Victory or defeat
Xiao Wan'er suddenly leaped up, tied up Xue Chongjian tightly, and dragged him out of the princess's bedroom. Liu Mingyin and Ming Shu immediately followed, but even at full speed, they still couldn't keep up with Xiao Wan'er's pace.
When the two of them caught up with Xiao Wan'er, she was already waiting in the yard for the emperor's arrival.
When the emperor entered the yard, this was the scene he saw: Xiao Wan'er was standing in the middle of the yard, with Liu Mingyin and the female cultivator who had planned to assassinate him on her left and right. His own accomplice was tied up extremely tightly and thrown in the corner of the yard. When he saw him, his eyes widened and he said something excitedly, but his mouth was blocked, so even the emperor could not tell what she was saying.
The emperor tried to pretend not to see Xue Chongjian, but he heard Xiao Wan'er's ridicule.
"Your Majesty, despite your busy schedule, has personally visited Princess Taiping's residence. We are truly apprehensive. Your Majesty, are you here to inspect the work of Second Young Master Xue?" Xiao Wan'er's words were as respectful as her attitude was sarcastic. "Second Young Master Xue's loyalty to the emperor is evident to all. He has personally poisoned his mother as instructed by Your Majesty. Your Majesty can rest assured."
The emperor couldn't make out the subtle meaning behind his words, but the monk he had brought with him changed his expression. Xiao Wan'er's words were imbued with spiritual energy. Although her voice was quiet at first, everyone in Chang'an could hear it clearly. What His Majesty had done was known to the entire city.
The monk leading the emperor's charge immediately attacked Xiao Wan'er, but how could a mere cultivator who had ascended to the Transcendent Realm through forbidden techniques be a match for Xiao Wan'er? With a single blow, Xiao Wan'er sent him flying, sending him crashing into the Princess's courtyard wall, collapsing a section of it and slamming his head hard against the masonry.
Xiao Wan'er's voice, heard by all of Chang'an, continued, "The Divine Dragon Guards are truly formidable. Most of them have mastered forbidden techniques, willingly abandoning the ranks of upright cultivators to obey His Majesty's orders without reservation. But how is it that, despite achieving this level of skill, your strength remains so weak?"
"Kill them!" the emperor shouted, and all the monks he brought rushed forward.
Xiao Wan'er and the other two went to meet the enemy. Facing a group of people, there was no obvious sign of defeat. Xiao Wan'er could even continue talking.
"At first, I didn't know why this was a forbidden technique. Later, I consulted the classics in the temple and found out the reason. But how could you, who have used forbidden techniques, not know about it? In your dreams at night, don't you think of the ordinary people who died because of this forbidden technique? Or is it because they were servants or refugees that they could die without any burden to you?"
The emperor was nearly mad with rage. He shouted angrily, asking Xiao Wan'er to shut up, but he was no match for her. After several exchanges, Xiao Wan'er was not injured, but instead seriously injured one of his monks.
"Everyone, kill Xiao Wan'er for me!"
Under his command, the cultivators who had been entangled with Liu Mingyin and Mingshu also broke away one after another and moved to Xiao Wan'er's side. Liu Mingyin and Mingshu naturally did not want to continue to entangle with them, but they each left two cultivators behind.
Xiao Wan'er finally became completely serious, and the voice that would have angered the emperor never appeared again.
But this wasn't necessarily a good thing for the emperor. Under the siege of the crowd, within a moment, a cultivator was blasted to death by magic and fell in front of the courtyard gate. Upon closer inspection, he was already dead.
The cultivator's death was like a sudden breach, tilting the balance of victory towards Xiao Wan'er and her companions. Outfighting two was no problem for Liu Mingyin and Ming Shu. They suddenly intensified their attacks, turning the initial stalemate into a one-sided slaughter. Xiao Wan'er left her enemies powerless to fight back. In just over a quarter of an hour, most of her besiegers were slain. Liu Mingyin and Ming Shu also killed their respective enemies simultaneously.
The emperor brought most of the Shenlong Guard monks to massacre Princess Taiping's mansion and assassinate Xiao Wan'er and the other two, but ended up losing most of his own monks.
"So, Your Majesty, why didn't you send Pei Yingguan? Although he hasn't made any progress in his cultivation for many years, he at least reached the Transcendent Realm through his own hard work. Isn't he much better than those people around you who are forced to grow up?" Xiao Wan'er didn't infuse her spiritual energy into her voice this time, but the sarcasm in her words remained undiminished. "Your Majesty, are you afraid? Just because he was once my fellow disciple, you don't dare to send him? Even though he follows Your Majesty like this, Your Majesty doesn't trust him?"
"What does who His Majesty appoints have to do with you, a traitor?" Before the emperor could speak, one of the survivors among the monks he brought with him was the first to loudly refute.
Xiao Wan'er also ignored him. Ming Shu very consciously threw the magic that she had secretly condensed at him. The man had just started to argue and was happy that he had stood up in front of the emperor, but he was hit by the magic and died immediately.
"Second Master Xue," Xiao Wan'er smiled as she looked at Xue Chongjian, who was already trembling with fear after the battle. "You said that my former senior brother betrayed his master and ancestors to follow His Majesty, and yet he still didn't gain His Majesty's trust. Do you really think that by killing Princess Taiping you can ascend to a high position from now on?"
Xue Chongjian, with his mouth blocked, naturally could not answer.
Pei Yingguan personally guarded the retired emperor's chambers. Outside, a team of Shenlong Guards slaughtered all the palace attendants and surrounded the chambers. Inside, the retired emperor's trusted eunuchs and ladies-in-waiting were also killed, all falling silent.
The retired emperor clutched the cushion of the couch in anger, but as an ordinary old man, he had no way to deal with Pei Yingguan.
"I now completely believe that Kang Le is right."
"How come the Emperor is as naive as my junior sister?" Perhaps because he believed he had the Emperor's support, Pei Yingguan was very confident in front of the Emperor. "Right or wrong is never important. The one who is right will always be the winner."
The emperor closed his eyes and said nothing more.
Pei Yingguan no longer took the initiative to provoke the emperor. He closed his eyes and stood sideways, his mind secretly extending to Princess Taiping's mansion.
Suddenly, he opened his eyes, ordered a captain of the Shenlong Guard who was traveling with him to keep an eye on the emperor, and he left the palace as quickly as possible and headed straight for Princess Taiping's mansion.
At this time, the emperor in the courtyard of the princess's mansion saw that the monks he brought with him had suffered a great defeat, so he took out a talisman hidden under his yellow robe and handed it to one of the survivors.
"Go ahead," he ordered.
The monk took the talisman, gathered the remaining spiritual energy in his hands, and used all his strength to tear the talisman in half. The talisman automatically burned as soon as it was torn, and soon turned to ash. The monk also bled from all seven orifices and fell to the ground without a sound.
"Xiao Wan'er, this is what you asked for." The emperor looked at her with satisfaction, looking forward to her miserable state.
Everyone followed the emperor's gaze and looked at Xiao Wan'er, but there was nothing abnormal about Xiao Wan'er. Instead, Liu Mingyin beside her was squatting on the ground in pain, holding his chest.
"How could this happen?" The emperor was shocked and angry. "Why wasn't it you who got hit?"
At this moment, Liu Mingyin, who was suffering great pain, could actually laugh.
"When Your Majesty was the Crown Prince, did you set up a formation in the East Palace? Now it seems that this formation was specifically designed to target Senior Sister. Am I right?"
The emperor was even more shocked and angry.
"How do you know that?"
As he spoke, he carefully checked all possible leaks in his mind. As he was thinking hard, he suddenly thought of the previous assassination by Mingshu, Qingyang, Xiao Wan'er and Liu Mingyin.
"It seems that His Majesty has figured it out," Liu Mingyin said firmly after noticing the emperor's expression change again. "Unfortunately, I don't have the ability to break the formation. I can only ask it to change its target."
Time goes back to the day when the prince was assassinated.
Liu Mingyin burst into the secret room and was stunned by the vast and complex formation. He unconsciously walked towards the formation, wanting to observe it more closely, but a sense of crisis overwhelmed him.
This crisis comes from the formation itself.
Liu Mingyin suddenly came back to his senses - he was clearly chasing the prince, so why did he suddenly have to observe this formation in detail?
After realizing something was amiss, Liu Mingyin realized the strangeness of the formation. He quickly realized that every part of the formation exuded a strong ominous aura, and at the center of the formation was Xiao Wan'er's name and birthday!
Liu Mingyin rushed into the formation, knife drawn, and headed for its center. But formations weren't easily broken. He struggled for a moment, unable to inflict any substantial damage. Suddenly, a sudden inspiration struck him, and he wrote his own name and date of birth on the spot where Xiao Wan'er's was written.
This attempt finally produced results—Xiao Wan'er's name and birthday in the center of the formation were erased and replaced with Liu Mingyin's name and birthday.
Seeing his efforts were effective, Liu Mingyin wanted to try again, but a powerful pressure enveloped the entire East Palace. He immediately escaped from the secret room and fled, leaving the secret room and the formation behind.
I didn't expect that the changes made that day would happen at this time.
At this time, the emperor also figured out the cause and effect.
"Impossible, absolutely impossible," he cried out in disbelief, "How could someone risk their own safety for others?"
"How is that impossible?" Liu Mingyin was nearly fainting from the pain, her voice barely audible. "Even under your command, there are countless loyal and righteous men who would lay down their lives for you. It's a pity that a monster like you, who only cares about fighting for power and profit, will never understand."
The emperor raised a trembling finger and pointed at him, ordering the few monks around him to take action.
"Kill him for me!"
"Mingshu, please take care of my junior brother," Xiao Wan'er said, and rushed towards these cultivators. Mingshu took the opportunity to take Liu Mingyin to a corner of the yard and treat him.
When Pei Yingguan rushed to the princess's mansion, what he saw were the corpses of monks, the painful Liu Mingyin, the anxious Ming Shu, and Xiao Wan'er pointing a knife at the emperor.
"It's useless." Even when facing death, the emperor still refused to give in. "I do have a way to dispel the formation, but I will never tell you even if I die. Let your junior brother be buried with me!"
Pei Yingguan walked over and used his hand to pull away Xiao Wan'er's blade.
"As long as you surrender, I will unlock the formation for him."
"Senior Sister...don't..." Liu Mingyin spoke with difficulty after hearing this.
"You are a cultivator. You should be able to sense that Princess Taiping is dead. The object of your loyalty is dead. Why bother fighting again?" Pei Yingguan persuaded, "Besides, I received a piece of news before I took action. Yesterday, a caravan entered Chang'an from the Eastern Capital. The leaders of the caravan were a father and son, surnamed Xiao. It is said that one of their daughters left home at a young age to join the Taoist sect. Junior sister has always been kind and pure. You wouldn't want them to get hurt, right?"
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