Inside the dim cellar, two figures were intertwined together.
Ji Mingshan’s palm was pressed hard and clamped around Li Niang’s neck, choking her face to a bruised, purplish hue. Li Niang struggled desperately, but Ji Mingshan did not move an inch.
“Ji,” Li Niang choked out, “you, how could you!”
How dare you kill me? Don’t you love me?
Ji Mingshan’s eyes were bloodshot as he watched Li Niang struggle, yet the force in his hands never wavered.
He was the Emperor, the Son of Heaven, the most noble person in the entire Great Jin; no one had ever subjected him to such humiliation, and he could not possibly let Li Niang live.
His love for Li Niang was no match for the humiliation Li Niang had inflicted upon him.
“I love,” Li Niang seemed to want to use her usual routine to manipulate Ji Mingshan once more, but Ji Mingshan no longer believed it.
At a glance, Li Niang appeared deeply in love with him, willing to die for him and caring nothing for wealth or glory, but in reality, Li Niang only loved herself.
She claimed with her lips that she loved him, yet she refused to make any sacrifice for him, thinking only of how to squeeze every drop of blood from his body so that she could feel she had broken even.
Yes, broken even.
She naturally felt that as long as Ji Mingshan loved her, he owed her a debt. Loving her meant he had to place her on a pedestal and submit to her unconditionally just to clear the account. Her love was not about giving or respect, but rather extortion, time and time again.
She merely enjoyed the feeling of having someone pander to her infinitely; the moment Ji Mingshan failed to satisfy her even slightly, she would fly into a rage.
Furthermore, Li Niang dragged him down into the mire in the name of love, frantically stamping her feet on him out of fear that he might stand back up.
Tormenting him, starving him, forcing him to perform the lowly labor of a commoner—was that love? Li Niang’s love was not tolerance, acceptance, or compromise, but rather a contest of wills, suppression, calculation, and retaliation.
Such love could never last long; whoever fell in love with Li Niang would ultimately turn against her as enemies.
The more Ji Mingshan thought about it, the more hatred welled up within him, and the heavier his strength became until he choked Li Niang unconscious.
Once Li Niang passed out, Ji Mingshan panted heavily, staring down at her crumpled form on the ground.
It was rather ironic. In the past life, Yan Lingyi shouldered the karmic consequences for the two of them for a lifetime, and they had loved each other sweetly all the way until the nation fell, still running away together. Now, with no one to shoulder their karma and no one to interfere in their sincere love, these two people had started fighting each other first.
Those who do not know how to love are actually incapable of loving for a lifetime. Li Niang had merely cast out the bait of we are in love, and once Ji Mingshan bit down on it, he discovered there was a cold, sharp hook hidden inside. This hook pierced through his jaw, hoisting his entire body up until he became a fish on a chopping board.
Yet he was unwilling to be consumed just like that!
Right now, Li Niang was not dead, not because Ji Mingshan was soft-hearted, but because Ji Mingshan wanted to exact his revenge on her.
He stripped off Li Niang’s outer garments, stuffed them into her mouth, bound her tightly with ropes until her hands and feet were entirely restrained, and left her abandoned down in the cellar.
This cellar was used during the winter to store provisions and the like; since it was summer, it served no purpose and held only miscellaneous household items. Normally, no one ever came here, and for all the days Ji Mingshan had been locked up, not a single soul had approached.
Now, Ji Mingshan had left Li Niang behind in this very place.
He wanted to let her experience what it felt like to cry out for help to no avail and be starved to death alive. Such a sensation was far more agonizing than a swift and clean death.
After binding Li Niang securely, he placed a ladder back against the cellar entrance and climbed up, step by step, inch by inch.
When he reappeared on the surface of the ground, Ji Mingshan sat down and burst into loud, bitter sobs, but after weeping for a moment, he tightly covered his face with his sleeves.
He pulled the ladder back up to prevent Li Niang from climbing out and firmly closed the cellar doors once more.
After weeping for a while in the darkness of the night, Ji Mingshan picked up the ladder, returned it to its original spot, and quietly skirted around the other villagers, stepping back out of the village.
This is not over yet, Ji Mingshan thought as he departed the village.
He would return to Jianye, reclaim his throne as Emperor, and go back to offer an apology to Yan Lingyi. He would never seek out another woman for the rest of his life! On his very first day back as Emperor, he would send people to string up every single person in this village!
At the thought of Yan Lingyi, Ji Mingshan’s dead, desolate heart came back to life.
He recalled the past: when he drank, Yan Lingyi brewed hangover soup for him; when he took consorts, Yan Lingyi arranged the imperial harem for him; when his health failed, Yan Lingyi tended to him constantly, terrified he might suffer any lingering complications.
After he ran off with that farm woman, goodness knows how much effort Yan Lingyi must have expended trying to find him! She was probably spending her nights tossing and turning in sleepless agony, shedding tears on an empty pillow right now.
At this realization, Ji Mingshan felt a pang of regret so sharp it ached in his chest.
To think he had previously cast aside an Empress as wonderful as Yan Lingyi just to be instigated by a farm woman!
Fortunately, he still had a chance. He only needs to return to the imperial city right now, go back to Yan Lingyi’s side, and steer everything back onto its proper track.
Upon seeing him, who knew how heavily Yan Lingyi might weep?
Ji Mingshan quickened his pace, hurrying along the wild paths amidst the mountains.
He needed to find Yan Lingyi quickly so that he would never make her angry again. He wanted to rule as an eternal imperial couple alongside Yan Lingyi.
On this night, the Empress Dowager plotted against people within her palace, Ning Yue was swayed by Yan Lingyi’s words, the Prince Regent awaited his final showdown with the Empress Dowager, and Ji Mingshan paid a bitter price for his own rashness.
He departed through the dark night, stumbling his way toward the imperial city.
Naturally, no one knew of this.
The following day, as dawn broke brightly, the Wutong Mountain Royal Hunting Grounds bustled with activity.
Today was the day of the martial trials. Early in the morning, the imperial couple arrived atop the viewing terrace alongside the Prince Regent.
Palace structures stood upon the terrace, fronted by a grand viewing platform and backed by stately halls. The three of them sat from high to low at the front of the terrace, looking down to survey the hundreds of men gathered below.
The three sat adjacent to one another on the terrace. Looking down, they could see the crowd arranged in orderly rows. A eunuch stood behind a large drum, waiting for the nobles above to be seated before signaling the start of the competition.
With a dull, resounding beat of the drum, the trials officially commenced.
The martial trials were divided into two rounds. The first round involved a mass melee on the arena stage where whoever won advanced and whoever lost was eliminated, while the second round required participants to enter the mountains for a hunt, with the victor determined by the volume of prey captured.
These two rounds would weed out the initial hundred participants down to about twenty.
The first round consisted of fighters brawling on the stage while the spectators watched from above, lasting the entire day.
The second round involved participants walking into the mountains under the cover of night while the rest waited in the pavilions, though they could also move about or rest, lasting through the entire night until they emerged from the woods with their game at daybreak the following morning.
In short, it took a full day and night to conclude.
Emperor Wenkang had been brimming with enthusiasm the previous day while selecting a consort, eager to strip away all disguises and inspect every single candidate in detail. Today, however, for reasons unknown, he showed not a shred of interest from early morning onward. He watched the first round of arena battles listless and dejected, dragging himself through the matches from start to finish with his enthusiasm entirely gone, leaving him staring blankly at the pastries in his hands.
In contrast, Yan Lingyi was brimming with vitality, smiling as she discussed the participants with the Prince Regent seated beside her.
Yan Lingyi was thoroughly pleased with them, not in the sense of a woman viewing men, but rather a monarch assessing subjects.
These individuals were all at prime ages and hailed from noble official backgrounds, meaning they were destined to enter the imperial court. After a bit of polish down the road, they could be dispatched directly to various regions like scattering seeds. Once nurtured by wind, rain, and imperial grace, in a few years they would surely sprout like bamboo shoots after a spring rain.
Among these men, Yan Lingyi actually spotted several promising talents who, in her past life, had fought to the death to defend the country. The more she looked, the more satisfied she became, picking them out one by one to lavish praise upon them.
“This young man here is the eldest legitimate son of the Minister of Works, reportedly well-versed in military strategy.” Yan Lingyi observed for a moment, then turned to ask, “How does the Prince Regent view him?”
The admiration and appreciation in Yan Lingyi’s words grated harshly against the Prince Regent’s ears.
He faintly perceived that Yan Lingyi’s praise was not directed solely at him; this woman was rather indiscriminate in her appreciation, pausing to scrutinize them carefully whenever she encountered a capable talent.
So her praise wasn’t reserved exclusively for him after all!
This realization stirred a rising swell of irritation within his chest.
Completely oblivious, Yan Lingyi was right in the middle of her praise when she abruptly heard the Prince Regent seated beside her reply in an indifferent tone, “Book-learning is shallow at best; it may not necessarily prove useful in actual combat.”
Yan Lingyi picked out a second candidate: “The first one on the right is the son of the Imperial Guard Commander, and he is quite skilled with the saber.”
The Prince Regent’s tone grew even colder: “I hear the concubines in his household have already birthed two sons; his family customs are improper.”
Yan Lingyi picked out a third, a fourth, and a fifth, yet the Prince Regent always managed to find alternative reasons to pick flaws in them.
Listening to this back-and-forth, seeing that the Prince Regent remained unsatisfied, Yan Lingyi never suspected that Ji Hengge was deliberately picking a fight. On second thought, it made sense: the Prince Regent had fought on battlefields for years; leaving other matters aside, purely in terms of martial trials, indeed no one could surpass the Prince Regent.
Completely unaware that Ji Hengge was displeased, she simply gauged the timing and smoothly accepted a cup of tea handed over by an attendant: “Your Highness, the weather is dry and hot. Drink a cup of tea to cool down.”
In the distance, the daylight was fading. The first round of competitions below was drawing to a close, and the second round was about to begin. Since the second round required participants to enter the forest for hunting, the nobles could retire to the guest quarters behind the viewing terrace to rest.
The Empress Dowager’s plans not only accommodated herself, but also inadvertently aided Yan Lingyi.
This place was unlike the imperial palace.
The imperial palace was confined in scale, patrolled meticulously and meticulously by the Imperial Guards with a post every ten paces and a sentry every five, leaving zero room for error. Unless Yan Lingyi grew wings and transformed into a bird, she could never slip past their eyes to infiltrate the Prince Regent’s quarters.
Wutong Mountain, however, was entirely different.
Wutong Mountain was a mountain, not a closed-off imperial palace, making movement vastly more convenient. Furthermore, due to the princess consort selection, the area was crowded and chaotic with varied terrain, and rivers and streams ran through the mountains. To top it all off, the viewing terrace was built not far from the forest. With such topography, slipping away to hide anywhere meant nobody could find her, which greatly facilitated her sinister schemes.
She could not resist pushing another cup of tea toward the Prince Regent.
Do not blame Yan Lingyi for her urgency, for she had calculated that the date of the Prince Regent’s death was just around these very days! If the Prince Regent died, where was she supposed to fish out a child?
Fresh green tea leaves floated within the tea water, sliding smoothly along with Yan Lingyi’s hand as it pushed the cup right before the Prince Regent.
Ji Hengge stared fixedly at that teacup, and for reasons unknown, the irritation in his heart dissipated slightly.
True, the praise was not exclusive to him, but this cup of tea was meant for him alone; nobody else had one.
Even though the court was filled with countless military generals, didn’t Yan Lingyi still want to pull down his trousers alone?
Ji Hengge took the teacup and drank it with a pleasant mood.
As the cup of tea slipped down his throat, the sky outside grew dark.
Night in the mountains was much colder than night in the imperial city. Heavy mists obscured the dusk while solitary winds rose again. The trees beneath the viewing terrace shook and swayed in the gale, seemingly foreshadowing the extraordinary events of this night.
As the second round commenced and the young noblemen ventured into the mountains, large contingents of Imperial Guards followed them into the forest to protect the young lords and prevent them from getting lost or killed, causing the number of Imperial Guards around the viewing terrace to thin out significantly.
Subsequently, the imperial couple and the Prince Regent also retreated to the guest chambers behind the viewing terrace to rest.
That night, Yan Lingyi prepared to scale the windows once more.
Yan Lingyi possessed a true martial artist’s spirit: she suffered defeat after defeat yet fought back after every single loss, refusing to admit defeat even in death.
She had already failed twice; this time, she was determined to succeed!
Meanwhile, a hundred assassins clad in the attire of the Northern Zhao Kingdom also began approaching the viewing terrace.