Chapter 277: Double Breakthrough [Combination]
Dali Temple.
Inside the death row.
An official from the Dali Temple came in and said, "Your Excellency, Wang Yue has been executed."
Several masters of the Wang family were still kneeling on the ground. Upon hearing this, their bodies trembled and their faces turned pale.
He was the martial arts prodigy of the Wang family, the hope for the next sixth realm master, and he actually killed him like that?
Is he really not afraid of the Wang family’s revenge?
The five masters could clearly smell the scent of death.
Li Xuanjing took out a porcelain bottle from his sleeve, threw it on the ground, and said calmly: "There are several pills in the bottle. Either eat them or die."
Several masters did not hesitate at all, and almost rushed to pick up the porcelain bottle and pour out a few pills from it.
They practiced hard for decades and finally became masters, and no one wants it to end like this.
Although I don’t know what kind of elixir it is, no matter what it is, it is much better than being beheaded immediately like Wang Yue.
However, there were five of them, but only four pills were poured out of the bottle.
"mine!"
"I saw it first!"
"Don't take my pills!"
"court death!"
For the sake of four medicinal pills, five masters whose cultivation had been sealed started fighting on the spot like thugs.
In the end, the four people who grabbed the pills swallowed them without hesitation.
Only one person was left, sitting on the ground with a look of despair on his face.
At this time, Li Xuanjing took out a small porcelain bottle from his sleeve, poured out a pill from it and threw it to him. He glanced at everyone and said calmly, "It's not like there's none left. What are you fighting for..."
The old man swallowed the pill immediately.
Although their true energy was sealed in their bodies, they could still clearly feel that as the pill took their bodies, something not so good appeared in their bodies.
An old man asked tentatively: "Sir, what kind of medicine did you give us to eat?"
Li Xuanjing did not explain, but just stood there waiting.
One breath.
Two breaths.
Three breaths.
After a few breaths, the five masters' faces changed and they knelt on the ground one after another. The blood vessels under their skin bulged and squirmed violently as if they had life. They also fell to the ground, holding their bodies and groaning in pain.
Practicing martial arts is an extremely painful thing, but the pain of practicing is not even a fraction of the pain I am feeling now.
It felt like someone was cutting my flesh piece by piece with a knife.
In a short while, the bodies of several people were soaked with sweat.
Even on the ground, there was a wet mark.
After the contractions, several people lay on the ground, without the strength to move.
Li Xuanjing looked down at them and said, "The next attack will occur in ten days. This poison attacks once every ten days, and each attack will last longer and be more painful than the previous one. Whether you can get the antidote depends on your performance in the next ten days..."
The five people looked at each other and sighed in their hearts.
Although they were extremely unwilling, things had come to this point and they had no other choice.
A figure struggled to get up from the ground, half-knelt on the ground, and said, "I am willing to serve you at my utmost!"
The others followed suit, kneeling in front of Li Xuanjing and saying respectfully, "We are willing to serve you at your service, sir!"
…
The cells of the Dali Temple are already overcrowded.
Outside the Dali Temple, Chang'an was in complete uproar.
Under the watchful eyes of the public, King You brought all the dignitaries and officials from various departments in the court, and even instigated countless students, to Li Xuanjing's home in the name of clearing the court of corrupt officials, with the obvious intention of killing Li Xuanjing.
Who could have thought that King You caused such a big fuss, but ended up sending himself and the King of Han to the Dali Temple.
Not only him, the King of Han, the King of Xin, the King of Xuan, and the King of Ji, but also all the court officials and dignitaries who participated in this incident were now staying in the Dali Temple's cell.
Given Li Xuanjing's character and means, it is conceivable what kind of outcome will await them if they fall into Li Xuanjing's hands this time.
There are only eight princes who serve as regents in the royal family.
There are five people imprisoned in the Dali Temple at the moment.
The King of Han and the King of You have been demoted to commoners, and it is still unknown what will happen to the other three princes.
People took to the streets and talked about it.
There have been many speculations among the public about this matter.
The most convincing guess is that King You and King Han knew that the Dali Temple was investigating the case of the Eastern Palace, and wanted to kill people in the name of clearing the court of evil officials. Unexpectedly, they ended up delivering themselves to the punishment...
Prince Rui's Palace.
When Prince Rui heard the news, he was so frightened that the book in his hand fell.
"What?"
"Was the death of the crown prince a conspiracy between the King of Han and the King of You?"
"Father showed up at Li Xuanjing's house and demoted them both to commoners. Prince Xin, Prince Xuan, Prince Ji, and all the people involved today were arrested?"
"Is your news true?"
…
After confirming this from his subordinates, he was so shocked that he was speechless for a long time.
King Han and King You were demoted, and the throne lost its two biggest competitors, but he did not feel happy at all.
Instead, I was frightened and broke out in a cold sweat.
If he had agreed to King You and joined the two of them to target Li Xuanjing, he should be drinking tea in the Dali Temple prison now instead of reading books in Prince Rui's mansion.
To be honest, he was really moved that time.
He had suffered countless losses at the hands of Li Xuanjing, and it was impossible for him not to hate him.
If he hadn't happened to read about checks and balances in the book that day, and thought that without Li Xuanjing, the King of Han and the King of You would no longer have any rivals, and the situation would be even more unfavorable to him, he might have really agreed...
After a long time, he came back to his senses and slowly picked up the "The Art of War" on the ground. He said with lingering fear: "Reading is good, and you should read more..."
now.
Secretariat.
The two prime ministers have also learned what happened in Li's mansion.
Shocked by the old case in the East Palace, the Right Prime Minister glanced at the Left Prime Minister and said, "He must have planned all this a long time ago. You are doing this in vain. I now suspect that Wang Heng was killed on purpose for the Wang family to see..."
Speaking of the Wang family, a rare stern look flashed across the left prime minister's gentle eyes.
The Right Prime Minister breathed a sigh of relief and said, "What a ruthless move. He used himself as bait to make the Eastern Palace case play the biggest role. The Dali Temple has detained hundreds of people. This time, Chang'an may be flooded with blood again..."
He looked at Zuo Xiang and asked, "Is this really the disciple you taught?"
Li Xuanjing has been in the court for twenty years, and he has watched Li Xuanjing step by step reach his current position.
The Left Prime Minister was upright and never bothered to engage in any conspiracy or intrigue, and all the court officials respected him.
Li Xuanjing, his disciple, is full of evil spirit.
Whatever he does, he never sticks to the means. In order to achieve his goal, he will use every possible means. Even if it is a small matter, he will find ways to maximize its value.
What's more, this is a major case of treason. Based on your understanding of him, he probably already has enough evidence.
But he was obviously not satisfied with just dragging the King of Han and the King of You into the water.
And he actually did it. Five princes, dozens of dignitaries, and hundreds of officials are now imprisoned in the Dali Temple, at his disposal.
The worst hit family was the Wang family.
All important positions in the court are filled with officials trained by the Wang family.
This cannot be accomplished overnight. It requires training from a young age to ensure that they can pass the imperial examinations. After they enter the court, various means and resources must be used to ensure that they are promoted step by step and sent to important positions.
This will require at least decades of operation and hundreds of years of impact.
And now, the Wang family’s hundreds of years of influence in the court and decades of business operations - almost without exception, all of them have been put into the Dali Temple prison.
The right prime minister's eyes wavered slightly, and he said, "It's been almost twenty years, and he hasn't forgotten the grudge from that year. More than a dozen of his classmates died back then, and now he wants to dig up the roots of the Wang family..."
As soon as he finished speaking, several eunuchs walked in from outside.
The leading eunuch held a whisk in his hand, bowed to the two ministers on the left and right, and then said: "Your Majesty has issued an edict that the King of Han and the King of You are guilty of treason and plotted to murder the crown prince. They shall be stripped of their titles and demoted to commoners... The Kings Xin, Xuan, and Ji, as regents, are ignorant and incompetent. Their powers as regents shall be revoked. The case of the crown prince shall be investigated by the Dali Temple with full authority. The three provinces and all departments shall fully cooperate..."
The right prime minister took the imperial edict. The eunuch looked at them and said, "My Lords, His Majesty is very angry about this matter. When the Dali Temple investigates the case, the three ministries had better cooperate. Otherwise, there may be more serious consequences..."
After saying that, he waved his whisk, turned and left.
The officials from the Secretariat stood outside, all with expressions of extreme shock.
No one expected that today's events would have such a big reversal and cause such serious consequences.
Of the eight princes who served as regents, two were demoted, three had their power taken away, leaving only Prince Chun, Prince Gong, and Prince Rui.
It is still unknown what will happen to those powerful officials imprisoned in the Dali Temple.
I heard that His Majesty once said that officials who participated in the "Purge the Court" incident today will no longer have to go to the government office in the future.
Although it was just a casual remark, it determined the future of countless officials.
Officials from the Zongzheng Temple and Jingzhao Prefecture are the most deeply involved, which means that almost all officials in these two offices will be replaced.
Officials in the three provinces, six ministries and nine temples are going to be in trouble.
As far as the Secretariat is concerned, the two secretaries are still in the Dali Temple and may never come out.
Of course, some people are unlucky while others are lucky.
This time, hundreds of official positions became vacant, many of which were important positions of the fourth or even third rank, so there would definitely be many people who would be required to fill them.
As many people were dismissed as they were promoted.
This kind of opportunity may not come once in decades.
When the officials of the Secretariat thought that they might be the ones to be promoted, they had no intention of going to the government office.
Just when people in government offices were getting restless, several figures walked into the Secretariat.
Seeing that the visitor was an official from the Dali Temple, the two Zhongshu Shilang came out personally to greet him.
His Majesty has just issued an edict requiring the Secretariat to cooperate with the Dali Temple in investigating the case. When they encounter officials from the Dali Temple, they naturally have to be careful.
The Left Assistant Minister of the Secretariat bowed and asked, "What important matters have you come to the Secretariat for, my colleagues?"
The Junior Official of the Dali Temple did not exchange pleasantries with him and came straight to the point: "We want all the memorials impeaching Lord Li in the past few days."
The two Zhongshu Shilang looked at each other and their eyelids could not help but twitch. According to the rules, the impeachment memorials must be kept strictly confidential. Who would dare to impeach someone casually in the future when they blatantly broke the rules?
The Junior Official of the Dali Temple said, "Your Majesty has ordered the Dali Temple to conduct a thorough investigation into the murder of the Crown Prince and not to let off any of the people involved. These officials may be the accomplices of King You and King Han in the murder of the Crown Prince. I hope the Secretariat will help us..."
The officials from the Dali Temple left quickly.
When he left, he took away hundreds of memorials.
The reasons they gave were very sufficient. The crown prince was the heir to the throne. Plotting to murder the heir to the throne was tantamount to treason. The rules of the Secretariat had to give in to this reason.
If they insist on not giving it, there is no guarantee that the Dali Temple will not accuse them of harboring and sheltering the criminals.
This time, I'm afraid more officials will suffer.
According to conservative estimates, at least two hundred officials either lost their jobs or their lives.
With so many positions vacant at once, the court's reserve of talents is far from enough. How to fill these positions will be another headache...
The culprits of this incident, King You and King Han, are truly pitiful and hateful.
Well, why are you messing with him...
Li Mansion.
Li Nuo looked at the code in front of him with a thoughtful expression.
There was a new portrait on the code, which was one of the masters who broke into Li’s mansion just now.
His portrait is dim, probably indicating that he had been executed.
After his death, Li Nuo's life span changed slightly, but not much, only increasing by a hundred days.
Under normal circumstances, if a Grandmaster is killed legally, the life span increased by more than a hundred days will definitely be more than a hundred days, because the fourth realm has a hundred days, and the Grandmaster's life span should be at least several times that.
However, that was the other person's death, which was strongly related to oneself.
The death of this grandmaster had little to do with Li Nuo, so it was normal that his lifespan could not be fully extended.
What he cared about was the treatment of the King of Han and the King of You.
It was hard for him to imagine how much cultivation and lifespan the two first-rank princes could increase...
However, based on the descriptions in the Legalist classics, Li Nuo had a rough idea in his mind. Under normal circumstances, this case would definitely allow his cultivation to advance directly from the third level to the fourth level. He wouldn't even encounter a bottleneck, and might even have some spare room.
Li Nuo couldn't help feeling excited and planned to go to the Dali Temple to check out the situation.
From the beginning, An Ning just sat there in a daze, not saying a word.
Li Nuo walked up to her, held her hand, and asked, "Do you want to go to the Dali Temple?"
Li Anning let out a long sigh, stood up, and said, "Let's go."
She was mentally prepared, but when the day finally came, she couldn't help but feel a little complicated.
She quickly calmed down, and the two of them left Li's house and went to the Dali Temple.
The Dali Temple is under very tight security today. The entire Dali Temple is surrounded by imperial guards. It is likely that even a fly would find it difficult to fly out.
Almost all the cells in the Dali Temple were overcrowded. Even the cells outside used to hold officials in solitary confinement were filled with people crying out for justice.
Li Nuo casually called over an official from the Dali Temple and asked him about the situation.
Just now, your majesty's imperial edict has been sent to the Dali Temple. From now on, the King of Han and the King of You have been demoted to commoners, and the King of Xin, the King of Xuan, and the King of Ji have also been deprived of the power of regent.
Other officials and dignitaries who were arrested needed to be investigated by the Dali Temple to ensure that they had nothing to do with the case of that year before they could leave.
Li Nuo was asking for details when an official from the Dali Temple came over and said, "Princess, Prince Consort, Lord Li invites you to come over."
Li Nuo and An Ning came to the temple official's office. Li Xuanjing came out from behind the desk and said, "You came at the right time. This case was discovered by you. You should put your seal on this judgment together..."
Li Nuo and An Ning walked to the table, on which was a written verdict.
Once the seal is affixed, the judgment will officially take effect.
This verdict was different from the ones Li Nuo had seen before. It was written on bright yellow silk.
This is exactly what the King of Han and the King of You did.
After all, they are His Majesty's biological sons. Even if they committed such a serious crime, they were only deprived of their titles and imprisoned in the palace. At least their lives were saved.
If it were anyone else, all nine clans would be implicated.
Such punishment was not in accordance with the law, but no one would argue with the emperor.
Li Nuo was not polite in front of his father.
Although this is just a process, it can still increase one's cultivation a little bit. For the Legalists, it is also an important sense of ritual.
He held An Ning's hand, and An Ning took the seal of the Dali Temple and stamped it on the lower right side of the judgment.
When the seal appeared on the judgment, the numbers on the code immediately changed.
He hadn't handled any major cases these days, and his life expectancy was barely over three thousand years old.
In this instant, the number increased by two thousand, exceeding five thousand for the first time.
A prince can increase his lifespan by a thousand days, almost three years.
And his cultivation is also growing rapidly.
The cultivation of the Legalists is inherently lagging. In ordinary cases, even homicide cases, it is difficult to intuitively feel the changes in the cultivation in a short period of time.
But the impact of this case is too great and involves too many people.
The murder of the crown prince can be regarded as the biggest case since the founding of Daxia.
If the cultivation level of the third realm is 100, an ordinary murder case can only bring about a slight change in cultivation level. If the judgment is correct, one will be added; if the judgment is wrong, one will be subtracted. Ninety-nine and one hundred and one are within the imperceptible range and require accumulation over time to produce obvious changes.
But for such a shocking case, on the basis of 100 points of cultivation, a change of 1,000 points of cultivation at a time is a different process.
The process of increasing your cultivation will be extremely obvious.
Not only him, but An Ning's body also showed obvious fluctuations in cultivation.
And it is more obvious than Li Nuo's.
Li Nuo only felt that the power in his body was growing rapidly and soon encountered an obvious barrier, but that barrier only blocked it for a moment and then was successfully broken through.
Afterwards, this force gradually slowed down until it completely subsided.
He seemed to see a wider world.
Looking back on his path of cultivation, the easiest breakthrough for him, and the one that took him the shortest time, was from the third realm to the fourth realm.
The process before entry is actually the most difficult.
It even gave him the illusion that the more he practiced, the easier it would be.
However, although he broke through from the third realm to the fourth realm in such a short period of time, Li Nuo still felt that it was not enough.
Given the importance of this case, it was entirely possible for him to break through from the third realm to the fourth realm, and there would still be a lot of redundancy, but he only managed to break through to the fourth realm, which was only half of the effect he expected.
But in this case, his level of involvement was very high, and he should have been able to get more than 90%, or even 100% of the credit.
What went wrong?
Was it because he wasn't involved enough, wasn't contributing enough, or was there something he overlooked...
Li Nuo soon stopped thinking about this problem.
His eyes were fixed directly on An Ning.
Li Anning slowly opened his tightly closed eyes, took a small step forward, and disappeared into the yamen.
The next moment, she appeared in front of Li Nuo out of thin air.
The fifth realm of the Legalists corresponds to exile among the five punishments. It can force a person to move a certain distance. When applied to oneself, it is like shrinking the distance into an inch, which is similar to the emperor's instant disappearance.
The bottlenecks of the fourth and fifth realms are worlds apart.
In the same case, the role she played was smaller than Li Nuo's, but her gains were much greater than Li Nuo's.
There's nothing we can do about it.
After all, the person who died was his relative, and the murderer was also her relative.
In the past, Li Nuo would never have thought that the first person in his family to advance to the fifth level would be An Ning.
But he was not envious.
It's nice to be protected by them, he's used to it.
Father still had a lot of things to do, so Li Nuo and An Ning said goodbye to him and returned home. Song Yiren looked at Li Nuo and An Ning and always felt that they had become different after they went out and came back.
Su Jing's gaze stayed on them for a moment, and she asked in surprise: "You all broke through?"
Li Nuo smiled and said, "Master, nothing can be hidden from me..."
Su Jing looked at them again and said with some emotion: "The cultivation of the disciples is indeed much easier than the martial arts."
She could tell that Li Nuo had made a breakthrough because the aura in his body was more restrained, unlike before when she could see through his cultivation level at a glance.
As for the other little girl, she couldn't see through it at all.
Martial arts and legalism are completely different forces. No matter how hard a martial arts master tries to conceal his abilities, she can see through them at a glance. However, for powerful people from other families, as long as they try to conceal their abilities, it is difficult for her to sense them.
The beauty was only slightly surprised at An Ning's breakthrough.
Yiren obviously couldn't accept it. She stared at An Ning with wide eyes and asked, "You broke through the fifth level?"
Seeing Yiren's expression, An Ning raised his chin proudly and said, "If you don't believe me, you can try..."
Yiren attacked with half belief and half doubt, but when she appeared within ten feet of her, her eyes suddenly blurred and she instantly appeared at the door several feet away.
She tried several times out of disbelief, but every time anyone got close to her, she would be teleported away.
The last time, she was not teleported away, but her whole body was fixed in place, unable to move even a finger.
Li Nuo found it funny. In front of An Ning now, she had no power to resist at all.
Yiren didn't understand the methods of the fifth realm of Legalism at all.
If she meets a martial arts master, she might be able to deal with him a few moves.
But the fifth level of the Legalist family can already grasp enough power of heaven and earth, which is a complete dimensionality reduction attack on warriors with lower levels than her.
Not to mention her, even the mother-in-law would be helpless against An Ning now.
Of course, the Grandmaster’s true energy was extremely strong, and An Ning couldn’t do anything to her.
Li Anning walked up to Song Yiren, pulled her face, and said with a smile, "Are you convinced, sister?"
Unable to beat others, Song Yiren had to find another way to get back her advantage. After being released from the restraints, she put her hands on her hips, puffed out her chest and said, "What sister? I'm older than you, you should call me sister!"
Li Anning pulled the corner of his mouth and puffed out his chest and asked, "Where are you bigger?"
Song Yiren took two steps back because of her chest-lifting action. Her lips moved, but she said nothing. Her straight waist finally bent down...
(End of this chapter)
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