Xi Lian's heart skipped a beat, and she suddenly realized what she had said in her collapse. These words were the resentment hidden deep in her heart, but normally she would not have dared to say a single word even if she had a hundred times the courage. These words, even just one sentence, were enough to take her life!
Xi Lian was terrified. She scrambled forward a few steps and cried out, "Your Majesty, please calm your anger! I misspoke! I will never dare to do it again! Please spare my life! I beg Your Majesty to spare my life!"
Li Gan's lips curled slightly, his smile as cold and indifferent as water. He said in a chilling voice, "Is it any of your business to call Liu Lingying by her name? My Lin'er, is she half-crippled?"
Xi Lian shook her head and cried out, "I must have been out of my mind to say such things. I will never dare to do it again. Please spare my life, Your Majesty!"
“It seems…” Li Gan leaned back comfortably in his chair, his eyes half-closed, and said softly, “You really like this child.”
Xi Lian was stunned for a moment, her crying subsided, and she looked at Li Gan hesitantly, wondering what he meant by those words.
Li Gan paused for a moment, then said, "Then I will grant your wish. You may... die with him!"
Xi Lian was startled, then a wave of terror washed over her, almost to the point of despair. She scrambled to her feet and turned to run out of the main hall. However, she had only taken two steps when she suddenly felt a sharp pain all over her body. A blood-red scimitar had silently pierced her back and emerged from her heart.
Xi Lian's steps faltered, and she slowly lowered her head to look at the blade tip that had pierced through her body, her face filled with extreme sorrow.
After a while, Xi Lian's body went limp and collapsed to the ground, and a torrent of blood flowed from her body, blooming into a large patch of blood-red flowers beneath her.
Xi Lian lay helplessly on the ground, clearly feeling her life force slowly dissipating. In her last moments, she heard the last words spoken by the person she loved most, so cold that they instantly froze her heart.
"Yu Xilian, don't think I don't know anything about what you did back then. Liu Lingying's departure wasn't entirely because of you, but you also played a part. You did those things, and you'll have to pay the price eventually."
A look of extreme sorrow appeared on Xi Lian's face. She wanted to say something, to shout out all the resentment and anger in her heart, but she was so powerless that she could only make "uh, uh" sounds when she opened her mouth. The next moment, she slowly closed her eyes and never made a sound again.
Li Gan stared indifferently at Xi Lian's corpse. He stood up and slowly walked down the steps. He didn't stop or even glance at Xi Lian's body as he passed by.
He went around to the back hall, passed through the back hall and came to the courtyard between the two halls. He walked through a long corridor and came to the back hall.
The next palace was Li Gan's sleeping quarters. The spacious hall was simply yet elegantly furnished. In the center of the hall, there was an incense burner on the floor, and the rising smoke from it enveloped the entire hall in the fragrance of ambergris.
Li Gan went straight to a black wooden shelf by the north wall. The shelf was divided into compartments and filled with all sorts of treasures. He moved a hibiscus flower carved from black jade in the leftmost compartment, and then the seemingly seamless wall suddenly made a "rumbling" sound. A section of the wall, about a person's height and half a zhang wide, opened inward like a door, revealing a dark doorway.
Li Gan paused for a moment at the door before slowly walking inside.
This is a dark and narrow stone chamber, no more than ten feet long and wide. There are no windows, so no light can get in. Only a luminous pearl embedded in the north wall emits a faint white light.
The soft glow of the luminous pearl illuminated a stone statue below. The statue, carved from a single massive rock, appeared lifelike. It was the likeness of a woman, dressed in a blue Taoist robe, her hair tied in a bun adorned with a jade hairpin. She possessed exquisitely beautiful peach blossom eyes that curved into crescent moons when she smiled, and the upward curve of her lips exuded a carefree and unrestrained charm.
Li Gan walked slowly to the front of the stone statue, which was a head shorter than him. He looked down at the smiling face of the statue for a long time before opening his arms and hugging it.
In the darkness, Li Gan rested his head on the top of the stone statue. He closed his eyes and said in a low, gentle voice, "Ying'er, I only want the child you bore for me... We only have one Lin'er. How can I let anyone else threaten his chances of taking over the Demon Lord's position?"
"But I have tried every possible method over the past twenty years to restore Lin'er's lost essence. If this is the case, even if I do my best to help him ascend to the position of Demon Lord, the clansmen will not submit to him."
“Ying’er, you’re skilled in alchemy, perhaps you can find a way. I originally thought I’d never need the crane you left behind, but now, I really have no other choice…”
"Ying'er, I...I really miss you so much..."
Li Gan held the statue for a while, then took out a blue crane from a brocade pouch hanging in the statue's hand. The crane exuded a powerful spiritual aura, as if it were formed from Taoist spiritual energy.
Li Gan looked down at the crane in his hand, remained silent for a moment, then raised the crane to his beak and whispered something. Then, he walked out of the stone chamber, out of the main hall, and tossed the crane into the air at the hall's entrance.
Li Gan looked up as the crane flew further and further away, and even after the crane disappeared from sight, he still did not look away.
--
In recent days, Buddhist disciples have been tortured by Liuli until they went mad and then thrown into the three Buddhist sects. At this point, a total of nineteen disciples from the three sects have been driven into demonic possession, and many more disciples have been killed by those who have been driven into demonic possession or by the Heavenly Demon. The three Buddhist sects have suffered heavy casualties.
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