Niao Ni
Chapter 499: Thunder and Rain (Part Two)
It was still spring. Thunder, if any, should have been dry and rumbling. Such a thunderous rainstorm felt sudden and ominous, as if heaven itself was enraged, or perhaps the Emperor had already unleashed his fury.
The Emperor entered the gate of Guangxin Palace, turning to slowly close it behind him. He then removed a hair tie from his wrist and meticulously secured his rain-soaked hair, ensuring every strand was in place, a stark contrast to the turmoil within his heart.
The Eldest Princess leaned against a low couch, watching him and suddenly chuckled.
In this moment, such silvery laughter echoing through the empty Guangxin Palace, mingling with the sound of wind and rain, seemed frail yet pervasive, extraordinarily eerie.
The Emperor, his expression unchanged, slowly walked forward, reaching the low couch and standing before the Eldest Princess.
Behind him, a straight line of wet footprints marked his path, each step evenly spaced, the line as straight as if drawn with a ruler.
After a moment of silence, the Emperor coldly looked at Li Yunrui and asked, each word distinct: "Why?"
Then the Eldest Princess, Li Yunrui, fell silent.
She furrowed her beautiful brow, her slender fingers gently tapping on the low couch beside her. Her watery eyes sparkled with a young girl's innocence and confusion.
She seemed to be pondering, perplexed, as if unaware of what was happening.
However, she finally raised her head, looking up at the man with the greatest power in the world, her red lips parting slightly, her pearly teeth showing as she softly said, "What 'why'?"
A long time had passed since the Emperor had asked that single word, and he seemed patient enough to wait for an answer.
Before the Emperor could press further, Li Yunrui suddenly gasped, covering her mouth with her hand, her large eyes blinking, and said, "Are you asking... why?"
"Why?"
She suddenly laughed, standing up and facing the Emperor without flinching. Her resentful gaze pierced him as she asked, word by word, "Emperor brother, are you asking why your sister is over thirty and still unmarried? Or are you asking why your sister shamelessly seduced the top scholar at the age of fifteen? Or are you asking why your sister keeps so many gigolos?"
She gently bit her lip, stepping closer to the Emperor, staring into his eyes, and asked in a tone that chilled to the bone: "Why? Why would Eldest Princess Li Yunrui abandon a life of riches and carefree days to manage the Imperial Treasury for the court for so many years? Why would this fool force herself to suppress her disgust, to recruit talents for the Qing Yu Nian Emperor? Why would she trouble herself to deal with other nations? Why would she secretly form the Junshan Society to kill people the Emperor couldn't conveniently kill, and to carry out schemes that would tarnish the court's reputation?"
"Why?" Li Yunrui stared intently at the Emperor, flicked her sleeve, and said sharply, "Emperor brother, tell me why? Why would I be so foolish? Why are you the most brilliant figure in the entire world, while I am willing to be the darkest character behind you? Why should I bear these burdens?"
The Emperor remained silent, cold, looking at her with pity.
The Eldest Princess suddenly laughed hysterically: "Isn't it all for you? My dearest brother, you want to be remembered in history, so those dirty things must be borne by someone else... But have you ever thought about me? "
"What about me?"
The Eldest Princess angrily grabbed the Emperor's dragon robe and said bitterly, "I also want to ask you why! Why do you take everything that belongs to me! Why don't you have any affection? Look at your illegitimate son... You took everything from me and gave it to him... Why? I knew everything would be gone, and I was willing, as long as you were willing... But it can't be him! Why does it have to be him!"
Li Yunrui took a few breaths and quickly calmed down, giving the Emperor a pitiful look and slowly said, "Too bad... your illegitimate son still only wants to be surnamed Fan."
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The Emperor looked at her silently, and after a long time, slowly said, "You're crazy."
"I'm not crazy!" Li Yunrui screamed angrily: "The past ten years of my life were crazy! But today, I'm not crazy!"
"You're crazy," the Emperor said coldly: "You asked so many whys, as if the root of all this is on me, but have you ever thought about it, your love for power has reached a deformed state."
"Deformed?" Li Yunrui frowned, a look of contempt flashed across her face, "It's deformed for a woman to want power, then what is the most powerful person in the world?"
"Presumptuous!" The Emperor squeezed out extremely low words from his throat and waved his hand to hit her.
The Eldest Princess looked up, looking at him coldly, looking at his palm, not caring at all.
"Everything you have was given to you by me." The Emperor slowly retracted his palm and said coldly: "I can easily take everything back."
"Everything I have was earned by my own efforts." The Eldest Princess looked at him coldly, "If you want to take everything back, unless you kill me."
Another thunder sounded outside the hall, and the wind and rain seemed to be getting heavier. The Emperor looked at his sister and suddenly laughed, but the laughter had an extremely cold taste: "Could it be... you think I... I am reluctant to kill you?"
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"Of course you can bear it." A hint of mockery suddenly flashed in the eyes of Eldest Princess Li Yunrui, "Is there anyone in this world you can bear to kill?"
The always calm Emperor was suddenly pierced by this look in the depths of his heart.
Li Yunrui looked at his eyes coldly and said, "Emperor brother, wake up... Don't always pretend to be the most affectionate and righteous person in the world. I think you have already been to the East Palace and showed your gaffe, as if you were hurt in your heart. ...But who are you lying to? Don't deceive yourself, you have been waiting to get rid of me, you just feel in your heart that you owe me, so you need to find a reason to convince yourself."
She said acrimoniously: "Yes, just convince yourself... so that you can feel that killing your sister with your own hands, the sister who has been with you since childhood and has given countless years of her life for you after growing up, is not your problem, but just me... Damn it!"
When Li Yunrui said the word damn it, her voice became sharp.
When the Emperor heard the words East Palace, he had already closed his eyes, and after a long time he slowly said: "After all, you are my own sister, the person the Empress Dowager loves most. If it hadn't reached this point, I would have guaranteed your eternal wealth no matter what... You messed up the court, buried private soldiers, used the Ming family, and formed the Junshan Society. Which one of these is not a capital crime of deceiving the Emperor? But what do these count... After all, you are my own sister, the sister I have loved since childhood, I won't blame you, and you are not guilty... In the past few years, no matter whether you betrayed Yan Bingyun, that kid, or wanted to assassinate Fan Xian, I don't blame you, because... I don't think these things are a big deal."
He opened his eyes, his eyes had become calm: "But you shouldn't have interfered in the affairs of your nephews... The second child has been led astray by you, although he still hides it well on the surface."
Li Yunrui sneered and interjected: "Your own son was driven crazy by yourself."
"Then what about Cheng Qian?" The Emperor stared at Li Yunrui's eyes fiercely, "Do you know that he is the Crown Prince! He is the next emperor that I carefully cultivated! I am going to conquer a great country, and I want this child to protect it for me for ten thousand years... If you assist him, I will only be happy, but you are confused by him!"
Another muffled thunder sounded in the sky, the sound was not very loud, but it made the palace of Guangxin Palace buzz. However, in the midst of this power of heaven and earth, the Emperor's angry voice was still so sharp, piercing into the ears of the Eldest Princess.
The electric light penetrated through the window, shining brightly in Guangxin Palace for a moment. In this moment, the Emperor stretched out his steady right hand and strangled the Eldest Princess's throat tightly, pushing forward, stepping over the low couch, pushing through the screen, and pushing This most beautiful woman in Qing Yu Nian was firmly pressed against the palace wall, with blue veins protruding between her fingers, exerting force!
The Eldest Princess had some difficulty breathing, but she did not cry for help or beg for mercy. She just looked down at the angry middle-aged man in front of her coldly. Her white, swan-like neck was strangled by that hand, and the blood flow was blocked, making her face red, but it revealed even more a trace of bewitching and moving beauty.
"I...never thought about changing the heir...everything is just for Cheng Qian's future, because my country needs a benevolent and powerful monarch to inherit, and all of this...has been ruined by you!" The Emperor roared angrily: "Why!"
A trace of doubt flashed in the eyes of the Eldest Princess, whose face was flushed, followed by a realization after understanding. She smiled and said pantingly: "So... all of this is just you acting, so, Fan Xian is also being played by you, I think he will die even worse than me in the future."
Her body was strangled against the palace wall, her toes barely touching the ground, looking very desolate. At this moment, she laughed with great difficulty: "It's just that you will definitely not let Cheng Qian succeed to the throne again, are you going to let Fan Xian become the Emperor... No, Emperor brother, I know you, you will never let Fan Xian get ahead."
When the Emperor heard this sentence, his hand strength relaxed a little.
The Eldest Princess looked at him, interestingly, jokingly, and said pantingly: "Emperor brother, you are too suspicious, you are too good at disguising... You want to temper the Crown Prince, but you scared the Crown Prince into a rat... He thought he could be deposed by you at any time, how could he not be afraid, how could he not need a reliable embrace like me?"
Embrace... Eldest Princess Li Yunrui didn't seem afraid of death at all, constantly stimulating the Emperor's eardrums.
The Emperor stared at her and just asked: "Why?"
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"Why?" Li Yunrui suddenly struggled under his palm, but the result only increased the pain. She screamed angrily: "Why? There is no why! He likes me, that's the reason... This palace just likes to play with him, play with him until it hurts your heart, makes you despair..."
She laughed hysterically: "Only today did I know that your despair and pain are greater than I imagined, I am very satisfied."
The Emperor looked at her blankly and slowly said, "He likes you?"
"Can't I?" The Eldest Princess's beautiful face, full of pink, appeared particularly seductive in the occasional lightning light. She panted and said proudly: "Is there a man in this world who doesn't like this palace... Is there?"
She looked at the Emperor's face, which was close at hand, and was suddenly stunned. She raised her weak right hand a little foolishly and stroked the Emperor's face, and said in a fascinated tone: "Emperor brother, you also like me."
"Shameless!" The Emperor slapped her hand away.
Li Yunrui was not very angry, but just panted and said firmly: "You like me... it's just that I'm your sister, but... so what? Like is like, even if you hide your thoughts at the foot of Da Dong Mountain, hide them in the sea, but you will still find them yourself, you can't lose your thoughts."
"Not all men are emotional like beasts." The Emperor looked coldly at his sister, whose breathing was getting faster and faster, "Not all men will fall under your skirt. Women, never think that they will stand on top of men."
"Are you talking about Ye Qingmei." Li Yunrui suddenly spit on him viciously, "I am not her!"
"You will never be as good as her." The Emperor suddenly leaned into her ear and said, "Even if you have been tossing for so many years, you will never be as good as her, you will never reach her position in my heart... You know this yourself."
A look of deathly gray suddenly flashed across Li Yunrui's face, as if she had been hit in the deepest, most vulnerable place by this sentence.
A trace of cruelty flashed in the Emperor's eyes, and he continued to say in her ear: "You can only chase her footsteps forever, but... you will never catch up. Now she and my son are about to take over everything from you. , are you in pain?"
Li Yunrui struggled and stared at him with fierce eyes.
"You are not even as good as my illegitimate son." The thunder rumbled outside the window, but the Emperor's words spoken softly in the Eldest Princess's ear were more shocking than the thunder outside the window: "You said before that you could play with all the men, why don't you go play with him?"
Li Yunrui's eyes gradually calmed down, and she said with unparalleled difficulty and calmness: "He is Wan'er's husband."
The Emperor looked at her with a sarcastic and vicious look: "You dare to attack even your own nephew, do you still know the word shame?"
Li Yunrui looked at him pitifully without showing weakness: "There are three of us brothers and sisters, but we have two lunatics, I don't know, do you know? If you really knew, you wouldn't have snatched your subordinate's sweetheart into the palace to be a concubine!"
The wind and thunder outside the hall suddenly stopped, and there was a deathly silence inside and outside.
The Emperor's palm remained firm, strangling the Eldest Princess's fragile throat, and he didn't speak for a long time.
"Back then in the Northern Expedition, you were seriously injured and your whole body was stiff and unable to move." Li Yunrui coughed and said viciously and happily: "It was Chen Pingping who raided thousands of miles and rescued you from the northern mountains at the risk of great danger. It was Ning Cairen, the Eastern Yi female slave, who served you this wooden man all the way. How difficult it was along the way, Dean Chen could only drink horse urine and eat horse meat... But what did you do to these two benefactors? You clearly knew that Chen Pingping liked Ning Cairen, and Ning Cairen also admired Chen Pingping, but you, the master, interfered and snatched Ning Cairen... Emperor brother, don't think I was young at the time, so I don't know about this, why was the Empress Dowager so angry? Is it just because of Ning Cairen's identity? Why was she executed? If Ye Qingmei hadn't come forward to intercede, Ning Cairen and the eldest prince would have ceased to exist long ago... Do you know the word shame?"
"Don't say nonsense like Chen Pingping is a eunuch!" Li Yunrui said viciously: "Do you think you are cleaner than me?"
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However, to Li Yunrui's disappointment, the Emperor didn't seem to be very shocked or uneasy, but just looked at her coldly.
The Emperor slowly increased the strength of his palm and said word by word: "Before you die, you still haven't forgotten to provoke the relationship between me and Dean Chen, Yunrui, I really admire you, so I...can't keep you."
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In the East Palace, the poor mother and son were still panicking and uneasy. The Crown Prince, with a pale face, was much better than the Empress. Although he knew that he was also about to face an extremely terrible end, after all, he was the son of the Qing Yu Nian Emperor and had always been cultivated as the next Emperor. The terrifying composure and calmness in his bloodline took effect at this moment.
He wanted to save himself, and first he had to save the Eldest Princess, and the Crown Prince knew that in this palace, there was only one person who could save people from the wrath of his angry father.
Moreover, His Majesty the Emperor could not possibly tell that person the truth. The Emperor, who was so filial to his mother, would not allow the scandals of the royal family to hurt the old lady's body.
So the Crown Prince knew that he still had a glimmer of hope.
However, the East Palace had already been surrounded by the people led by Eunuch Yao, and it was impossible to contact people outside the palace. Even the confidants that the Empress and the Crown Prince had cultivated in other palaces on a daily basis could not approach here in the rain and thunder.
"Set the palace on fire." The Crown Prince turned around, looked at his useless mother who had already lost her mind, and said fiercely: "Even if it's raining, we must burn down this palace!"