused. Thinking of Lady Zhu Lan’s corpulent figure and her wrinkled face that even thick powder couldn’t disguise, she suddenly felt as if a massive tornado had swept her up.

“Do you find it disgusting?” A low voice suddenly sounded beside her ear. Qing Xia jerked her head up to see that Chu Li had awakened, his eyes dark and deep, carrying unmistakable pain and despair. He lay on the bed with disheveled hair, turning to look at the stunned Qing Xia as he said, “I frightened you.”

“Why… why is it like this?” Qing Xia asked with difficulty. He was already the Southern Chu Emperor – what was there to fear? Why debase himself like this?

“Qing Xia,” Chu Li suddenly smiled bleakly. In Qing Xia’s memory, she had never seen such a weak smile from Chu Li. He could laugh wildly, wickedly, or heartily, but had never shown such a helpless smile. His voice was very light, carrying deep mockery as he said softly, “My kingdom was all obtained through playing dumb, living under others’ roofs, and selling my body. Now you despise me even more, don’t you?”

Chu Li’s face was ashen, his eyes looking coldly at Qing Xia. He seemed to be looking at her, yet his gaze seemed fixed on something far away.

Qing Xia suddenly felt overwhelming sadness. She felt as if someone had stabbed her chest viciously. What was this man, who appeared so brilliant and magnificent on the surface, actually enduring? Abandoned by his mother in childhood, sent as a hostage to foreign lands, with almost the entire world as his enemy – when he trudged alone through hardship, using every means possible to try to stand up, was there even one person by his side he could trust?

“Chu Li.” Qing Xia softly called his name, and a tear suddenly fell.

Chu Li immediately panicked. He scrambled up from the bed, but before he could steady himself, he fell with a thud, tumbling before Qing Xia. He touched her cheek hesitantly, saying frantically, “Qing Xia, are you crying for me?”

Qing Xia pressed her lips together, unable to speak, as if she had suffered the greatest injustice. Tears rolled down like broken pearls.

“Qing Xia.” Chu Li fumbled to grasp Qing Xia’s hands, trying to wipe the tears from her face.

“Don’t cry anymore.” Finally, he pulled Qing Xia tightly into his embrace.

“Qing Xia, you’ll like me even less now, won’t you?” Chu Li said bitterly, “You’ll want to leave even more, won’t you?”

“Qing Xia, I won’t stop you anymore. Go, but don’t go find Qi’an. He’s just using you – he won’t treat you well.”

Qing Xia was held in Chu Li’s arms, listening to his incoherent words. She suddenly remembered many things, including when she first sold her body for a mission. That high-ranking R country official was a complete warmonger who had been pushing hostile policies against her country and brutally murdering secretly hidden agents. Under her country’s authorization, she had seduced him for over three months, finally plunging a dagger into his neck artery at the moment of his climax.

She still remembered that fifty-something man’s obese body, still remembered the disgusting feeling when he pressed down on her.

An uncontrollable fury suddenly blazed up. Qing Xia broke free from Chu Li’s arms, stood up, drew the dagger from her boot, and said coldly, “I’m going to kill her!”

“Qing Xia!” Chu Li suddenly stood up and embraced Qing Xia’s warm, soft body, burying his face in the hollow of Qing Xia’s delicate collarbone as he said gravely, “Qing Xia, are you crying for me?”

“Chu Li.” Qing Xia’s eyes heated up, and another tear fell as the dagger dropped to the ground with a clang.

She suddenly reached out to embrace Chu Li’s back. Chu Li immediately froze completely, as if a thunderbolt had struck his head, leaving him unable to move. This was the first time Qing Xia had actively embraced him. Her small, slender arms wrapped around his waist tightly, like a small cat, yet with such great strength. Immense joy and happiness flooded his heart.

“Chu Li, sooner or later I’m going to kill her.” The girl’s voice was muffled, like a small beast. But to Chu Li’s ears, it sounded like celestial music.

“Don’t worry, I won’t spare any of those people.”

Chu Li slowly tightened his arms and asked softly, “Qing Xia, will you stay with me?”

“Yes,” Qing Xia nodded in his embrace, “They’re all scum.”

Warm breath rose in the air. Chu Li’s heart filled with joy, feeling like a traveler who had wandered for thousands of years suddenly returning home. He smiled faintly, closed his eyes, and slowly drifted off to sleep.

The long night was passing, a pale light appeared on the horizon – the sun was about to rise.

This was the world Chu Li had to face.

The glory that outsiders saw was often built from blood and tears. Only when truly placed within it could one truly experience the glint of swords and the cold winds.

Southern Chu was located in southwestern China – what would later be called Chongqing, Sichuan, Guizhou, Yunnan, and even most of Tibet belonged to Southern Chu’s territory. China’s southwest had always been a region where ethnic minorities gathered and lived together. These places had scattered political power, numerous tribes, and fierce folk customs, which determined the instability and dispersed nature of Southern Chu’s government.

Tribal leaders and family forces occupied important positions in the country. Various feudal states governed themselves, maintaining a relatively prosperous fusion under Southern Chu’s surface unity while secretly opposing each other with constant undercurrents. Conflicts and annexations had hardly ceased for thousands of years.

When Qing Xia saw Southern Chu’s military secret archives, she was so shocked she could barely close her mouth.

In such a cold weapon era with low productivity, the system actually implemented was a voting system with collective recommendation and election by feudal lords. Anyone familiar with historical evolutionary theory would understand what a miracle this was. Tracing back, this system was actually created by Hu Hai, the second ruler of Great Qin, without establishing a crown prince position, only implementing voting within the ancestral temple.

The starting point might have been good, but history proved that the productivity of that time obviously couldn’t adapt to such advanced reform. As time slowly passed, all countries had gradually abandoned this impractical system, but only Southern Chu, due to its unique national composition, continued to preserve this system. This greatly limited royal power to a certain extent – incompetent monarchs could hardly gain support from the major feudal states, and when they stirred up widespread resentment, they would always face purges. National strength developed greatly on this foundation, but precisely because of this, it created a very strange vicious cycle in Southern Chu.

That is, every thirty years when the monarch changed position, it would trigger large-scale chaos, and Southern Chu’s national strength would inevitably suffer great destruction under such conditions. This was why Southern Chu, despite retaining such an advanced system, could never become truly powerful.

Southern Chu had been founded for less than three hundred years, yet the capital had been besieged by various feudal states eighteen times, with four occasions even resulting in emperor changes. Without intervention from other feudal states, the Chu clan might have already disappeared completely from China’s territory.

Qing Xia flipped through Chu Li’s military records since returning to the country and suddenly felt an irrepressible heartache.

In just a year and a half, he had been assassinated more than forty times, with over ten occasions where he struggled back from the edge of life and death. In the period just after returning to the country, there were assassin ambush incidents almost four or five times every month. In the first year, he fought on battlefields across Southern Chu’s east, west, south, and north fronts. The previous Chu Emperor seemed intent on getting him killed – the most absurd instance was sending him with less than two thousand troops to suppress a rebellion of three hundred thousand people in Pengli Country. Before Chu Li’s two thousand troops even entered Pengli territory, they were scattered by the people. After that, he wandered alone among the common folk, walking thousands of miles on foot through the barren Southern Frontier, begging along the way to return to his country, taking over a month.