Chapter 155 Imprisoned Here
Shen Yu stopped at the foot of the mountain. He could not see the man standing at the top of the stone steps. The glaring sunlight made it difficult for Shen Yu to open his eyes. He could only see the man's blurry figure, leaving only a thin black shadow.
The old man seemed to sigh.
"Yuyu, if you want to go, go ahead."
Shen Yu didn't know why his eyes were dry. He looked up and didn't move for a long time.
"If you encounter any trouble, come find me. I will wait for you here." The old man's voice permeated the air around him and slowly fell into Shen Yu's ears, "Don't let yourself suffer."
Shen Yu looked at that place in silence for a few seconds. He seemed to suddenly gain confidence and turned around and walked in another direction.
The master will always protect him.
Shen Yu went to Yue State with three or four fellow disciples, all of whom pledged allegiance to Xuan Lin. After more than ten years of training on Chengyuan Mountain, he finally had a place to put his skills to use.
Shen Yu was in a trance in these illusions. The scenes around him kept changing. Weapons and horses roared past him and finally turned into large amounts of chaotic fragments.
Shen Yu didn't know when he came out of the chaos. He only knew that the war finally ended and Shengguo submitted a letter of peace.
He helped Xuan Lin to overcome all difficulties and finally helped him ascend to the throne.
Xuan Lin was in poor health. He had suffered greatly from the war in the past two years and had a variety of old illnesses piling up. He fell seriously ill shortly after ascending the throne.
Shen Yu has been learning medicine from his master since he was young. He stayed with Xuan Lin to treat him. At that time, he had already seen that Xuan Lin had a lot of dead energy in his body and he would not live long.
Shen Yu did not tell Xuan Lin about this. He studied medicine and competed with Prince Yan for the girl, so he must find a way to save Xuan Lin.
But Xuan Lin suddenly changed.
After he ascended the throne, his true nature was exposed. He took in many concubines and became murderous. He spent tens of thousands of dollars to make a golden crown for himself, built a wine forest and meat pool, spoke vulgarly, and his every move was full of the banditry of a mountain barbarian.
He is totally different from before.
Shen Yu found it hard to accept that the person he had painstakingly supported for several years turned out to be in such an ugly state. He spoke out against it several times, which eventually displeased Xuan Lin.
Xuan Lin's gaze towards Shen Yu had already changed. Shen Yu's face was not as heroic as that of an ordinary man. His eyes were narrow and feminine, and the corners of his eyes were always slightly red when he woke up, which made him look even more different.
Xuan Lin took Shen Yu into the harem soon after. He seemed to be trying to show his favor to Shen Yu, making her the head of the harem and the mother of the country - respectfully calling her the empress.
Shen Yu could not bear the humiliation, so he disfigured half of his face on the day of his wedding, intending to kill the king. Xuan Lin was furious and locked him up in Kunning Palace to torture him.
Shen Yu had been in Kunning Palace for three years, and had been fed countless poisonous wild fruits. He was unwilling to sit and wait for death, so he used silver needles to poke open his veins day and night to force out the toxins inside, in order to delay the onset of the poison.
Xuan Lin seemed to know that Shen Yu would not be poisoned to death no matter what, so he trained Shen Yu day after day, year after year, like a medicine maker, until Shen Yu's body changed and became immune to all poisons.
He wants to drink Shen Yu's blood.
Xuan Lin's previously empty body was full of deathly energy, and Shen Yu's blood, which was impervious to all poisons, was the best way to nourish his body.
Shen Yu didn't know how he became so useless. In the later stages of his life, he couldn't even get out of bed to walk. After his leg tendons were broken, his leg muscles atrophied. The palace maids didn't allow him to leave Kunning Palace, so he could only walk back and forth holding onto the wall.
He secretly mixed various medicinal herbs in the weeds in Kunning Palace.
Whenever the palace maids were asleep, he would get up in the dark and fiddle with the herbs by himself. There were at least several hundred kinds of herbs. Shen Yu cut open his own flesh and blood, and tried them one by one according to the rules. It took him more than two years to come up with an effective prescription.
The first step to leaving Kunning Palace is for him to learn to walk.
The frequency of blood draws was changed from once every two weeks to three times a week, and then to once a week.
Shen Yu lost control several times while drawing blood. He bit the eunuchs who came to draw blood like a beast, and was finally tied to the bedpost with a rope.
From then on he stopped eating and drinking, and his cheeks became sunken, like a skeleton covered with human skin.
Xuan Lin finally came to see Shen Yu once. He didn't say anything extra, but just threw a broken finger in front of Shen Yu. The rag wrapped around the finger was embroidered with auspicious cloud totems, the style of Chengyuan Mountain.
Shen Yu was stunned in the spot. He raised his head stiffly and looked at Xuan Lin. Xuan Lin stood in front of him, his back to the light, and his whole body was a dark mass.
"Shuyu, guess who this belongs to? Is it your Senior Brother Chang Hao's? Or your Senior Sister Ling Yun's?"
Shen Yu's lips were pale and cracked. He looked at Xuan Lin, his throat swollen and painful so that he could hardly speak: "...Let them go."
"Shuoyu, they are like this because of you." Xuan Lin's tone was calm. He looked down at Shen Yu and said slowly, "You can die, it doesn't matter. But you have to know that I know where your master is, where Chengyuan Mountain is, and where all your brothers and sisters are."
"They will all die with you."
Shen Yu could hardly see what was in front of him, but Xuan Lin's words lingered in his ears for a long time.
This empty inner hall was filled with things that did not suit him: powder, perfume, gauze, silver hairpins... Shen Yu slowly turned his eyes and saw himself in the mirror.
He looked haggard, with scars piled up on half of his face, and he looked as ugly as a demon who had no idea where to go. Shen Yu covered his right face with one hand, and stared at the mirror motionlessly, and found that he was only in his early twenties, but half of his hair was already white.
"I want to live... I want to live..."
Shen Yu tightly grasped the dagger in his hand, lowered his head and muttered to himself.
After seven years in Kunning Palace, the name of Empress Shen Yu was widely known in the two countries. Xuan Lin praised him very highly, using thousands of honors to cover up all the shame underneath.
During this period, Shen Yu gradually became somewhat delirious. He was often troubled by nightmares, and his behavior became more and more crazy.
"It's all your fault...it's all your fault..."
Shen Yu grabbed his hair. The face in the mirror was ugly, and he kept cursing everything he had done.
If he had not misjudged people at the beginning, how could he have let Chengyuanshan and he fall into such a situation?
It's all his fault.
Shen Yu shed tears of blood, his eyes were red, and he suddenly grabbed the dagger beside him and stabbed it into his eyes.
Finally... I can't see it anymore.
Seven years of harsh rule also led to the rapid decline of the Yue Kingdom. Xuan Lin had no talent for a king. He was defeated in battles during his few years in office, and had to cede millions of territories in exchange for peace.
Sheng State pursued the victory and quickly captured hundreds of cities around Yue State, and encroached on the territory around Yue State every day. Shen Yu could occasionally hear the conversations of the palace maids outside. Although he was not outside Kunning Palace, he could grasp a little of the situation outside from a few words.
He is waiting.
Wait for an opportunity.
Nearly a year later, Shen Yu finally received the news that the Sheng army had invaded the imperial city and the Yue capital had fallen.
The palace maids and eunuchs in Kunning Palace fled everywhere, and the secret guards all left for the main hall. No one was watching Shen Yu's every move anymore.