Tie Ci suddenly began to laugh quietly.
The sound came from her chest, but it was muffled and hoarse. It didn’t sound like laughter, but rather like a wild beast howling and crying on a mountaintop in the night.
She loved these people, loved Da Qian, loved all those who had loved her.
But what she deeply loved, she couldn’t keep.
What she cared about ultimately left.
What she trusted was deception.
After her parents died, Master had been like a parent to her. But today she finally knew that she had always been the one who fell from the clouds into hell, losing everything overnight.
She had been too naive.
Tie Ci lowered her head, pressing the wound at her ribs, and laughed for a long time.
Jingxu turned his head away, and Shen Mi’s eyes glistened with tears.
The laughter slowly stopped. Tie Ci raised her head, slight sweat on her forehead, the bottom half of her eyes bloodshot.
But her expression had already returned to calm. She stood up and said: “Shen Mi, escort me to Da Qian Academy.”
Shen Mi was startled and said: “Your Majesty, Da Qian Academy is under the Grand Tutor’s command…”
Although Tie Ci hadn’t said it explicitly, he had already guessed this matter must be related to the Grand Tutor. The Grand Tutor had clearly rebelled, so how could His Majesty still go to Da Qian Academy?
“It’s her base, so the key things and people might still come from there.” Tie Ci thought of that chemistry laboratory, remembering Yun Buci’s previous threats, her heart tightening. “Besides, Dan Shuang is still there.”
Shen Mi said: “I’ll go fetch her! I’ll handle it!”
“I am the person in this world who understands her best, and the only one who might be able to stop certain methods that absolutely cannot appear.” Tie Ci supported herself against the table, looking toward Jingxu. “Is there any way to temporarily restore or maintain my meridians, allowing me to walk normally?”
“There’s a phrase called ‘pulling up seedlings to help them grow,'” Jingxu said. “There are naturally ways, but doesn’t Your Majesty understand the consequences?”
Pulling up seedlings to help them grow—after a moment of forced prosperity comes decline from the peak.
“Give me a moderate solution.” Tie Ci extended her hand domineeringly. “I don’t care if you have one or not. If you don’t, you must still have one, or you don’t deserve to be one of the Three Madmen.”
Jingxu glared at her, and after a long moment said: “What kind of Three Madmen am I! Which of the Three Madmen and Five Emperors is as pathetic as me? The bastards I encounter are more unreasonable than the last!”
Though he said this, he still pulled a black porcelain bottle from his chest and threw it to Tie Ci, saying: “It can temporarily block your reversed true qi, allowing you to walk normally. But this medicine itself is poisonous and will make your qi and blood boil every midnight, your meridians feel like they’re being cut by knives, and for that one hour you’ll be like a cripple. More importantly, the reversed true qi is forcibly blocked rather than dispersed, so the reversed qi will accumulate more and more. When the medicine can no longer block it completely, you… will certainly die.”
He paused and said: “And you originally had a chance to merely lose your martial arts and still live many years… as long as you hide from now on, never fight again, I can help you slowly guide the true qi to disperse.”
Tie Ci took the porcelain bottle without indicating agreement or disagreement, opened it to look, and said: “At most, how long can the medicine inside maintain things?”
Jingxu said: “Two months per pill, ten pills inside.”
Tie Ci said: “Enough.”
Shen Mi had been listening in a daze, and now rushed forward urgently: “Your Majesty, you cannot! The dynasty still has no heir!”
Tie Ci looked at him approvingly.
Shen Mi was a clear-headed and practical person. At this moment he didn’t say any sentimental nonsense but went straight to the crux.
She couldn’t die; she should rather live ignobly. The Tie imperial dynasty still had no successor.
But Shen Mi still didn’t understand what Da Qian was now facing.
If she just lived ignobly from now on, no one could resist Master, no one could protect Da Qian.
If Da Qian didn’t exist, what was the point of talking about imperial heirs?
Originally she had thought that Master always preached freedom and equality. If she and her people could truly achieve this and give Da Qian a peaceful and prosperous life, she would abandon this throne and go live freely in the mountains and forests with Murong Yi—that would be quite good.
But when she saw those weapons, saw those silver-clad people’s eyes looking at her like she was an ant, heard them emotionlessly discussing “lower civilizations, lower peoples,” she knew that “universal harmony, freedom and equality” might indeed be the slogan of their era, but class still existed. And with their crushing power and condescending attitude, what they would bring to Da Qian would definitely not be freedom and equality.
Da Qian would become their back garden, Da Qian’s people would become the second-class citizens they enslaved.
They would unscrupulously pull up seedlings to help them grow on Da Qian’s land, would madly plunder to realize their own greed, even conduct various experiments for rapid productivity development. By then, Da Qian’s land, Da Qian’s resources, even Da Qian’s people would all become nutrients in that seemingly pristine laboratory.
They had ruined their own land and could no longer survive there. Having racked their brains to choose Da Qian as their territory, how could they gently let it go and cherish it well?
Master hadn’t told her much about their era, but during her childhood, her second senior brother Le Wuxun’s favorite bedtime stories were about Zhazidong, Unit 731, concentration camps.
She couldn’t just live ignobly while watching her people fall into such circumstances.
“Over a year.” She seemed to think of something and smiled broadly. “There’s enough time.”
Shen Mi was stunned, not understanding what this “enough time” meant.
“Your Majesty.” Shen Mi was still trying to persuade. “Our Da Qian still has elite troops and strong generals, countless people and officials, vast territory and endless people loyal to you. Why must you resort to such…”
Tie Ci picked up the bullet and said: “Have you ever seen this thing?”
Shen Mi shook his head.
“Just this tiny thing.” Tie Ci said. “At a speed completely impossible to describe, it first shot into Jian Xi’s body, exploded her entire belly, and could still shoot into my ribs.”
Shen Mi’s face turned white.
“We also have gunpowder bullets, but compared to this thing, they’re like mud huts compared to Chongming Palace.”
“And this might be the simplest and most insignificant of their countless weapons.”
Tie Ci asked Shen Mi: “Do you think, facing such weapons and such armies, how long can our mortal flesh resist? And how many mortal bodies can we use to resist such weapons and armies?”
Shen Mi was pale as death. After a long while he found his voice: “Your Majesty, forgive my bluntness, but I must still say—you alone are worth ten million subjects. Even if we asked all the military and civilians in the world, they would be willing to use their flesh to block these heavenly weapons for you, as long as you are still here…”
“The problem is they might have large-scale destructive weapons that you can’t block even with your flesh…” Tie Ci thought of some distant, vague memories she thought she had forgotten—those “bedtime stories” heard in the half-awake state at midnight. She seemed to feel somewhat cold and pulled her sleeves tight.
“If that’s truly the case, then you are also just mortal flesh and equally unable to resist.” Shen Mi said desperately. “No one would be their match.”
“I have a guess.” Tie Ci said. “Indeed, if it’s really like this, if they truly possess such powerful armies and weapons, they wouldn’t need many—just the strength of one regular army would be enough to easily destroy Da Qian. They wouldn’t need to go to such great lengths, specifically sending people to cultivate and control me, sending people to infiltrate Da Qian, build momentum, manage power, gather followers, and under the guise of reform want peaceful evolution… So I guess they already have very few people, and not too many weapons either.”
“Their personnel are scarce and precious, resources constantly depleting, so they urgently need to find a pure land. So despite possessing extremely powerful weapons, they’re still insecure, afraid that their small number cannot effectively hold power and control Da Qian’s people who make up the vast majority of the population. That’s why they want to first control the emperor, control the scholars, control the entire court, occupying the general trend from the ideological and superstructural levels, then supplementing with their few advanced weapons for intimidation. Only this way can they permanently occupy Da Qian… Yes, it should be like this.”
Shen Mi and Jingxu both looked at her blankly, not understanding what the Emperor was saying.
Probably only if Yun Buci and others were still here at this moment would they be shocked and panicked.
They might even regret it.
Regret the superfluous addition of the emperor cultivation system.
Regret that they had truly cultivated an unprecedented emperor who could not only handle power struggles and control the world, but also, because of her vision and knowledge spanning two eras, possessed sufficient calm and analytical ability when facing them.
A glimpse, and she saw the future.
“But even so, the enemy’s power is still sufficient to cause Da Qian damage we cannot bear.” Tie Ci said. “So this is still a fierce battle, a life-and-death battle between me and them alone.”
She said no more, opened the porcelain bottle, and took a pill.
As soon as the medicine entered her mouth, her expression became one of unbearable pain.
This taste… was exactly like a hairtail fish that had been beached and sun-dried for three days then buried in a garbage heap to grow maggots.
She seriously suspected Jingxu was taking revenge.
It took her quite a while to recover. Seeing that she had taken the medicine, Shen Mi said nothing more and went downstairs.
Not long after, a group of students entered the archives to retrieve documents, and soon left laughing and chatting.
Today was a rest day. This group of students who had retrieved documents quickly left school, having agreed to go to the snack street near Da Qian Academy to eat, drink, and have fun.
Da Qian Academy’s snack street was very famous, gathering famous foods from north and south. Many renowned restaurants in the capital had opened branches here.
But today the street wasn’t as lively as usual. Most of those wandering around were students from other academies, saying that Da Qian Academy was holding an impromptu debate, all academy students had to attend and observe, no leave was permitted, and the academy gates were sealed, declining entry from students of other academies.
Though such things were rare in the past, they weren’t unheard of. This greatly disappointed many scholars who had come to the capital hoping to enter the academy and pay respects to this holy land.
But the sealed Da Qian Academy couldn’t stop this group from Celü Academy—ever since Da Qian Academy was established, His Majesty had decreed that Da Qian’s various academies could exchange students and teachers for lectures, practicum, and study. Several famous major academies had students from other academies who, during the exchange period, also held Da Qian Academy student cards. Da Qian Academy couldn’t very well shut these people out.
This group of Celü Academy students entered the gates carrying grilled skewers, laughing and chatting.
In the center of the crowd, Tie Ci was dressed as a student, carrying several skewers of grilled mutton, walking leisurely with a casual expression, looking no different from ordinary students.
Qi You walked beside her, looking at His Majesty’s completely composed appearance, feeling deep admiration rise in his heart.
This feeling of admiration had often emerged in recent years, each time deeper than the last.
His Majesty truly had foresight, laying groundwork far in advance.
When Da Qian Academy was first established, she had immediately ordered exchanges between academies, opening doors to each other. Everyone thought this was His Majesty’s attempt to promote better integration of Da Qian’s scholars and culture, to prevent conservative attitudes and sectarian prejudices from hampering progress. This itself was already praised as far-sighted.
Who could have imagined that in future years, when Da Qian Academy was like an uncontrollable giant ship about to change course, this regulation would be equivalent to building several gangplanks on this giant ship, providing extremely important opportunities for this moment.
Just like his presence in the group now also stemmed from His Majesty’s orders—all civilian officials of third rank and below in the court had to take positions at either Da Qian Academy or Celü Academy to better understand and integrate with scholarly groups, laying good foundations for future court cooperation.
He was currently serving as supervisor at Celü Academy, responsible for leading this group of students in exchange studies at Da Qian Academy.
And after this supervisor entered the academy, he discovered that Celü Academy, after being taken over by Shen Mi, had early on selected students who were both literary and martial, from clean backgrounds, and loyal to His Majesty, forming the “Shenzhong Society.”
Being cautious from beginning to end, then there would be no failures.
Society members were selected from all levels and academies, taught advanced martial arts, and made familiar with court affairs.
Now, among this group of exchange students, there were three Shenzhong Society students walking beside Tie Ci.
Da Qian Academy, due to its special nature, had the right to prohibit military forces from entering without permission, but who could stop a group of students?
Tie Ci strolled leisurely, observing the campus that seemed exceptionally quiet due to hosting activities, while saying: “Qi You, you go contact the officials stationed in this academy. Find a way to first keep all students at the debate site, then have all teachers rush to the debate site, and finally, have the vast majority of Da Qian Academy’s students and teachers all voluntarily leave Da Qian Academy at once.”
Qi You: “…”
This difficulty was comparable to ascending to heaven.
But he didn’t hesitate. With a bow, he led several people away to carry out the order.
Tie Ci headed straight for the laboratory building.
…