A deadly surge of killing intent rose from behind, causing Emperor Wei’s pupils to contract. Instinctively, he wanted to cry out for protection.
“Don’t get excited, Your Majesty.” Fengyue chuckled softly, gripping his belt and pressing the dagger closer, “If you call out, this servant will have to shout ‘Long live the Crown Prince’ and then send this poisoned dagger into your body. Care to guess whose hands your empire will fall into then?”
Drawing in a sharp breath, Emperor Wei stiffly turned his neck to look at Yin Gezhi beside him.
Yin Gezhi’s face darkened. Rather than showing the expected joy, he gritted his teeth and whispered a rebuke: “Didn’t you say you would leave him alive for Guan Canghai to carve his tombstone?”
She had deceived him again!
At today’s ancestral ceremony, he had thought her presence was the only unexpected element, given his extensive network of spies throughout the palace and imperial guards. No one had detected anything amiss – how could she possibly…?
Wait. Taking a deep breath, Yin Gezhi closed his eyes momentarily, clenching his fists.
He had forgotten about one person – Ganjiang!
In such crucial matters, who would Ganjiang help? No. He would help neither side, keeping any information to himself, remaining neutral!
What should he do? What could he do? If Emperor Wei died here today, Guan Qingyue would certainly not leave alive either!
The autumn wind howled as dark clouds gathered overhead, casting shadows everywhere. Guards crowded the platform, blocked on three sides by rock faces. As long as the imperial guards remained silent, those below with lowered heads would never notice anything amiss behind the Emperor and Prince!
Unfortunately, this batch of supposedly Emperor-trained imperial guards had all been visited by Yan Qing and Fengyue. Now that trouble had arisen, they all prudently remained still, refusing to act rashly.
Below on the right, the Empress and Crown Prince maintained expressionless faces, merely noting Emperor Wei’s particular fondness for Yin Gezhi, even dismissing the Crown Prince from the platform while keeping that prince at his side.
How very fine indeed!
“Wasn’t Father Emperor going to read the proclamation of guilt?” Hearing the sudden silence, Yin Chenyu stepped forward and cupped his hands, “The hour grows late, please give your command, Father Emperor!”
Emperor Wei turned his head, desperately trying to signal with his eyes, but Yin Chenyu never raised his head and thus couldn’t see his expression.
“The… the proclamation.” His face suddenly turning pale, the Emperor clutched his chest, gasping, “We… We shall read.”
Yin Gezhi frowned, taking a small step toward the Emperor, but the dagger at his back didn’t loosen at all.
After a brief moment of surprise, understanding whose person was truly behind this, Yin Gezhi laughed in extreme anger, his piercing gaze shooting like arrows at Fengyue as he commanded in a low voice: “Release him!”
“Impossible.” Calmly uttering these three words, Fengyue grinned, his bearded face breaking into a smile: “Even for your Imperial Father, it’s impossible. Despite all the groundwork Your Highness has laid, the Guan family’s vengeance can only be satisfied this way.”
Waves of shock surged in his pupils as bloodshot lines gradually spread from the corners of his eyes until they were completely crimson.
“Fengyue. Don’t do this.”
His hoarse voice, beneath the Emperor’s stammering recitation of crimes, made Fengyue’s heart contract.
She didn’t want this either – who would? But why? Why should this deeply sinful, unrepentant old emperor be allowed to live? Why should he live while Guan Canghai had to die so tragically? Her four years of accumulated rage and hatred couldn’t be easily dismissed! All these years of dreams filled with killing and bloodshed! Her only beautiful dream had been of the Guan army riding and singing on their triumphant return, heading toward the morning sun, as if they were going home to feast and celebrate victory!
But upon waking? Such dreams made reality even harder to bear! The faces of Guan Canghai, Guan Qingmu, and all those smiling faces of the Guan family – never to be seen or touched again! Her father hadn’t lived to see her married, hadn’t tasted the last drop of daughter’s wine he’d saved, hadn’t seen her grow into this mature, understanding person. Instead, he died wrongfully accused, his body left exposed in the wilderness!
His father was human – wasn’t her father human too?!
Red-eyed, Fengyue felt her throat burning with pain. She turned away from Yin Gezhi, listening only to Emperor Wei reading the proclamation.
With the dagger pressed against his back, Emperor Wei’s voice trembled, but he dared not stop, reading word by word: “…Loyal and Valiant General Guan Canghai served faithfully all his life, yet fell victim to villains, dying unjustly… We were partial in our listening and belief, violating ancestral teachings, unworthy to face our ancestors… Let the Guan family name be rightfully restored. Posthumously bestow upon Guan Canghai the title ‘Loyal, Benevolent, Righteous, and Mighty General’, build his tomb, and extend blessings to his descendants…”
As he continued reading, his voice grew increasingly weak. The officials found it strange, but the Empress and Crown Prince closest to him remained as if nothing was wrong, never raising their heads.
Yin Gezhi snapped back to awareness, suddenly feeling something amiss. He grabbed the wrist of the person behind him, snatching away the dagger, and asked with furrowed brows: “Did you bring the sheath?”
The imperial guard behind him froze, hadn’t even reacted before losing his dagger, and hastily replied: “Yes, it’s poisoned…”
“Stop wasting words, hand it over.”
Fengyue was growing impatient with the slow reading when she suddenly noticed Yin Gezhi’s movement. She instantly became alert, silently cursing.
How could one be so careless standing behind Yin Gezhi?!
Words were useless now – Yin Gezhi had already silently slipped the dagger into his sleeve. He glanced at Emperor Wei before moving to his side, asking loudly: “Father Emperor, why does your complexion look so ill?”
These words were less a question for Emperor Wei than a warning to her. Fengyue’s skin tightened as she glared at him hatefully. Though her dagger hadn’t loosened, she immediately moved to plunge it into Emperor Wei’s body!
However, with him at such close range, she was destined to fail. Yin Gezhi disarmed her dagger with a reverse grip, not even sparing the sheath in her sleeve. In an instant, everything was in his sleeve pocket.
He still had one hand supporting the Emperor and hadn’t even looked at her! His movements were as smooth as flowing water, giving her no chance to react!
It wasn’t his guard who had been careless earlier – she had underestimated this man!
A surge of anxiety rushed to her head as Fengyue exploded with rage! Even if she had to use the halberd to alert those below, she absolutely couldn’t let this dog emperor leave Dragon Platform Mountain alive! If Yin Gezhi insisted on protecting him, even if it meant dying together, she must avenge her family’s extermination!
In that flash of lightning and spark of fire, everything changed in an instant. As she and Yin Gezhi were still in confrontation, the swaying Emperor Wei suddenly collapsed!
Yin Gezhi, distracted by Fengyue and guarding against her movements, couldn’t steady him in time. With a loud “clang,” the dragon crown fell, and the dragon robe-wrapped body slammed hard onto the stone-paved platform!
“Father Emperor!” Yin Gezhi was greatly alarmed, bending down to help him up, only to see his glabella darkened and lips purple. His entire face was deathly pale!
Drawing in a sharp breath, Yin Gezhi raised his head in shock, glancing at Fengyue.
Fengyue frowned, her eyes also full of surprise.
It wasn’t her doing!
“Your Majesty!”
“Your Majesty!”
The civil and military officials below were stunned by this accident. Shi Hongwei rushed up first, pushing the dazed Crown Prince to go up and look.
Yin Gezhi was pushed aside by them. The Empress also came up crying and wailing: “Your Majesty, Your Majesty, what’s wrong?!”
As she cried, she turned to glare at Yin Gezhi hatefully and demanded: “What happened? How could His Majesty become like this when he was fine just now!”
What happened? He also wanted to know what happened. Fengyue’s dagger was in his hand, and even if it was poisoned, it certainly hadn’t touched Emperor Wei. Why had he become like this?
“Summon the Imperial Physician first.” His Adam’s apple bobbed several times as Yin Gezhi came to his senses, calmly ordering, but his voice was hoarse. Drowned out by waves of wailing, no one heard him.
“He’s not dead yet! Summon the Imperial Physician first!” Suddenly enraged, Yin Gezhi kicked aside an obstructing eunuch and shouted angrily: “Where is the accompanying Imperial Physician?!”
Empress Shi buried her head in crying, seemingly grief-stricken, but completely ignored his words.
“Where is the Imperial Physician?” Unable to push through, Nan Ping also shouted: “Wasn’t an accompanying physician arranged?”
Feng Ming turned to search, but after looking around, he discovered that for this trip to Dragon Platform Mountain, there was actually no Imperial Physician among the entourage.
“Is this rebellion?” Frowning, Feng Ming felt something was wrong: “Wasn’t the accompanying personnel checked one by one by Chancellor Shi? How could there be no Imperial Physician?”
However, before these words could fade, Shi Hongwei’s long cry rang out: “His Majesty – has passed away!”
In an instant, everyone knelt. Nan Ping stared in disbelief while Yin Gezhi fixed an extremely ugly look at Yin Chenyu.
Yin Chenyu was closest to him, his entire body slightly trembling as he wept loudly, appearing overwhelmed with grief.
However, this was all too sudden. For a moment, he felt no sadness at all, but knelt down and calmly asked the Crown Prince: “Why wasn’t an Imperial Physician summoned? Why did you insist on blocking me when I tried to leave?”
Shrinking his neck, Yin Chenyu gave him a very fearful look but said nothing.
Looking up again at the Empress crying heartbrokenly in front, Yin Gezhi thought for a moment and lowered his gaze.
Emperor Wei had truly passed away, lying on the cold surface of the sacrificial platform, his face turning blue, his body gradually growing cold.
Fengyue’s eyes widened, for a moment feeling only whiteness before her eyes, countless emotions colliding in her chest, almost making her cough blood!
Someone pulled her to kneel and prostrate on the ground.
Staring blankly at the corpse, Fengyue shook her head slightly, completely bewildered.
How could he be dead? How could he just die like this? This must be a dream. For four years, she had thought every day about killing her enemy with her own hands. Today she was just one step away, yet her enemy had died on his own. This must be Heaven playing a joke on her!
“BOOM-” Thunder suddenly crashed as raindrops as large as beans instantly poured down.
Officials wailed, the Empress wept, and all of Dragon Platform Mountain was instantly shrouded in deep sorrow.
Rain-soaked people’s clothes, making the already heavy armor even heavier, almost crushing Fengyue into the ground. Her eyes didn’t blink as she stared at Emperor Wei’s face. In a daze, she felt her body become very light, floating, as if about to fly into the sky.
Another thunderclap exploded overhead as Yin Gezhi turned his head to see that familiar shadow slowly falling in the rain.
The sound of armor hitting the ground was very heavy, splashing water onto Emperor Wei’s dragon robe.