"No, whose children did he have with?" Ruan Xianxian was full of questions.
“The Princess!” the white fox answered matter-of-factly.
"Back then, the general was still weak. Although he was unwilling, how could he refuse the emperor's decision to bestow a marriage upon him?"
As compensation, and thanks to the Princess's strenuous efforts on his behalf, the Emperor did not reclaim all of the general's military power, allowing him to have the resources to rise again later.
The controls are confusing.
"I can barely understand that if you marry a princess in the imperial court, you must have a child with your original spouse. But with children around your knees, where is the general's so-called reluctance?"
The white fox was stunned.
In the eyes of a fox clinging to feudalistic beliefs, marrying a princess means marrying the princess, and everything is perfectly reasonable.
But when Ruan Xianxian said that, it was one thing if they didn't want to have sex the first time after marriage, but if they didn't want to afterward, could the emperor issue an imperial edict to force them to have sex?
Is the so-called "unwillingness" somewhat illogical?
"What are you two dawdling about? Come on over here!" Old Li's voice came from the end of the passageway.
Ruan Xianxian responded, no longer looking at the mural depicting the general's pre-death delusions, such as his loving relationship with the Eighth Princess until old age. She picked up the white fox and caught up with Mu Xia and the others.
The group walked through a long passageway and came to a giant, towering stone gate.
The stone door, which was originally tightly sealed, was opened by the Japanese soldiers who had arrived earlier. Ruan Xianxian, who was standing outside the stone door looking inside, gasped.
The main tomb chamber, paved with white jade, was about the size of a basketball court, with a ninety-nine-step staircase leading straight to the sky.
The aerial platform, supported by four pillars, is adorned with carved beams and painted rafters, as if stepping into another dimension. The palace gate is made of exquisite brass, with lifelike phoenix patterns carved on it.
"Can I go up?" she asked the white fox.
After a thousand years, it's unknown whether the white jade ground is still sturdy.
What if you fall off while walking down? You'd be covered in bruises.
365: Are you sure it wasn't a head injury from a fall?
“Alright.” The white fox stepped up the stairs first. “Before you arrived, the Onmyoji from Japan had already come.”
"If it weren't for the fear of disrupting the feng shui of this place beyond repair, the Onmyoji wouldn't even dare to touch the princess's coffin with his filthy hands."
Ruan Xianxian carefully stepped onto the stairs, then asked, "How did those three soldiers outside die?"
When the body was brought up, she was eager to check on the living people in the cave, mainly because of Feng Bai's attitude.
The culprit was never identified as the white fox; instead, it was that stubborn creature that would seize upon even the slightest mistake and relentlessly pursue the truth.
If the soldiers' deaths were to be linked to the white fox, his attitude would definitely not have been the same as it was then.
With Lao Li's arrival and the events that occurred, she forgot to ask for a moment. Now that she thinks about it, she has to know the truth and give the Third Army an explanation.
"I don't know." The white fox shook its head. "I was focused on the enemy at the time and didn't notice any dead people."
"They were killed by Japanese Onmyoji (yin-yang masters)." Old Li replied in a deep voice.
Why did the island nation only kill three out of so many people? Given their ruthless nature, it's not impossible for the Japanese to annihilate hundreds of ordinary people in one fell swoop.
Seemingly noticing the confusion in her eyes, Old Li explained, "Something changed in the tomb, and that thing also made its move."
I estimate that only three soldiers with strong willpower remained conscious and managed to block the Onmyoji's path, thus suffering a tragic fate.
Ruan Xianxian understood. The Japanese were so eager to steal the coffin that they only killed the three people blocking their way. The remaining hundred or so people were not killed because they didn't want to, but because they had more important things to do.
She laughed in exasperation: "Damn it!"
She decided that when she got back, she would wipe out three of the Japanese devils' strongholds as a sacrifice to the heavens.
I thought it would be ninety-nine levels of heavenly steps, but it wasn't. It was only about thirty or forty levels, and the palace was already in sight.
The palace doors were half-open, revealing a smooth, mirror-like marble floor beneath one's feet. The ceiling was inlaid with colorful gemstones, resembling twinkling stars in the night sky.
The dressing table and chaise lounge that belonged to the deceased were once adorned with exquisite porcelain pieces, but unfortunately, most of the wooden items had long since decayed under the erosion of time.
Only a rough outline can be seen.
Gold, silver, and jade artifacts were scattered all over the ground.
Ruan Xianxian met Mu Xia's gaze and lowered her eyes.
Without saying anything, they continued walking inside.
Separating the front hall from the rear hall is a well-preserved jade screen. The jade is pure and lustrous, white as solidified fat, with a slight sheen.
The screen is carved with exquisite patterns. It is a spring mountain forest scene with overlapping peaks, swirling clouds and mist, and tall pine trees stretching their branches as if playing with the spring breeze.
Beyond the screen, the inner hall was not the princess's bedroom as one might imagine, but rather a jade platform, about half a meter high and spanning approximately 50 square meters, where the coffin was placed.
The original location where the coffin was placed is now just a support frame.
Old Li quickly climbed the steps, reaching the three steps in the blink of an eye. He squatted down, closed his eyes, stroked the wooden platform, and hissed.
"Vicious, what a vicious method."
"What do you mean?" the white fox asked anxiously.
Old Li remained silent, picked him up, and walked down the steps outside the main hall. "I could say a thousand words, but it's not as good as letting you see it for yourself."
Ruan Xianxian and Mu Xia didn't follow, but instead wandered around the main hall.
Suddenly, from afar, Mu Xia called out, "My God, Ruan Xiaoxian, come quick!"
The sound came from outside the hall. Ruan Xianxian ran out in the direction of the sound. Mu Xia was standing on the platform outside the hall, looking up and down, her beautiful eyes filled with shock.
Ruan Xianxian peeked out and, wow, there was a lake right under the heavens that looked like a fairyland.
The lake water was as clear as the purest crystal, shimmering under the ever-burning lights.
On the lake, golden lotus flowers stand gracefully, each one seemingly meticulously crafted by a master artisan, its petals gleaming golden and radiant, as if coated with a sacred glow.
"How did you do that?" Ruan Xianxian, this ignorant country bumpkin, exclaimed in amazement.
Mu Xia pondered for a moment, "The lake water should be from melting snow from the mountains, and the lotus flowers are not real lotus flowers, but are made of gold."
Even so, this ingenious design was enough to amaze the two women.
How precise the calculations must be to introduce snowmelt from the mountains without flooding the tomb?
"I don't believe anyone who says the ancients were stupid."
Mu Xia laughed at her, "Are the ancients stupid? If they sealed our martial arts and locked us in the harem, we probably wouldn't have survived past level three."
Indeed, Ruan Xianxian laughed too. No matter how well she spoke, it was all just empty talk. If she really became the Eighth Princess, she might not even live to see Xirong.
"Rage!"
Suddenly, a white fox howled from below the Heavenly Palace, its cry even more mournful than when it fought the Onmyoji.
Ruan Xianxian understood; Bai Hu was using very foul language right now.
She and Mu Xia quickly ran down from the Heavenly Palace, where they saw Old Li, who was holding a bag of explosives in one hand, confronting the White Fox.
Is it reasonable for a disciple of the Xuanmen sect to be holding explosives?
No, Ruan Xianxian slapped her forehead and ran forward to stand between the two, still facing Lao Li with a fake smile.
"What are you doing?"
Could this guy be a spy from the island nation, who's going all out and dragging these two rising stars down with him to their doom?
Old Li raised an eyebrow. "What are you thinking? We just think this scruffy fox is too stupid. Let's show him the truth. Don't you want to see?"
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