With his sword finger pressed against the patient's neck, a wisp of pure true energy pierced through like a needle.
The Heavenly Horse's body shuddered violently, abruptly awakening from the chaos.
As soon as I raised my head, the bright yellow figure behind the dragon desk came into view—it was the Empress!
In an instant, he was struck dumb, frozen in place like a clay sculpture.
In just three or four breaths, an uncontrollable fear seeped out from the cracks in his bones, and his whole body trembled incessantly.
It was as if his spine had been removed; he collapsed and fell to the ground.
The Empress's gaze, however, was somewhat vacant, as if it were fixed on a blurry figure through his trembling body.
Tonight, after capturing the Nine Gates, two commanders of the Xuanji Guard were mobilized.
Hiding in the open is to seize; listening in the shadows is to be surrounded.
Apart from the two, the rest of his subordinates only learned about the mission details upon arriving at Chengyuan.
Yin Zhe deduced from the fact that His Majesty was planning to "stir up trouble" rather than "besiege" the enemy.
She guessed correctly, but not entirely.
Lingduo also had a most secret mission: to secretly bring back the Sky Horse.
The leader of the Nine Gates assumed that he had disappeared into obscurity or gone far away, thus making his disappearance legitimate.
"This humble subject... this commoner pays his respects to Your Majesty..."
Finally, the Pegasus regained some of its senses and stammered out those words.
He moved among the powerful and influential, navigating both the legitimate and criminal worlds, and bribing government officials, earning him the nickname "the all-powerful horse."
Now, this title sounds ironic.
Tongtian Tongtian, when he actually stood before the emperor, he couldn't even utter a coherent sentence.
He banged his head hard on the floor tiles, trying to figure out what value he had and what right he had to face the emperor.
But my mind went completely blank, and I couldn't think of any possibility whatsoever.
“An Che, your father An Shichen was a famous broker in Fengjing during the old calendar.”
Tongtian Ma Anche was stunned; he hadn't heard his real name in far too long.
“Raise your head.”
Without hesitation, An Che knelt up shakily, raised his head and lowered his eyes, not daring to look at that dazzling bright yellow.
Qin Minghuang stared straight at his face.
Despite his handsome scholarly appearance, An Che is actually thirty-seven years old this year.
Her cultivation level was average, only at the fifth rank, but she possessed the skill to preserve her youthful appearance.
Qin Minghuang's memories of his father were already vague, let alone after so many years.
After looking for a while, I still couldn't find any familiar inspiration.
"An Shichen died in the 41st year of the lunar calendar?"
"Yes, Your Majesty."
"Why did you die?"
"Sleeping soundly after a night of heavy drinking, the candle accidentally fell to the ground."
"You believe it?"
An Che clenched his fists tightly. How could he possibly believe it!
Brokers relied on poor intelligence and silver tongues, and their status was still below that of merchants.
I vividly remember when I was a child, my family was not exactly poor, but we lived a very frugal life.
Even if my father could make a deal, he wouldn't dare to squander it, because there were times when he wouldn't make a sale for ten days or half a month.
Most people in Fengjing live frugally, but this is the case for most ordinary citizens.
When An Che was twelve years old, the family's life suddenly became much better.
My father took on a job with a large merchant caravan in the Western Regions, which opened up new avenues for his business.
From then on, step by step, life improved at a visible pace.
They bought a two-courtyard house, raised horses, and he was sent to a private school.
But their good fortune didn't last long. Just two years later, a fire destroyed everything, and both parents died in that "accident."
Yes, An Che never believed it was an accident.
He remembered that during that final period, his father often stayed out all night, and they rarely saw each other.
Even when they do meet, they often look gloomy and force a smile, their brows furrowed with an unyielding sorrow.
Most importantly, although they had originally planned to go on a spring outing together, his parents suddenly had something to do and couldn't go. In the end, An Che went with some friends he knew from the Western Regions caravan.
As soon as he left the city, he fell into a deep sleep in the carriage.
Along the way, An Che was bound, his mouth stuffed with cotton cloth, and drugged with sleeping pills, leaving him in a daze all day until he arrived in the Western Regions.
When he arrived at the scene, he was told that his parents had both died in the fire.
They wanted to escape, but they couldn't get away no matter what they did.
The merchant confined him to a remote village and arranged for a tutor to teach him knowledge and a martial arts master to teach him martial arts.
He was provided with meat and elixirs for cultivation, but was not allowed to leave.
An Che reached the fifth rank at the age of twenty.
The master he once knew was nowhere to be found, and he searched the entire Western Regions but could not find the foreign merchant again.
Five years of constraints vanished in an instant. An Che immediately bought a household registration, packed his bags, and returned to Fengjing.
With his considerable martial arts skills and brokerage abilities, he earned a reputation in the martial arts world.
Later, he was favored by the God of Wealth and taken into the Nine Gates, becoming the Tongtian Horse who could speak human language to humans and ghost language to ghosts.
After taking power, he secretly investigated the truth of what happened back then.
Persistence pays off; they finally found an opportunity to sneak into the Jingzhao Prefecture's archives and retrieved the case files from that year.
He was fast asleep after a night of drinking when the candle accidentally fell, but it did not affect the surrounding houses.
In just a few words, there is one sentence: It was not the two parents who died, but a family of three!
At that moment, An Che was absolutely certain that his father had long suspected that someone was going to target his family.
Not only did he secretly ask a merchant from the Hu region to take him out of the city, but he also prepared a scapegoat in advance!
But his father was just a broker. Even if there were some business disputes, it shouldn't have come to the point of murder to silence him.
An Che was puzzled and became even more cautious from then on.
While continuing the investigation in Fengjing, they also secretly sent people to search for that foreign merchant.
Over the years, only a few fragments have been found.
But now, His Majesty is actually asking about the cause of his father's death!
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