(Of course, this isn't an explosive update, just a chapter to make up for getting drunk on National Day. Well, I never thought I'd have to make up chapters one day, I'm getting more and more diligent…)

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After Fan Xian finished speaking, the young Emperor of Northern Qi didn't think of the legendary blind master, nor did he begin to reflect on the mistakes he had made in the past two years due to the immense pressure from Southern Qing. He was simply shocked, staring at Fan Xian, subconsciously raising his hand to rub his forehead, the anger in his eyes gradually deepening, finally unable to suppress it, and roared in a low voice, "You… you dare to hit me!"

Of course, Fan Xian dared to hit him. Since he dared to kidnap an Emperor, what was a few knocks? The young Emperor was also aware of this, but he simply couldn't accept that Fan Xian had actually used a flick to knock him on the forehead. This kind of strike wasn't a life-or-death struggle, but in his eyes, it was a blow with a clear sense of humiliation.

Fan Xian ignored his anger, frowning, and said, "In these past few years, our cooperation has been pretty good. I, Fan Xian, ask myself that I've brought many benefits to your Northern Qi, but you're constantly thinking about my death. Isn't that a bit too much?"

The young Emperor was still tormented by pain and humiliation, staring at Fan Xian in disbelief, as if he didn't understand where such a freak had sprung from in this world, who had no respect for an Emperor as a staff member.

Seeing him gnashing his teeth like a little lion, Fan Xian laughed instead, shrugging his shoulders and saying, "I'm just pointing out the big mistake you've made."

He suddenly closed his eyes, pondered for a long time, and then said softly, "The impression you originally left on me was of a very scheming monarch, but your performance in the past two years has seemed too eager for quick success… The world is so wonderful, yet you are so irritable. That's not good, not good."

The young Emperor of Northern Qi knew that the situation was stronger than him. Now that he was in the hands of the other party, and the great master in the Sword Grave, who had not shown his face, was secretly inclined towards him, he was afraid that the officials outside the Grave couldn't enter to rescue him. He had no choice but to forcibly suppress the anger in his heart and said in a cold voice, "My actions do not need to be explained to you."

"You don't need to explain to anyone, but you need to explain to me." Fan Xian narrowed his eyes, a cold light flashing, "I've given you too many benefits. Even if it's an investment, you have to report to me, the shareholder, instead of thinking about killing this shareholder."

The negotiation between the two returned to the beginning. After a long silence, the young Emperor of Northern Qi slowly said, "I must admit that in the past few years, you have helped me a lot, however…"

"However, what?"

"However, you are after all Qing Emperor's illegitimate son." The young Emperor gave a self-deprecating smile and habitually stood up, placing his hands behind his back. If this action were usual, it would definitely be unrestrained and full of Imperial aura, but today he had been shaken dizzy earlier and sprained his ankle later, so he couldn't stand still. He fell down with an "ouch."

Fan Xian reached out and pulled him back onto the bed, quietly looking at him.

The young Emperor frowned and said, "You are a Qing person, and Qing Emperor's illegitimate son. Regardless of whether I believe you have the sincerity to fulfill the agreement of that year, even the Empress Dowager and the ministers in the court could never place this ethereal hope on a powerful minister of Southern Qing."

He closed his eyes and slowly said, "You are not my Qi people, and you don't know how the people of Great Qi have been living since Master Ku He's death. Southern Qing is on standby, ready to send troops to invade at any time. Although I have been planning for a long time, it is ultimately still short-lived, and the national strength is difficult to support years of continuous war… Under such circumstances, any past friendship and promises are empty. I must place hope on my own people, or even Dongyi City, and it's impossible to place it on you."

Fan Xian listened quietly, knowing that this reason was actually very simple. Not to mention the young Emperor of Northern Qi, even Haitang, or even Chen Pingping and his father, would not believe that he would really help Northern Qi to fight against Southern Qing.

If he wanted to be a traitor, there had to be some benefits. Fan Xian was now a person second only to one, and above ten thousand in Southern Qing. If he betrayed the interests of Southern Qing, did he want the Emperor of Northern Qi to give him the Dragon Throne?

He gave a self-deprecating smile, thinking that no one in the world would believe this, let alone the people of Northern Qi. But he really never thought of selling out the interests of Southern Qing to satisfy Northern Qi's requirements for establishing a country. He just tried his best to make the possible war to the end and bloodshed a bit more moderate.

Of course, as Li Hongcheng criticized in the General's Mansion in Dingzhou, this was a very naive, very absurd idea, and from a certain point of view, it was basically… impossible.

From this point of view, Northern Qi's desire to kill Fan Xian, the powerful minister of Southern Qing, and thus tie Dongyi City to their own chariot, became a matter of course.

As for the legendary blind master? The young Emperor of Northern Qi wasn't unaware of this person, but this person's whereabouts were too mysterious. Even if he was really a great master standing behind Fan Xian, the threat to Northern Qi was far less real than the powerful Qing Emperor and the powerful Qing army.

Seeing Fan Xian fall into thought, the Emperor of Northern Qi didn't disturb him. He also closed his eyes and began to think about his own situation and what might happen next.

One was the monarch of the north, and the other was a minister of the south. They were just in the quiet room, each with their own thoughts, unaware of how time passed like flowing water. Unknowingly, the setting sun outside the thatched hut shone like blood on the sword pit, illuminating those ancient and broken swords, each branch like dyed with thousands of years of blood, no matter how long they were washed by sea wind and rain, they could not be cleaned.

Fan Xian stood up and walked to the window, silently looking at the big pit. He knew what the countless swords in this pit represented. It represented Si Gu Jian's awe-inspiring swordsmanship and strength, represented the position of the Sword Grave in the hearts of the people of the world, and represented the deaths of countless swordsmen and those exciting legends.

The stable continuation of any kind of reputation or status actually requires the baptism of sword and blood.

And in this world, how can we give posterity a better future? Is it also necessary to have a blood and fire baptism from south to north? Fan Xian had no ability to distinguish and judge. Even if he had discussed it with Yan Bingyun and argued with Li Hongcheng, he still didn't have the ability to judge whether the division and combination of the world would be more beneficial. Long pain? Short pain? Thank you, that's a historian's problem, not something that living beings in this world need to consider. Living beings only need to consider the present. This is the selfish instinct of living beings.

Fan Xian was undoubtedly a selfish person. Even if a great flood occurred after his death, he only wanted the world to be like the world he liked when he was alive, with flowers, trees, grass, insects, birds, people, poems, paintings, wine, and gold, without pain, disaster, or blood...

Now he deeply regarded himself as a Qing person, not the internationalist fighter he was at the beginning. But it was regrettable that he had grown into a pacifist. He hoped that when he was alive, and when his children were alive, Spider-Man's or Kato Tak's famous gesture could always be held up.

The Supervisory Council's cultivation from a young age and the life of jumping between life and death for so many years had allowed Fan Xian to grow into a pacifist. This seemed so absurd and unbelievable, but it also proved from another perspective that when a person lay on a sickbed waiting for death, the obsession that was produced could affect him for a lifetime, or even two lifetimes.

Knowing the horror of death, one knows to cherish life.

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…

"I know the reason why you keep making mistakes." Fan Xian didn't turn his head, slowly saying, "The pressure from my Great Qing is too great. Although His Majesty hasn't been conscripting troops on a large scale in the past few years, every step he takes is preparing for the future war. His Majesty is walking the upright path. He has already eliminated the existence of the Great Grandmasters, so he disdains using his own Great Grandmaster strength to disrupt the world."

"He has enough confidence to conquer you uprightly." Fan Xian suddenly felt that the setting sun outside the house was a bit dazzling, closed his eyes, and said, "Actually, I understand His Majesty very well. The unfinished Northern Expedition more than twenty years ago was an unacceptable setback for him. For him, monsters like the Great Grandmasters shouldn't exist in this world at all, even if he later became a Great Grandmaster himself."

"He has his own brains and strategies. He relies on these to conquer everything. He has a deep-seated contempt and disdain for personal martial strength… However, he has to clean up the Great Grandmasters first before he can release this disdain to the extreme."

Fan Xian gave a self-deprecating laugh, "I think Ku He also saw through the obsession of my old man of an Emperor before he died, so he slowly laid down chess pieces in Western Liang and in my court, wanting to play a final game with His Majesty… It's just that he forgot that he's already dead after all, and it's impossible to know all the details that happened after his death. And Haitang and you, whom he placed his hopes on, have each made an unforgivable mistake."

The young Emperor had been silently listening to Fan Xian's analysis. Hearing this, he opened his mouth and asked, "What mistake?"

"You underestimated my anger." Fan Xian turned around, looked at the young Emperor, and said word by word, "I dare to guarantee you that Ku He's two moves before his death were prepared to finally fall on me, but you tried to kill me twice. Whether you succeed or not, if Ku He knew of your actions, he would definitely be so angry in his grave that he would die again."

"Fall on you?" The young Emperor's pupils shrank slightly, savoring Ku He's uncle's instructions before his death in his heart, his expression gradually becoming solemn, but he still didn't understand why he wanted to place the hope of Northern Qi's survival on Fan Xian. Wasn't he Qing Emperor's illegitimate son? Was Fan Xian really a great sage?

No, the last sage in the world had died as early as the fifth year of Qingli. Fan Xian was just an ordinary person.

Fan Xian sneered, "Of course, Ku He's plan was excellent. He tightly grasped my heart, but he couldn't guess at all until his death whether I would follow the path he imagined."

The matter referred to in this sentence was too secretive, and the young Emperor of Northern Qi couldn't understand it even more.

"I will find my own way to control all of this. If I can't control it, I can simply leave lightly." Fan Xian walked out of the twilight outside the window, getting closer and closer to the young Emperor's body, his voice slightly sinking, and said, "And Your Majesty… you better listen to me more."

"Why should I listen to you?" For some reason, the young Emperor suddenly felt a chill.

Fan Xian looked at him and said, "Because you have made too many mistakes. Although the politics of Northern Qi have been managed very well by you in the past few years, I originally thought that another remarkable Wu Zhou had appeared in history, but in the end, I found that women… are still too easily angered, too soft-hearted, and can't support anything."

As soon as these words came out, the young Emperor's expression changed drastically, but he immediately returned to his usual appearance, narrowing his eyes and said, "Lord Fan is saying more and more mysterious things."

"Previously, you wanted to kill me. If you didn't consider Si Lili's life and death, and let the eunuch trick her out of the room, but instead directly launched an attack with Lang Tao, maybe I would be dead at this time." Fan Xian stood in front of him, calmly raising his chin, and said, "A woman's benevolence was fully displayed at that moment. You have disappointed me so much, how dare I continue to do business with you?"

The young Emperor's eyes narrowed more and more, narrowing into two curved moons, as if he wanted to use the gap in his eyelids to see Fan Xian flatter, so as to calm the infinite fear and struggle in his heart.

This was a secret that he and the Empress Dowager of Northern Qi had desperately kept for twenty years. For this secret, the Northern Qi court didn't know how many people had died and how much it had cost. However, at this moment, it was said lightly by a person from Southern Qing.

"My purpose today is to enter the Sword Grave to see Si Gu Jian, but there is also another purpose, which is to have a private conversation with Your Majesty." Fan Xian looked at him and said, "I want to tell you that if you still want to be the Emperor of Northern Qi, from now on, don't try to deal with me secretly. On the contrary, you have to cooperate with me. Do you understand?"

The young Emperor moved the corners of his lips and laughed loudly, "Good you, Fan Xian, you actually want to threaten me? You can just kill me with a single knife and see if my Zhan family descendants will frown."

"Your ambition is really admirable." Fan Xian looked at him with a smile in his eyes, and said word by word, "Killing is naturally not allowed. I just want to know, if Shang Shanhu, Lang Tao, and other important ministers of Northern Qi suddenly discover that the Emperor they are loyal to is actually a… woman, what kind of reaction will they have? Northern Qi… There is only your daughter in the Zhan family, is there still a need for its existence?"

The young Emperor stared at Fan Xian. At this point, he finally understood why Si Lili had said earlier that Fan Xian was not afraid of him at all, but that he should be afraid of the other party, because the other party had grasped his lifeline, that absolute lifeline.

The young Emperor said in a hoarse voice, sneering, "A generation of poetry immortals, as expected, there is some foolishness in their words."

In this situation, Fan Xian also had to admire the other party's calmness and fortitude. After a long silence, he stretched out his finger and flicked, knocking off the young Emperor's hairpin, and black hair fell like a waterfall on the Emperor's shoulders, making the whole person appear weak. Then, there was a hissing sound in the quiet room…