“What great cause of Liao?” Ning Yanli said flatly. “It’s just an excuse for personal desire.”
“Oh? You think so?” Yelü Jingli asked with a smile.
Instead of answering, Ning Yanli asked, “Isn’t it like that?”
“Who knows,” Yelü Jingli sighed, seemingly half-true and half-false. “Fighting for power is so boring.”
Ning Yanli laughed coldly in her heart: If it’s so boring, why are you still fighting?
“Go back then. I’ll carefully consider what you said. In any case, you go ahead and do it, I’ll clean up after you,” Yelü Jingli could see what she was thinking, but let her guess, not bothering to explain.
What he sought was far more than just power.
After Ning Yanli left, Yelü Jingli sat for a while before getting up and carrying a lantern into the study.
The study had no lights on. As he entered, the warm light of the lantern gradually illuminated the surroundings. There weren’t many books in the room, but portraits hung on three walls. The people in these portraits had different appearances, but they had the same phoenix eyes and the same outstanding demeanor.
“Yelü Jingfeng,” Yelü Jingli gently stroked one of the portraits, murmuring, “He’s my nephew. For a moment, I thought my elder brother had come back to life.”
Although Yelü Jingli was several years younger than his elder brother, their appearances were like twin brothers, and the feelings between the brothers were very deep.
Years ago, when his secret plot failed, he had used all his energy just to gain a foothold in Liao. With various forces keeping each other in check, he couldn’t freely search for Gu Jingfeng’s whereabouts, but he never gave up. Who would have thought that after searching for so many years, he would only find a badly damaged corpse?
It was said that he was a child with extraordinary talents…
The room was quiet, with only Yelü Jingli’s increasingly heavy breathing.
Seeing the furrowed brow on Gu Jingfeng’s portrait, he seemed to see himself from ten years ago. At that time, he had to be fed various poisons by special attendants every day. Even now, when he woke from nightmares at midnight, that bone-deep, heart-gnawing pain would still make him break out in a cold sweat! Not only that but at that time, he lived in constant fear. He felt like a lamb waiting to be slaughtered, waiting to be skinned and eaten when the time came.
His cousin, who was the emperor, was extremely kind to him, but looking at his cousin’s pale face, he only felt frightened!
Yelü Jingli withdrew his hand, pressing it against his heart, the corner of his mouth curling up.
Yelü Jingfeng, you certainly didn’t know that I was also one of their medicine men back then, but so what? That cousin who was waiting to drink my heart’s blood died at the hands of this medicine man! Many secrets were buried with the death of the previous generation, and only I know…
Don’t worry, this generation’s emperor will meet the same fate.
Your vengeance. I will end it.
Yelü Jingli’s eyes were full of coldness. He removed the lampshade and burned all the portraits one by one.
When he left the study, he was once again the image of a worldly young master. The personal guard waiting outside followed closely.
“Master, has Ning Yanli betrayed Princess Huangwu?” the guard couldn’t help but ask.
This man was named Bai Wu, who had followed Yelü Jingli since childhood, half playmate and half guard.
“Would you betray me?” Yelü Jingli turned and asked.
Bai Wu immediately bowed, his voice not loud but firm. “This servant swears to follow you to death!”
“Over the years, I’ve also done many ruthless things, yet you still follow me. Ning Yanli has thoughts of betrayal after the princess was ruthless a few times because of that girl?” Although he said this, Yelü Jingli knew that people were different and couldn’t be generalized. “I only need to know that she will complete the tasks I assign her, as for the rest…”
Yelü Jingli looked back at the study, “As long as she doesn’t have any ill intentions towards me, keeping her around is fine.”
It was said that Wei Yuzhi had recently found Gu Jingfeng’s heart blood, but unfortunately, that blood had already been refined by Mo Sigui. Ning Yanli had used all her efforts to barely separate the blood. But the remaining amount was too small. Moreover, since Gu Jingfeng was already dead, the efficacy of that blood had been almost destroyed. He suspected that Yelü Huangwu had guessed something, so she sent Ning Yanli to approach him, wanting to investigate if he was a medicine man!
The disease of the Yelü direct line was all the same kind, and his heart blood would have the same efficacy as Gu Jingfeng’s.
Thinking of this, Yelü Jingli felt a strong sense of disgust. “Heaven has decided who should die, yet they don’t die peacefully. Hmph, keep fighting, let’s see who can fight against fate!”
Bai Wu lowered his head and didn’t respond.
Yelü Jingli fell into deep thought.
A hundred years ago, there was an internal struggle in the Yelü royal family. Two brothers of the direct line fought for the throne. In the end, the elder brother won a bitter victory, gaining the throne but also being poisoned by his younger brother. This poison would forever remain in the bloodline, passed down from generation to generation. The emperor sought divine doctors far and wide, and finally, a doctor offered a cure – the heart blood of a medicine man.
That person also said that if this medicine man’s heart blood was nurtured with the blood of close relatives, the effect would be doubled. So the emperor secretly ordered the illegitimate son of his younger brother to be captured and raised as medicine.
That first attempt was a failure, but he left a secret decree for future generations to use them to nurture medicine until the poison was cured. This was the debt they owed!
The struggle for the throne has always been full of deception. The ancestors have already paid the price with their lives, what debt is there?
It’s just a matter of the victor writing history!
Taizong still had some brotherly affection left and only decreed to capture his brother’s illegitimate sons to nurture medicine. But nurturing a medicine man was an extremely difficult task. One misstep could poison the medicine man to death, or the recipient might commit suicide unable to bear the pain. So by the next generation, the number of potential medicine men had sharply decreased.
By Yelü Jingli’s generation, there were only two legitimate sons and two illegitimate sons left. Both illegitimate sons were used to nurture medicine; one died at six years old, and the other at nine. It was only then that they turned their attention to Yelü Jingli.
However, Taizong had decreed that only illegitimate sons could be used. The previous generation’s emperor, fearing death, desperately sent beautiful women to seduce Yelü Jingli and his elder brother Yelü Jingcai, but there was no movement for a long time. Later, Yelü Jingcai fell in love with one of the beauties and she became pregnant, but it takes at least fifteen years to nurture a medicine man, and he couldn’t wait that long. Yet he didn’t want to openly violate the ancestral rule. Using Yelü Jingli to nurture medicine was done in secret, so few people knew about it.
At that time, Yelü Jingli was already six years old. The process of receiving the medicine was a thousand times more painful than for children who had started receiving it from the womb.
To describe it as dying and coming back to life is not an exaggeration at all.
Yelü Jingli’s methods were brutal and vicious, and he had particularly cruel special preferences in bedroom matters. He generally wouldn’t refuse women who actively climbed into his bed, but he would kill them after sleeping with them, leaving no survivors.
Only those who knew the inside story understood that such a proud person would not allow his flesh and blood to be used by others like animals!
“Only I am left,” Yēlǜ Jìngliè muttered softly.
This time, if he failed again, he would choose death, leaving them with no hope. Whether it was ascending the throne or perishing together, both thoughts thrilled him immensely.
A faint smile appeared on Yēlǜ Jìngliè’s strikingly handsome face, serene yet wildly arrogant.