"Go to Taichu Palace!"
The guards who were carrying the emperor looked at the empress dowager in embarrassment: "Empress Dowager, look at this..."
The Queen Mother spoke kindly to the person on the stretcher: "My son, be obedient. You must see the imperial physician first."
The emperor turned a deaf ear to him and even grabbed the empress dowager with his backhand, his voice extremely excited: "Mother, we have finally bred a pure-blooded Chongming bird!"
The Queen Mother was slightly stunned: "What...what?"
The emperor didn't care about that because he had just been rescued and his speech system hadn't even recovered yet. He couldn't suppress his emotions for a moment and repeated, "Pure-blooded Chongming bird, our Great Jin is saved!"
After a moment of surprise, the Queen Mother said calmly, "Who told you that?"
"It was a priest who was in charge of raising Chongming, her name was Shi..." The emperor subconsciously turned his head to look for her and looked around, only to find that the beautiful priest who claimed to have raised Chongming had disappeared without him noticing.
The Queen Mother waited quietly for him to look away: "Didn't find it?"
The emperor didn't say anything, but opened his mouth, in a trance.
"Emperor."
The two words are powerful.
The Queen Mother said, "I don't know who you heard it from, and I don't know who came to you and what they said. But you have been obsessed with raising a pure-blooded Chongming in the past few years. I know you have your reasons, but you are an emperor. The more you take something seriously, the easier it is for others to take advantage of you. You..."
"Mother," the emperor interrupted her, "We have arrived at the Taichu Palace."
The Queen Mother was stunned.
The next second, everyone saw that the emperor in tattered dragon robe suddenly jumped off the stretcher and staggered towards the towering palace dozens of meters away.
The Queen Mother's eyes turned red with anxiety: "My son!"
The Taichu Hall was still in a mess at this moment.
After Xuan Xing took Shi Yu away, Chu Mu, who was in the Qing Dynasty, was left to face hundreds of imperial guards who were agile, highly skilled in martial arts and even armed with weapons. The two sides fought head-on at the beginning, but one side fled and the other side chased. In the end, the two assassins escaped unscathed, but the imperial guards suffered heavy casualties.
The commander of the imperial guards ordered the others to continue patrolling and searching, but on the other hand he had to make a fuss about the vacant throne. He was not in a legitimate position, so he needed both human and material evidence. He had no time to even think about asking anyone to clean up.
At this moment, the emperor ran into the Taichu Hall, looked around, and his eyes suddenly fixed on one place. He suddenly sped up and ran over.
When the empress dowager chased in, she saw the emperor kneeling on the ground. She hurried forward to help him up, and then she heard a very light whimper from him.
"Mother."
"Yes." The Queen Mother responded, "The ground is cold. You have just been rescued. Get up first."
The emperor raised his head, but there was not much red in his eyes. He just grasped the other's long sleeves and said, "Chongming is gone."
The Queen Mother also saw the cage in the other person's hand and the lifeless Chongming bird in the cage.
※
The emperor was finally sent back to the Palace of Tranquil Longevity.
After the imperial physician finished his diagnosis and threw down a few prescriptions, the hall became quiet again.
Until it was interrupted by the sound of footsteps.
The Queen Mother had left long ago, and the eunuchs who were guarding her had just been ordered to leave. The Emperor stared at the door for a long while, and then he heard the sound of the door opening and closing.
The old eunuch led a palace maid who was carrying medicine in. After watching her put down the medicine tray and leave, he persuaded the emperor on the bed, "Your Majesty, this is the qi-replenishing and tranquilizing medicine prescribed by the imperial physician."
The emperor did not refuse. He took the bowl and gulped down the medicine.
He couldn't sleep because he was thinking about something. He didn't know if the medicine he just drank was a psychological effect or if it really worked. Now he felt more alert. He tossed and turned for a long time, and finally got up from the bed, walked and stopped, and finally arrived at Taichu Hall.
Lanterns were hung again on the roof of the Taichu Hall, but there were only a few of them, which were enough to illuminate the interior of the hall but not enough to shine outside the windows.
"Is the Commander okay?"
The emperor had not planned to stay long, but he happened to see that the people inside were wearing the clothes of the palace guards.
He was stunned. He had just begun to wonder why the cleaning was not assigned to the errand boys but to the two imperial guards. Then he heard someone inside say, "It's okay."
The third person then asked, "Really? Caning is no joke. Your Majesty is clearly angry this time, how can the commander be any better?"
The first person responded, "We obey the commander, not His Majesty. The imperial guards who were caned also obeyed the commander, not His Majesty."
The second person stopped him and said, "Okay, don't say these things in the palace... Really, I don't know why there is a chicken here and it needs to be kept in a cage."
As he said this, he put down the broom, picked up the cage, and threw it out of the hall.
Outside the hall, there are special cleaners who are responsible for collecting garbage and will take away all the things piled outside the door.
The servant looked up and saw a man in a dragon robe standing in front of him. He was so frightened that he almost lost his balance and quickly lowered his head: "Your Majesty, Your Majesty..."
"Bring me that cage."
The servant was confused, but did not dare to question anything. He used his hands and feet to take down the only metal cage on the cart.
When the emperor came to Taichu Palace, he found that the Chongming bird he had been waiting for so long had died. He was overwhelmed with joy and sorrow and had no time to think about why.
Now that he had calmed down and examined it again, he discovered that most of the feathers of this Chongming bird had been plucked out for some unknown reason, and there were even puncture wounds and scratches on its body that looked like those left by swords, spears, or halberds.
Swords, spears, swords and halberds.
The palace is not like any other place. Not everyone can run around with weapons. The only ones who can carry cold weapons at all times are the Imperial Guards.
And the Royal Guards have a commander.
The emperor thought of the words "We obey the commander, not Your Majesty. The imperial guards who are punished with a cane also obey the commander, not Your Majesty," and veins bulged on the back of his hand.
When he returned to the Yangxin Palace, the old eunuch who was standing by the door came to greet him immediately: "Your Majesty."
The emperor walked into the hall, turned around and looked at the eunuch who was hunched over in front of him: "Take off your hat."
The eunuch was stunned for a moment: "Your Majesty, taking off your hat is..."
"Bang--"
A teacup hit me, brushing against the brim of my hat, and the tea splashed into my eyes.
The eunuch was so frightened that he trembled and knelt down immediately. His official hat fell off and rolled half a circle: "Your Majesty, spare my life!"
The emperor saw the bruises on the old eunuch's neck.
※
When the commander of the imperial guards came over, he only saw a servant at the door. He saluted him and pointed into the room.
He didn't understand what was going on, so after he walked in, he half-knelt down in front of the chair and called out "Your Majesty".
There was no movement above my head for a long time, until a gust of wind came.
The commander of the imperial guards thought it was just something like a teacup or an inkstone, and the person in front of him was the emperor who was above everyone else. He resisted the urge to dodge subconsciously, but then a cold sword flashed before his eyes.
The severe pain went straight from the knee to the bone marrow, crushing the skin and penetrating into the tactile nerves in the brain.
The commander of the imperial guards cried out in pain and fell to his knees, using his hands to support himself on the ground to avoid falling flat on his face. His head was instantly covered in cold sweat and he shouted for mercy.
The emperor repeated: "What do you want to be spared?"
The commander of the imperial guards had a frozen expression and said nothing.
The emperor stepped forward with his sword and swung the sharp end at the commander of the imperial guards again.
The blow directly tore through the official's robe, splitting the chest open, and the blood that seeped out soaked the lapels.
The emperor put his sword on his neck and asked: "Will you spare me from training three thousand imperial guards to be the only ones who can have the final say?"
The commander of the Imperial Guards gritted his teeth and said, "Your Majesty, I don't know where you heard these rumors from, but the Imperial Guards have always been loyal to you!"
The emperor listened quietly, then said, "Your loyalty was to plot against me when I was imprisoned by assassins?"
The commander of the imperial guards had a horrified expression on his face: "Your Majesty, what is this..."
The emperor sneered and pushed the sword into the opponent's neck.
The commander of the imperial guards fell silent in an instant and knelt on the ground trembling.
The sword blade cut into the person's neck, the tip of the sword penetrated only millimeters, and millimeters became an inch.
"Your loyalty meant that you threatened my eunuchs behind my back to make them cooperate with you in fabricating a confession of my death at the hands of an assassin? Did you come to kill me as soon as I finally saw the light of day? Did you come to see the queen mother and pretend to save her but secretly threatened the attendants to shut up and treat me like a fool? Or did you just kill Chunxue Chongming and ignore the entire Jin Dynasty?!"
The bright red blood flowed down the blade of the sword.
The commander of the imperial guards had no time to care about how the emperor knew all this when he had clearly arranged everything. In his extreme panic, he could not hear clearly the emperor's series of questions about the sins he had committed. The last sentence, "killing the pure-blooded Chong Ming", was actually not the crime that should have fallen on his head.
The coldness of the sword on his neck pierced into his bones and blood, and the sticky but warm liquid that flowed across his collar was scorching. The fear of death and the desire to regain the supreme power rushed through his chest, but before he took action, he heard the emperor sneer at him:
"Wang Dongyuan, your mother is also over 50 years old this year, right?"
The mountain that pressed down from above suddenly smashed him beyond recognition. He was still frightened, but his desire was helpless. His neck was almost soaked with blood, and he could only crawl at the emperor's feet and beg in tears: "Your Majesty."
He kowtowed hard, his forehead bleeding as it hit the ground. "Your Majesty, I have been in the Imperial Guard for so many years, and I have never had any second thoughts. Even if you don't believe me, at least for the sake of the past, please spare my mother this time!"
The emperor’s grace is hard to accept.
Shi Yu stood by the door, fiddling with the plants clinging to the railings from time to time. He waited until things became quiet inside before he walked into the Hall of Mental Cultivation.
The emperor stood in the courtyard with his sword in hand. In front of him lay the commander of the imperial guards with his legs bent and a gash about an inch long across his neck. His body was covered in blood and he was no longer breathing.
"His Majesty."
The emperor exhaled slowly.
"You were buried beneath the ground of Yuting Palace by an assassin before. It was not you I found."
The emperor seemed not to understand what he meant at once: "But you...you clearly..."
"It was found by the guards outside the Yuting Palace." Shi Yu said, "I just climbed in from outside the palace because there happened to be no one else around you at that time."
"You were unable to walk when you were rescued, but the commander of the imperial guards would kill you as soon as he got the news. In order to suppress his actions and even the actions of the thousands of imperial guards in the palace, we must find someone who can have the final say, so I went to inform the Queen Mother."
The emperor took a step back and moved his lips.
"If I tell you directly that the commander of the Imperial Guards once intended to usurp the throne, you will probably not believe it. You will only believe it if you discover the truth by yourself. I can only trouble you to take a few more steps."
Shi Yu approached him and said politely, "Your Majesty, I am sorry for the offense."
The emperor clenched the sword in his hand and suddenly raised his hand.
Shi Yu stepped forward and intercepted the opponent's sword handle: "So the Chongming who died in Taichu Palace was not born with double pupils."
The emperor opened his eyes wide and the strength in his hands loosened instantly.
"So, the real pure-blood Chongming is not dead either." Shi Yu released his hand that was blocking the other's wrist, inserted the long sword into the sheath, and stared at the emperor's gradually red eyes quietly and calmly, but his tone was like coaxing a child whose favorite toy was taken away, "Do you still want Chongming now?"
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