Chapter 237 Telling Everything Frankly

Ning Zhiyuan didn't resist Zhong Min's questioning at all. He had originally planned to stop hiding things and tell her anything she wanted to know. However, his story was too complicated, and for a moment, even he didn't know where to begin.

He nodded, not denying Zhong Min's words. After thinking for a moment, he said, "I told you before that after I finish talking about Li Jin'er, if you want to know, I will tell you my own story alone. Now that you bring it up, I certainly won't hide it from you."

After saying that, Ning Zhiyuan poured himself a cup of tea and took a few sips in succession. He seemed to be recalling and looking for a suitable entry point while drinking, and then he slowly began to tell Zhong Min the story.

Zhong Min sat there listening quietly, her emotions fluctuating with Ning Zhiyuan's story. At first, she knew that people like Ning Zhiyuan must have stories, but when she heard it in person, she found that she was still moved.

If her own life was full of magic and adventure, then Ning Zhiyuan's life over the past twenty years was more like a history of suffering. Even though he said it so nonchalantly and indifferently, it was impossible not to be touched when one really listened to it.

Compared to Xiao Mingzheng's past, they seemed to have many similarities, but the difference was that Ning Zhiyuan seemed to possess an indescribable sense of desolation. At least, Xiao Mingzheng still had the love of his mother and even his father, the Emperor, even if that love repeatedly put him in greater danger. Ning Zhiyuan, on the other hand, seemed to have received no love from childhood, including from his mother.

It turned out that Ning Zhiyuan was not from the Central Plains. His true identity was the seventeenth prince of the Western Rong Kingdom. The Western Rong Emperor was an extremely lustful man, with hundreds of concubines in his harem. This licentious emperor had countless children, including over thirty princes and an even greater number of princesses.

Because of this, the status of the princes in the heart of the Xirong Emperor was not particularly special. Aside from the princes born to concubines with very noble mothers who received a little more attention, the others were rarely considered. This was especially true for the princes born to lowly mothers.

Ning Zhiyuan was unfortunate. His biological mother was originally a lowly palace maid. His father, the emperor, was drunk and accidentally favored the maid. After the incident, the emperor no longer remembered the maid. But to everyone's surprise, the maid became pregnant.

For the Xirong Emperor, having one more child or one less was no big deal. By then, he already had more than a dozen princes and even more princesses. However, since she was royal blood after all, the emperor ultimately granted the maid the title of "Lady of the Imperial Family" and allowed her to bear the child.

After the child was born, he did not receive the emperor's attention. Ning Zhiyuan's biological mother therefore vented all her dissatisfaction and anger on the poor child.

Until he was five, Ning Zhiyuan had never seen his mother smile at him. Her eyes were filled with nothing but hatred and resentment, never once giving her own child a friendly look. Even his own biological mother treated him this way. In this cruel palace, no one else took this prince, born to a lowly palace maid, seriously. Even servants dared to bully and look down on him.

Later, Ning Zhiyuan's mother finally couldn't stand such a life anymore, so she took Ning Zhiyuan and set fire to the house where they lived, hoping to die together. When the palace servants found out, Ning Zhiyuan's mother had been suffocated to death by the smoke, but the young Ning Zhiyuan had luckily escaped.

From then on, Ning Zhiyuan's fate became increasingly difficult. No concubine was willing to raise him, and he could only be raised cautiously in the most remote place by the palace maids. Until he was thirteen years old, he had never seen his father. When he officially met his father for the first time, he was told that he would be disguised, changed his identity, and sent to an enemy country to lie low for a long time, so that he could infiltrate the highest level of the enemy country.

Ning Zhiyuan had never dreamed that his father would actually let him serve as a spy. He was only thirteen years old. Even if he was not favored, he was still a prince. He had read a lot of books, but this was the first time he discovered that an emperor would use his own son as a pawn, as a spy.

However, he soon understood that in his father's eyes, he was just a person who had been raised since childhood. He couldn't take care of so many princes, so many princes with noble backgrounds, so how could he take someone with his background seriously? Just as the so-called father had said, being able to become his chess piece was not something everyone could do. Shouldn't he feel honored?

Although he was only thirteen at the time, he understood one thing: rather than staying in the palace like this, useless, it would be better to leave. Whether it was being a pawn or a spy, it didn't matter. In his opinion, no life could be worse than the one he was living now.

Use? Then let him be used! After all, the relationship between them was just a name, and even the so-called father had never cared about this name, so why should he care?

Rather than staying in the palace doing nothing, it would be better to go out, even if he ends up in pieces. He believes that as long as he works hard, he will be able to live a much better life than now! If he doesn't go out, he will only end up dead, but if he goes out, there will always be a glimmer of hope!

Ning Zhiyuan readily agreed without hesitation. At thirteen, he had already become much more mature than the average child due to all the experiences he had gone through. When he left the country, he didn't shed a single tear, nor did he even look back. Instead, he felt a sense of relief and freedom.

Soon, he was assigned to a family surnamed Ning in the Central Plains, quietly replacing the Ning family's original child. That family had also been spies planted by the Western Rong for many years, and already had considerable influence and connections in the Central Plains.

Because they planned to let Ning Zhiyuan enter the officialdom and enter the highest level of the court in the future, Ning Zhiyuan turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Here, he received the best education and the highest treatment. In the past few years, if it weren't for the Ning surnamed person beside him who mentioned it from time to time, he really didn't want to admit his true identity.

No one truly cared about him. Even though materially, he looked completely different and glamorous, it was still just a price he would have to pay in the future. However, he no longer cared about all this. For him, the real benefit was to take advantage of this opportunity, learn skills, and become truly powerful!

Only when he becomes strong will he have the opportunity to change his fate in the future. When he becomes extremely powerful, what will happen to the ruthless and righteous emperor who is high above him? He will still be able to sit on equal footing with him, or even surpass him!

He wanted to let those who looked at him, and the emperor who had never looked at him straight in the eye and was extremely cold to him from the bottom of his heart, know what a fatal mistake they had made!

For several years, he worked like crazy, just to make himself stronger and stronger. He deeply resisted his own surname, Shangguan? Shangguan brought him no glory, only unbearable pain.

He changed his name to Ning Zhiyuan! From the day he left Xirong, there was no longer the pitiful man he once was. Instead, there was only Ning Zhiyuan, who vowed to become incomparably powerful!

And he did not let his efforts go in vain. He was actually a man of extraordinary talent, but no one had ever taken him seriously before. In an environment like the palace, he was able to learn to read and write on his own and learn things beyond his age, and this is even more so now.

At the age of eighteen, he won the top spot in the imperial examination and was highly regarded by the Emperor of the Central Plains. However, this was not all. Through the Ning family's secret connections and Ning Zhiyuan's own outstanding performance, he quickly rose to prominence and became the youngest but most important prime minister in the court.

To outsiders, this journey may seem incredibly glorious, but only he knows the effort and hardship it has taken. Everyone only sees the dazzling side, but no one can truly understand the dark side.

But what did it matter? Compared to the eternal darkness and the life of perpetual immutability in the palace, he felt that even the hardship now was worth it. While doing what his so-called father and country asked of him, he was also planning his future step by step.

Over the years, he has been a very useful spy. As the highest-ranking, most powerful and outstanding spy stationed by the Western Rong, he has provided a lot of valuable intelligence, allowing the Western Rong to grow stronger in a short period of time. His own status and identity have also risen accordingly.

Now, not to mention others, even his so-called father has become much more polite to him, no longer daring to look down on him as before. He even has some concerns about his strength, fearing that one day he will not be able to control him.

In fact, Ning Zhiyuan felt that his father seemed to have awakened too late. At this point, no one could truly control him except himself! It was just that the time for a showdown had not yet arrived. When the final showdown came, he would definitely take back everything he had lost over the past twenty years, all at once. Everyone who owed him would have to pay it back honestly, including his so-called father!

Time is passing very quickly! It won't be long before no one can dominate everything about him, no one can!