"What grand Liao Dynasty ambitions," Ning Yanli said coolly. "Just excuses for personal desires."
"Oh? You think so?" Yelü Jinglie asked with a smile.
Instead of answering, Ning Yanli countered, "Isn't that the case?"
"Who knows," Yelü Jinglie sighed ambiguously. "Power struggles are so tedious."
Ning Yanli sneered inwardly: If it's so tedious, why do you still fight for it!
"Go back. I'll seriously consider what you've said. In any case, proceed as you wish—I'll handle the aftermath." Yelü Jinglie could easily discern her thoughts but allowed her to speculate without offering any explanation.
What he sought was far more than mere power.
After Ning Yanli left, Yelü Jinglie sat for a while before rising and carrying a lantern into his study.
The study was unlit, and as he entered, the warm glow of the lantern gradually illuminated the surroundings. The room held few books, but portraits adorned three walls. Though the faces varied, each bore the same striking phoenix eyes and extraordinary grace.
"Yelü Jinghong," Yelü Jinglie murmured, gently touching one of the portraits. "Truly my nephew—for a moment, I thought my elder brother had come back to life."
Though Yelü Jinglie and his brother were a few years apart, they resembled twins, and their bond had been deep.
Years ago, when his secret plot had failed, he had expended all his energy just to secure a foothold in the Liao Dynasty. With various factions keeping each other in check, he couldn’t freely search for Gu Jinghong’s whereabouts, but he never gave up. After all these years, he had only found a mutilated corpse.
They said the child had been gifted with extraordinary perception...
The room was silent except for Yelü Jinglie’s increasingly heavy breaths.
Seeing the furrowed brow in Gu Jinghong’s portrait, he was reminded of himself a decade ago—forced to swallow various Poison Pills daily under the care of attendants. Even now, the memory of that bone-deep, soul-rending agony made him break into a cold sweat. Worse, he had lived in constant terror, feeling like a lamb being fattened for slaughter.
His cousin, the emperor, had treated him with great kindness, but the sight of that pale face had filled him with dread.
Yelü Jinglie withdrew his hand, pressing it to his heart, his lips curling into a smirk.
Yelü Jinghong, you never knew I was once a Medicine man they raised. But what does it matter? That cousin who thirsted for my heart’s blood died by my hands! Countless secrets were buried with the last generation—only I remain to remember them all.
Rest assured, this generation’s emperor will meet the same fate.
Your vengeance... I will see it through.
Yelü Jinglie’s eyes turned icy as he removed the lantern’s cover and burned each portrait one by one.
When he stepped out of the study, he resumed the guise of a worldly nobleman, his personal guard falling in step behind him.
"My lord, has Ning Yanli truly betrayed Princess Huang Wu?" the guard couldn’t help but ask.
The man was named Bai Wu, who had grown up alongside Yelü Jinglie—part companion, part protector.
"Would you betray me?" Yelü Jinglie asked, tilting his head.
Bai Wu immediately bowed, his voice soft but resolute. "This servant pledges his life to follow you!""Over the years, I've done many ruthless things, yet you've still followed me. Does Ning Yanli develop rebellious thoughts just because she hardened her heart a few times for that girl?" Though he said this, Yelü Jinglie understood that people differed—one couldn't generalize. "As long as I know she'll accomplish what I assign, that's enough. As for the rest..."
Yelü Jinglie glanced back at the study. "As long as she doesn’t harbor any delusions of harming me, keeping her around is fine."
He had heard that Wei Yuzhi recently retrieved Gu Jinghong’s heart blood. Unfortunately, it had already been refined by Mo Sigui, and Ning Yanli had exhausted her efforts to barely extract the blood. But the remaining amount was too little. Moreover, Gu Jinghong had been dead for so long that the blood’s potency was nearly destroyed. He suspected Yelü Huangwu had guessed something, which was why she sent Ning Yanli to approach him—to investigate whether he was a medicine man!
The Yelü direct lineage all suffered from the same illness, and his heart blood was no different in effect from Gu Jinghong’s.
At this thought, Yelü Jinglie felt a surge of intense disgust. "Those destined by heaven to die refuse to go quietly. Hmph, let them struggle—let’s see who can defy fate!"
Bai Wu lowered his head and remained silent.
Yelü Jinglie sank into contemplation.
A century ago, the Yelü imperial family was torn by internal strife. Two brothers of the direct lineage fought for the throne, and in the end, the elder brother won a bitter victory. Though he gained the throne, he was poisoned by his younger brother—a poison that would remain in their bloodline for generations. The emperor sought out miracle doctors far and wide until one presented an antidote: the blood essence of a medicine man.
The doctor also claimed that if the medicine man’s heart blood was cultivated using close kin, its effects would double. Thus, the emperor secretly ordered the capture of his younger brother’s illegitimate son to cultivate the medicine.
That attempt failed, but he left a secret decree: generation after generation, they would use these descendants to cultivate the medicine until the poison was cured. This was their debt!
The struggle for the throne had always been fraught with deceit. Their ancestors had already paid with their lives—what debt remained?
It was simply the victor as king, the vanquished as outlaws!
Emperor Taizong still harbored a shred of sentiment for his brothers. He only decreed the capture of his younger brother’s illegitimate sons to cultivate the medicine. But cultivating a medicine man was an arduous task—one misstep could poison the medicine man to death, or the recipient might be unable to endure the agony and take their own life. By the next generation, the number of potential medicine men had sharply declined.
By Yelü Jinglie’s generation, only two legitimate sons and two illegitimate sons remained. Both illegitimate sons were cultivated as medicine men—one died at six, the other at nine—forcing them to turn their attention to Yelü Jinglie.
However, Emperor Taizong’s decree had stipulated that only illegitimate sons could be used. The previous emperor, greedy for life and afraid of death, desperately sent beauties to seduce Yelü Jinglie and his elder brother, Yelü Jingcai, but to no avail. Later, Yelü Jingcai fell for one of the beauties and impregnated her. But cultivating a medicine man took at least fifteen years—he couldn’t wait that long, yet he dared not openly defy ancestral tradition. Using Yelü Jinglie as a medicine man was done in secret, so few knew of it.
At the time, Yelü Jinglie was already six years old. The process of receiving the medicine was a thousand times more agonizing than for a child who had been subjected to it from the womb.
"Death and rebirth"—this phrase was no exaggeration.
Yelü Jinglie was known for his cruel and ruthless methods, with particularly brutal tastes in the bedroom. He rarely refused women who threw themselves at him, but after bedding them, he killed them without exception.
Only those who knew the truth understood: a man as proud as him would never allow his own flesh and blood to be treated like livestock!"There's only me left," Yelü Jinglie murmured softly.
If he couldn't succeed this time, he would die—leaving them not a shred of hope. Whether ascending the throne or mutual destruction, both prospects thrilled him immensely!
A faint smile played across Yelü Jinglie's divinely handsome features, serene yet wildly unrestrained. (To be continued...)
PS: Some veteran readers suggested reviving Gu Jinghong as well, to make up a full mahjong table. Ahem, though he's dead, his uncle is still alive.
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