Spring had arrived.
The weather grew steadily warmer, yet the fires of war still raged.
"The struggle for the grand tide of the world is nothing more than each person holding a torch to illuminate a different path ahead. Hearing that truly makes one's blood boil."
The sunlight was just right. Li Junqing reclined on a rocking chair on the battleship's deck, sipping from his private stock of fine wine while reading through the dispatches from Di'an. He suddenly smiled at the middle-aged man kneeling nearby.
"Lord Daimyo, did you know? Some time ago, if this prince had been willing, the heavy burden of holding that torch might very well have fallen upon my shoulders."
Dressed in a kimono, the middle-aged man remained stern and unsmiling. "Your Imperial Highness, Sien possesses immense power, and our defensive lines are on the verge of collapse. Many daimyo have already surrendered to them. I have no interest in making idle chatter."
Li Junqing gave a casual chuckle. "Are you saying Sien is more terrifying than my vast Great Yan?"
The kimono-clad man fell silent for a moment, then murmured, "So far as I know, your esteemed country is mired in total civil war and can hardly extricate itself."
A warm sea breeze caressed their faces, pleasant and serene.
Li Junqing narrowed his eyes slightly and studied the man for several breaths. "It seems you've been thoroughly terrified by Sien, Lord Daimyo."
"It is a disparity in national strength!"
The man looked up, his gaze unyielding. "The samurai under my command are fierce and fearless, but Sien is simply too mighty. If your esteemed country cannot provide sufficient support, then you must forgive me, for I shall accept their peace overtures."
Li Junqing was not angered in the least. Circulating his cultivation technique, he glanced at the unreachable continental shelf on the distant horizon and murmured, "Oh? So you really haven't lost your nerve. In that case, you had better prepare yourself mentally."
With that, Li Junqing tossed a square box onto the deck.
"Are you trying to humiliate me?!"
The corner of the man's eye twitched. He could hardly stomach this imperial prince's insolence. "It seems seeking cooperation with you was nothing more than a joke."
Li Junqing crossed his legs and leisurely popped a berry into his mouth. "Don't be so hasty. Why don't you pick that up, take a look toward the continent, and decide then? It won't be too late.
"And remember...
"Brace yourself mentally~"
"..."
The kimono-clad man stared at the far-viewing box before him. After a few quiet breaths, he picked it up, walked to the railing of the deck, and peered toward the boundless continent.
Through the narrow, swaying field of the far-viewing box, the man's pupils shrank, and his very breath seized.
He beheld an apocalyptic scene where heaven and earth seemed inverted.
Along the coastal continent,
Monstrous beasts and winged birds swarmed like dense clouds of flies across the firmament. Beams of light capable of leveling mountains and filling seas covered everything. Great peaks collapsed, rivers ceased their flow, and towering shafts of brilliance surged from earth to sky, eclipsing the rising sun...
"Well?"
Li Junqing chewed the berry unhurriedly, savoring the fresh sweetness on his tongue. He let out a soft sigh. "This is the civil war between the elite military arrays of our Great Yan. I wonder how it compares to the front lines on your Yingzhou Island?"
With that,
Li Junqing rose to his feet, walked over, and patted the man on the shoulder.
"Go on. Think it over carefully."
Forcing himself to steady his shaken mind, the man asked with a trembling voice, "Your Highness... did you have me assemble this fleet in order to ferry this army to Yingzhou Island?"
Li Junqing pondered for a moment. "No. But we might in the future."
"In the future?" The man's eyes widened in shock.
A playful smirk played on Li Junqing's lips. "The current master of the Prime Minister's Manor is my sworn brother, unrelated by blood, while the reigning sovereign is my full-blooded elder sister. Do you think they could just leave me, their dear brother, out in the cold?"
"..."
Having said his piece, Li Junqing paid the man no further attention. He turned toward the empty air, cupped his hands in a polite greeting, and said with a grin, "Commander Yuan, your reputation precedes you."
A few breaths later,
A figure clad in armor drenched in blood came into view of the fleet, finally landing upon the flagship's deck.
Yuan Hao cast a sharp, assessing gaze over the surrounding battleships and vessels of all sizes. "Your Highness's arrival is somewhat later than what the young master's secret missive indicated. Any later, and you might only have been able to collect our corpses."
Li Junqing shrugged helplessly. "The remnants of the underground palace were all landlubbers. Whipping them into a navy capable of sailing ships took time. And as you can see, gathering all these vessels to receive you took time as well."
"In any case, making it in time is all that matters."
With the battle urgent, Yuan Hao had no intention of dwelling on it. He spoke briskly: "Today, I led the army to repel the Sect Alliance's encirclement by a hundred li. The enemy will need time to regroup. Please make haste to dock, Your Highness. The harbor has already been cleared for you. It would be best if we could board and withdraw tonight."
"Naturally."
Li Junqing nodded, then seized the opening to ask, "By the way, Commander Yuan, have you ever considered coming to Yingzhou Island?"
"What?"
Bloodstained from head to toe, Yuan Hao froze in disbelief, looking at the prince as though he had lost his mind.
Li Junqing offered an easy smile and added, "After the civil war is settled, of course."
* * *
Time continued to flow.
The moment Xu Yuan opened his eyes again, the first sight to greet him was countless slender needles pinned into his meridians and acupoints, alongside a chilled imperial sword resting nearby.
He looked at her.
She looked at him.
After several breaths of silence,
The killing intent in Li Qingyan's phoenix eyes softened. As she pulled the needles that sealed his origin qi, she sighed with a faint touch of regret, "Scoundrels live forever. I knew an idiot like you wouldn't die."
"Could you be a little gentler?"
Noticing the resentment lingering in her motions, Xu Yuan quietly voiced his grievance. "I won't die, but that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt."
Li Qingyan, already clad in imperial dragon robes, rolled her eyes at the man she loved, though her movements gentled somewhat. "Fine, fine. Don't rush me. To keep you from losing control, we laid numerous layers of seals upon you."
As the shackles were lifted one by one, Xu Yuan slowly sat up. Stretching his limbs, he surveyed the unfamiliar surroundings. "How long was I unconscious?"
Li Qingyan rose from the dragon bed and began channeling her cultivation to pack up the arrays on the floor. "A little over a month."
Recognizing that he had awakened within Weiyang Palace, Xu Yuan did not dwell on the matter. His voice quickened slightly. "How goes the fighting on the front lines? And how has cooperation between the imperial court and the chancellor progressed?"
Li Qingyan glanced back at him, the beaded tassels of her imperial crown clinking softly. A playful glint shone in her eyes. "I thought the first thing you'd ask about upon waking would be those beauties of yours."
"..."
Xu Yuan fell silent for a heartbeat. Hearing her light tone, he figured things must have gone smoothly. He played along with the mood and smiled. "What does Your Majesty mean by that?"
"I'm jealous, of course."
A smile tugged at the slender corners of Li Qingyan's eyes as she reached out and pulled Xu Yuan up from the dragon bed. "We can talk on the way. The overall front-line campaign has gone very well. The Black Scales Army has withdrawn from Jiangnan, and I have pacified the fighting in Hongnong. But as for the cooperation between the crown and the chancellor..."
At this point, she snorted coldly and shot him a sideways glance.
"Hmph. Because a certain someone kept playing dead and refused to wake up, a certain someone's retainer nearly leveled my Di'an to the ground. Since you're awake, hurry back and show your face. Attendants, prepare the imperial carriage for the Chancellor's Manor!"
The imperial carriage set off from outside Weiyang Palace, heading south along the central axis of Di'an. Along the way, Li Qingyan briefly recounted what had transpired during the days of his slumber.
After Heaven's Will surged into his body, the Chancellor's Manor was destroyed. Zong Qingsheng had arrived on the scene immediately, taking control of the Pavilion Master of the Overseeing Heaven Pavilion, who had shut herself away in a state of utter psychological collapse. From her lips, he wrested the truth of what had happened, keeping the details of Xu Yuan's ordeal strictly concealed.
That had been the most perilous period; an asymmetry of information could have plunged the imperial family and the chancellor's faction into an all-out, irreparable war at any moment.
Then came Li Qingyan's side of the tale.
Using herself as bait, she had led her dragon banner across the river. The Sect Alliance forces in Hongnong had thrown themselves into a frenzied effort to claim her life, desperate to shatter any strategic alliance between the court and the chancellor. After a harrowing sequence of narrow escapes, the Sect Alliance army in Hongnong ultimately came up short. They were thoroughly routed by Li Qingyan and the Black Scales Army that had emerged from the secret realm, and the rebel leader Luo Wei led the remnants to surrender.
Li Qingyan spoke with total ease, but Xu Yuan could still hear the mortal peril woven into her words. Even so, he said nothing, offering only an understanding smile as she finished.
Beyond that, Xu Yuan noticed his hands trembling slightly beneath his sleeves. It was the wild exhilaration of seeing his long-held vision finally take form, intertwined with the utter exhaustion left behind by all those accumulated days.
Looking back along the road he had traveled—Shengshan County, the Northern Border, the underground palace, the Western Desert... He had laid countless plans and baited countless traps in an effort to keep everything firmly within his grasp. Yet the old adage that eight or nine times out of ten, life does not go as one wishes had followed him from start to finish. No matter how much preparation he made, no matter how smoothly things proceeded early on, events would inevitably slide toward catastrophe, leaving him to struggle and patch the cracks on the brink of ruin.
Yet now, in this grand tide that decided the future of all beneath the heavens,
He had finally achieved perfection.
* * *
The two spoke of many things—of the realm's situation, of the path forward—until the imperial carriage pulled up before that magnificent courtyard, where they suddenly fell into silence.
Through the carriage window, Xu Yuan saw the three familiar words shimmering with inlaid gold upon the horizontal plaque.
*Chancellor's Manor.*
He froze involuntarily. Dazed, Xu Yuan turned back to look at the woman beside him, his gaze swirling with complex emotion.
"You..."
Li Qingyan averted her eyes with a hint of unnatural awkwardness. "I thought 'Xu Manor' sounded too dreadful, so I had someone deliver a new plaque for you. Surely the Lord Chancellor won't refuse me?"
"Heh... haha..."
Xu Yuan licked his lips and let out a soft laugh.
"...Of course not."
With that,
He reached out, cupped the nape of her fair neck, and slowly leaned in, pressing her gently down beneath him. Yet just as their lips were about to meet, the Empress raised a single finger, pressing it lightly against his mouth.
Xu Yuan looked puzzled.
Averting her gaze toward the courtyard, Li Qingyan raised her chin, her red lips curving into a flirtatious smirk. "My imperial carriage isn't equipped with formations to block perception. I don't care, of course, but why don't you circulate your cultivation and take a look?"
"..." Xu Yuan went silent.
Circulating his cultivation for the first time in what felt like ages, the world around him became transparent.
And then,
Xu Yuan felt three familiar gazes upon him.
Tianye wouldn't care.
But the big iceberg and the little iceberg certainly would.
His expression instantly turned solemn. Millimeter by millimeter, he sat up straight from the Empress, drew back the hand that had been lightly kneading her dragon robe, helped her sit up properly as well, and cleared his throat softly.
"I was simply too happy. Carried away by the moment."
Li Qingyan gazed at him intently, a contemplative look on her face. "I thought you wouldn't care about such things. Oh... have you not settled things with them yet? Very well, allow me to assist you."
A flash of realization crossed the breast-binding Empress's face. Smirking, she stepped down from the carriage and strode side by side with Xu Yuan across the threshold beneath the plaque reading "Chancellor's Manor," heading toward the inner courtyard.
Reconstruction within the manor was already underway. Over the past month, the ruined gardens, waterside pavilions, and courtyards had already begun to take shape again.
As they walked inward, they found that many high-ranking officials of the manor had already departed the capital, but they still encountered many familiar faces.
Spring had arrived.
Feng Jiuxuan and Xu Changge, those two peerless posers, stood silently as always atop the Sword Pavilion, letting the cool breeze catch their robes.
This time, however,
An elderly man stood at the pavilion's entrance, glancing up in their direction from time to time.
Further away, Hua Hong and Zong Qingsheng nodded in greeting to the pair, making no move to approach.
Jiang He glanced at Xu Yuan once before taking his leave.
The only true exception was Lou Ji.
The moment she saw Xu Yuan, the woman disregarded all propriety and swept forward, giving him a long-overdue, smothering hug against her chest. Only when the Empress's gaze at his side turned noticeably sharp did she finally let go and saunter off to mind her own business.
Figures drifted past with every step, until they at last arrived before the gates of the inner courtyard.
Looking at the open gates,
Even though his father was no longer here, Xu Yuan felt an inexplicable sense of peace wash over him. Just as he was about to step through the entrance, Li Qingyan spoke without warning:
"Everyone is in Di'an now, aren't they?"
"What?" Xu Yuan blinked in surprise, glancing back.
Clad in her nine-dragon imperial robe, Li Qingyan gazed into the courtyard. Her phoenix eyes narrowed slightly as she murmured in a low voice, "The guests coming to observe the ceremony, of course."
"What ceremony is there right now?" Xu Yuan asked in bewilderment.
Li Qingyan gave a cold snort, her crisp voice aloof and imperious. "You promised me that on the day of our grand wedding, the Head Disciple of the Sword Sect and the Saintess of the Overseeing Heaven Pavilion would occupy the seats of honor... Well, now it seems we have to add the Pavilion Master of the Overseeing Heaven Pavilion to the list."
"..."
Hearing her sudden shift in tone and address, Xu Yuan fell silent for a few breaths before replying solemnly, "Your Majesty, the long night has not ended; do not praise the dawn. We still have a very long road to walk."
"I am well aware of that, naturally."
Li Qingyan strolled past him, stepping first into the inner courtyard.
"Yet the alliance between the crown and the chancellor requires proof, and we must provide an answer to those beneath us, must we not? I have decreed our wedding for next month. It ought to be quite lively."
"..."
A gentle breeze tousled their hair.
Xu Yuan stared blankly into empty space for a long while before his stiff neck turned slowly, his eyes meeting the women standing by the inner courtyard entrance.
Tianye leaned against the courtyard wall with her arms crossed over her chest, watching Li Qingyan approach with unmistakable amusement.
Li Qingyan's red lips curled into a faint smile as she met her gaze through half-lidded phoenix eyes, her expression aloof and condescending.
Ran Qingmo gazed at Xu Yuan with wide, pitiful eyes.
Tianyan's golden pupils looked as though they were about to spit fire.
After several breaths of silence, Xu Yuan let out a heavy sigh and took a step toward them. The courtyard doors automatically began to swing shut behind him, leaving only his voice drifting through the closing gap:
"Wait, no, don't walk away! Listen to me explain..."
* * *
(The End)
Chapter 813