Chapter 106 Would Lord Bai do me the honor?
Achan couldn't finish her bowl of noodles. After telling the noodle stall owner, she put down the coins, got up, and left with Chen Hui.
On the way home, Chen Hui whispered, "The people from the Mingjing Division only captured the two of them. Before they entered, Miss Qingwu gave me this."
She took out a purse and handed it to Achan.
Achan took the purse but didn't open it. It wasn't until they got home that Chen Hui went inside to change her clothes, and Achan returned to her own room.
She untied the ribbon on her purse and poured out a dark, shiny bead.
If not told otherwise, probably no one would believe that this was the inner core of a powerful demon from the fourth realm. Achan picked up the inner core; she had no cultivation and could not sense anything.
But she knew that this inner core contained her sixth uncle's demonic power, as well as his undiminished life force, and possibly some of his memories.
Achan stared blankly at the inner core for a while until Chen Hui pushed open the door and walked in.
"This is... an inner core?" Chen Hui asked uncertainly.
“Yes, it’s Hui Xue’s father’s inner core.” A Chan didn’t hide anything from her. “With this inner core, she can completely transform into a demon.”
Chen Hui was somewhat surprised. She didn't have any particular thoughts about Shen Huixue's transformation from a half-demon to a demon, but she did have some concerns: "After all, Huixue has lived in the Great Xia for so many years. Will she be able to adapt to becoming a demon?"
"I don't know either. I haven't asked her yet. I'll ask her when I see her."
Achan only used this inner core to destroy the Shen family. As for whether Huixue was willing to become a demon, she did not force her.
She didn't want to interfere with other people's choices or change their lives, even if it was her cousin, unless they asked for it themselves.
"Given the Shen family's crimes, members of the family will likely be implicated. The most crucial thing now is how to get Huixue out of prison?"
"We have no choice but to ask someone for help." As for who to ask for help, they knew perfectly well.
As Achan spoke, she stuffed the inner elixir back into her purse. Chen Hui, with her sharp eyes, noticed the ring on her hand and was taken aback.
She vaguely remembered that the white-robed man had an identical ring on his hand. Was she mistaken?
"Achan," Chen Hui suddenly called out to her.
"Hmm?" Achan looked up at her.
"Has Lord Bai's injury healed since yesterday? Did something unexpected happen?" Chen Hui asked tactfully.
"Alright, as for the unexpected..." Achan looked down at her left hand, which was the biggest unexpected thing.
However, she didn't tell Chen Hui, but just smiled at her: "The biggest surprise is that he owes me his life this time. Our friendship has reached the point where I can ask him to repay me with his body."
Chen Hui was taken aback, then laughed and didn't press the matter further.
She suddenly realized that she was worrying unnecessarily.
Ah Chan may look weak, but she has always known what she wants. If she were to indulge in love, that Lord Bai might not be as clear-headed as she is.
While Achan and Chen Hui were talking about Shen Huixue, she and Shen Qingwu had already been taken to the dungeon of the Xiling Prince's Mansion and imprisoned.
For decades, Xiling had been under the control of the King of Xiling, and even the government offices were unreliable. Before the imperial court even sent anyone down, Shen Zhuo had already imprisoned the Shen family members, the King of Xiling's family, and his subordinates in the dungeon of the King of Xiling's palace.
It's unknown who the King of Xiling intended to imprison in this dungeon. The dungeon was built very sturdily, so it wasn't a waste of time, at least he managed to move in.
Because they were women, Shen Qingwu and her daughter were imprisoned in a location on the outer edge of the cell. They were not imprisoned with the other women of the Shen family, but rather in a smaller cell next to them.
Even after entering the prison cell, Shen Qingwu showed no sign of worry. Seeing two bundles of grass in the cell, she dragged them to the wall and pulled her daughter over to sit down.
Hearing the noise from next door, Shen Qingwu's sister-in-law, Zhao, looked up and asked, "Shen Qingwu, why are you only coming in now?"
Shen Qingwu merely glanced at her and ignored her.
Zhao wanted to say something more, but Shen Yingzhu stopped her, saying, "Mother, don't talk to them."
Her eyes were filled with hatred as she looked at Shen Qingwu and her daughter: "It was you, wasn't it?"
"What am I?"
“My father said that you went to see the Dragon Mother, and you were the only one who came into contact with it. Did you cause it to go berserk?”
Shen Qingwu laughed, her joyful laughter echoing in the small cell.
"It seems that my elder brother already knows. That's good, it saves me the trouble of finding a chance to tell him the truth."
"Why did you do this?" Shen Yingzhu was furious. She gripped the iron bars between the two cells with both hands, the heavy shackles on her hands rattling.
If she could, she would crawl over there right now and tear those two bitches apart!
If it weren't for them, I wouldn't have become a prisoner!
Shen Qingwu seemed to find her question somewhat ridiculous: "Why? The Shen family killed the person I loved, forced me to swallow poison, and drove me insane for more than ten years. Is it wrong for me to take the lives of the entire Shen family?"
"That was done by Grandpa and Dad, we never harmed you!"
Actually, there's no point in saying all this now, but if I don't say something, Shen Yingzhu will be driven crazy.
“You humiliated my daughter.” Shen Qingwu then looked at Zhao Shi. “And you, sending my Huixue to the capital is a terrible crime to me. You all deserve to die.”
"You're the one who deserves to die! You whore who committed adultery with the demon race! I should have had my husband kill you back then!" Zhao screamed.
If her daughter hadn't exposed it, she wouldn't have known that her family's troubles actually stemmed from Shen Qingwu.
"Unfortunately, you don't have that chance. Now it's my turn to watch you all die."
"Do you think you'll have a good ending if we die? You and your daughter will die the same way. Who told you to share the same surname, Shen?" Shen Yingzhu said viciously.
"Life is unpredictable; who can say for sure?"
Shen Qingwu only said this one sentence and then ignored them.
Shen Huixue held her mother's hand, surprisingly not afraid of her future, even if it meant death.
Since the Mingjing Guards surrounded the Xiling Prince's Mansion last night, news of the court's move against the Xiling Prince has already spread around Xiling. Well-informed people, especially many generals in the Xiling army, had already received the news in advance.
Some military commanders even disobeyed orders and attempted to lead their troops to storm the camp.
In one night, Zhang Jinghuai suppressed two groups of people, beheading the ringleaders in front of numerous soldiers. Afterwards, he had Lin Cheng find an excuse to arrest two deputy generals who had been sent in by the King of Xiling, thus completely stabilizing the Xiling army.
As dawn broke, Zhang Jinghuai, who hadn't slept a wink all night, sat in his tent, waiting for news from Xiling City.
"Your Highness, news has arrived from Xiling City." His personal guard lifted the tent flap and entered.
"explain."
"Last night, Lord Qin Heng personally went to Xiling and captured the King of Xiling, as well as the powerful demons from the four realms who colluded with the King of Xiling."
Upon hearing Qin Heng's name, Zhang Jinghuai breathed a sigh of relief.
Although this person has a mediocre reputation, their abilities are very reliable.
"How is the Prince of Xiling?"
The guard swallowed hard and said, "I heard that Lord Bai pierced the dantian of the Prince of Xiling and crippled his legs. Now the Prince of Xiling will probably have no chance of making a comeback."
Zhang Jinghuai nodded: "That's good news. The King of Xiling has fallen. I imagine the news will cause quite a stir when it reaches the capital."
At least the position of Minister of War will be vacant, as will the position held by Qi Hai's faction. Who ultimately gets these positions will depend on their own abilities.
After a moment's thought, he suddenly asked, "How did the Mingjing Division handle things with the Shen family?"
The guard knew that what his master cared about was not news about the Shen family, but Shen Huixue's situation.
He hesitated for a moment before saying, "Many members of the Shen family have died, and the rest have been arrested. Such a family dares to collude with the demon race, so I'm afraid they will be executed along with their entire clan. This morning, Miss Huixue and her mother were also taken away."
Originally, the Shen family had the Prince of Xiling's mansion as their backer, but now that backer has fallen, local powerful families like them naturally have no chance to turn things around, and no one dares to let them go while bearing the crime of deceiving the emperor.
"Your Highness," the guard glanced at Zhang Jinghuai and asked cautiously, "what should we do about Miss Xue's situation?"
Zhang Jinghuai stood up, walked to the entrance of the tent, and suddenly stopped.
He is now the commander of the Xiling Army, and when morale is low, he must not leave the camp under any circumstances.
He stood at the tent entrance for a moment before turning back to the table, picking up a pen and writing a short letter. He then sealed the letter and handed it to the guard: "Deliver this letter to Bai Xiuming."
The guard solemnly accepted the letter: "Your Highness, rest assured, I will deliver it."
Zhang Jinghuai and Bai Xiuming were not close friends, but even without friendship, there were always mutual interests involved.
Getting a half-demon from Bai Xiuming's hands is not a difficult task.
Zhang Jinghuai considered all the possibilities, but the one thing he hadn't expected was that his guards, instead of seeing Bai Xiuming, brought the letter back.
Achan was unable to find Bai Xiuming's whereabouts, so she had no choice but to go find Shen Zhuo first.
She waited for a long time outside the Mingjing Division's office before she finally saw Shen Zhuo's figure.
When Shen Zhuo saw A Chan, he looked somewhat surprised: "Miss Ji, what brings you here? Is there something you need to see me about?"
After exchanging greetings with the other party, Achan said, "I wish to see Bai Xiuming. I wonder if it would be convenient for Lord Shen to take me to see him?"
“This…” Shen Zhuo hesitated.
Bai Xiuming's current state is such that even their superiors dare not interfere. He doesn't really want to get involved either, since Qin Heng can still fight back and forth with Bai Xiuming, but if he goes there, he'll just get beaten up.
Taking her there is no problem, but I'm afraid of upsetting Bai Xiuming and hurting her.
"Miss Ji, Bai Xiuming isn't in a good mood right now. If you don't have anything particularly urgent to discuss, why don't you wait a couple of days before you come to see him?"
"In a bad mood?" Ah Chan thought for a moment before asking, "Is it... because of his mother?"
Shen Zhuo was taken aback. She knew about this? Had her relationship with Bai Xiuming reached this point?
He couldn't help but scrutinize Achan closely, his gaze finally settling on her hands, his pupils contracting sharply.
He even doubted that he was seeing things, so he closed his eyes and opened them again, repeating this twice, before he finally believed what he was seeing.
Upon seeing the ring, Shen Zhuo immediately changed his tune: "Bai Xiuming is currently at the Xiling Prince's Mansion. How about this, I'll take Miss Ji there directly; perhaps you can persuade him."
"Then I'll have to trouble you, Lord Shen."
Shen Zhuo brought A Chan into the Xiling Prince's Mansion, but overnight, the once bustling and magnificent Xiling Prince's Mansion was reduced to an empty shell.
The Prince's mansion was guarded both inside and out by the Mingjing Division guards. Among these guards, Achan recognized several familiar faces, as if she had seen them before at the Mingjing Division office in the capital.
The two walked one after the other through the front yard and headed towards the back.
As Shen Zhuo walked, he said, "I shouldn't have said this, but since Miss Ji already knows a little about it, I'll say a few words to you in advance."
"Don't worry, Lord Shen, I'm very discreet. No one else will know," Achan assured him.
Shen Zhuo smiled, thinking to himself that Miss Ji was truly likable when she didn't scheme against others.
“Last night, Bai Xiuming learned the cause of his mother’s death. If someone hadn’t stopped him, he would have almost killed the King of Xiling.”
Achan immediately understood the other meaning in his words: "His mother was killed by the King of Xiling?"
Shen Zhuo nodded: "Not only that, the great demon who colluded with the King of Xiling also used evil magic to refine his mother's bones for his own cultivation."
The bones are not exhausted.
This was the first thing that came to Achan's mind.
Refine the corpses of your enemies for cultivation, ensuring your mortal foe is doomed forever.
In this world, it is not only humans who want to draw power from demons; the witches have also made the same attempt, but they chose to refine the corpses.
The remains of demons are not easy to refine, and because the power systems of the two races are completely different, the power obtained is very limited, and the effort and reward are not proportional. Therefore, such things eventually exist as a ritual in the witch race's sacrifice.
It was mentioned in the book that Achan had.
She had only skimmed through the book when she first read it and hadn't thought about it deeply. Now that she thinks about it, it might actually be feasible if used among humans.
It sounds very similar. If it really is the Undying Bone, how did the inheritance of her mother's tribe fall into the hands of the demon race?
"Miss Ji?" Shen Zhuo couldn't help but call out to A Chan when she suddenly stopped responding.
Achan snapped out of her thoughts and got straight to the point: "Where are his mother's remains?"
Helplessly, Shen Zhuo raised his chin, gesturing for A Chan to look at the conspicuous pavilion in the palace.
"The confession we got last night is buried down there. Bai Xiuming has been inside all night, and he won't let anyone else in."
After escorting Achan to the front of the Star-Picking Tower, Shen Zhuo left.
In his words, Bai Xiuming is in a bad mood right now. He might even feel that other people are provoking him when he hears them breathing. He wants to live a few more days.
According to Shen Zhuo, the underground palace is located below the first floor of the Star-Picking Tower, where Bai Xiuming is.
Asan stood before the tightly closed door, her heart beginning to waver.
Bai Xiuming has only just learned the truth about his mother's death. It might not be good to disturb him at this time. Perhaps it would be better to do it another day?
Let's wait and see about returning the snow.
Since he's already here, shouldn't we say a few words of comfort to him?
Would that be presumptuous?
She pondered this for about fifteen minutes, and then the door opened by itself.
"Why are you here?" Bai Xiuming stood inside the door, still wearing the same clothes he had worn when he left her house yesterday, but his sleeves were covered in mud, and his hands were also covered in mud.
Achan looked at him; he seemed to be carrying a heavy, unventable anger, which was evident in his brows. No wonder Shen Zhuo ran so fast.
She looked up at the man in front of her and said softly, "I heard you've been busy all night, so I've come to invite you to dinner."
"Have a meal?"
"Yes, I haven't had breakfast yet. Would you do me the honor of having breakfast, Lord Bai?"
Bai Xiuming stared at A Chan for a long while before nodding: "Okay."
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
