Chapter 84: Why are you treating me like this?
The emperor begged for mercy, saying, "I swear I will never dare to do it again."
The imperial concubine's eyes turned cold, and she pierced the emperor's forehead with a silver needle.
"What's the use of swearing an oath? I don't believe in oaths at all; they're all bullshit." She suddenly became very angry, as if something had occurred to her.
The emperor screamed in agony, "Help! Help me!"
The Imperial Concubine picked up the second silver needle and sneered, "Your Majesty, don't worry. You're not feeling well, and the imperial physician said that acupuncture is very effective. I learned it specifically for you."
The emperor cried out again, his face contorted in agony.
Yu Wan had also seen Master Rong perform acupuncture on others, so she knew a little about it and realized that the Consort's method was not for treating illness at all, but for deliberately torturing the Emperor.
As the imperial concubine spoke, she inserted silver needles into the emperor's skin.
“I know you want to go out and ask someone for help, after all, everyone in this palace is mine. They don’t listen to you. But who can you turn to? You should know without me saying it, the ministers in the court are all the prime minister’s men. Who else can you turn to? He Jing?”
The emperor was in so much pain that he was covered in sweat and kept begging for mercy, but the imperial concubine ignored him completely.
The imperial concubine gritted her teeth and said, "After playing this game with you for so many years, I've lost my patience. I originally wanted to show you the devastation of your country's destruction, but now I know that He Jing is still alive! You heard rumors and wanted to find him, didn't you?"
The emperor gritted his teeth in hatred, cold sweat pouring down his face.
"My beloved concubine, why do you treat me like this? Haven't I been good to you? I've given you everything you wanted, why do you hate me so much?"
The Imperial Concubine snorted, "I'm going to kill you today, so He Jing won't come to save you. Let me tell you the truth, I'm the daughter of the minister whose entire family you ordered to be executed back then. Do you remember?"
"Chu Quan? You are his daughter?" The emperor was taken aback.
He Jing, who was on the roof, was also taken aback.
Yu Wan, unaware of the details, could only continue listening.
"That's right! I've lived to this day only to take revenge, to kill you!" the imperial concubine said viciously, tears streaming down her face.
"Twenty years ago, I saved a man. At the time, I had no idea of his true identity, and he didn't tell me either. We spent two months together and gradually developed feelings for each other. One day, he suddenly said he had to leave, giving me only a jade pendant and saying he would come back to find me in the future. I waited for him to come back, and three years have passed, but I've never heard from him again. I asked my father to help me find him, but there were no clues at all. It was as if he had vanished into thin air, and I even started to hallucinate, thinking it was all just a dream."
"I don't know how my father's political enemies heard about this, but they stole the jade pendant from me, forged my father's handwriting, and wrote a secret letter accusing me of treason. Only then did I realize that the jade pendant was unique to the Liang royal family. The man I saved was a prince of Liang who was being hunted down and was about to be killed. Fortunately, he encountered me. But because of this incident, I brought great disaster upon my family."
As she finished speaking, she pierced the emperor's chest with a needle.
"What did you do in the end? My entire Chu family was executed! Everyone except me is dead! You tyrant!"
The emperor wailed again, “Twenty years ago, when I first ascended the throne, everything was decided by the prime minister. I had no real power. It’s not my fault.”
The imperial concubine sneered, "Yes, that's why I say you're a foolish ruler. Don't you have a brain? You listen to whatever others say. You're so afraid of death, I'll just let you die today. I know the prime minister is the mastermind, which is why I made him my godfather. I won't let him have a good end either."
Another needle was inserted, and the emperor fainted from the pain.
The imperial concubine ignored this and continued talking to herself.
"After my entire family was executed, I fled to the Liang Kingdom, hoping to find that man and return to the Jin Kingdom with me to clear my family's name and have him prove that my father had done nothing wrong. But that heartless man refused to see me. I watched helplessly as he married another woman. From that moment on, I never trusted anyone again. I hated, I hated everyone, I hated the whole world!"
Yu Wan frowned. If the Imperial Concubine continued to stab the Emperor like this, the Emperor would really die.
He Jing seemed to have guessed her thoughts. He took out a black cloth, covered his face, and whispered to her to stay on the roof and not move around.
Yu Wan nodded. Of course she wouldn't move around recklessly; if she fell, she'd be crippled even if she didn't die.
With a sob in her voice, the imperial concubine roared, "Go to hell!" Just as a silver needle was about to pierce the emperor's chest, a pebble suddenly struck her wrist.
She cried out in pain and let go, the silver needle falling to the ground.
She was terrified. "Who?"
No one answered.
The imperial concubine snorted, "Come out. If you want to protect your master, you'd better see if you have the ability. For years, I've been using the pretense of recuperation to give this dog emperor acupuncture every day, slowly taking his life away. You can't save him now. Even if you don't kill him now, his days are numbered, hahaha..."
She laughed wildly.
Before she knew it, Yu Wan discovered that He Jing had already appeared inside the house.
The imperial concubine sneered, "I didn't expect this dog emperor to have such loyal dogs. I am the imperial concubine, what can you do to me?"
Without saying a word, He Jing pressed her acupoint, and the Imperial Concubine remained motionless.
"Who exactly are you?" the imperial concubine asked in terror.
He Jing ignored her and went forward to check on the emperor's body. Sure enough, his breathing was weak and his life was hanging by a thread.
The imperial concubine laughed wildly, "Haha, killing me won't help, he's beyond saving."
While she was laughing, He Jing threw a pill into her mouth.
Caught off guard, the imperial concubine swallowed it down with a gulp.
"What did you feed me? Who are you?"
He Jing asked coldly, "How can we save him?"
The imperial concubine remained unfazed by the threat, declaring, "Kill me! He must die today!"
He Jing sneered, "I won't kill you. The poison just now won't kill you immediately, but it will make you wish you were dead. If you don't believe me, you'll be in stomach pain soon, and you'll be having severe diarrhea in no time. I'll throw you into the Imperial Garden, and tomorrow morning, everyone will see the Imperial Concubine covered in filth. That should be worse than death, right?"
"You! You are despicable!" The imperial concubine felt ashamed to live any longer when she thought about how she had ended up in such a wretched state.
He Jing tilted his head. "Same here. Are you going to save them or not?"
The imperial concubine snorted, "I won't save you! Just kill me!"
With a gurgling sound, the imperial concubine felt an unbearable abdominal pain.
She could be killed, but living in such humiliation was simply unacceptable.
She couldn't hold back any longer, so she compromised and said, "Okay, I'll save him. Help me untie the acupoint."
He Jing warned, "Don't try anything funny. Don't think you're the only one in the world who can come up with ways to torture people."
The imperial concubine did indeed want to take the opportunity to kill the emperor, but the thought of how he would torture her frightened her, so she had no choice but to obediently remove all the silver needles.
He Jing didn't know what techniques she used for acupuncture, so he didn't dare to do it himself and that's why he asked her to do it.
The emperor slowly awoke and saw the imperial concubine with a dark face and a masked man standing beside her. He was so frightened that he fainted again.
The imperial concubine sneered, "This is your good master? Incompetent and tyrannical, he has no courage at all."
He Jing took the emperor's pulse and found that he was very weak. In addition to his physical condition, he had been suffering from mental torment, which made him easily frightened.
The last time he saw the emperor before setting off on his campaign, he sensed that the emperor was not in good health, but he didn't pay much attention at the time, assuming it was due to his constant spending time with the imperial concubine. It turns out the problem was already brewing then.
The emperor opposed war back then because Liang and Jin had signed a treaty of non-aggression and had lived in peace with each other, with the people of both countries enjoying a peaceful and prosperous life.
He Jing did not want to see the people suffer. The emperor and his minister had reached a consensus, but for some reason, the emperor changed his mind and insisted that he lead the troops into battle.
He Jing had no choice but to accept the imperial decree.
It seems that the Prime Minister and the Imperial Concubine forced the Emperor to issue the decree.
He Jinghua turned his hand into a knife and slashed the back of the Consort's neck, causing her to faint. He then woke the Emperor.
That pill will only cause stomach pain.
"Your Majesty, how are you?"
The emperor slowly opened his eyes and saw the masked man. He assumed the man was with the imperial concubine and struggled to keep his distance.
"Don't come any closer! Don't come any closer! I will never dare to do it again."
He Jing removed his mask and said, "Your Majesty, do not be afraid, it is your humble servant."
"I dare not do it again, please spare me." The emperor begged for mercy like a frightened rabbit, until he realized that the other person's voice was somewhat familiar, and only then was he willing to take a closer look at him.
"General He? You are Minister He! Minister, you are still alive! You have finally come to save me!" The emperor excitedly hugged He Jing and cried bitterly.
He Jing reassured, "Your Majesty, it is your humble servant. Your humble servant has returned."
After weeping bitterly, the emperor finally calmed down. "Now, the entire palace and the court are filled with the Consort and the Prime Minister's people. I have been a puppet emperor from beginning to end. My dear minister, what should we do? Is the country really going to be destroyed in my hands?"
“Your Majesty, I will help you. I will eliminate such a villain as soon as possible,” He Jing said.
"But..." The emperor thought of how he had been isolated and helpless for the past few years, at the mercy of others, and felt like the most cowardly and incompetent emperor in history.
That's too humiliating.
He looked helplessly at He Jing, grabbed his hand, and his eyes were filled with tears.
Yu Wan watched this scene from the rooftop, feeling anxious. There was no time to cry now; she needed to think of a solution quickly.
He Jing said, "Your Majesty, don't worry, there's still room for maneuver. Please rest well, I have a plan."
The emperor wiped away his tears. "But you are no longer the commander-in-chief, and your troops are all on the border. Where can you find more manpower?"
He Jing said, "Your Majesty can rest assured."
The emperor suddenly remembered something and pointed to a vase on the bookshelf. “Minister He, there’s a hidden compartment on the bookshelf. The vase is a mechanism. Go and take out what’s inside.”
He Jing did as instructed and took out a precious sword from inside.
The Emperor said, “This is the late Emperor’s sword. My father once had an elite squad of assassins. He said that if I ever needed it, I could draw this sword, and those people would appear. Over the years, I have been restricted in my freedom and tortured to the point of being neither human nor ghost. I was even more worried that villains would find out the origin of this sword and use it for their own purposes, so I never mentioned it to anyone, and later I even forgot about its existence. There is a list inside this sword, and they will definitely be able to lend you a hand.”
He Jing accepted the order, saying, "Your Majesty, rest assured, I will surely be able to eliminate the treacherous officials."
The emperor then said, "We must not alert them yet. How can we deal with this concubine without anyone finding out?"
He Jing said, "Let her stay here, and I'll find a way to prevent others from coming over."
The emperor said, "But what about her for me..."
He Jing comforted her, "Don't worry, I won't let her hurt you again."
After he finished speaking, he tied up the imperial concubine and fed her a pill.
"She took the limpness powder and her whole body is limp, so don't worry."
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