Chapter 82 You don't actually think you can kill me without paying for it, do you?
Seeing that Yunxi was unwilling to compromise, and knowing that she had no right to refuse, Liu began to honestly explain:
“In my previous life, I died at the age of fifty-six. At that time, the emperor of Great Yan had already become the third prince, but His Majesty the present did not die of old age.”
King Yong and his son will die this winter on the battlefield against the Northern Barbarians. The following year, Shen Yixing, commander of the Tiger Roar Army, will establish himself as king in the northern frontier. At the same time, powerful enemies from all sides will invade the borders of the Great Yan.
It was at this opportune moment that the Third Prince launched a palace coup, murdered his father, and seized the throne.
After ascending the throne, in order to appease the border regions, he sent someone to draft an edict to bestow upon Shen Yixing a hereditary princely title. He also ceded land to four neighboring vassal states, barely managing to secure his position on the throne.
However, due to the new emperor's early accession to the throne and the empty national treasury, the third prince ordered local governments to increase taxes. Over time, the people of the Great Yan Kingdom became destitute and bandits ran rampant.
In my past life, my husband was a military general. In the later years, we were often separated because he frequently led troops to suppress bandits in various places.
If it were only man-made disasters, it would be one thing, but only three years after the Third Prince ascended the throne, the Great Yan Kingdom began to suffer from various natural disasters. Earthquakes occurred in many provinces, followed by droughts and rare floods, and plagues spread.
Popular rumors circulated that the emperor's position was illegitimate and that his private conduct had caused divine wrath and popular resentment. During that period, the entire country was littered with corpses, resembling a living hell.
Although the common people of Great Yan were living in poverty, the lives of the powerful and wealthy remained quite comfortable. Within the capital city, life continued as usual, filled with song and dance.
Local disasters were gradually being concealed, because the emperor simply did not want to hear about the frequent disasters in the land he governed.
Three years later, an organization called the Boyi Cult arose in the Great Yan Kingdom. Many court officials and their families joined it. It was later discovered that it was a cult that specialized in luring young girls and torturing and killing infants for sacrifice.
However, due to the large number of people involved, the regime was not destroyed even after several years of continuous capture. In the end, the imperial court had no choice but to let it go and allow it to coexist with the Great Yan Kingdom.
Later, the emperor became obsessed with the arts of cultivating immortality and alchemy, and began to neglect state affairs. That was the beginning of Shi Qingchen's rise to power.
The emperor gradually stopped attending court, and all matters were decided by the six ministers of the cabinet and then submitted to Shi Qingchen for approval.
Afterwards, the Great Yan Kingdom enjoyed several decades of relative stability before I passed away. When I awoke again, it was the second year since Shi Qingchen was formally appointed as the Young Ancestor of the family.
Listening to Liu's description, Yunxi could basically deduce that the situation of the Great Yan Kingdom in its later period would be largely consistent with those dynasties that perished in history.
Foreign enemies invaded, and the people were powerless to resist. They ceded territory and paid reparations. Bandits ran rampant, the people suffered, disasters occurred frequently, the rulers deceived the people, cults flourished, and the monarch neglected his duties.
Even if Lady Liu did not live to see the fall of the Great Yan Kingdom before she died, the outcome was predictable. Upon hearing this result, Yunxi made up her mind to persuade Gu Nanxiao to fight for the throne.
After all, if one encounters a good ruler, one should be loyal to the ruler and love the country. If war is waged without cause, it is the people who will suffer.
But if what Lady Liu said is true, rather than letting a muddle-headed and incompetent person ascend the throne, it would be better for the capable to take it and bring benefits to the people.
Yunxi had originally planned to extract some useful information from Madam Liu today, and then switch places with Shi Qingchen, letting the two scumbags take turns torturing each other.
However, because what they heard was too horrifying and involved a change of royal power, Liu could no longer be spared.
Yunxi inquired about the Tiger Roar Army's situation, but Liu, being a woman confined to the inner quarters, knew nothing about it. Yunxi then asked her if she had told anyone else about what had happened that day.
Liu immediately shook her head and said, "The matter of rebirth is too unbelievable. I can only tell my father that Shi Qingchen will become the most powerful minister in the court in the future, so that he can allow me to get married."
He also told Shi Qingchen about the severe drought that autumn, which was followed by a plague. He never mentioned the rest to anyone else.
Yunxi nodded with satisfaction and called to the guards outside the house, "Men, take Liu Shi down from the shelf, tie her hands and feet, gag her, take her to the woodshed, and burn her to death."
Upon hearing this, Liu realized that Yunxi wanted to burn him alive even though he had confessed everything. He began to struggle violently, making muffled protests and glaring fiercely at the person in front of him.
Seeing her like this, Yunxi asked in bewilderment, "You don't think that killing me means you don't have to pay with your own life, do you? I didn't ask for much from you. You should pay with your life in the same way you killed me. That's fair, isn't it?"
As for the suffering you endured at the hands of Shi Qingchen, that was your own choice. I, too, met the wrong person and paid the price with my life.
"But you don't need to feel wronged. Those who have wronged me—whether it's you, Shi Qingchen, the Grand Secretary Shi, or your father, Minister Liu—I will send them all down to join you, and I won't keep you waiting too long."
Upon hearing Yunxi's words, Liu was so shocked that she forgot to struggle. She just stared at Yunxi's bright and beautiful face. Even after being dragged out of the house, she was still stunned by Yunxi's miraculous return from the dead.
Before long, a fire broke out in the woodshed in the corner of the ancestral home. Outside the woodshed, the guards, along with a group of servants, used buckets of water to control the fire and prevent it from spreading to other houses.
When Yunxi came out of the room, she only glanced at him briefly before Feng Xun led her to see Shi Qingchen.
At this moment, Shi Qingchen had already finished taking the Qi and Blood Pills, and taking advantage of his improved condition, he washed and tidied his appearance and changed into a clean outer garment.
When Yunxi entered the room, she saw Shi Qingchen sitting upright behind his desk.
If you ignored the sour smell emanating from him, the bloodshot eyes, and the dark circles under his eyes, you could really mistake him for a normal person.
When Shi Qingchen saw Yunxi enter, he immediately rose from behind his desk and was about to approach her when he suddenly stopped. He knew that although he had changed his outer garment, he had been tormented by drug addiction for days and was no longer recognizable. At this moment, he could smell the stench emanating from Yunxi himself.
In fact, he had long realized that the Qi and Blood Pill was an addictive poison, but when he was certain of it, he felt that he was deeply poisoned and could not live without it every day.
Just now, having obtained several Qi and Blood Pills from Feng Xun, he was certain that Yun Xi had made him take this medicine. Far from harboring resentment, he hoped that the pain he was enduring would dispel Yun Xi's hatred towards him.
Yunxi had nothing to say to him. Right now, she just wanted to ruin his body with medicine and then let him wait patiently for the day when he would be exiled with his family.
But before that, he wanted to take all of Liu's dowry. Yunxi instructed Fengxun to bring in a wooden box that was neither too big nor too small.
She walked over herself, opened the box, and found neatly arranged, three layers of medicine bottles inside.
Shi Qingchen recognized the bottle very well; it contained the Qi and Blood Pills he had to take every day. Now, this medicine was his lifeline, and he never wanted to experience the excruciating pain of a hundred ants gnawing at his flesh and bones again after he stopped taking it.
Upon seeing so many medicines, Shi Qingchen's eyes lit up with excitement. He immediately abandoned any pretense of gentlemanly decorum and bowed repeatedly to Yunxi, thanking her profusely: "Thank you, Yunxi, thank you, Yunxi. You are truly the best to me. I can't live without these medicines now."
Yunxi was quite satisfied with his expression, a slight smile playing on her lips. She slowly closed the box again, then said to him:
"This medicine is very expensive and the production process is very complicated. It's not something you can just give away for free."
"How about this, considering we've known each other for a while, I'll give you a discount. How about you use all of Liu's dowry to buy this box of Qi and Blood Pills?"
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