Chapter 516: People In The Temple
Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
Fan Xian’s heart jumped. He slightly lowered his head and said, “I believe.”
“Do you really believe there are gods in this world?” The Emperor watched him calmly. U.p.dated by Box n o v e l. com
Fan Xian answered directly, “Yes.”
He didn’t know why the Emperor was asking this question. For him to be reborn into Qing Kingdom, he had a deep and unquestionable belief in such things as gods. The Fan Xian of this time was not the same as Fan Shen of his previous life. He was the most ardent believer of the philosophy of idealism.
“Follow me.”
Fan Xian’s mind was filled with confusion. He followed the mysterious Emperor and walked toward the temple hidden at the summit amidst the trees. The fame of the great Dong Mountain was widely spread under heaven. It was initially famous for its jade and then later for its wonder. Countless poor commoners, who could not afford doctors and medication, had come to this place to worship and had their illness make a huge turn for the better. It was bestowed the title of sacred land by the Ascetic Monks under heaven.
Fan Xian had always thought Qing Temple was deliberately creating mysterious, with stupid women and infatuated people mistaking their mental consolation as true cures. However, the Emperor’s expression was very serious. Could Qing Temple on the summit of this mountain be truly able to receive the intent of heaven and make contact with the legendary and mysterious holy temple?
Filled with countless doubts and a slight excitement, Fan Xian followed the Emperor around a quiet and isolated stone path. They came to an ancient small temple behind the main temple. The mountain breeze blew with some strength and set the bells below the eaves tinkling, giving off a clear, calm, and crisp sound.
It looked like the priests at the foot of the mountain had not lied. It was clear that these temples on the summit of the mountain had not been repaired in many years. It was surprising that thousands of years of wind had not blown the old, small temple into rubble.
Looking at the style of the little temple, at the dark and severe colors, Fan Xian’s heart jumped. Involuntarily, a feeling of fear and respect welled inside him like when he first walked into the Qing Temple in Jingdou.
At that time, the Emperor had been inside the Qing Temple, and he had been outside. Now, he had followed the Emperor to a place that seemed out of the mundane world. A strange feeling grew inside Fan Xian. The Emperor seemed to be familiar with these paths and perhaps with everything in the great Dong Mountain.
Standing outside the little temple, the Emperor quietly said, “Don’t be curious, and don’t be tired of hearing this… The reason is actually very simple. After meeting your mother in Danzhou, of course, we could not miss the scenery on Dong Mountain. We had once stayed here for some time.”
Although he didn’t know how the Emperor had guessed his thoughts, Fan Xian’s mood was immediately different after hearing these words. He looked again at the old buildings around him. There was a glimmer of intimacy and yearning in his gaze.
The Emperor’s following words immediately shattered Fan Xian’s relaxed and happy mood.
“The Emperor does not enter unexpected places.” The Emperor laughed coldly and repeated the words of admonishment Fan Xian had said in Danzhou. “I know what you’ve been worried about these few days. Let me ask you, if you were in Jingdou right now and you were that woman, what would you do?”
Fan Xian didn’t put on an act and repeatedly profess his fear. Instead, he directly sank deep into thought. This was a question he had already thought about countless times. In the end, he realized that if internal turmoil were to rise in Qing Kingdom and something went wrong in Jingdou, the Eldest Princess, who was imprisoned in the courtyard, would only have one path to take.
She could possibly do many things. At the heart of everything, the foundation of all attempts to take the throne, would be as the Emperor had said yesterday. There was only one way to do it—kill the Emperor.
“I have to leave the watch of the Overwatch Council and make contact with my own powers,” Fan Xian said without much confidence. “However, this needed to have started several months ago. I don’t think the Eldest Princess has this power.”
The Emperor coldly said, “Do you believe that two people can set an entire Palace on fire? It was also a thundering and raining that night.”
Fan Xian shook his head. He didn’t want to show too many emotions. Through his own channels, he had learned the inside story about the turmoil in the Royal Palace a few months ago. He knew that the Eastern Palace had caught fire because the Crown Prince, in order to save himself, had done it to disrupt the empress dowager. At the time, he had only concerned himself with admiring the Crown Prince’s initiative. Listening to the Emperor speak, he thought of the strangeness of the matter.
“I killed so many people, yet she did not resist at all,” the Emperor said. “Yet, she still had the time to give thought to the Eastern Palace and give the Crown Prince a hand. That sister of mine always does things that others cannot understand. If someone told me that she was able to avoid the Overwatch Council’s supervision and make contact with her people, I would not find it strange at all.”
One could tell that after the Emperor forced his sister and son into betrayal, or after the betrayal that had yet to occur, his entire personality had changed slightly. He already considered Fan Xian, an illegitimate child who had not grown up beside him and had demonstrated genuine loyalty and secret filial piety after entering Jingdou, as someone he trusted the most.
However, this kind of trust made Fan Xian feel that the pressure on him had increased exponentially. He rubbed his slightly sore throat and glanced at the Emperor before continuing. “If the Eldest Princess had already contacted her people months ago, then she only needed to wait for an opportunity. I think you being far from Jingdou is the best opportunity.”
“You only need to say what she would do. There is no need to constantly remind me of this point.”
“Yes, I think that the Eldest Princess would use all the power she had consolidated over 20 years and attempt a lightning strike either at Dong Mountain or during the return to Jingdou. Regardless of the success or failure, she will block your messages and announce to the world that you have been met with misfortune. She will then have either the Crown Prince or Second Prince inherit the throne.”
“There is no need for rubbish such as regardless of the success or failure. Since she is going to do it, she will want me dead.”
Fan Xian’s analysis was rough, shallow, and direct. If the Eldest Princess Li Yunrui could truly extricate herself, she would certainly make this choice. A so-called conspiracy, in the end, was a question of life and death, and success and failure. As long as life and death were set, success and failure were separated. With the Prince’s support in Jingdou and the support of the Ye and Qin families, she just had to push the assassination of the Emperor onto Fan Xian. Who else would be able to sit in that dragon chair? Perhaps only if Chen Pingping led a mere 500 Black Knights once again in a rebellion.
He lowered his head and said, “Since you are here, you have plans.”
The Emperor glanced at him and faintly said, “What power could Yunrui have? The Junshang Conference? Thinking of it now, I should have listened to Director Chen and your words and completely swept clean that stupid Conference.”
“The Junshang Conference is only a loosely structured organization,” Fan Xian repeated his father-in-law’s deduction. “What is important is what kind of power can the Eldest Princess command?”
“Dong Mountain is an isolated precipice on the side of the sea, deep within the country. It is impossible to attack with an army.” The Emperor smiled coldly. “It’s a 10,000 li staircase to heaven. If someone wants to assassinate me, they first need the ability to ascend to the heavens.”
Fan Xian lowered his head slightly. He understood what the Emperor was saying. The position of Dong Mountain was clever. It was difficult to send an army against it. To the north, Danzhou had endless ranges of tall mountains and sheer cliffs. It stopped the last sliver of danger from an army.
Since this did not need to be considered, if one wanted to assassinate the monarch of a country, the ruler of the most powerful country in the world, they could only use an assassin. However, there was no point sending someone mediocre. They wouldn’t even be able to break through the outermost ring of the Imperial Army, much less the hundred or so terrifying Tiger Guard aces at the summit of the mountain. If the Eldest Princess truly had the intention of assassinating the Emperor, one could guess the skill level of such an assassin.
“Ye Liuyun takes offerings from the Junshang Conference,” Fan Xian said heavily. “The Eldest Princess does not have many aces herself. After experiencing the attack in the valley, I feel that there are some people in court who are presently increasingly impudent. No matter what these impudent people do, it is not surprising.”
He referred to the military elders within Qing Kingdom. If these people collectively stood against the Emperor, what would happen?
The Emperor didn’t comment on Fan Xian’s words. He only quietly said, “My personal visit to Dong Mountain this time did not confuse just you. The two scholars opposed it vehemently, but I still had to come. I have been in the Palace too long. I wanted to come out to have a look at the places I had visited. Second, Chengqian hurt my heart. I want to depose him, so I need to do it openly and publicly. I cannot leave anything for people to gossip about.”
Fan Xian remembered that the Emperor beside him could probably be considered the most diligent and strangest Emperor in recorded history. After assuming the throne, particularly after the great battles ended, he had never left Jingdou. He had not carried out a kingdom-wide travel activity, which monarchs had previously done during an era of prosperity.
The Emperor even rarely left the Royal Palace. Fan Xian only knew about the one time he saw him outside the Taiping Courtyard.
The Emperor suddenly paused and smiled slightly. “The third reason is very simple. I am purposely giving Yunrui an opportunity to see whether or not the Junshang Conference is truly capable of getting rid of me.”
Fan Xian shook his head and said, “I stick by what I said. Why take the risk? Why come here? You are the master of the world. With one edict, the broken remnants of the Junshang Conference would immediately shatter and not be worth mentioning at all.”
“Is that so? But what about Ye Liuyun?” The Emperor smiled slightly as his brows gradually relaxed.
Fan Xian was speechless. Only now did he finally understand the extent of the Emperor’s self-confidence. It turned out that he was using himself as bait and was not after just anyone. Rather, it was Ye Liuyun, the person the Junshang Conference made offerings to.
With this power and at-ease warrior floating overseas and in the wild and the Emperor in court, the two balanced and checked each other. Compromise created the loyal and distant relationship between the Ye family and royal family. If the Emperor was able to hold Ye Liuyun under his sword, then there wasn’t a sliver of power inside the Qing Kingdom that would be able to rock the foundations of his rule.
Ye Liuyun had long been a malignant tumor in the Emperor’s heart. His visit to the great Dong Mountain was to use the wonder of Dong Mountain to remove the tumor.
Fan Xian still thought it was absurd. Even if the Emperor had over a hundred Tiger Guard and Eunuch Hong, that mysterious and strange old creature, if the Eldest Princess were to make a move, it would certainly be countless powers working together with Ye Liuyun. Even if Ye Liuyun did not succeed in his assassination, given the super-human realm of a Great Grandmaster, how could the Emperor hold him?
He had once personally experienced Ye Liuyun’s half a sword slicing through a building. He knew just how terrifying Ye Liuyun’s power was. Unless Qing Kingdom’s Iron Riders joined the camp, in addition to endless firing crossbows, they might be able to kill Ye Liuyun in the wilderness. However, at this moment, the Emperor was on a lonely summit. Ye Liuyun could float and float out, without giving the surrounding Tiger Guards any chance at all.
As for the Imperial Guards at the foot of the mountain, obstructed by the shape of the land, it was impossible for them to form into a cavalry and charge.
“How can a Great Grandmaster be killed?”
This was something Fan Xian had thought about for a whole year. He came to many conclusions. The safest was to use the assault rifle he had hidden like a precious child at a distance of 500 meters and shoot. This situation was not an easy one to engineer. Great Grandmasters were as mysterious as dragons, and their senses were overly strong. It was unlikely they would stand there and give him much time to take aim.
How to kill a Great Grandmaster? It was not until the end that Fan Xian thought of the most reliable method—use two Great Grandmasters to kill one Great Grandmaster.
This was a pointless idea and useless thought. Two children could certainly beat up one child, and two rocks were heavier than one rock. Creatures such as the Great Grandmasters were not mass-produced goods. They were rare geniuses.
Who could find two Great Grandmasters?
“Thus, I had to come to the great Dong Mountain because I need a person. This person will never leave Dong Mountain to welcome my idea.”
The Emperor smiled slightly as he looked at Fan Xian. He then pushed open the wooden door of that old and small temple. The wooden door creaked. Fan Xian’s gaze floated over. His heart tightened while shock and the difficult to suppress joy of meeting again after a long time flashed through his eyes.
…
…
Yan Bingyun sat in a room in the Overwatch Council in a daze. He wasn’t sitting in the secret room because the Director had returned to Jingdou in his wheelchair and gone to his room. The power that Yan Bingyun had temporarily received was returned.
He was the head of the Fourth Bureau. This room also faced the street. There was no black cloth covering the window. The sunlight outside poured directly in, lighting up the interior of the room brightly. Standing at the window, one could clearly see the golden eaves of the Royal Palace.
There was no master in the Royal Palace. The Emperor’s entourage had probably reached Dong Mountain at this time. Yan Bingyun thought to himself that ever since the Emperor left the capital, everyone in Jingdou had been on their best behavior and had not given the Overwatch Council too much trouble. Everyone was probably afraid of the far away Emperor being suspicious of them about something.
While the outside was relaxed, the inside was tense. Everyone knew the main purpose of the Emperor’s trip to worship heaven was so the Crown Prince could not be left in charge of the country. Thus, the empress dowager once again ruled in the Emperor’s place. The Great Prince, who had controlled the Imperial Army, became very cautious. The Jingdou Garrison also increased their patrols.
The most important action by the Emperor did was to summon the Director of the Overwatch Council Chen Pingping into the capital. The old cripple, who long had lived in the Chen Garden, had finally returned to the sinister Council. He coldly watched every detail in Jingdou and those who harbored errant thoughts.