The sun rose, bringing a new day.
After a grueling battle, Wei Yuan still suffered defeat; his dream of being invincible with a dharma idol was thoroughly shattered. Though Consort Yuan's victory was a pyrrhic one, leaving her utterly exhausted, a win was a win, granting her the privilege of cleaning up the battlefield.
Yet the margin between victory and defeat had been razor-thin. Wei Yuan felt that the sole reason for his downfall was that cup of wine.
Now they could finally talk properly, though watching Consort Yuan rest her hand against her lower abdomen still made Wei Yuan's heart flutter with dread. This was not the kind of life he had envisioned.
Consort Yuan slowly propped herself up and reached for her clothes.
Once fully dressed, she exuded a sacred, awe-inspiring aura, as though merely drawing near would be a desecration—a world apart from the woman she had been moments ago.
"When the child was born, karmic luck transformed into a dragon ascending to heaven. That could never escape the notice of watchful eyes, nor could the news be suppressed. In the inner palace, I do not hold absolute sway, and the King rarely spends time in the palace these days."
Consort Yuan spoke as though relating the most commonplace trifle, but Wei Yuan broke into a cold sweat upon hearing it.
Well-versed in historical chronicles, he naturally understood what this portended. The child might well suffer an inexplicable premature death, never even surviving long enough to learn to speak!
Consort Yuan continued, "My faction has no Scenery Command expert holding down the fort; that is our greatest crisis. As for my royal father, he cannot always be relied upon—after all, our two states are separate. At some point, he might decide that this child's death serves his interests better. No, not just 'at some point'—he will never tolerate a monarch blessed with dragon qi emerging in a neighboring state."
As she spoke, panic crept onto Consort Yuan's face. "The one who wants to kill him most is my royal father!"
"What can I do?"
Consort Yuan's panic vanished in a flash, and she regained her composure. "There is plenty you can do. The New Year is almost here again, and it will soon be time for you to enter the capital. When the time comes, as long as you behave obediently, the child will come to no harm."
To Wei Yuan's ears, this talk of behaving obediently sounded awkward no matter how he looked at it. Besides, whether he behaved or not, what did that have to do with the child?
Furthermore, Wei Yuan felt entirely detached from the child. If anything, he felt that his life's trajectory had been thrown into chaos; without this child, things surely would have been much simpler.
Nevertheless, he clearly caught the implicit threat in Consort Yuan's words, leaving him no choice but to offer a bitter smile.
Consort Yuan said, "Your current strength is vastly different from when you last entered the capital. Traveling to the capital to present yourself before the sovereign this time will be the perfect opportunity to build a faction. When the time comes, I will give you a list of figures to cultivate ties with."
"Very well." This was beneficial to Wei Yuan himself, so he naturally agreed.
"When one's strength is insufficient, dragon qi only invites fatal calamity. Right now, perhaps everyone apart from you, me, and the King is hoping for his death. Therefore, you must take the initiative."
Wei Yuan wondered why the King of Jin also didn't want the child to die, but since Consort Yuan didn't elaborate, he pretended not to know. After all, he truly did not wish to know, nor did he want to get involved.
With serious business concluded, Consort Yuan offered a faint smile. "I hear you wish to visit the Bao family?"
"You know about that too?" Very few people were aware of this, and Wei Yuan had never mentioned it publicly.
"Your Qingming has long leaked like a sieve. Whatever the King knows, I naturally know. And whatever we know, others know just as well."
Wei Yuan felt a headache coming on.
"Don't you plan on purging Qingming to weed out all those informants?"
Wei Yuan shook his head. "That would implicate the innocent. Throughout history, whenever purges occurred, the majority of those eliminated were loyal subjects. Besides, if they want to watch, let them; what does it matter if they know? First make oneself invincible, and wait for the enemy to be vulnerable. As long as I am neither lazy nor arrogant, no one can defeat me."
Consort Yuan suddenly leaned close, sealing his lips with hers. Only after a long while did she pull away, murmuring, "I think... I'm falling for you."
Wei Yuan's headache intensified.
The corners of Consort Yuan's mouth curled up slightly with an enigmatic expression before she said, "Bao Yun... Though I've never met her, I have heard of her."
"How could you have heard of her?"
"I investigated."
At this point, Wei Yuan cast aside his reservations and briefly explained what had happened before and his current dilemma, even if bringing it up at such a time felt rather bizarre.
Consort Yuan pondered for a moment before saying, "This matter should have been simple to resolve, yet you've somehow made it so convoluted and tangled. Let me guess—there must be another person holding you back from proposing marriage directly, isn't there?"
Wei Yuan took fright and hurriedly said, "There isn't!"
Consort Yuan leaned closer, scrutinizing Wei Yuan's eyes as she spoke slowly, "You've given me leverage over you now."
As she spoke, her grip tightened, and Wei Yuan instantly gasped.
"You'd better answer my questions honestly. How far have things gone between you two? Do you have a child? Does she know about me? How often do you meet?..." Consort Yuan fired off a barrage of questions in a single breath.
Wei Yuan remained silent, his brow furrowing deeper.
Consort Yuan huffed, pouting her lips. "So it's an off-limits subject, is it? Fine, I won't ask if you don't want me to. I don't ask for much, but if you really refuse to give it, that's fine too. If Little Karma enters the wheel of reincarnation then, don't you dare blame me!"
Helpless, Wei Yuan said, "Whatever it is you want, could I even refuse to give it?"
"You've only just reached the Dharma Idol realm and you're already giving me cold looks. If you advance to Scenery Command in the future, I fear I won't even be able to set foot through your front door without having to mind your gatekeeper's face."
"H-How could that be possible?"
Wei Yuan had never encountered such theatrics and found it impossible to reason with Consort Yuan, so he could only ask again what she truly wanted.
Consort Yuan, who had looked on the verge of tears just a moment ago, instantly wiped away the expression. "First of all, you cannot tell anyone about what happened between us—including that woman of yours. If necessary, you must lie."
Wei Yuan wrestled with it for a long while before nodding. "All right."
"Second, whenever I send for you, you must come."
"Third, as for Little Karma's future, help however much you can. Just do your best—that will be up to you."
None of these demands were unreasonable, so Wei Yuan agreed.
Still, Wei Yuan was sharp enough to detect the subtext in her words, so he asked, "You keep bringing up the child. Is there some sort of trouble?"
Consort Yuan glared at him. "Trouble of monstrous proportions! You only think to ask now?"
Wei Yuan wanted to say: *When did you ever give me a chance to ask?*
However, trying to reason with a woman at a time like this was clearly unwise, so Wei Yuan simply asked, "What trouble is it, exactly?"
Consort Yuan's brow finally knitted with a faint, barely perceptible trace of sorrow. "When he was born, he was blessed with dragon qi, but his inherent destiny is far weaker than it ought to be. Without the external support of high status and human fortune, he is certain to suffer an unnatural death."
Wei Yuan's expression turned grave at once. The so-called support of high status and human fortune simply meant he had to ascend the throne of the King of Jin. It was either reach the pinnacle or die a violent death—there was no middle ground.
The matters of karmic luck and destiny were by no means fanciful fabrications. Wei Yuan himself had been born bearing vast fortune; without otherworldly fortune, how could he have attained his achievements today?
External fortune was like wealth, while inherent destiny was like the physical body. Bearing heavy fortune with frail destiny was akin to a frail person carrying hundreds of jin of gold: far from growing rich, he would soon be crushed to death.
Wei Yuan was thoroughly versed in the arts of karmic luck and feng shui, and even more adept at karmic destiny angling, so he grasped the situation immediately.
Yet there were very few ways to alter a mortal's innate destiny. The same held true for karmic luck at the level of dragon qi. Back then, simply to save resources, True Monarch Xuanyue had slightly deflected otherworldly fortune, only to pay the price of carrying hidden injuries for more than a decade.
If even Xuan Yue was brought to such a pass, Consort Yuan and Wei Yuan had even less recourse.
By now, Wei Yuan understood the gravity of the situation, but questions remained. He asked, "Why is his destiny so weak?"
According to common knowledge, fortune and destiny were inseparable; those endowed with Great Fortune almost always possessed exceptionally strong innate destiny. Given Wei Yuan's diligence, even without otherworldly fortune, he would have risen sooner or later. A situation like this child's was truly exceedingly rare.
Consort Yuan sighed softly and sat dazed for a moment before speaking. "He bears the karma of the Vast Wisdom Supreme Universal Deliverance Arhat, making him essentially half a reincarnation of the Arhat. But back then, those people would not allow the Deliverance Arhat to return, so they intervened to whittle down the child's destiny, condemning him to an early death."
"Those people? Who are they?" Wei Yuan's face was coated in frost.
"The very people you and I encountered in the secret realm. The one who showed his face back then was merely a low-ranking Vajra."
At the memory of the Wrathful-Eyed Vajra from that day, Wei Yuan was overcome by an indescribable revulsion for reasons he could not quite fathom.
This revulsion did not stem from fated enmity, but rather from Wei Yuan's innate disgust toward those who sat high above, arbitrarily dictating and toying with the destinies of others. And now, they had actually stretched their hands out toward his own child!
A fury ignited within Wei Yuan's chest, far more ferocious than if those people had targeted him directly.
Consort Yuan pressed her hand against Wei Yuan's chest. "Now is not the time. Endure it."
Wei Yuan closed his eyes. His mental state turned rapidly ice-cold, quenching his rage, but the killing intent had already taken root deep in his soul.
"Now then, let us speak of Bao Yun. In your current situation, what identity you adopt when visiting no longer matters. What matters is that you go—the sooner, the better."
Wei Yuan sank into thought.
"There are three courses of action: superior, mediocre, and inferior. The superior plan is to elope with her."
Wei Yuan was appalled and moved to protest, but with his handle firmly in her grasp, Consort Yuan exerted more pressure, and his objection died before it began.
"The mediocre plan is to get the Bao family to invest money in you, bringing them along to make a fortune together. When the time comes, people from the Bao family will naturally defend your case."
"And the inferior plan?"
"Just like what you're doing now: all thought and no action."
"Thank you!" Wei Yuan expressed his gratitude with utter sincerity.
Consort Yuan cast him a sidelong glance. "Do you only know how to thank someone with words?"
"Then what would you have me do?" Wei Yuan felt as though impending doom were looming over him.
Consort Yuan sat up straight, instantly transforming into an iceberg. Her voice dripped with midwinter chill, her face radiant with an almost sacred glow. Then, hooking a finger at Wei Yuan, she said, "Come here. Kneel. Look up. Say you love me!"
Chapter 431