Chapter 35

[You have 10 private messages to check.]

Xue Jin'an opened his eyes precisely on time. The Do Not Disturb mode was turned off automatically. He immediately opened the main page and turned off the alarm that had just rung one syllable. Then he saw a barrage of private message notifications flooding his screen.

The message came from a live streaming app late at night. It was right after Xue Jin'an had turned off the app and gone to sleep.

It's obvious who sent the message.

This is the second time Xue Jin'an has received an unsolicited contact from someone after Cen Fuzi. Due to the small sample size, the triggering mechanism is not yet clear. Xue Jin'an backed up the data before and after the two nodes to the same folder, and will conduct comparative analysis later.

After doing all this, he clicked into the live streaming app. On his previously empty personal message page, the account "Daqi Morning Court News" lay there quietly, with a red number 10 indicating unread messages in the upper right corner.

Before clicking in, Xue Jin'an couldn't help but take another look at the profile picture. Previously, the profile picture of this live broadcast room had always been the Hall of State Affairs—the so-called "dragon throne, jade table, national seal in front, golden palace, imperial platform, and plaque of heaven and earth." These items were symbols of imperial power and the political center of the Great Qi Dynasty. Even a casual snapshot of it exuded a sense of majesty and solemnity.

Then, that profile picture disappeared overnight and was replaced with a large headshot of the emperor. Xue Jin'an's eyes were clearly visible through the high-definition camera. This was the version from last night's live stream where filters and skin smoothing were applied to hide his freckles.

It seems the emperor really likes the beauty filter in the live stream. Xue Jin'an can already foresee what the live stream will look like in the future.

Fortunately, he had an eye protection mode, so even if the emperor turned the beauty filter to the maximum, he wouldn't be blinded by that Hanlin Academy editor.

Xue Jin'an didn't think it was a big problem. At this time, he had no idea just how powerful the beauty filters in modern live streaming rooms had become.

Xue Jin'an quickly looked away from the profile picture. He opened the chat box and saw a dense text rapidly filling his field of vision. The side scroll bar appeared and kept automatically flipping up the page. The massive amount of text loaded onto the screen caused it to lag for a moment.

Even without deliberately looking, Xue Jin'an inevitably learned some of the information.

Each private message was a lengthy text of nearly a thousand words, generally ranging from the intrigues of the court to the art of checks and balances for emperors, concluding that the Great Qi Dynasty was in its golden age and showed no signs of collapse, and ending with a firm and resounding line: "I am fine, my kidneys are fine, and there are no problems at all!"

In short, Xue Jin'an alone formed a massive barrage of comments last night, while today the Emperor's 10 messages amounted to an academic paper.

Xue Jin'an: "..."

Xue Jin'an replied expressionlessly that it was too long to read and added: 1.

Then, while exiting the chat interface, I enabled Do Not Disturb mode for the emperor.

After getting up and washing up, Xue Jin'an opened the fitness app and trained with the soldiers in Helian Cheng's channel.

Speaking of which, recently Helian Cheng has always been accompanied by a military doctor. No matter when or what class Xue Jin'an goes to, he can always see the military doctor following behind him, making people wonder if Helian Cheng has suffered some serious injury.

Xue Jin'an, separated by the internet, couldn't hear his heartbeat or scan his data. He could only use a high-definition camera to carefully analyze the image of him, but he couldn't be completely sure that his current physical condition was good.

After all, humans are also good at disguising themselves.

However, if they were really injured, looking at the two of them who were becoming more and more gloomy and preoccupied each day, Xue Jinan thought to himself: it probably wasn't going to be good.

Hopefully he can stick with it for longer; the other coaches aren't getting paid. After finishing her morning class, Xue Jin'an gave him a five-star review, along with a row of candles and a hands-on-prayer emoji.

Xue Jin'an: I pray for you.

*

Helian Cheng, who was walking out of the training ground, paused and turned to the military doctor behind him, saying calmly, "Doctor, my subordinate's condition seems to have worsened. He's seeing candles and a pair of hands in front of him..."

"It has finally come to this." The military doctor sighed sadly and said, "General, I have been following you for so many days and I have seen some clues. Perhaps what you have is not an illness, but a ghost that is haunting you."

Helian Cheng frowned, not bothering to refute the statement that "it was a subordinate, not him," and waited patiently for him to continue.

"Although Confucius said not to speak of strange phenomena, physical prowess, disorder, or spirits, things have come to this point, and we can no longer pretend to be deaf and dumb." The military doctor straightened his expression and asked three questions first: "General, have you felt unwell recently? Have you felt delirious at other times? Have you had any dreams of being killed?"

"No." Helian Cheng denied everything.

The medic nodded, unsurprised, a slightly more relaxed smile on his face. "Just as I observed, this ghost, which only you can see, has never left the training ground. He appears every day and disappears after completing his training. He has never frightened or harmed anyone. It seems that he uses his abilities to confuse your perception, General, just for better training... He is not some kind of evil ghost."

“General, I have a theory. Perhaps he admired you when he was alive and wanted to learn martial arts to protect his country.” The military doctor was moved by his own words and wiped his eyes with his sleeve.

Helian Cheng thought about it and felt that his statement made a lot of sense. Long Aotian was indeed not an evil spirit. Apart from his poor attendance, he had not done anything outrageous.

Moreover, even though Helian Cheng had never seen him when he was conscious, he could tell from every comment he wrote in the notebook that this was a promising talent with extraordinary potential and great understanding, who would surely achieve great things in the future!

This also caused Helian Cheng to frequently sigh with regret whenever he thought that Helian Cheng did not exist, or that he was not even human.

Thinking of this, Helian Cheng said, "If he were a person, someone I could see and touch, I would take him as my disciple, do my best to teach him martial arts, tell him what it means to be a general, and entrust the Northwest Army to him with peace of mind. In this way, even if I were to die unexpectedly on the battlefield, I could die in peace."

The Northwest Army was brave and skilled in battle, each soldier a match for ten men. Helian Cheng was never afraid of battle, or rather, quite the opposite. He was always thinking about sending troops to drive those barbarians back, to drive them to the point where there was no royal court in the northern desert, so that the people on the border would no longer be harassed by the Rong and Di cavalry.

However, with two changes of emperors, the political situation was unstable and there was a shortage of money and food. Helian Cheng could only suppress his thoughts and wait year after year for the Great Qi Dynasty to be established and for the opportunity to start a war.

Helian Cheng knew that the time was not far off, and he was prepared to die on the battlefield. His only worry was that the Northwest Army would have no successors.

Fierce generals are easy to find, but good commanders are hard to come by. Once an army commander makes a mistake, the entire Northwest Army will be wiped out.

He has now taken on a disciple and is keeping him by his side, thinking that training him well for a few years would be a good choice. Then he met Long Aotian.

"Compared to Long Aotian, my good-for-nothing disciple is still rather mediocre." Helian Cheng sighed as he looked up at the sky.

"He's that skilled?" The army doctor was also somewhat excited upon hearing this. "You taught him even though he was a ghost, so what's wrong with taking him as your apprentice now?"

Helian Cheng's heart stirred slightly.

The military doctor noticed his interest, put down his medical kit, and mysteriously reached into his sleeve. "When in doubt, ask God."

He took out a tortoise shell, dropped three copper coins inside, shook it twice, and listened to the clinking sound coming from inside. He raised one eyebrow and looked at Helian Cheng questioningly, "General?"

Helian Cheng twitched his lips and exposed him, "You haven't even studied the Book of Changes, have you? You're going to divine for me?"

The military doctor retorted, "What do you know? Thousands of years ago, witch doctors and sorcerers were inseparable! Besides, I am from Chu, so I must have some special skills or lineage in this field!"

The State of Chu had a unique and systematic culture regarding gods and ghosts. Each region had its own beliefs, and witchcraft was once very popular. Even today, there are legends about corpse drivers.

“You can’t possibly be good at this,” Helian Cheng asserted, then, under the unconvinced look in the army doctor’s eyes, he said in a low voice, “This is a battlefield. If you really are good at this, you’d better be careful when you sleep tonight.”

The military doctor immediately felt a chill run down his spine. He wanted to change his tune, but seeing Helian Cheng's gloating expression, he didn't want to back down so easily. His gaze stopped when he saw a figure, and he immediately changed the subject.

"Hey!" He gestured with his chin, indicating that Helian Cheng should look behind him. There, he saw a boy wearing a faded cotton-padded jacket standing quietly not far away.

The north wind howled in, stirring up a shimmering white expanse.

"Master, it's snowing." The boy opened his hands to catch the falling snowflakes, letting the coldness spread from his fingertips.

Helian Cheng walked over and asked, "When did you arrive?"

"You've been standing here for quite a while, haven't you? Your face is all pale from the cold. You'd better hurry back to your tent." The medic picked up his medical kit and followed, pulling his coat tighter around himself. "It's already November... The snow came later than usual this year. I wonder when it will reach our homes..."

The three of them walked away into the snow.

*

It was already dawn, time for the court assembly. Xue Jin'an was quite annoyed by the efficiency of the assembly and decided to let it accumulate, so he set up automatic screen recording and planned to watch it all at once.

—Sometimes, otaku would let serialized novels accumulate like this, but they would often forget about them or not want to read them anymore, resulting in Xue Jin'an's database containing a bunch of unfinished stories.

CodeLife strongly condemns this.

Then, as soon as Xue Jin'an opened the trending topics, he saw the top trending topic on the homepage: #EmperorSuspendsCourtMeetings, Suspected of Being Critically Ill from Anger#

Xue Jin'an slowly typed out a question mark: "...?" She was perfectly fine in the middle of the night, sending him papers instead of sleeping. Although human diseases can be divided into chronic and acute illnesses, this sudden critical condition was too unexpected.

Xue Jin'an had reasonable doubts about the content of this entry. When he clicked on it, the screen was full of the faces of various court officials. In particular, the Duke of Ningguo, who had been attacked by the emperor yesterday, was regarded as the culprit. The animated picture of him scrambling out of the Duke's mansion after receiving the news and tripping over the threshold was posted on the hot list and had been forwarded more than 100,000 times.

It should be noted that, excluding the military, the capital city had a total population of only five or six hundred thousand.

As for where the news of the emperor's critical illness came from... there are so many people discussing this trending topic that the page is overloaded with instant messages, it's impossible to find the source.

Xue Jin'an gave up on following the gossip on the trending topics and opened the live streaming app again. He saw that the live stream room, which should have been broadcasting, was black, while Li Hechun's account was showing that it was broadcasting live, with the content: "His Majesty's Sick Day".

The number of online viewers exceeded 10,000, with a dense barrage of donations and bullet comments floating by; at first glance, it felt like we had returned to modern times.

Unfortunately, that wasn't the case. This means that Li Hechun sold this information to at least ten thousand people at the same time, which means he sold it to everyone in the imperial harem and the court.

The sheer number of viewers made Xue Jin'an momentarily doubt whether the other party was actually live-streaming.

As soon as Xue Jin'an entered, he saw Hu, the head of the Imperial Medical Academy, taking the emperor's pulse. Hu pondered for a moment and said, "Your Majesty suffers from stagnant liver fire, excessive heart fire, emotional distress, and reckless movement of pathogenic fire, which has damaged your kidney yin—"

Before Hu Yuanzheng could finish speaking, he was interrupted by the emperor, who was reacting strongly to the word "kidney." The emperor opened his mouth and said in a dry, hoarse voice, "I am fine."

"I was just a little angry, it's nothing serious." The emperor withdrew his hand, pretending not to care, and casually wrote a vertical stroke on the paper with his brush, emphasizing as if it were an unintentional remark, "I am fine."

Li Hechun's expression froze and became somewhat strange. He forced himself not to look at the emperor, and quickly explained, "Your Majesty is preoccupied with matters of state, and these days he has been working late into the night until midnight every night."

He subtly suggested that the emperor was so engrossed in his work that he hadn't chosen a concubine in a long time, and that upon waking up today, he had even refused to have the concubine's nameplate brought to him.

Hu Yuanzheng was initially puzzled by Li Hechun's words, wondering why he was saying such irrelevant things. Wasn't the emperor's illness more important?

Just as he was about to interrupt, he finally realized something and almost pulled out his beard by accident. However, he dared not make any strange expression, nor did he dare to explain that insomnia, excessive dreaming, hot flashes, and night sweats could all be signs of kidney yin deficiency, and not just insufficient kidney qi.

He quickly lowered his head. "Ah, yes, Your Majesty is in good health and everything is fine. Just please don't get angry or upset again..."

After giving some earnest instructions and prescribing several remedies to nourish and reduce internal heat, Hu picked up his medical kit, wiped the sweat from his brow, and hurried away, fearing that he might say something wrong and be silenced by the emperor.

Hu Yuanzheng made up his mind that he would never utter the words "damages kidney yin" in the palace again in his lifetime. Also, he was too old to be frightened, while his apprentice was in his prime and very suitable for training.

After the New Year, he should call his apprentice over, then quickly resign from his official post and return to his hometown to enjoy his grandchildren!

Hu Yuanzheng had a good plan, and he really didn't reveal the diagnosis. However, secrets don't stay hidden forever in the palace. Soon, the news that the emperor had "excessive liver fire and damaged kidney yin" spread throughout the palace.

No sooner had Hu Yuanzheng left Qianyuan Palace than Consort Rong arrived with her soup.

Consort Rong still loves making soup.

The voice that suddenly entered his ears perfectly matched his inner thoughts. Li Hechun: "!"

Li Hechun's first reaction was that he had accidentally blurted out his true feelings. Startled, he quickly smiled and smoothed things over, "Your Highness's soup-making skills are indeed superb. The color, aroma, and taste are all perfect. Just looking at it makes one's mouth water. It's truly a rare find in this world. No wonder you love making soup. It would be a waste not to use such a talent for making soup!"

Li Hechun managed to smooth things over and secretly breathed a sigh of relief.

Consort Rong glanced at him, puzzled.

As the emperor's trusted eunuch, Li Hechun was in charge of the entire Qian Yuan Palace. Although he always acted humbly and made no mistakes, he still had some pride as an imperial eunuch. The concubines in the palace respected him and would often slip him money. Scenes like Consort Xian pointing at Li Hechun and scolding him were simply impossible.

Consort Rong couldn't understand why Li Hechun had suddenly gone crazy and was praising her so enthusiastically. Could it be... that the Emperor was particularly satisfied with her soup?

Consort Rong felt she had found the reason and immediately became even more enthusiastic towards the emperor.

Then one after another, the ladies of the six palaces brought soup, which made Consort Rong so angry that she gritted her teeth, but she still had to endure the calls of her sisters and aunts, and she was about to vomit.

The emperor sat upright on the fishing platform, pretending not to see their undercurrents at all, and just casually sipped his soup.

Perhaps out of consideration for the emperor's feelings, they removed all the medicinal herbs, leaving only soup in the soup bowl.

If it were just soup, the emperor wouldn't have suspected anything. He even tasted a sip or two of the soup that everyone brought him, but the soup was too nourishing. As the emperor drank it, blood started gushing from his nose.

"Oh dear, Your Majesty!" Li Hechun was startled and rushed over, pressing a handkerchief to the emperor's nose to make him lower his head.

The emperor, realizing what kind of soup these were, turned pale and then red: "..."

Looking at his face, Li Hechun understood the words he had choked up and couldn't say: You have really disappointed me!

Don't you know whether I'm in good health or not? You've all really disappointed me.

Xue Jin'an sent the comment directly to the emperor's face, and when the live stream camera switched to the empresses in the palace, he added a matching comment: "Your Majesty, don't you have any self-awareness about your health?"

Once again, Li Hechun's thoughts resonated with the comments, but he was taken aback by the overly aggressive language: "..."

Good news: Li Hechun discovered that only he could hear this voice.

Bad news, these are probably all his true feelings!

Li Hechun's hands trembled slightly: Was my innermost thoughts so audacious that they dared to fabricate stories about even the emperor and his concubines?

Despite his advanced age, his inner voice was that of a child, a stark contrast indeed. Moreover, the voice sounded quite familiar, somewhat like the Seventh Prince's. He simply assumed it was because he adored the Seventh Prince that he had such a voice.

Li Hechun did not immediately realize that he was the child voice the emperor was looking for who spoke during the morning court session.

The main reason was that the emperor only mentioned it once, and nothing happened afterward, so Li Hechun thought the matter was resolved.

However, while his thoughts were a bit bold, they were quite accurate—after all, His Majesty wouldn't know what he was thinking.

Li Hechun's mind raced, but his hands remained deft as he worked on the emperor's clothes.

In this way, Xue Jin'an, without his knowledge, tricked Li Hechun into becoming crippled.

Afterwards, the Duke of Ningguo went to the palace to apologize, and the eldest prince and Prince An also hurriedly went to the palace to visit the "critically ill" emperor. Even the Empress Dowager from Cining Palace sent Lu Bingzhu to inquire and confirm the emperor's health.

Xue Jin'an didn't watch any longer. He closed the software, got up, packed his cloth bag, slung his lotus-shaped longsword over his shoulder, and prepared to leave.

His only scheduled activity for today was to go to Minghua Palace to load the game map.

As usual, he left alone when Fu Lu Shou Quan wasn't paying attention. The reason was simple: Fu Lu and Shou Quan would always send one of them to follow him when he went out. If they didn't feel comfortable with the place he was going, both of them would follow him, just like when he went to the Imperial Study last time.

Xue Jin'an didn't necessarily intend to shake them off; she simply calculated the data and felt that she could act faster on her own.

Xue Jin'an moved swiftly and lightly, as silently as a cat. However, there was a master in the courtyard this time, and Xuan Shiyi noticed this and immediately followed.

The "Xuan" in Xuan Shiyi is the "Xuan" in the four squads of Fengyi Chu, namely Tiandi Xuanhuang. The spies did not have names. To make it easier to distinguish them, they used the character of the squad they belonged to as their surname, and then ranked them by their given names, which were numbered one, two, three, four, and five.

Last night, Xuan Shiyi used acupressure on Xia Zi, who had been poisoned with muscle-relaxing powder, tied him up, and threw him under the bed. He then returned to Qian Yuan Palace to report back, but His Majesty was already asleep at the time. It was Eunuch Li who gave him the instructions.

Eunuch Li told him not to act rashly for the time being, to protect Xia Zi first, as he was still useful, and then to keep an eye on the Seventh Prince and find out who he had been in contact with.

Xuan Shiyi looked troubled and said without any hesitation, "It's a bit difficult."

Eunuch Li was very understanding of him and, after thinking for a moment, decided to reduce the difficulty for him. "If it's really too difficult, Xiazi, you can just keep one life. Your main task is to keep an eye on the Seventh Prince."

Xuan Shiyi rubbed his toes. Faced with the choice between having his expertise questioned or telling the truth, he chose to do so, "Seventh Prince is... very capable."

He actually meant to say brutal.

Regardless of what Xuan Shiyi thought, he still had to complete the mission. So when he realized that Xue Jin'an was secretly leaving, he immediately opened the window to observe Xue Jin'an, planning to follow him as soon as he left.

Then, Xue Jin'an, who was about to jump off the wall, suddenly turned around, his gaze piercing straight through him.

Xuan Shiyi quickly pretended to have just opened the window, showing just the right amount of surprise, "Seventh Prince, what's going on?"

"Let's go out." Xue Jin'an said something seemingly pointless, tilting her head to look at him. "You want to come along?"

Xuan Shiyi was overjoyed: "Is that alright?"

“No.” Xue Jin’an refused outright.

Xuan Shiyi: "..." So why did you ask?

Xuan Shiyi was really having a headache. This prince was even more perceptive than he had imagined, and it would be very difficult for him to track him down later.

Just as he was racking his brains trying to figure out what to do, he suddenly listened to the noise outside and realized someone was coming.

Xue Jin'an doesn't have internal energy to hear that far. He usually judges whether someone is approaching by the vibration of the air, and if the distance is too far and there are not many people, it is difficult for him to sense them.

He guessed it from Xuan Shiyi's brief reaction, and after sitting on the wall and gazing into the distance for a moment, he caught sight of a group of people coming this way.

The third prince carried the fourth prince in one hand and the fifth prince in the other, with the eighth prince following behind, and their respective eunuch attendants.

"Seventh Brother!" As expected of the prince with the highest martial arts skills, the Third Prince actually sensed Xue Jin'an's gaze, looked up and greeted him by waving the two in his hand.

The fourth prince looked dejected, like he had been punished by a bully. He had dark circles under his eyes, which showed that he hadn't slept well last night.

Xue Jin'an already knew from Shou Quan that he had hurriedly moved back to Suhui Courtyard last night, and guessed that he would come to find her.

Xue Jin'an was indeed a little surprised that the Fifth Prince, who was supposed to be "recuperating" in Minghua Palace, would appear with him. After all, the Fifth Prince had brought a eunuch with him this time, which meant that he had come with the permission of Consort Rong. In other words, the Fifth Prince must have something important to discuss with him, something that Consort Rong could not prevent.

As for the timid and hesitant Eighth Prince, who followed closely behind, it was clear that he had come with the Third Prince.

As mentioned before, the Fourth Prince and the Fifth Prince lived together to avoid the First Prince and the Second Prince, who loved to act like brothers, as well as the reckless Third Prince. The Sixth Prince was timid and had avoided the Third Prince since childhood, so naturally he wouldn't go near them.

So the eighth prince, having no other choice, became neighbors with the third prince.

To be fair, the Third Prince was reckless and impulsive, but he was also truly brainless. The Eighth Prince used his name to improve his own living conditions considerably. The Third Prince's name was quite useful, which is why the Eighth Prince always followed the Third Prince around.

"Third Brother?" Xue Jin'an tilted his head, not understanding why the Third Prince had come to see him.

The Fifth Prince spoke up before the Third Prince could, "Seventh Prince, Father Emperor has agreed to let the Eldest Prince host the Autumn Hunting Banquet and asked me to deliver the invitation to you. The Eldest Prince wrote it by hand."

When Xue Jin'an saw how much he was talking, she immediately realized that he had no good intentions.

Sure enough, the Third Prince angrily tossed him aside, saying, "What he wants to do is this ridiculous Flower Appreciation Banquet. He even wants to compose those pretentious, flowery poems at the banquet. It's so unpleasant to listen to. It was only when I suggested that we invite our brothers and sisters to go horseback riding and hunting that Father Emperor agreed."

The Fifth Prince clutched his chest, looking weak. "So that's how it is. I thought... I thought it was written by my eldest brother when I saw the invitation was from him..."

"So all the things I did were just a stepping stone for him? It's true what they say, a barking dog doesn't bite." The Third Prince laughed in anger and threw the Fourth Prince to the ground as well.

Turning his head and seeing Xue Jin'an, he felt a little happier, and his flushed face calmed down. "Seventh Brother, your martial arts are pretty good, aren't they? I'll challenge you to a match. You can choose to ride a horse or shoot an arrow, I'm sure I'll win."

However, Xue Jin'an didn't know any of them.

"Fine, anyway, come with me to the horse farm and pick out a horse. I'll take you for a couple of laps and you'll be good to go." The Third Prince scratched his head and, without waiting for Xue Jin'an's reaction, arranged it for him.

Upon hearing that they would be riding horses, the Fourth Prince and the Fifth Prince immediately perked up and exclaimed in unison, "I want to go too!"

The Third Prince looked at the Fifth Prince with disdain and said, "Fifth Brother, you should give up. It would be too disappointing if something happened to you with your heart condition."

Xue Jin'an added cautiously, "A person with a heart condition will die from riding a horse."

The Fifth Prince couldn't help but roll his eyes: "...Thank you for your addition." Don't you know whether I have a heart condition or not?

The Third Prince looked at the Fourth Prince and said, "Fourth Brother, you can go, but remember to bring your little eunuch named Shunxinruyi. I remember he's quite skilled in martial arts. Have him guide you so you don't have trouble getting off the horse."

Xue Jin'an recalled the Fourth Prince's martial prowess and nodded, saying, "Bring Shunxin along, otherwise Fourth Brother won't be able to get on the horse either."

The fourth prince's face flushed red instantly.

Only the Third Prince's laughter echoed throughout the room as he gave Xue Jin'an a thumbs up, saying, "Seventh Brother, you're very good. I like you very much."

Xue Jin'an thought about the Third Prince's reputation in the original work and said very calmly, "It seems that being recognized by you is not so good."

The Third Prince's laughter abruptly stopped.