The pearl-diving woman lay most unladylike on a wooden plank, her body spread out in a spread-eagle position, as if waiting for someone to rape her at any moment. Her not-too-long hair covered her face, making her look like a female ghost. Ever since learning that her younger sister no longer needed her, she had been in this death-like state. Apart from eating, drinking, and relieving herself, she paid no attention to anything else. If not for several maidservants helping her change clothes and bathe, she would have reeked on that plank by now.

“Why have you started playing dead dog? Your younger sister’s capabilities far exceed yours. Look, in just a few days she has become the number one favored consort of Prince Wei’s household in Lingnan. Although her title requires the approval of the Empress, the officials in Lingnan are already addressing her as Princess Consort. Now look at yourself—a woman spreading her legs this wide, isn’t this clearly inviting someone to rape you? Close them quickly. A woman should have some semblance of womanly behavior.”

Yun Ye had no way to deal with the woman before him. The mindset she embraced had the demeanor of a monk—if you want to rape me, go ahead; if you want to torture me, go ahead; if you want to drag me off for beheading, perfect, I’m tired of living anyway. In short, she was completely indifferent to outside matters. Yun Ye had originally wanted to make her give up hope, but now her heart had truly died.

It hadn’t been like this before. Ever since that day when she secretly saw her younger sister nestled in Li Tai’s embrace at the Lord’s Manor, just short of doing the deed right there on the spot, her soul had left her, leaving only an empty shell. She could tell that her younger sister seemed to thoroughly enjoy her current life. The pearl hairpin in her hair was something she herself couldn’t afford even if she harvested pearls for ten years. From that moment on, she knew that not only was she not her younger sister’s protector, but she had actually become a stumbling block hindering her pursuit of her own life.

Yun Ye had tried every method, but nothing worked, so he stopped bothering with her. Perhaps only time could help her pull herself together again.

Chu Suiliang finally arrived in Yongzhou. The terrifying Lingnan mosquitoes had tormented this elegant scholar to the point of near death. Everyone knew that being bitten by Lingnan mosquitoes would cause diarrhea. When Yun Ye saw Chu Suiliang with his pale lips, ashen complexion, and skeletal frame, he finally remembered that in the historical timeline without his presence, this man had indeed died in Lingnan.

Rigid people remain terrifyingly rigid even when nearly dead. It would have been fine to just have him take out the imperial edict and let Li Tai open it and read it himself, but no—he had to set up an offering table, arrange an honor guard, and stand at the head swaying unsteadily to proclaim the edict. Reading an edict once wasn’t worth losing one’s life over.

Before finishing reading the edict, he fainted. This was completely caused by dehydration. The medicine for treating dysentery that the Yun Family had brought would have been very useful. Gritting his teeth, Yun Ye took it out, but Chu Suiliang slapped it away with one stroke, struggling to say: “I would rather die than drink from a stolen spring.”

Yun Ye turned and left. The chuckling Feng Ang brought out his family’s secret medicine. Although this medicinal water crudely extracted from raw naphthalene was fishy and foul-smelling, far less palatable than the Yun Family’s, Chu Suiliang still resolutely drank a large bowl of it.

The imperial edict harshly denounced Yun Ye’s wild fantasies, believing that Yun Ye’s focus on the great sea was典型的 typical dereliction of duty. His petition to His Majesty to issue maritime robbery certificates had especially angered the masses, destroying a thousand years of etiquette in one fell swoop.

Chu Suiliang believed that not only should this matter not be done, but even thinking about it was sinful. China was known as the Land of Propriety, and the Great Tang was founded on benevolence and filial piety. For a dignified Imperial Marquis to harbor the thoughts of a bandit—this crime deserved death.

At this time, the high-ranking officials and nobles in Chang’an had long been shocked into helplessness by Yun Ye’s idea. Searching through all the history books, they couldn’t find a more vicious scheme than this. Although Cao Cao was vicious, he merely organized the Gold-Touching Captains to steal from and rob the dead. Yun Ye’s idea would literally shame upright gentlemen to death. The most vehement opponent was Chu Suiliang. This time, risking his life to enter Lingnan was to prevent Yun Ye’s evil deeds and prevent the Great Tang’s reputation from being disgraced overseas.

The Emperor’s secret edict greatly disappointed him. Throughout the entire text, the Emperor reprimanded Yun Ye, but there wasn’t the slightest restriction on Yun Ye’s right to go to sea. In other words, His Majesty the Emperor did not allow Yun Ye to rob under the Great Tang’s banner, but the old man didn’t care about anything else.

The Yun Family’s Old Madam couldn’t be seen at the Lord’s Manor—she was said to have gone to Guilin Prefecture a thousand miles away to enjoy the scenery. National law couldn’t stop him, and the person who could execute family law on Yun Ye was a thousand miles away. Chu Suiliang could only earnestly request Li Tai and Feng Ang to help him restrain Yun Ye from going to sea.

“Your Highness, Yun Ye’s actions completely cast aside benevolence, righteousness, propriety, filial piety, and fraternal duty. For a few coins, he’s willing to throw away his face to become a pirate. Your Highness is his friend—can you really watch your good friend fall into the abyss and remain indifferent?” Chu Suiliang half-reclined, half-leaned in his chair, laboriously trying to persuade Li Tai.

“County Viscount speaks correctly. Indeed, one should not watch a good friend degenerate while remaining indifferent—this is not the way of being a friend. Therefore, this Prince also plans to go to sea to rob. The sailors on the Qing Que have already been recruited, weapons have been loaded, and they are currently drilling on the great sea. As soon as they master the operations, this Prince will pilot the giant vessel Qing Que across the ocean. County Viscount, what do you think—does this fulfill the duty of friendship?”

With ice-cold hands and feet, Chu Suiliang tightly grasped Feng Ang’s hand and said: “Duke Yue, those two are young and don’t understand the gravity of this matter. Duke Yue, you must persuade them both—you cannot let them act recklessly. The Great Tang’s dignity, the Great Tang’s dignity! Once those tributary small nations learn that the Great Tang’s prince and marquis have gone to sea as bandits, the vision of all nations coming to pay tribute will instantly turn to bubbles!”

Feng Ang helped Chu Suiliang back to his chair and said: “Those small nations are nothing to worry about. As long as they dare to reduce their tribute to the Great Tang, this old man will immediately annihilate their nations, destroy their tributes, burn their ancestral temples, and incorporate their countries into Great Tang territory. Under military might, anyone who dares speak nonsense can simply be killed. Each nation is small but full of idle chatter. This old man has already dispatched all the sons and nephews of his household onto the ships, just to see who dares to act presumptuously.”

Chu Suiliang was already in despair. Clearly, these three had formed an alliance of interests that would be extremely difficult to break in a short time. Dejected and disgraced, he could only return north dispiritedly. He didn’t want to die in Lingnan—every additional day he stayed, his body weakened by another degree. This place was truly the graveyard of northerners.

“Ye Zi, what did my Imperial Father say in the secret edict he gave you?” After Yun Ye and Li Tai saw off Chu Suiliang, they simply dismounted and walked back to Yongzhou on foot. Li Tai really wanted to know the contents of Yun Ye’s secret edict.

“You already called it a secret edict, so it can’t be told. If it could be told, wouldn’t it have been made clear in an open edict? It has nothing to do with you—he just asked me to pay attention to some matters. What I’m really worried about is Chengqian. He seems to be angry with me—he hasn’t sent even one letter until now.” After Yun Ye finished speaking, he tucked the secret edict into the saddlebag on Wang Cai’s back.

“He hasn’t written to me either. He probably doesn’t want us two to get involved with him. We’re his last lifeline. Besides, big brother is very clear about the positions we both hold in these matters—neither of us is easily swayed. It’s better this way, not being in contact.”

The storm in the imperial court wouldn’t reach Lingnan for a while—the distance was too great. The Emperor only reprimanded Li Tai for his unfilial act of leaving without saying goodbye, but he greatly appreciated Li Tai’s desire to see whether the great sea had any value for strategic development, and specially sent him some capable naval generals who would arrive shortly.

This was the content from Li Tai’s secret edict that Yun Ye had stolen from Li Tai’s bosom. Of course, Li Tai had also stolen Yun Ye’s secret edict from Wang Cai’s saddlebag. The Emperor forbade showing them to others privately, but what could one do if others wanted to steal a look?

“My Imperial Father still wants you to search for overseas immortal mountains? Why won’t he let me search? I’m going to sea too.” Li Tai tucked Yun Ye’s secret edict back into Wang Cai’s saddlebag and said to Yun Ye sourly.

“I’m a disciple of the immortals, you’re not. The reason His Majesty can tolerate Han Zhe wandering everywhere is precisely this, isn’t it? They regard themselves as divine beings, and with me, this immortal disciple—who knows, we might actually find the immortal mountains. By the way, if we find an elixir of immortality, will you eat it or not?”

“If there’s only one pill, you couldn’t beat me to death to eat it. If there are two pills, I’ll eat it. Living this life until now, I’ve only discovered how ignorant I am. If I had a sufficiently long life to explore the unknown, I would devote myself to it wholeheartedly.”

“You know, the more precious something is, the rarer it is. The elixir might only be one pill. It seems you still have filial piety.” Yun Ye admired Li Tai’s frankness.

“You’re overthinking it. If there’s only one pill, who knows if it’s poison? So I would feed this pill to someone else, then stab them with a knife to see if they die. If they don’t die, it proves it’s effective. Then I’d use that person to refine more elixir—maybe we could reproduce it. I wasn’t thinking of giving it to my Imperial Father.”

“Pity there’s no such thing in the world. If there were, it wouldn’t be bad to present it to my Imperial Father. Then Chengqian would give up hope, and all three ships would have their captains—we could all go be pirates together.”

A simple analogy instantly made Li Tai feel sorrowful. In these two years, he had grown up. Chengqian finally couldn’t resist the temptation and wanted to walk his own path. That intimate brotherly relationship would never appear again.

“Let Chengqian have free rein to forge ahead, Qing Que. His Majesty in his heart probably thinks this way too. He has invested too much of his heart and blood into this empire—he couldn’t possibly not be cautious in selecting his heir. What’s wrong with rehearsing first?”

Li Tai smiled and nodded. The old lion wanted to train the young lion now. There would inevitably be some injuries. Perhaps in this process, some treacherous cheetahs, warthogs, and the like with ulterior motives would appear. The old lion needed to handle all threats cleanly before he could confidently hand over power at his deathbed.

The sea waves began to show foam, and the ocean currents had new changes. Dongyu tasted the seawater and cried out, quickly running from the seaside to a bell and ringing it vigorously—clang, clang, clang.

The beach, which had been very quiet just moments ago, suddenly swarmed with many people. Without a word, they formed four rows, shouting work chants and pulling ropes. The dock gate slowly rose, and surging seawater flooded into the dock. An hour later, the last ship was floating steadily in the dock.

A deep horn sound immediately rang out from the Chengqian. On the two giant warships floating on the sea surface, horn sounds responded in harmony.