The Hall of Mental Cultivation was so silent that only the sparse sound of rain outside could be heard.
Emperor Jingcheng turned around and looked deeply at the young man standing in the hall.
So many years had passed. This person had changed greatly, yet only his spine remained upright, like pine, like cypress. The family precepts of the Lian family of Fudu Manor seemed carved into every Lian family member’s bones.
Their siblings’ eyes were extremely similar. Every time he saw him, Emperor Jingcheng felt as if he were seeing fifteen years ago, when he first met Weier.
Emperor Jingcheng had been chronically ill. He slowly sat down and didn’t refer to himself as “We”: “I know you resent me, but for me at that time, it was the best choice.”
“This throne—I never wanted to sit on it in the first place. I know why you don’t kill me now, and I also know that one day you will personally kill me.”
Fifteen years ago.
During Emperor Yongjia’s reign, Emperor Jingcheng was still Prince Xiao. At the height of the struggle for the throne, he nearly got caught up in the whirlpool of schemes and plots several times.
Emperor Jingcheng was merely a prince then, in his early twenties, young and spirited. Annoyed beyond measure, he requested to leave for his fief and be done with it.
But his young eldest son, his mother consort, and the two side consorts already taken into his household were detained in the capital precisely to prevent him from harboring treasonous thoughts in his fief.
It was on the way to his fief that Emperor Jingcheng was ambushed. Severely wounded and unconscious, he was rescued by Lian Youwei, who had come down from the mountain to shop, and brought to Fudu Manor to recuperate.
When Emperor Jingcheng awoke, he had completely lost his memory and couldn’t remember who he was. He only remembered the stunning, graceful figure who had saved him from death’s door.
Lian Youwei was the Lian family’s eldest daughter, inheritor of Fudu Manor’s renowned Snow-Bearing Sword Technique. Exceptionally talented, her sword qi was like frost, yet she had a lotus face. Her personality was gentle and kind, yet she didn’t lack tenacity and integrity.
Love between man and woman took root bit by bit.
At that time, both were sincere. Children of the jianghu were unrestrained by convention. When Lian Youwei was twenty, she married Emperor Jingcheng at Fudu Manor, becoming his wife.
Moreover, both swore an oath to be together for one lifetime, one generation, one pair of lovers.
They soon had a son.
But he didn’t know that back in the capital, among those concubines in his prince’s manor, when he chose to leave the capital, one was already pregnant. Together they gave birth to one son and one daughter. Adding the son born earliest, these became the current First Prince, Second Princess, and Third Prince.
In Fudu Manor, plain but happy days passed for several years. Prince Xiao’s memories gradually recovered.
Meanwhile, his other brothers died or were injured in the struggle for the throne. The imperial family dwindled, and in the end, only the missing Prince Xiao remained as an adult member of the imperial family who could inherit the throne.
The gravely ill Emperor Yongjia sent many people to search for his whereabouts after years of disappearance.
Prince Xiao, having recovered his memory, recalled the ancestral precept forbidding imperial descendants from becoming too entangled with jianghu factions, and felt only panic.
He chose to confess his identity to Lian Youwei, but subconsciously concealed that he still had concubines and children in the capital. He only said he would return to the capital to handle matters and then come back—
He had to go to the capital.
No matter in what capacity.
He had wronged Lian Youwei, and wronged even more the children and concubines who had grown up without his care at home. No matter what, he had to go back and see them.
Moreover, if he didn’t leave voluntarily, Emperor Yongjia would sooner or later investigate Fudu Manor. If it were discovered… he dared not imagine what would happen.
Lian Youwei was uneasy, so after Prince Xiao left, she comforted Jingjue, who was only six years old at the time, and secretly followed to the capital.
Emperor Jingcheng caressed the plum blossoms in the vase on the desk. Though so many years had passed, he still remembered everything clearly, as if it were yesterday.
He remembered the disbelieving expression on Weier’s face when she secretly followed him and discovered he had concubines and children.
He loved Lian Youwei.
Loved her deeply.
Naturally, he also knew Lian Youwei’s character.
A person as gentle as water, yet terrifyingly resolute on matters of principle.
Usually, drinking wine under the moon and dancing with swords in the plum grove were performed for him to see. But that time when she drew the Snow-Bearing Sword, it was to sever their relationship.
“Though it wasn’t your intention, since you have concubines and children, you are no longer the ‘one lifetime, one generation, one pair’ that I, Lian Youwei, wanted. No woman of the Lian family will ever share a husband with other women.”
Lian Youwei’s eyes reddened slightly, yet her tone was indifferent. She sat tall on her horse, the frost-cold sword tip tracing a line on the ground.
Emperor Jingcheng remembered every word she said—calm, rational, methodical.
“If you truly have a man’s aspirations and sense of responsibility, then shoulder your responsibilities in the capital, including your several concubines and children. Now that things have become this way, it’s neither your fault nor mine. Fate plays tricks on people, but they are even more innocent.”
“You are not only Jingjue’s father, but theirs as well.”
“Women in palace deep chambers regard their husband as heaven. I, Lian Youwei, am not such a person. Jingjue has Little Uncle Abai and my father as his grandfather. He doesn’t lack male elders’ care. I can raise him well.”
“The jianghu doesn’t speak of divorcing wives or amicable separations. You and I will use this line as our boundary today. Let us never meet again.”
He couldn’t even open his mouth to ask her to stay, watching helplessly as she rode away.
The Old Man Under the Moon had tied the wrong red thread. Heaven’s mockery of him didn’t stop there. Fearing that the matter of Fudu Manor would be discovered, he sent messages telling Weier to be cautious or relocate directly, while doing his utmost to conceal things before Emperor Yongjia.
Finally, on the night Emperor Yongjia died, when he thought that once he became emperor, everything could pass—
That night, he knelt vigil before the dragon bed. His father emperor beckoned, and hidden guards brought in a sleeping child and a blood-stained sword.
It was the Snow-Bearing Sword.
Weier’s inseparable blade.
Emperor Yongjia personally said that aside from Jingjue, all two hundred thirty-seven lives at Fudu Manor had been extinguished—not one survivor.
As for Jingjue, he had been forcibly given the imperial family’s secret medicine. Upon waking, he wouldn’t remember anything from the past.
Emperor Yongjia had secretly summoned several ministers, bribed the assassin organization Falling Moon Flow, and together with the imperial inner court masters, massacred Fudu Manor, leaving only the imperial heir.
He vomited a mouthful of heart’s blood on the spot. This was the final lesson his father emperor gave him before death, teaching him that emperors are heartless.
Unable to obtain, or after obtaining, losing forever in an almost tragic and desperate manner—this is what haunts people most.
The day before his ascension, he lost his beloved, and so for the rest of his life, every day was torment, every place a painful memory.
Emperor Jingcheng even began to harbor resentment.
He resented why Ying Jingjue had to be born. If he hadn’t been born, Fudu Manor could have escaped calamity. Would his Weier still be alive?
So from the moment Ying Jingjue awoke, though he cared for him in every way, he never again held this child.
Weier’s grave was at Fudu Manor. He concealed Lian Youwei’s true name, established a cenotaph, and posthumously honored her as Empress Wenrui.
Fearing people would bully Ying Jingjue, among the few imperial consorts in the harem, he selected a woman with a clean background and gentle character to be the successor empress, had Ying Jingjue raised at the Middle Palace, recorded him in the genealogy, and made him a proper legitimate son.
Emperor Jingcheng originally thought the matter of Fudu Manor would gradually be buried with the passage of time.
Until in the third year after his ascension, when Jingjue was nine years old, he saw Lian Yubai participating in the imperial examinations—
Now the Regent Prince of the Great Sheng Dynasty, Lian Shenwei.
Weier’s most beloved younger brother.
When he saw him at the palace examination, he accidentally knocked over his teacup and didn’t even dare recognize him.
Because that young man whose smile didn’t reach his eyes, answering questions with brush in hand at the examination grounds, differed too greatly from the pure-hearted, sword-wielding, carefree young man in his memories who wanted to make a name for himself in the jianghu.
He had come for revenge.
Over these years, he had killed off one by one the court ministers who had decided to massacre Fudu Manor and all the participants.
Wei Li wasn’t the first, nor would he be the last.
What he couldn’t bring himself to do, Lian Shenwei did completely, bearing the reputation of a treacherous minister and walking step by step to today.
Though Emperor Jingcheng didn’t want to be this emperor, he also didn’t want to see the Ying family’s realm end in his hands.
He dared give Lian Shenwei such great power for two reasons: first, after Lian Shenwei completed his revenge, he would have someone more capable that he approved of sit on that throne, without destabilizing the realm; second, no matter what, Lian Shenwei would never truly harm Ying Jingjue.
Jingjue was the only bloodline his elder sister left behind. He was Jingjue’s maternal uncle, and had the bond of growing up with Jingjue since childhood.
Though Jingjue sometimes valued relationships too much and was somewhat lacking in decisiveness regarding those close to him.
But he was only fifteen years old. He had the will to govern and the talent to be a wise ruler. What he needed was only tempering and growth.
These things—not only would Lian Shenwei give them to him, but he, as father and as emperor, would give them as well.
Emperor Jingcheng understood in his heart that besides revenge, Lian Shenwei had also eliminated quite a few tumors in the court. Each time he killed a minister, though many of those who rose to replace them were considered his faction, those people would only become Jingjue’s connections and foundation in the future.
Every day he remained at court, the road would be steadier for Jingjue after his ascension.
With this thought, combined with thoughts of Weier, every time he saw Lian Shenwei’s now pale and thin appearance, his guilt deepened.
All two hundred thirty-seven lives at Fudu Manor, not one missing—yet Lian Shenwei lived. So who had died in his place back then?
After the manor was massacred, he disappeared for three years, reappearing at the court examinations. What had Lian Shenwei experienced during those three years? He never spoke of it, so Emperor Jingcheng had no way of knowing.
Lian Shenwei said, “There’s no rush. Before Jingjue can stand on his own, I won’t kill you.”
His clothes were soaked. He should have felt cold, yet he could feel his body temperature gradually rising, and there was a vague itching cough in his throat.
Stifling sensations also came intermittently from his heart meridian.
Emperor Jingcheng was silent for a long while before saying, “Don’t you plan to tell Jingjue your identity? If this continues, after he ascends the throne, the first person he’ll deal with will be you.”
Lian Shenwei warmed the back of his hands with the hand warmer.
Jingjue was Elder Sister’s child. When parading on horseback after the examinations, when he inadvertently looked up, after not seeing him for three years, Jingjue still looked exceptionally innocent.
When he requested to teach this child, he discovered that he had the aspiration and potential to become a wise ruler.
In that case, just be a wise ruler. No need to remember the past, no need to choose between hatred and kinship.
Those blood feuds, those infamous stains—as an elder, it was proper for him to shoulder the younger generation’s share.
As for whether Ying Jingjue would kill him after ascending the throne…
With his current body, who knew how long he could last.
If he could hold on for a few more years after this boy ascended, he would be his whetstone for a few more years. That way, when he died and met Elder Sister, he would have a clear conscience.
Emperor Jingcheng called, “Yubai…”
Lian Shenwei frowned. “Don’t call me by that name.”
The Lian family rules.
Those covered in infamy, hands stained with blood, who violated righteousness… those who massacred the innocent were unworthy of being Lian family descendants. Whether direct or collateral descendants, their names would be permanently removed from the family register.
He observed the family rules and removed himself from the family register. The clean and pure Lian Yubai in the family register had already died at seventeen.
Lian Yubai was a member of the Lian family. Lian Shenwei was not.
Emperor Jingcheng was silent for a moment. “You came about Wei Li’s matter?”
“He’s dead. Nominate someone to temporarily replace his position, but don’t make it a permanent appointment. Leave that position open for three years.” Lian Shenwei pressed his lips and coughed.
Emperor Jingcheng nodded.
Lian Shenwei continued, “There’s one more thing. I’ve come to take back Elder Sister’s Snow-Bearing Sword.”
Emperor Jingcheng’s expression finally changed. “No!”
“That sword has been with you all these years—it’s long overdue to be returned,” Lian Shenwei said flatly. “The legacy of Fudu Manor cannot be severed. The Young Marquis will return soon.”
“No,” Emperor Jingcheng refused, saying sternly, “At least not now. Even if he learned Weier’s sword technique by accident, what he excels at is the spear. Even if you give him that sword, he won’t use it.”
“Regent Prince… I don’t have many years left either.”
With these last words, the emperor who was constantly in poor spirits sounded somewhat pleading.
Lian Shenwei stared at him for a long while before saying, “Very well. When I ask you for the sword next time, it will be time for Jingjue to ascend the throne.”
Without looking at the dazed Emperor Jingcheng, he left the Hall of Mental Cultivation.
Following instructions, Chief Eunuch Li had prepared a rain-sheltered palanquin for Lian Shenwei. He escorted him all the way out of the palace gates. Not far from there, they encountered Ying Jingjue standing by the palace wall, holding an umbrella.
The young Crown Prince’s eyes were deep as he tightly gripped the umbrella handle. He looked up at the person sitting in the palanquin.
In the dim, dark rain curtain, that person held a hand warmer, one exposed hand thin and pale. There was none of his usual three-part smile on his face. When he lowered his eyes to look at people, his gaze reflected nothing—cold and indifferent.
As if he didn’t want to see his student.
Moreover, they were now at the palace. In others’ eyes, Lian Shenwei, upon seeing the Crown Prince, neither descended from the palanquin nor addressed him as a subject with proper greetings.
This was already the full bearing of a powerful minister.
The young eunuchs carrying the palanquin trembled.
Ying Jingjue didn’t know that it wasn’t that Lian Shenwei didn’t want to see him, but rather that he was now running a severe fever, in an extremely drowsy state, and truly had no energy to deal with him.
Lian Shenwei forced himself to rally and curved his lips slightly. “What does Your Highness need?”
Ying Jingjue said, “This Prince has matters to discuss with the Regent Prince. Please descend from the palanquin, Regent Prince.”
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wannaberecluse On SRTT Chapter 50.1