Sweet and sour, it was the taste of the pill Fan Xian had forced the Empress Dowager to swallow. The pill had been kept close to Fan Xian's body, and even through so many life-and-death battles in the past two years, whether at sea or on the mountains, covered in wounds, Fan Xian had never lost it, because he knew how important it was to him.

It was more than a decade ago, in Danzhou, when Fan Xian's teacher, Fei Jie, had solemnly placed the medicine pouch in his small hand, for fear that Fan Xian's overbearing Zhenqi (霸道真气) would erupt one day, leaving him with no place to be buried.

Yet, for more than a decade, Fan Xian had never taken the medicine. After killing Xie Bi'an beside the Second Prince in the Jingdu Prefecture, and then fighting Shadow head-on, his Zhenqi finally exploded and shattered, turning him into a cripple… But even in that situation, he didn't take the medicine.

Because he knew how domineering the medicine was – it was a San Gong (散功) medicine!

Fan Xian was reluctant to dissipate all his cultivation, so he endured the pain of his meridians tearing and the stiffness that prevented him from moving, insisting on not taking the medicine left by Fei Jie. Fortunately, Haitang secretly brought the Supreme Heavenly One Art (天一道) to Jiangnan, and his severe injuries slowly healed.

And today, he finally fed this pill to the Empress Dowager. The pill's medicinal properties were potent, taking the path of dissipating Gong and concealing Qi (散功敛气), entering the five internal organs and six bowels directly, gradually obliterating the body's vitality.

It must be admitted that if Fan Xian didn't have the Heavenly One Art, once his Zhenqi exploded, he would have had to use this pill to dissipate the overly violent and domineering Zhenqi and the overly vigorous vitality within his body.

However, the Empress Dowager was already old and frail, with only a few years left to live. Taking this pill now was like having those remaining breaths of life gradually extracted from her body by the medicine, accelerating her journey to death. The dwindling and fading vitality, the aging body, simply couldn't bear it, having reached the extreme of exhaustion.

Fan Xian had great concerns and of course dared not openly poison the Empress Dowager, and this medicine left by Fei Jie was not a poison! No matter which famous doctor in the world came to diagnose her, they wouldn't find anything amiss.

The Empress Dowager was now unable to speak. She would soon feel the burden on her body becoming heavier and heavier, unable to even lift her arm, unless another Grandmaster appeared in the world, forcibly using extremely pure Zhenqi to help her reflect light and return to the moment, the Empress Dowager could only miserably become a useless person who couldn't speak or move her hands, and then slowly wait for death to arrive.

It wasn't that Fan Xian was heartless, nor that his desire for revenge burned away his rationality like wildfire, but under the current circumstances, under Fan Xian's great hidden worries, he could only use such means to ensure current and future safety.

The rebel army was besieging the city, and the Empress Dowager could serve as a Divine Tablet to weaken the rebel's offensive. But what did future safety refer to?

…

…

The Empress Dowager didn't know what kind of sinister and venomous properties were contained in the pill she had taken, only thinking it was a mute pill, but she still looked at Fan Xian with resentment. Fan Xian didn't meet the Empress Dowager's dim and angry gaze, but instead cast a cold look towards the two forces below the high imperial city. He looked carefully at Ye Zhong beside the Second Prince, at that short and stout general, his pupils shining with a strange light, as if he was constantly pondering something.

The Dingzhou army was offering prisoners but hadn't entered the capital. According to custom, there should only be a few thousand troops, but today Ye Zhong and the Second Prince were leading as many as ten thousand soldiers into Jingdu, apparently also having made preparations in advance. Only, he didn't spot Hong Cheng's figure in the rebel ranks, which brought Fan Xian a bit of comfort.

From afar, the rebel leaders seemed to be arguing about something, while the Crown Prince remained silent, using those worried eyes to watch the movements on the imperial city, concerned about the safety of his mother and grandmother, cursing Fan Xian, the First Prince, and Hu Shu and that group of old officials in his heart.

Fan Xian suddenly narrowed his eyes, seeing that the rebel generals had stopped their discussion. The sound of horses' hooves gradually rose, and the Qin and Ye families each divided their troops, pressing towards the flanks. He suddenly turned back and looked at the First Prince not far away. The First Prince nodded to him, indicating that preparations had been made, which put his mind at ease.

It seemed that the main attack direction of the rebels, besides the main gate of the imperial city, was still choosing the Taiping Ward, where the palace walls were slightly shorter, and it was a place where eunuchs and maids lived, with lax gate security. The First Prince had already predicted this, transferred heavy troops to guard it, and even transferred seven or eight out of ten of the loyal generals he had cultivated from the Western Expeditionary Army.

…

…

Just a little cleverness, just stalling for time, still haven't caught that escaped, that one who could change the overall situation… Fan Xian's mind suddenly began to go blank again. His eyes looked at the dense rebel crowd below the city, but it was as if he was looking through their existence, looking further away, looking at the past, looking at those variables that he wholeheartedly expected to appear, but never did.

Thirty thousand against several thousand, even if the imperial palace walls were high, even if the rebels were being restrained from firing arrows, even if they filled it with people, they would still fill the moat outside the imperial palace, filling it into a human ladder, climbing to the heights, destroying everything in the imperial palace… Watching the busy arrangements of the rebel side, watching those siege ladders gradually rising, Fan Xian's pupils shrank slightly, a chill rising in his heart. The three-section ladder produced by the C Workshop of the Internal Treasury's Three Workshops had finally been moved over. The siege was finally about to begin.

These military equipment were all produced by the Internal Treasury, and as the chief manager of the Internal Treasury, Fan Xian couldn't help but feel a sense of absurdity. The things he produced were now being used to attack him, and he couldn't find any way to deal with it.

His heart began to beat faster, his scalp felt a little numb, and his brows were furrowed tightly. Suddenly, he took a few deep breaths, felt that there was something wrong with his breathing, and his chest felt stuffy. He slowly squatted down against the arrow slit made of bluestone bricks.

The crowd above the imperial city was shocked, and they all rushed towards him. With the great battle imminent, if Fan Xian, one of the commanders, suddenly had a problem, it would undoubtedly be a huge blow to the morale of the imperial guards.

The Third Prince was close to him and anxiously supported his left arm, shouting, "Sir, what's wrong?"

Without waiting for more people to gather around him, Fan Xian lowered his head and raised his right arm, saying in a tired voice, "I need a quiet place to think about some things. You go prepare, don't worry about me."

Hearing this, the crowd couldn't help but feel uneasy, but seeing his insistence, and that the rebels had already begun preparing their offensive, they had no choice but to obey orders and rush to their defensive areas. The First Prince stood in the commander's position, glanced at him from afar, seeing that Fan Xian, who had been full of killing intent earlier, was now squatting so helplessly under the city wall, couldn't help but feel a pang in his heart.

"Grand Scholar Hu, please delay them for some time."

Fan Xian said softly with his head lowered. Grand Scholar Hu looked at him with concern, sighed, walked to the edge of the city wall, and spoke loudly…

The Third Prince anxiously guarded by his side, not knowing what was happening to Fan Xian at this moment.

At this moment, Fan Xian simply sat down on the ground beneath the imperial city wall, buried his head deeply between his legs, breathing with extreme difficulty, looking very pitiful, like a homeless cat in the rainy night.

The righteous words of Grand Scholar Hu faintly reached his ears. It seemed that he was having a final exchange with the Crown Prince, but although these words floated into Fan Xian's ears, he couldn't hear a single word clearly, but he had confidence in Grand Scholar Hu. Since it was to stall for time, it should stall for a while.

And the problem Fan Xian was facing at this moment was the chaos in his mind. Since returning to Jingdu from Mount Dong, he had been taking things step by step. He had had victories and defeats in his clashes with the Princess Royal, but even from the beginning of being trapped in the imperial city, he was still full of confidence, because the details of many events gave him a vague hint that the Princess Royal and the Crown Prince's rebellion had long been calculated by Chen Pingping. Since that was the case, when the situation reached its final moment, there would always be a chance to turn things around.

Just as he had thought in the early morning, someone would always step on auspicious clouds to save him, but at this moment, the rainbow clouds had dispersed, the red light was gone, and where was the person to save him?

Heavy sniper? No, without figuring that matter out, Fan Xian would never use this trump card.

There was a problem, Fan Xian closed his eyes tightly, coughing as he rapidly turned his head, but he still couldn't grasp that key point that flashed through his mind like a fleeting goose.

Too much mental exhaustion, too much spiritual exhaustion, Fan Xian's cough was getting worse and worse. He slowly opened his eyes, and his eyes were all blood red!

After being injured by Yan Xiaoyi, he had been holding on until entering Jingdu, forcibly breaking into the palace, chatting and joking without restraint on the imperial city, in fact, he had exhausted his energy to the limit, only relying on three secretly made Ma Huang pills to forcibly stimulate his mind.

Fan Xian breathed heavily a few times, took out two pungent Ma Huang pills from his chest with trembling hands, chewed them roughly, and swallowed them. He knew that this medicine was extremely harmful to the body, but in this crisis, even drinking poison to quench his thirst was sweet.

Although Li Chengping didn't know what his teacher was eating, he had been concerned and by his side and had already guessed that Fan Xian's body had reached the end of its rope. The blood-red eyes represented an extremely ominous omen, and he couldn't help but nervously and sadly grasped Fan Xian's hands resting on his knees.

The medicine took effect extremely quickly. Fan Xian's chest felt much more comfortable. It seemed that every breath of air he took into his body was several times more than usual, and his cough naturally subsided. However, the bloodshot in his eyes became denser, and compared with his slightly haggard but heroic face, it looked captivatingly unsettling.

With a snap, Fan Xian, who was sitting on the ground with his legs spread out, suddenly pulled his hand out of Li Chengping's small hands and reached out like lightning to the left, grabbing the pair of old woman's small feet in gold-trimmed palace slippers.

Fan Xian didn't turn his head to look, but said coldly, "You didn't dare to commit suicide in the palace, but now you want to use death to stimulate the Crown Prince to attack fiercely?"

When he reached out like lightning, those small palace-slippered feet were trying to quietly stand on their toes, driving the owner's weak body to throw itself towards the hard earth below the imperial city.

Li Chengping looked at this scene in horror, watching the Empress Dowager being forcibly held by the feet by Fan Xian just before jumping off the city to commit suicide!

…

…

The Empress Dowager had taken the medicine and was running out of fuel, and Fan Xian was seriously injured and hadn't recovered, and was forcibly boosting his power, and was also running out of fuel. However, there was still a surge of life-and-death hostility reverberating between these two grandparents who had reached the end of their rope.

It was always very simple for a person to die. The Empress Dowager looked at Fan Xian's profile coldly and venomously, watching the strange red color seeping out of his eyelids, and gradually felt a sense of pleasure in her heart. No matter how strong the demon woman and the demon woman's son were, they were still not tolerated in this world. This was something that fate had already determined, and history had already proven.

However, after Fan Xian said that sentence, he unexpectedly fell into silence. His eyes were blankly looking ahead, and gradually frowned. His eyes gradually brightened, just like the light he had in his eyes when he looked at Ye Zhong earlier, as if he had finally figured something out and made up his mind.

At this moment, Grand Scholar Hu and the Crown Prince's negotiations had also broken down. The rebels beat their war drums and began the first siege, and far away in the Taiping Ward area to the left rear, deafening shouts of killing were already heard.

The war drums sounded boom boom, although there was no rain of arrows, there were stray arrows flying over from the sky, with a whistling sound. Countless rebels pushed siege ladders and carts covered with oilcloth, bravely braving the giant crossbows and sporadic arrows, and braving the oil, fire, and stones falling from the top of the city, charging over!

In an instant, the sounds of miserable cries, the scene of bloodshed, and the pain of being burned were all over the imperial city. The morning sun had already risen to the slanting sky, ruthlessly watching Qing Kingdom's Jingdu bleeding again after more than a decade.

Fan Xian slowly stood up, looking at the scene in front of him ruthlessly, not looking at the Empress Dowager beside him, but said to the Empress Dowager beside him, "I've figured out a lot of things."

Yes, when he pressed down on the Empress Dowager's small feet, he couldn't help but think of his grandmother in Danzhou, and the sentence that his grandmother had always sternly told him – Our Fan family doesn't need to take sides, because we will always be on His Majesty's side.

What was this? This was confidence in the Emperor. In this instant, countless images flashed through Fan Xian's mind, sliding over like fireflies, flashing and reminding him of many things, strengthening the judgment he had gradually drawn.