"Your Majesty, this minister also agrees with this view.
According to this minister's many years of research and analysis, extending life and achieving immortality is nothing more than three methods: either being a born deity, or obtaining immortal elixirs by chance, or cultivating to perfection and achieving sagehood through merit.
Immortal elixirs and sagehood through merit cannot be inherited.
Only the bloodline of born deities can be inherited!"
Master Huaiming immediately chimed in. He couldn't appear too ignorant at this moment, otherwise all the limelight would be stolen by that old thief Qi He who spoke first.
Just then, Master Xuande clapped his hands and laughed heartily:
"Marvelous, Your Majesty, this minister understands why the maternal lineage of your esteemed Empress Dowager's family has divine power that has been passed down to this day.
We are all descendants of ancient immortals and deities, but our ancestors' bloodlines were passed down equally to their descendants, so over time, the bloodlines naturally thinned to almost nothing.
However, the bloodline of your esteemed Imperial Consort's lineage is only passed down to daughters. In this way, the rate at which the bloodline thins would likely be more than twice as slow as normal inheritance. Moreover, with mother-daughter inheritance, the bloodline connection between them would naturally be closer than that of father-son inheritance. After all, a father cannot personally give birth to a son, while a mother can personally give birth to a daughter.
As the mother carries the immortal and divine bloodline to her daughter for ten months, much less bloodline would be lost in the process.
Thus, it is only natural that their bloodline, passed down through single maternal lineage, still possesses divine power to this day.
This further corroborates my previous conjecture.
The correctness of our being descendants of immortals and deities."
These Taoist priests had been employed by Emperor Jinan years ago, and they had even proposed many different theories, most of which were conjectures that could not be verified.
They could only deceive with their words.
Therefore, their minds were all incredibly agile.
Soon, following Emperor Jinan's words and their own previously proposed conjectures, they began to deceive again.
"I don't want to hear you brag about how noble the Imperial Consort's bloodline is, Your Majesty. I only want to know if I, along with my children, consorts, and concubines, have any possibility of possessing it."
In the past, Emperor Jinan was young and healthy and not anxious about extending his life. However, he fell gravely ill some time ago, so much so that he felt he was on the verge of death. It was only then that he began to seek the art of immortality.
At this point, he was less inclined to listen to their boasts and only wanted to quickly find the correct method for longevity, meaning he required them to quickly move on to practical application and produce some results.
"Your Majesty, do you mean bloodline transplantation?"
One of the Taoist priests understood the implied meaning of Emperor Jinan's words.
"No, bloodline transplantation is too dangerous. Whether it can succeed is uncertain, but if it fails, it means death by blood coagulation. Your Majesty must not take this risk!
In my opinion, it is better to refine elixirs to seize good fortune. Although the effect may be slightly weaker, it is at least safe!"
Some of the Taoist priests present had attempted blood transfusions for treatment before, but most were unsuccessful. Moreover, setting aside the benefits of success, failure meant death.
Who would dare to try it on the Emperor or use it on him?
To avoid the charge of regicide and the extermination of their nine generations of kin, someone immediately objected and hastily proposed a relatively milder method that could not be verified in the short term, at least to be used to deceive for a while and stall for time.
Following this, the Taoist priests began to argue on the spot. Some believed that divine bloodline was a living entity, and once it was removed from the body and burned and refined in a cauldron, it would lose its efficacy. Moreover, refining elixirs with human blood was too cruel and not something a benevolent ruler would do! Some believed that it was an extreme honor to contribute to the ruler, and besides, refining elixirs did not require the entire body's blood, only a small amount.
Moreover, the Imperial Consort's maternal lineage had many descendants; one hundred or eighty could still be gathered. Providing one or two bowls of blood from each person would be enough to refine a hundred or eighty furnaces of elixirs. For the missing blood, they could be granted some precious blood-replenishing medicines.
Others believed that forcibly plundering the power of a divine bloodline through external means might provoke the wrath of the immortals and deities.
But regardless of anything else, the final decision rested with Emperor Jinan. For Emperor Jinan, he only wanted the blood of his subjects, which was no big deal, and he would not fail to provide compensation.
Therefore, the plan of refining elixirs with blood.
Naturally, it was ultimately pushed forward.
Before leaving, Emperor Jinan secretly instructed the one responsible for refining elixirs to allow human refinement if necessary.
Ding Yun, who learned the details through the "echo worm," did not look pleased. She felt that the disaster befalling her family was caused by her. If she hadn't mentioned the longevity of the women in her family, Emperor Jinan might still have delved into further investigation for longevity in the future.
But it would not have been so soon.
To prevent her clansmen from being implicated by her, and possibly being temporarily abducted or even imprisoned as blood slaves, Ding Yun immediately came up with two countermeasures: one was to offer items that prolonged life, and the other was to hasten Emperor Jinan's demise.
After careful consideration, Ding Yun felt that the second method was simpler and more straightforward. It would also not attract covetousness, because offering items that prolonged life, while seemingly solving the problem, would undoubtedly lead to many subsequent troubles.
After all, who in this world wouldn't want to live a few more years?
Therefore, it was best to make Emperor Jinan perish.
With this thought, Ding Yun did not delay for a second. She took out another Seed of All Things and a drop of Water of Life, using the Seed of All Things to create an insect that could absorb various energies and convert them into lightning power, and then gather the lightning power into a sac within its body to form refined lightning liquid.
After the insect was created, the Water of Life accelerated its rapid development from an embryonic stage to an adult insect, and the residual energy smoothly filled its tiny sac with lightning liquid.
Next, of course, was to refine this insect.
And then to drive this insect into the Qianqing Palace.
Taking advantage of Emperor Jinan's sleep, she let the insect crawl to his forehead and release all the lightning liquid in its sac. In the next second, the lightning liquid transformed into terrifying lightning. Although it didn't reduce Emperor Jinan to ashes, it instantly killed him, and his body appeared with numerous dense and very obvious lightning strike marks.
Those serving outside the palace heard the thunder.
Those inside the palace saw the dazzling lightning.
And then, the insect successfully retreated, having completed its mission. It could absorb energy and convert it into lightning power for storage, so how could it fear lightning power? Naturally, it retreated unscathed. The palace maids and eunuchs inside the palace, after screaming, discovered that Emperor Jinan had met with misfortune.
They immediately shouted loudly, summoning people and imperial physicians.
And quickly sent someone to inform the Empress.
By the time the Empress learned of the news and rushed over, the news that Emperor Jinan had allegedly been struck dead by a bolt of lightning in his sleeping quarters had already spread. The few Taoist priests who had just left, and were preparing to plan the elixir refinement,
immediately looked at each other in dismay, their legs trembling with fear.
Although not a word was spoken, they all speculated that their plan and ideas had perhaps angered the immortals and deities.
And they had directly punished Emperor Jinan!
Emperor Jinan was dead, would they also face trouble?
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