The Desired Future

"Your Highness." "Your Highness!" "Your Highness!!" The moment Li Yucheng took hold of the gilded imperial seal, shouts arose in waves through the silent hall. Some were calm, others frantic, all carrying an unquestionable tone of admonition. In truth, very few men in the court still belonged to the sects. Most who spoke up were of the imperial faction and the Chancellor's faction. Yes, even the Chancellor's faction. They desperately wished to stop the Crown Prince from pressing the imperial seal onto that vermilion letter, and when Xu Yuan's turning gaze swept over them, they did not yield in the slightest. A betrayal? Not really. Since ancient times, dissenting voices had existed everywhere, and the Prime Minister's Manor was naturally no exception. Upon suddenly witnessing a memorial that spelled catastrophe, it was hardly surprising that the moderates within the Chancellor's faction bristled like cats having their tails stepped on. Because this was war. A war that threatened to plunge all living beings under heaven into misery and ruin. Yet by this point, such voices no longer truly mattered. Now that Li Yucheng had picked up the gilded imperial seal, he would not be halted by mere spoken counsel. Having overseen the realm as regent for several decades, this man had, after all, developed some measure of the mettle befitting a future ruler of the dynasty. Grasping the imperial seal, Li Yucheng lifted his gaze to sweep across the assembled ministers below the dais. His voice was slow, calm, and resolute: "My ministers, when Imperial Father was still the Prince of Qin, he taught me the way of the world: that a ruler must, if necessary, sacrifice his very self to forge an age of prosperity for the myriad people. For this aspiration, Imperial Father devoted his entire life. Never, day or night, have I dared forget it. For over twenty years, I have labored diligently solely for the peace and security of the people. Yet do you truly believe that the realm today can be called a golden age of peace and prosperity?" The clamor in the hall subsided slightly. Li Yucheng lowered his eyelids, his fingertips gently smoothing the creases of the letter on the desk and brushing over the ink strokes that seemed stained with blood. He said: "This question was once asked of Imperial Father by Chancellor Xu when they first met. Imperial Father answered that it was an age of prosperity, yet without peace. Why do you think that was? Our vast Great Yan boasts a thousand years of dynastic rule, yet it is strong on the outside and rotten within. Even though Imperial Father quelled the disaster of the Western Desert, pacified the chaos of the Northern Barbarians, slaughtered the pirates of the Eastern Sea, and ushered in this Jiajing reign, he still could not escape that original verdict!" The Crown Prince's voice rang with resolute finality, brooking no doubt. The hall fell momentarily silent before these words. Li Yucheng's hand holding the imperial seal trembled faintly as he lowered it toward the memorial on the desk. Taking a deep breath, he said: "I hope that a hundred years from now, the people of Great Yan will no longer suffer the scourge of bandits and demons, and Great Yan's children may walk freely along the country paths. Even if I must sacrifice my flesh and bones, I still wish to see the dawn of that true golden age of peace!" Xu Yuan listened in silence as the words echoed through the vast, hollow hall, his expression obscured beneath lowered eyelids. Li Yucheng's words inexplicably brought to mind the Chancellor's traveling palace, and the side hall his father had prepared within it for the reigning Emperor, Li Yaoxuan. If only time had been more generous, if only Heaven had granted the previous generation a little more leeway, this royal scion before him might have become a benevolent ruler in that nonexistent future. A benevolent sovereign of boundless magnanimity, whose heart could embrace a hundred surging rivers. ["Once the realm is pacified, let us go see this land together."] Xu Yuan felt that those two men back then had perhaps intended just that. Yet alas, fate made fools of men. Amid the deathly silence, Li Yucheng's hand holding the imperial seal pressed firmly and slowly toward the letter that signified destruction and war. Xu Yuan exhaled softly as well. The unraveling of the realm's current situation had already sealed a tragic end for Li Yucheng. On the surface, he was resplendent—regent overseeing affairs of state with the bestowed imperial seal—yet in reality, he wielded no power to decide any matter of great import. The moment he took a step out of line, those high ministers of the Crown Prince's faction would turn into his shackles. When verbal admonition failed, the only recourse left was physical restraint. With that thought, a dark crimson flame quietly ignited in Xu Yuan's downcast eyes. The next instant, a deep, resonant voice drifted unhurriedly from outside the palace doors: "Your Highness, the imperial seal is a grave matter of state. I pray you consult His Majesty's will first." Looking in the direction of the voice, Xu Yuan saw a man clad head to toe in armor, the light filtering through the clouds glinting off dark gilded plate. Xu Yuan had met him before, and more than once. He was the father of Wang Chengping, one of the Four Young Masters of the Imperial Capital. The Commander of the Imperial Guard, Wang Shili. Back then, Xu Yuan had often visited the man's manor to hang out, and the old man's gaze upon him had always been gentle and smiling. But now, the look piercing out from beneath the armored helmet was nothing but cold. Come to think of it, aside from that idiot Li Junwu, the other two of the Four Young Masters of the Imperial Capital now stood entirely on the opposing side. A sense of lament, a touch of melancholy. The old companions were gone, and all was changed. With his hand resting on the bestowed gold saber at his waist, Wang Shili reached the golden dais in almost an instant, arriving before Xu Yuan and Li Yucheng. Li Yucheng did not look up; his motion of pressing down the imperial seal remained steady and unwavering. There were no pleasantries, no exchange of words. Only a sigh from an unknown mouth. And the hand Wang Shili extended to forcibly restrain Li Yucheng. The next instant— *Hum—* A radiant beam erupted from the floor, unleashing a howling tempest. Caught in the sudden blast of force, the civil and military officials were thrown into disarray. Those of weaker cultivation were sent flying backward, slamming hard against the solid interior walls of the hall, splashing blood across Jinluan Hall. By the time the crowd recovered from the rolling shockwave of qi and cast aside all decorum to gaze into the dust-shrouded center, they saw only the Commander of the Imperial Guard kneeling on one knee, and standing before him, his long hair dancing in the wind as he calmly looked down upon the commander, the Chancellor's third son. At this moment, even the high ministers whose profound cultivation had kept them standing unaffected could not comprehend what had just happened, though they had seen it clearly enough. They had clearly seen that when Commander Wang Shili lunged forward to exert pressure upon the Crown Prince, Xu Yuan had caught his vambrace with a backhanded grip, and they had clearly seen the afterimages of the commander's counterattack. But why was Xu Changtian the one left standing? One had to realize that the Commander of the Imperial Guard was currently enveloped by the majestic might of a military array. Formidable though the Chancellor's third son was in cultivation, it was utterly impossible for him to contest strength against a military array... The ground beneath Wang Shili's knee was fractured, cracks spreading like a cobweb across more than half of Jinluan Hall, and his shoulder's gilded armor showed a distinct indentation. His shoulder blade was shattered. Yet the gaze emerging from beneath the visor remained calm. Wang Shili recalled what had just transpired. Outsiders might not understand what had occurred, but as the one who lived it, he knew all too well. At the moment of their clash, a fleeting wisp of black mist had welled up around Xu Changtian, severing his connection to the Imperial Guard's military array. An art? A Dao domain? It no longer mattered. What had just happened was merely an ambush taken unawares. Once prepared, the strength of an individual was nothing more than a drop in the ocean before a military array. Wang Shili rose inch by inch from the cracked floor. The surrounding might of the military array gradually coalesced, causing the space around him to tremble faintly. Yet when he stood fully upright, he found that Xu Yuan was no longer looking at him, gazing quietly toward the peak of Nine Dragons Mountain instead. Xu Yuan's voice was placid: "Lord Pillar of State, whether in public duty or personal loyalty, you should not die here. Having walked alongside His Majesty all this way, you ought to understand his original aspirations far better than a junior like me." Wang Shili's eyes did not waver in the least: "His Majesty's sacred will is not yet determined. I do not wish to take your life. Step aside." Xu Yuan exhaled a breath of turbid air and turned his gaze back to him. "You cannot touch me." Seeing this, Wang Shili spoke no further and slowly raised his hand. Yet right at that moment, the array's might that set space humming around him suddenly fell into turmoil... Behind Kunning Palace, on the mountain slopes, surging waves of qi rolled out in crests, stirring an endless sea of flowers. Amid the landscape like an ink painting, it seemed only that solitary figure in red remained, standing at the pavilion atop the slope. Li Qingyan gazed south toward Jinluan Hall, her half-narrowed phoenix eyes cold as snow, her tone faint: "Imperial Mother, Imperial Brother has shown more resolve than I anticipated. Yet alas, it is already too late." The Empress stared blankly at her daughter before her. Feeling the terrifying, dread aura radiating from her, her phoenix crown swayed faintly, and her hand came to rest trembling upon the embroidered stole across her chest: "What are you doing?" Li Qingyan slowly turned her head, staring at her birth mother for several breaths. The emotion in her eyes was tinged with disappointment, yet she answered in a calm voice: "Steering this realm in the direction I wish it to go." The grounds of the imperial clan lay in the northwest of the Palace City, occupying roughly a thousand mu of land. It was not overly vast, yet it was one of the most strictly guarded forbidden grounds within the palace, holding almost no communication with the outside world. Upon sensing the turmoil within the palace, a quiet sigh drifted out from this secluded precinct. Immediately following, the aura belonging to a Saint spread outward in all directions without the slightest concealment. This was an old man with hair and beard entirely white, clad in the elaborate ceremonial robes of the imperial clan, his tightly furrowed brows locked in profound helplessness. Stepping out from a quiet hall, he walked toward Jinluan Hall, the seat of imperial authority. His pace seemed leisurely, yet each step traversed a hundred zhang, flickering like a ghost among the opulent pavilions and towers. He was not supposed to interfere in court governance, but now treacherous ministers were willfully trampling upon imperial majesty and committing overstepping acts of acting first and reporting later. As Director of the Imperial Clan, he had to step forward at this moment—at the very least, to suppress this matter until Li Yaoxuan returned to the capital. The old man had traveled only about a thousand zhang, reaching Cuiwei Palace, when his movement abruptly halted. There, a man clad in robes white as snow sat quietly atop the peak of the palace roof, eyes lowered, gently wiping the three-foot sword blade in his hand with a brocade cloth. As though he had been waiting for him for a long time. Inside Jinluan Hall, the breach in the vaulted ceiling shed gloomy light below. The radiance of the gilded armor gradually waned. Wang Shili realized what was taking place. Someone was wresting control of the Imperial Guard's military array from him. Moreover, the other party's array cultivation method was of a higher tier than his. Among those he knew, there was only one person in the entire imperial palace capable of this. Now that she had acted, it was ordained that he could no longer intervene in today's affairs. After a moment of silence, Wang Shili withdrew his raised hand. Looking at Xu Yuan, he said: "The Director of the Imperial Clan will not sit idly by. Even if stamped with the imperial seal, this memorial will never make it out of Nine Dragons City." Xu Yuan nodded slightly and bowed in a salute toward him. "Then that is not something Lord Pillar of State needs to trouble himself over." The salute finished, Xu Yuan turned to face the ministers strewn about the hall and spoke in a steady voice: "I have no fondness for ornate rhetoric, so I will speak plainly—I know you may view me, Xu Changtian, as an audaciously insolent scoundrel, and I know the memorial I submitted today has scared some of you out of your wits. "It is true that through the revival wrought by my father and His Majesty, Great Yan's near-collapsed state fortune has been rekindled. If everything continues as it is, enduring for several more centuries would not be difficult. But what then? Are we to trust in the wisdom of future generations? Trust that a thousand years from now, our vast Great Yan can produce another Xu Yinhe, another Emperor Jiajing? Rely on another Jiajing reign to salvage it all? "Everything you worry about, everything you fear, I have considered. But the sects' tax exemptions have plagued Great Yan for a thousand years, turning into a poison rooted in our blood and marrow. If we do not slice into the flesh, if we do not crack the bone, how else can it be cured?!" His voice fell, and the hall was silent for only an instant. *Pfft.* A sneer rang out. Slumped against the corner of the wall, a young man who had been coughing up blood from the qi shockwave curled his bloodied lips in a weak grin: "Xu Changtian, a natural-born noble like you naturally doesn't fear the scourge of war. But do you know that once war begins, how many common people will be displaced, how much fertile land will be burned to ashes, and how many innocent souls will meet wrongful deaths?" Xu Yuan turned his gaze toward the remonstrating official. Looking at his blood-stained robes, he appeared to be a Vice Director in the Ministry of War. After a brief silence, Xu Yuan replied softly: "...I know." "You know shit! A war against just the Barbarians emptied a treasury accumulated over ten years, and millions upon millions of commoners—" "And so we should forever endure and compromise? Vice Director Lan, the war with the Barbarians will secure peace for the three northern provinces for centuries to come, so that the northern populace need not constantly live in dread of barbarian armies sweeping south. Once the new tax law is implemented, the state coffers will be bountiful. For one generation to bear the suffering of a thousand years to win peace for ten thousand generations—is that not what our generation ought to do?!" "..." The blood-stained official fell speechless. Yet seeing that the Chancellor's son was actually willing to debate, the others found their spirits renewed. As courtiers, the one thing they never lacked was eloquence; what they feared was Xu Yuan slaughtering remonstrating officials indiscriminately right here in the hall. Initiating warfare on one's own whim was something that, at any time, offered endless grounds for dispute. After a brief brewing, a middle-aged man dressed in the robes of the Censorate slowly stood up and said: "Lord Xu, the Law of Immortal Taxes regarding sects is an ancestral system laid down by Great Yan's Grand Ancestor. Rashly altering it will undoubtedly—" *Bang!* Without any warning, a black sphere expanded abruptly before the speaker's head, instantly swallowing his skull, upper chest, and shoulders. The black sphere vanished. The corpse collapsed soundlessly to the floor, bright red, steaming blood gushing forth. Xu Yuan slowly withdrew his gaze, his voice resounding: "Since you are so fond of ancestral rules, go down and ask the Grand Ancestor himself." With those words spoken, Xu Yuan glanced toward the Chief of the Imperial Presence from the Directorate of Ceremonial standing atop the golden dais and said evenly: "Eunuch Tang, the imperial seal has been stamped. Shouldn't you immediately proclaim this memorial to the world?" "..." The Chief Eunuch of the Imperial Presence silently swept his eyes over the hushed ministers below the dais. Sighing softly in his heart, he took brisk, measured steps down and received the vermilion letter bearing the impression of the imperial seal. The autumn winds of the forty-seventh year of Jiajing swept from north to south, carrying the declaration of war from Great Yan's court across the Central Plains, over the lands of Jianghuai, and resounded throughout every sect under heaven.