Chapter 170 – The Second Half of Father and Son

The imperial carriage arrived slowly, stopping smoothly on top of the official road. Due to the panic of the war, the official road was not paved with yellow soil and sprinkled with fresh water today, but His Majesty’s feet still did not hesitate, firmly and steadily stepping down from the bright steps and stepping on the land around Kyoto.

The Emperor moved his hand away from Eunuch Yao’s elbow, and his calm gaze slowly swept across the four fields, where thousands of courtiers and generals were kneeling on the ground and were worshipping him. His expression was indifferent, but there was not much expression in his eyes.

In the sound of the sky-shattering mountain cheers, the emperor’s gaze drew closer to the distant outlines of Kyoto, falling close, skimming over Hu Shu’s two university scholars, skimming over the eldest prince in military attire, skimming over the tense and slightly joyful and uneasy youngest son, and finally landing faintly on Fan Xian’s handsome and compelling face, noticing that the boy’s face carried a touch of extremely heavy fatigue.

The corners of the emperor’s lips curled up slightly with a touch of joyful flavor, seeming to like this beautiful face more and more deep down, but his brows immediately frowned as it was discovered that Fan Xian had suffered a not-so-light internal injury.

With a spread of his bright yellow dragon robe, the emperor stretched out his arms flatly, calmly and domineeringly facing the wilderness in front of him. The voices of the mountains chanting hail gradually ceased.

If no one dared to look at the emperor, then where did these thousands of people know the emperor’s movements?

From the moment he got off the bus, the emperor’s gaze had basically fallen on Fan Xian, who felt uncomfortable, but kept his head down, not knowing how to react, and only listened to the sound of the mountainous cheers as his majesty’s feet gradually came toward his own line of pedestrians.

When he reached Fan Xian’s body, the emperor suddenly turned his direction, not looking at Fan Xian again, and solemnly helped up Shu Wu as well as Grandmaster Hu. He held old man Shu’s shoulders with both hands, exerting a slight force, and said in a gentle but firm tone, “The old maester has suffered.”

Shu Wu’s heart was shocked and his face showed fear. Grand Maester Hu also said that he did not dare. The emperor smiled and did not say anything, and immediately afterward, helped up the Grand Imperial Prince who had been the first to fight in the battle of Kyoto and had made great achievements.

For this eldest son whom he never liked much, the emperor’s mood was a bit complicated, but his expression was calm.

Then, the emperor pulled up Li Chengping again, and gently stroked the top of his youngest son’s head with his right hand for a while, gazing at his loyal subjects in the four fields without saying a word.

Then he turned back and headed for the imperial chariot.

All the people were dumbfounded, thinking, “Is this the end? Not that the ceremony of the son of heaven returning to the capital was finished, but that …… the first minister to protect the country, Tanya Duke Fan Xian was still kneeling straight on the ground, why did his majesty not show any sign at all?

Shu Wu and Hu Da Shi exchanged glances, each seeing the confusion in the other’s eyes. Fan Xian was also a bit puzzled, wondering if he should stand up.

“Get up, could it be that if I don’t help you, you won’t be able to stand up?”

On the verge of boarding the imperial chariot, the emperor lightly threw a sentence into the crowd. Although the words had no reference, everyone knew that the words were addressed to Fan Xian, and while they appeared to be cold, they were actually a few hints of closeness within. As for the hidden meaning of these words, only Fan Xian could understand that His Majesty had recognized his own ability and loyalty, and that he was able to stand in his own place in the court without his support.

Fan Xian let out a bitter smile and stood up, looking down at the dirt on his knees. According to theory, his majesty had not yet boarded the train, and he, as a subject, could not clean up his appearance, but an impulse from somewhere made his right hand dust off his knee, brushing away a few smears of dust.

This small action did not attract too much attention, but it made the figure of the emperor who was approaching the imperial carriage pause slightly, and then everyone heard His Majesty’s words.

“Anzhi get on the car and come.”

The ministers began to stare at each other in shock as their jaws dropped again. Earlier, His Majesty had not personally helped Fan Xian to his feet, causing the crowd to speculate, but who would have known that immediately afterwards, His Majesty would have given young Lord Fan such a great honor. To accompany His Majesty to the capital was an honor that even the Crown Prince had never enjoyed.

The gazes of the smart ministers towards Fan Xian became hot, but these ministers appeared to be too smart or too clever, and some of their gazes couldn’t help but bet on the third prince, as it was well known that the crown prince and the second prince definitely didn’t have a good ending due to the rebellion, and at first the people thought that the future master of the Qing kingdom’s rivers and mountains would be the young prince, but look at His Majesty’s attitude today! ……

The reason why these ministers are said to be smart, is because they are in the inappropriate place, displaying the inappropriate attitude. On the other hand, Hu Shu, the two Grandmasters, were looking at the nose with their eyes and the heart with their noses, as if they had not heard His Majesty’s remark at all. This was the gap between the very best ministers and the ministers.

Fan Xian’s mouth was a little bitter, but he couldn’t go against the imperial decree and walked to the side of the high imperial carriage, went up and lifted the yellow curtain, and stood in front of His Majesty. Although the imperial carriage was high, it still couldn’t allow a person to stand up straight, so he was forced to lower his head in front of the emperor, just like all the rest of the people under the sky.

“Sit.” The emperor seemed to have read his mind and said with a slight nod.

Fan Xian sat across from the emperor as he was told, looking at the emperor’s old man, whom he hadn’t seen for a month, and his mood gradually became complicated. In previous years, although this monarch also had a powerful side to Aurora, it was nowhere near as terrifying as today’s Emperor – the Emperor was still calm, but it was like a bottomless abyss, harboring power. This feeling caused Fan Xian to palpitate a little, and as he looked at those two sword brows and those calm eyes, he involuntarily felt the urge to retreat.

The kingly dominance of a monarch was not presented from his physical appearance, but from the means and results presented in the history books. To be able to come back alive from the Great Eastern Mountains, to be able to arrange such a great situation, such a powerful figure, was indeed worthy of being the number one person on the continent in the past thirty years. Fan Xian understood this fact and had no choice but to accept it.

The middle-aged man in the dragon robe looked down at the various urgent memorials presented by the two university scholars, ignoring Fan Xian’s observation of himself, even if this kind of courtier’s observation of the emperor was extremely impolite and taboo.

The imperial chariot slowly moved, the light from the window slanted in and shone on the medals in the emperor’s hands. He lowered his head, frowned at them, and suddenly opened his mouth, ”Three years. I still need three years for my Great Celebration.”

The emperor did not raise his head when he said this, as if he was talking to himself. Fan Xian knew exactly what His Majesty meant by that. After the internal rebellion, not to mention the serious damage to Kyoto and the chaos in the imperial government, the attacks within the military alone had caused extremely serious consequences, and the heart of the military was already unstable at this point. In addition, the officials along the East Mountain Road are involved in many, although His Majesty has chosen good officials from the south of the Yangtze River to take over, but the impact on people’s livelihoods will certainly be very great.

It will take at least a year to gather the military’s heart, at least a year to eliminate the psychological impact of the chaos, and at least three years to prepare for a large-scale war in all aspects of the country’s financial resources, materials, and people’s hearts.

It must be in His Majesty’s mind that this Northern Expedition to unify the world must be the last Northern Expedition. The pace of history, which had been stopped by those two great masters for more than twenty years, was going to slowly accelerate.

The sky light outside the car window penetrated through the glass lattice and kept whisking away backward, showering countless glass bright flowers on the faces of this father and son. The emperor still lowered his head and said, “After the matter, I whisked my clothes away, and deeply hid my body and name …… This is the sentence you once wrote in the beginning. But you do not have the luxury of hoping that I will let you go, the matter is whisked away, now the big thing is not yet finished, why are you a young man in a hurry to whisk away?”

The emperor’s eyes looked at the zhangzhi, these words seem to be unintentionally uttered, Fan Xian’s heart but thumped, do not know how to say. After the matter whisked his clothes away, he did not think that his subconscious action of whisking the dust and earth before the imperial chariot would allow His Majesty to guess his own mind, and unusually resolute and mercilessly dispel his own fantasies or psychological temptations.

He let out a bitter smile, and didn’t dare to have the slightest concealment, and directly said, “Fighting this kind of thing, I’m really not good at it, it’s better to earn some silver for the court peacefully.”

Fan Xian’s heart had other plans, so he jumped the gun and made his words clear. Who knows, His Majesty the Emperor suddenly raised his head, looked at him and said, “Don’t think about resigning, if you are still afraid of people’s words, I will do the thing of cutting down the power.”

Fan Xian’s heart screamed bitterly, the emperor’s words pushed him to a dead end, if he was really forced to stay in Qing’s Kyoto to plan, of course he did not want to be cut down, the Supervisory Yuan is the most powerful weapon in his hands, if it was really torn open by his majesty, what would he take to negotiate with this unfathomable emperor?

Until this moment, he still did not know the truth on the Great Eastern Mountain, and at this time in the carriage did not dare to open his mouth to ask. Instead, the emperor opened his mouth first, asking about the specific situation in Kyoto these days, although these three days, the direction of Kyoto has been to the Imperial Palace where the non-stop sent to the Zhangzhi, but the matter involves the privacy of the Imperial family, many things, can only be reported by Fan Xian personally to the emperor.

Fan Xian’s voice rang out in the carriage, from the time he left Dadong Mountain, to the time he entered Kyoto disguised as an oil merchant, to the time he made a plan with the Grand Prince to raid the Imperial Palace, and then to the time the Ye family finally came to the rescue, he spoke in an organized and clear manner, and deliberately downplayed some of the details that the Emperor must have been unwilling to hear.

When Fan Xian reported, the emperor had already lowered his head again, so he dared to pay careful attention to His Majesty’s facial reactions. To his surprise, neither the news of the death of the eldest princess nor the news of the second oldest’s suicide had caused His Majesty’s face, like iron and stone, to tremble in the slightest, except that the emperor raised his head when he reported on the empress dowager’s condition.

“How many days does the empress dowager have left?”

“The Imperial Hospital has seen …… the old man’s body is weakened and weak, and after experiencing such a big thing and being frightened, I’m only afraid that ……” Fan Xian wanted to say something, but in his heart, he had a trace of the cold emperor’s Wicked thoughts, the empress dowager was scared to death by you, what should you, the filial emperor, do?

“The Imperial Hospital?” The emperor’s brow furrowed as he looked at him coldly and said, “What use are those losers, you were right there in the palace, don’t you know the details?”

Fan Xian said with a slight gloom, “Indeed it is not humanly possible to return to heaven.”

Under the gazes and arches of countless people, the emperor’s imperial chariot entered Kyoto, following the broad and straight Tianhe Avenue and entering the palace. Along the road, the people who had just suffered from the military disaster forcibly suppressed the sadness or timidity in their hearts and joyfully greeted His Majesty the Emperor’s return, as if they had welcomed back the backbone of their lives. From this, it could be seen that His Majesty’s prestige and reputation among the people of Qing was still as unbreakable as the power of the king himself.

Arriving at the main gate of the palace, Fan Xian retreated from the carriage with a stooped body, and exchanged a glance with the eldest prince, shaking his head to indicate that His Majesty’s mood was fine, and had not been affected by the news of several Tsubaki’s deaths in quick succession.

Fan Xian followed the carriage into the palace, looking at the bright yellow curtain, he couldn’t help but think of the emperor’s expression earlier, and felt a chill in his heart – although the eldest princess and the second prince were the masterminds of the rebellion, but after all, they were his majesty’s own sister, his own son, and this time the rebellion now seems to be a trap that his majesty deliberately weaved for the other side, but after learning about the deaths of her sister and her son, he was able to get the message across to the emperor. But after learning about the death of his sister’s son, the emperor is still as calm as ever. This part of the heart and mind, this …… cold blooded, really makes him a little shudder.

The eldest prince walked to his side and said in a deep voice, “Why did you come down?”

“Do you still dare to sit all the way into the palace?” Fan Xian glanced at him and explained in a low voice, “His Majesty asked something in the car. You also know that it’s always inconvenient to declare those things in public.”

There was no need to explain anything to the Grand Prince, but Fan Xian looked at the gazes betting around him, and knowing what kind of rhetorical consequences he would have if he followed the imperial chariot into the capital, he subconsciously added this. After making it up, he felt that talking to the boss like this would only backfire, and said with a bitter smile, “It’s too cold in that car, I’ll come down and move my muscles.”

The eldest prince laughed and patted his shoulder without saying anything. Both of these brothers were actually forcing a smile at this time. Guarding Kyoto, lest the king of a country become a lonely ghost on the land, there was no doubt that they had made a great achievement, the first merit. But with so many people dead in the imperial family, and with all the tactics they used, who knew what the emperor was thinking in his heart.

His Majesty, the Emperor of Qing, thought nothing. During the process of setting up the sweep of the rebels outside the capital, he had already learned of the deaths of Li Yunrui and Li Chengze from the urgent paperwork that Fan Xian had sent to him, and in the carriage, it was only from Fan Xian’s mouth that he learned the specifics of what had happened when these two died.

He had a calm face, as if the deaths were of strangers, still looking at the zhangzhi presented by the Zhongshu under the door. However, when the imperial chariot entered the palace and Fan Xian got off, His Majesty the Emperor put down the medals in his hands, leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes, and said nothing in silence.

The silence of the loner had lasted for a long time, and a hint of old age and haggardness gradually penetrated the Emperor’s countenance. However, at this time, the carriage had already stopped at the entrance of the Hall of Containing Light.

He sighed softly and slowly stepped out of the car curtain that was pulled up by Eunuch Yao. Once out of the car curtain, looking down on this familiar and unfamiliar palace, his face quickly calm and solemn, no longer a trace of the carriage when alone in the gloomy, every eyebrow, every eye conveys his strength and power.

The Empress Dowager was wearing a plain white dress, lying on top of the warm and soft phoenix bed. The wrinkles on her face were so deep, just like and this imperial palace in general, had greeted too many storms and had been eroded into such a mold.

The emperor said something to the eunuchs who were kneeling on the ground in fear, then sat down on the edge of the bed and placed his slender fingertips on the empress dowager’s wrist.

Fan Xian and the other three brothers stood honestly behind the curtain, not daring to disturb. Fan Xian’s heart was vaguely nervous, because it was vaguely obvious that the emperor was very skillful when he cut his pulse, and he obviously had some knowledge of the medical path.

However, he had more confidence in Mr. Fei Jie s medicine, and the most crucial thing was that the pill was …… not poison at all. Whether it is the medical Zheng of the Imperial Hospital, or the rest of the highly skilled doctors, I think that they will not be able to find the real reason why the Empress Dowager’s vitality is fading, but will be very straightforward to attribute it to the fact that the person is old and decrepit, and that the fate of heaven is coming to an end.

The emperor’s long and slender fingers had already left the empress dowager’s flickering and weak pulse, his head lowered in contemplation for a moment, a hint of helplessness flashed in his eyes, it seemed that this great master also knew that he could not stall the empress dowager’s departure. Then his brow suddenly frowned, and out came his finger like the wind, a finger pointing at the center of the empress dowager’s brow.

With a single finger point, the flavor in the entire Hall of Containing Light changed. Those chilly autumn winds were dispersed by an overwhelming sunlight, and a powerful and dignified aura was transmitted to everyone’s heart.

Fan Xian suddenly felt the aura behind the curtain, his heart shook, and his fingers trembled rapidly. Although this aura was unfamiliar, it harmonized with the true qi in his body like a relative, only it was several levels higher than his realm, and it was vaguely the realm he had always longed to pursue but could never find the entry point!

He raised his head suddenly, staring blankly through the thin curtain, a voice in his heart shouting at him, this is the second half of the volume! This was the second half of the scroll that he had been practicing for twenty years but had made no progress at all!