A pardon
Ning Chanyuan revealed her entire face, her eyes filled with clarity. She took two steps back and said, "You actually think I'm biased? Wei Si is dead, how do you, as his uncle, feel?"
"Is it relief, sorrow, or feeling sorry for Princess Pingyi who died for you?"
The Emperor was taken aback, then sat down on the ground, looked up at Ning Chanyuan, and said, "Yuqu, don't joke around."
“I wouldn’t dare joke like that before His Majesty.” Ning Chanyuan squatted down, looking directly at him. “Princess Pingyi died on Beikun, and the late Emperor turned a blind eye. You, as her younger brother, didn’t seem to feel any pain at the loss of your sister back then. Tell me, who killed Princess Pingyi? The late Emperor? Or you?”
The Emperor scooped her up and carried her to the nearest table. On the way, he casually pulled up a soft cushion and placed it on the table, then helped her sit down. "You can't squat for long. Let's just say, what do you know?"
“I don’t know. After all, even your own nephew couldn’t find anything, so what could I possibly know?” Ning Chanyuan straightened her dress. “I just guess that if the late emperor killed Princess Pingyi, then even if General Wei rebelled, he would still want to avenge Princess Pingyi. And you, too, would harbor resentment towards the late emperor, after all, she was your own sister, born of the same mother and father.”
“You’ve told me some things about your sister, and I thought you would treat her the way she treated you.”
"But you actually colluded with the master to say that she would slip and die on Bei Kun. How many eyes were watching Bei Kun at that time? Who could bypass my elders to do something harmful and do it silently? Guess how many people in the world could do that? Only you, the Crown Prince at that time."
"You caused the death of Princess Pingyi. The elders were terrified and worried that Bei Kun's reputation would overshadow the emperor, so they hurriedly left the court. The late emperor did not pursue the matter, simply because you were his only child."
The Emperor remained silent, and Ning Chanyuan continued, "How could someone as free-spirited as Princess Pingyi believe in fate?"
A carefree person doesn't believe in fate. Life and death, fame and fortune are all illusions; only the joy and pain of each moment last. How could someone as carefree as Princess Pingyi believe the master's words and assume she would slip on the Northern Kun and fall into the vast sea to her death? She probably saw through the power struggles shrouded in kinship and blood ties, which is why she didn't pursue the matter and didn't want Wei Mao to personally get involved in this mess, forbidding him from investigating the cause of her death.
Otherwise, Wei Mao, who holds considerable military power, would face another bloody conflict with the current emperor.
The ones who suffer are the unsuspecting ordinary people.
"Yuqu, am I really such a ruthless person in your eyes?"
Ning Chanyuan replied, "You are not, but His Majesty is."
The Emperor sat beside her at the table, chuckled twice, and said, "Murdering my sister and forcing my father to abdicate—it certainly sounds ruthless, but I didn't intend to harm my sister; I wanted to save her..."
He had no interest in the throne. Since everyone said his father would pass it to his sister, he figured he might as well let her be emperor; he didn't care. Until that day, he overheard his father's dissatisfaction with him, saying that he had no interest in the throne and that Pingyi was gradually gaining the people's hearts.
The Emperor then said, "Pingyi cannot be kept here."
Only then did he realize that the throne was meant for him, and that his sister was to be killed by their father.
When he set out to save his sister, he resented his distance from politics. In the end, he didn't even have a single capable person. He had no choice but to bribe a master to say that his sister would slip and fall into the vast sea.
When his father learned of this, he did not blame him. Instead, he praised him for having the same brilliance as he had in his youth. He remained silent, thinking to himself, "I have already set up rescue teams around the Four Seas. My sister may fall into the sea, but she will not die."
She would live peacefully through this period until he outlived his father and ascended the throne, at which point he would return it to his sister. At that time, he would have no intention of killing his father.
He had expected his sister to fall into the sea, but those who were waiting to rescue her underwater had long since disappeared, as had those on the shore who were there to help and treat her.
My sister is dead...
His father summoned him and made him watch as one corpse after another was carried up. He could see clearly that those people were the ones he had arranged to rescue his sister.
Those who tried to save my sister also died.
“My child, you are still too soft-hearted,” the Emperor said.
“Child? I am your child? But isn’t your sister your child too?” he asked.
But the Emperor showed not a trace of regret, only saying, "Only when Pingyi dies can your position be secure."
He remembered those words.
He secretly prepared for the Golden Armor Army. The moment he stepped into the inner palace with his sword in hand, his father was still reviewing memorials. He waited on the side until his father finished reviewing the last memorial.
He said, "Only when you are dead can my position be secure."
The Emperor said, “I said you had the same brilliance as I did back then, and it is true. In that case, my present will be your future. No one to accompany you, no one to love you, you killed your daughter, and now your son has killed you.”
He gritted his teeth and said, "I will never become like you."
“‘I will never become you.’ That’s what I said to my father back then. After saying that, I killed him. But now it seems that what he said was pretty much true. No one is there to accompany me, no one loves me. Luckily, I didn’t have any sons or daughters, so I didn’t have to kill my daughter and then be killed by my own son.”
The Emperor stared at Ning Chanyuan and said, "Yuqu, do you think there is anyone in this world who will accompany me and love me?"
Ning Chanyuan avoided answering, only saying, "Wei Si's death was not caused by Wu Qi. Let her go."
"No, she killed Wei Si. Wu Qi must die."
Upon hearing this, Ning Chanyuan got up from the table and was about to leave when the Emperor grabbed her wrist and stopped her. She stopped and asked, "Does Your Majesty have any further instructions?"
"If I don't coax you for a day, you'll talk to me like this again." The Emperor lifted her up and put her back in place, touched her forehead, and checked her pulse. Seeing that everything was normal and she was not in a fit of anger, he said, "You know you shouldn't get angry, yet you still get so angry. Wu Qi killed members of the royal family, how could she not die? But I only said 'Wu Qi' must die, I didn't say which 'Wu Qi' it was. Why are you so angry? If you really get so angry that you collapse, I'm afraid I won't be able to live either."
"What do you mean by that?" Ning Chanyuan asked.
"Yuqu, you haven't answered my question yet. Do you think there's anyone in this world who will accompany me and love me?"
Ning Chanyuan said, "Yes."
"My mother is dead, my sister is dead, my father is dead, Wei Mao is dead, and now Luan Hua is dead too. Everyone in this world who is even remotely related to me has left me. Tell me, who will stay with me, who will love me? Why don't you come, Yu Qu, stay with me, love me, and die in my arms? Is that alright?"
Ning Chanyuan asked, "Is this your condition for saving Wu Qi?"
He replied, "Yes."
Ning Chanyuan answered without hesitation, "I agree."
"Yuqu, what did you say?"
"I said I'd come to be with you, to love you, and to die in your arms."
He no longer had time to consider whether Ning Chanyuan was truly willing or was just too anxious about Wu Qi's situation to agree so quickly. He hugged Ning Chanyuan and said, "I will send people to treat your illness properly. I will stay with you during your treatment as before. Yuqu, may you live a long and healthy life."
As he said this, tears welled up in his eyes.
Ning Chanyuan's words seemed like a pardon, sparing him from the fate of his father. He had someone to accompany him and someone to love him. That person was Ning Chanyuan, whom he liked to call "Yuqu".
The emperor embraced his beloved and received a pardon.
Ning Chanyuan remained motionless as he held her, waiting for him to finish speaking and for his tears to fall before gently patting his shoulder and saying, "Your Majesty, are you still crying?"
He didn't move and said, "With Li Xi here, Xiao Qi won't be wronged."
Ning Chanyuan asked, "What are you planning to do?"
He didn't say anything, only asking, "Where do you think Xiao Qi should run away to?"
Ning Chanyuan pondered for a moment, stared into his eyes, and said, "The Yi family owns businesses in Lanbing City, so I'm sure the two of them won't be troubled by money there. I will persuade them to go to Lanbing City."
“Alright, then let’s go to Lanbing City,” he said. “Yuqu, go and meet them.”
Ning Chanyuan was silent for a moment, staring at his tear-filled eyes, kissed him on the cheek, and said, "I'll come back to be with you later."
"good."
Ning Chanyuan is gone, and luxury has become a prison once again. The remaining warmth is the only comfort now.
He knew in his heart that Yu Qu's previous kiss was not because she felt sorry for him or loved him so much; she just wanted to remind him not to forget what he had said.
"Someone, go and tell Zhou Liuhu about Wu Qi's predicament. If Zhou Liuhu goes, secretly lead the way, do not stop her, and do not arouse her suspicion," he said.
"yes."
In Pingwu City, there lived a woman named Zhou Liuhu who passed the Dragon Gate Examination. Previously, Wu Qi had used the death-exemption token given to her by Master Sun to save her. Zhou Liuhu was grateful, and moreover, she possessed the ability to disguise herself.
This was the method he came up with to save Wu Qi.
But it's best not to let Yu Qu know about the matter of harming one person to save another.
Zhou Liuhu has been doing fairly well these days. Because she has no parents to rely on, she is always busier than others, with all sorts of trivial chores falling on her shoulders. Although she is busy and tired, her salary is decent.
So she endured it.
She was exhausted every day, and would collapse into bed and sleep after meals. Even though she knew Wu Qi had returned to the capital, she was too busy to see him these past few days.
Someone knocked on the door. Zhou Liuhu struggled to get up, opened the door, and saw a colleague standing outside. He knew immediately that the colleague was about to assign him some miscellaneous tasks again.
A colleague asked, "Liu Hu, how is your relationship with Wu Qi, the young lady from the Wu family who just returned to the capital?"
Fearing that his colleagues might need to consult Wu Qi, Zhou Liuhu readily agreed, saying, "Nothing much, what's wrong?"
"She's in trouble! She killed the Crown Prince and has been taken away by the Dali Temple!"
"What? She killed Wei Si, Wei Luanhua?"
A colleague nodded and said, "Ah! I just heard about this too. I can't keep it to myself, so I wanted to say a few words. It's said that the Minister of Justice and the Vice Minister of Justice were also there at the time, and the Chief Justice of the Court of Judicial Review, Li Xi, personally led the arrest of Wu Qi. I also heard that Wei Si is the Emperor's own nephew, and murdering a member of the imperial family is a capital offense! It seems that young lady Wu is really going to the underworld this time!"
"Is Wu Qi currently imprisoned at the Dali Temple?" Zhou Liuhu asked, grabbing his colleague's shoulder.
"Hmm! It is said that Lord Li Xi is investigating this matter overnight. I'm afraid that as soon as it's dawn tomorrow, he will hand Wu Qi over to the Emperor. At that time, Wu Qi will only have one option: death!"
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
