A bolt of lightning flashed through the dark clouds above Jingdou. A moment later, a muffled clap of thunder rang out, shaking the entire Royal Palace and making it tremble. Heavy rain poured down, soaking everything in the Royal Palace. The rain quickly gathered under the Palace and flowed down through the gaps between the glazed tiles. The sound was very loud.
At this moment, it was still spring. Even if there was thunder, it should be dry thunder rumbling. However, this kind of thunderstorm weather inevitably seemed a little abrupt and strange. It was unknown if the heavens were angry or if the Son of Heaven was already angry.
The Emperor walked through the main doors of Guangxin Palace. He turned around and slowly closed the palace doors. He then took a hairband from his wrist and carefully tied up his drenched hair. Not a single strand of hair was out of place. It did not match his current mood.
The Eldest Princess leaned against the low couch and looked at him. Suddenly, she began to giggle.
At this moment, a bell-like laughter suddenly rang out in the spacious Guangxin Palace. The laughter echoed in the wind and rain. Although it was light and crisp, it could not be concealed. It was transmitted in all directions, making it seem extremely strange.
The Emperor's expression did not change. He slowly walked forward and stopped in front of the low couch, in front of the Eldest Princess.
Behind him was a straight line of wet footprints. The distance between each footprint was evenly spaced. The lines formed by the footprints seemed to have been drawn straight.
He was not silent for long. The Emperor looked coldly at Li Yunrui and asked, word by word, "Why?"
Then, the Eldest Princess Li Yunrui sank into silence.
She furrowed her pretty brows. Her slender fingers gently tapped the low couch beside her. Confusion and innocence flashed through her watery eyes like that of a young girl.
She seemed to be thinking, confused, and not knowing what to do.
In the end, she raised her head and looked calmly at the most powerful man in the world in front of her. Her red lips opened slightly and her jade teeth parted slightly. Quietly, she said, "Why what?"
A long time had passed since the Emperor asked that question. The Emperor seemed to be very patient to hear the answer.
Without waiting for the Emperor to continue asking, Li Yunrui suddenly sucked in a cold breath. Blinking her large eyes, she used her hand to cover her mouth and said, "You're asking why?"
"Why?"
She suddenly laughed and stood up. Not showing any weakness, she stood in front of the Emperor and stared at him with a pair of sharp, resentful eyes. Emphasizing each word, she asked, "Brother Emperor, are you asking why your sister is in her thirties and still not married? Or should he ask why his younger sister seduced a scholar when she was only fifteen years old? Or do you want to know why you keep so many gigolos? "
She gently bit her lip and took a step closer to the Emperor. Staring into his eyes, she asked in a tone that was cold to the bone, "Why? Why did the Eldest Princess, Li Yunrui, give up glory, splendor, wealth, and a leisurely life to manage the palace treasury for the court for so many years? Why did she, this idiot, forcefully suppress her disgust and help the Qing Emperor recruit talents? Why did she bother to deal with other countries? Why did she secretly organize a Junshang Conference to kill some people the Emperor found inconvenient to kill and to create some conspiracies that would cause the court to lose face? "
"Why?" Li Yunrui stared seriously at the Emperor and waved her sleeve. In a sharp voice, she said, "Brother Emperor, why do you think this is? Why was I stupid to such an extent? Why is it that you are the most glorious and beautiful character in the world, yet I am willing to become the darkest character behind you? Why do I have to bear this reputation? "
The Emperor was silent and cold, looking at her pitifully.
The Eldest Princess suddenly laughed crazily. "Isn't this all for you? My dearest brother, if you want to leave your name in the annals of history, then those dirty things must be borne by someone else. But, have you ever thought about me? "
"Me?"
The Eldest Princess angrily grabbed the Emperor's dragon robe and hatefully said, "I also want to ask you why! Why do you have to take away everything that belongs to me? Why don't you have any affection? Look at that illegitimate child of yours. You took everything from me and gave it to him. Why? I know that everything will be gone. I am willing, as long as you are willing. But, it cannot be him! Why did it have to be him? "
Li Yunrui panted and then quickly calmed down. Using a pitiful gaze, she glanced at the Emperor and slowly said, "It's a pity that your illegitimate child is still only willing to have the surname Fan."
…
…
The Emperor looked at her silently. A moment later, he slowly said, "You're crazy."
"I'm not crazy!" Li Yunrui screamed angrily. "I was crazy for the past dozen years! But, I'm not crazy today! "
"You're crazy," the Emperor coldly said. The Emperor coldly said, "You've asked so many whys. It seems like the root of all this is me. Have you ever thought that your love for power has reached an abnormal level?"
"Strange?" Li Yunrui furrowed her brows. A disdainful expression flashed across her face. "If a woman wants power, then it is strange. Then, what do you, the person with the most power in the world, count for?"
"How dare you!" The Emperor squeezed out a low voice from his throat and waved his hand to strike.
The Eldest Princess raised her face and looked at him coldly. She looked at his hand and did not care at all.
"Everything you have was given to you by me," the Emperor slowly lowered his hand and coldly said. "I can easily take it all back."
"Everything I have was obtained through my own hard work." The Eldest Princess looked at him coldly. "If you want to take everything back, you will have to kill me."
Another peal of thunder rang out outside the Palace. The wind and rain seemed to have picked up. The Emperor looked at his sister and suddenly laughed. There was an icy coldness in his laughter. "Perhaps … you think I can't bear to kill you?"
…
…
"Of course, you can bear to." A glimmer of mockery suddenly flashed through the Eldest Princess Li Yunrui's eyes. "Is there anyone in this world that you can't bear to kill?"
The Emperor, who had been calm the entire time, was suddenly stabbed in the depths of his heart by this gaze.
Li Yunrui looked into his eyes coldly and said, "Brother Emperor, wake up. Don't always pretend to be the most loyal person in the world. Presumably, you've already been to the Eastern Palace and showed that you've lost your composure. It seems that you've been hurt in the depths of your heart. But, who are you fooling? Don't lie to yourself. You've always been waiting to get rid of me. In the depths of your heart, you feel that you owe me, so you need to find a reason to convince yourself. "
She harshly said, "Yes, you just need to convince yourself. Make you feel that personally killing your own sister, the sister who has been by your side since childhood and who has given up countless years for you after growing up, is not your problem. It is just that I … deserve to die!"
When she said the word "deserve to die," Li Yunrui's voice became sharp.
When the Emperor heard the words "Eastern Palace," he had already closed his eyes. A moment later, he slowly said, "In the end, you are my own sister and the person mother loves the most. If it hadn't come to this, no matter what, I would have protected you with riches and honor. You disrupted court discipline, buried private soldiers, used the Ming family, and organized the Junshang Conference. Which one of these is not a great crime of deceiving the Emperor? However, what do these things count for? You are, after all, my own sister, the sister I have loved since childhood. If I don't offend you, then you are not guilty. In these years, regardless of whether you sold out Yan Bingyun or wanted to assassinate Fan Xian, I don't blame you because I don't think these things are that big of a deal."
He opened his eyes. His gaze had already calmed down. "But, you shouldn't have interfered with your nephews. The Second Prince has already been led astray by you, although he has hidden it well on the surface."
Li Yunrui smiled coldly and interrupted, "Your own son was driven crazy by you."
"What about Chengqian?" The Emperor stared fiercely into Li Yunrui's eyes. "Do you know that he is the Crown Prince? He is the next Emperor that I have carefully nurtured! I am going to conquer a large kingdom and want this child to guard it for me for 10,000 years. If you assisted him, I would only be happy, but you bewitched him! "
Another muffled clap of thunder rang out on the horizon. The sound was not very loud, but it shook Guangxin Palace to ringing. Amidst the might of heaven and earth, the Emperor's angry voice remained sharp and pierced into the Eldest Princess' ears.
The lightning seeped in through the window and lit up Guangxin Palace for an instant. In that instant, the Emperor stretched out his steady right hand and gripped the Eldest Princess' throat tightly. He pushed her forward, stepping over the low couch and the screen, and firmly pressed the most beautiful woman in Qing Kingdom against the palace wall. The veins between his fingers bulged as he exerted force.
It was difficult for the Eldest Princess to breathe, but she did not cry for help or beg for pity. She only looked coldly and pitifully at the angry middle-aged man in front of her. Her pure, swan-like neck was gripped by that hand. The flow of blood was not smooth. It made her face turn red and instead gave off a strange and moving sense of beauty.
"I have never thought of changing the heir. Everything is for Chengqian's future because my kingdom needs a benevolent and powerful ruler to inherit it. All of this has been destroyed by you!" The Emperor roared angrily. "Why?"
A glimmer of confusion flashed through the eyes of the Eldest Princess, whose face was completely red. Shortly after, it was a look of understanding. She smiled slightly and panted as she said, "So … all of this was an act. So, Fan Xian was also being played by you. Presumably, in the future, his death will be even worse than mine."
Her body was gripped against the palace wall. The tips of her feet barely touched the ground. She looked very wretched. It was at this moment that she smiled with difficulty. "However, you definitely won't let Chengqian inherit the throne. Are you prepared to let Fan Xian be the Emperor? No, brother Emperor, I know you. Even if you die, you won't let Fan Xian take the lead."
Hearing these words, the Emperor's hand slowed a little.
The Eldest Princess gazed at him with amusement and ridicule. She panted as she said, "Brother Emperor, you are too suspicious. You are too good at pretending. You wanted to train the Crown Prince, but you scared the Crown Prince like a mouse. He thinks that you can remove him at any moment. How can he not be afraid? How can he not need a reliable embrace like mine?"
Embrace … The Eldest Princess Li Yunrui did not seem to be afraid of death at all. She continued to stimulate the Emperor's eardrums.
The Emperor stared at her and only asked, "Why?"
…
…
"Why?" Li Yunrui suddenly began to struggle under his hand. In the end, it only increased her pain. In a sharp and angry voice, she cried out, "Why? There is no why! He likes me. That is the reason. I like to play with him, to play until you feel pain and despair. "
She giggled nervously. "I only found out today that your despair and pain are greater than I imagined. I am very satisfied."
The Emperor looked at her woodenly and slowly said, "He likes you?"
"Can't I?" The Eldest Princess' beautiful face was completely red. It appeared particularly seductive under the occasional flash of lightning. She panted and proudly said, "Is there a man in this world who doesn't like me?"
She looked at the Emperor's face close to hers and suddenly froze. In a daze, she raised her powerless right hand and touched the Emperor's face. In a tone filled with infatuation, she said, "Brother Emperor, you also like me."
"Shameless!" The Emperor slapped her hand away.
Li Yunrui did not get angry. She only panted and said firmly, "You like me. However, I am your sister. But, so what? Liking is liking. Even if you hide your thoughts at the foot of Dong Mountain or in the ocean, you will still find them. You can't throw away your thoughts. "
"Not all men are as emotional as wild beasts." The Emperor looked coldly at his sister, whose breathing was becoming more and more rushed. "Not all men will bow down to your skirt. Women, never think that they will stand above men."
"You're talking about Ye Qingmei, right?" Li Yunrui suddenly spat at him viciously. "I am not her!"
"You will never be as good as her," the Emperor suddenly moved closer to her ear and said. The Emperor suddenly moved closer to her ear and said, "Even if you struggle for so many years, you will never be as good as her. You will never be able to reach her place in my heart. You know this yourself."
A deathly gray color suddenly flashed across Li Yunrui's face. It was as if these words had struck her deepest weakness.
A glimmer of cruelty flashed through the Emperor's eyes. He continued to speak by her ear, "You can only forever chase after her footsteps, but you will never catch up. Now, she and my son are going to take everything from you. Are you in pain?"
Li Yunrui struggled to her feet and stared at him with a fierce and hateful gaze.
"You're not even as good as my illegitimate son." Thunder rumbled outside the window. The Emperor's soft words fell into the Eldest Princess's ears, but in the Eldest Princess's ears, they were even more frightening than the thunder outside the window. "You said earlier that you can play with all men. Why don't you play with him?
Li Yunrui's gaze gradually calmed. With great difficulty, she said calmly, "He is Wan 'er's husband."
The Emperor looked at her with a mocking and malicious gaze. "You even dare to act against your own nephew. Do you still know such a thing as honor?"
The Eldest Princess gazed at him pitifully without showing any weakness. "There are three of us siblings, but there are two of us crazy. I don't know. Do you know? If you really knew, you wouldn't have taken your subordinate's sweetheart into the Palace as a concubine! "
The sound of wind and thunder outside the Palace suddenly stopped. A deathly silence filled the air.
The Emperor's hand was firm and unmoving. Clutching the Eldest Princess's weak throat, he didn't speak for a moment.
"During the Northern expedition, you were heavily injured. Your entire body was stiff and unable to move." The Eldest Princess coughed and viciously said, "It was Chen Pingping who suddenly attacked from thousands of li and risked great danger to save you from the mountains in the North. It was the Dongyi female slave, Lady Ning, who served you, a wooden person, along the way. The journey was so difficult. Director Chen could only drink horse urine and eat horse meat … but for these two benefactors, what did you do? You clearly knew that Chen Pingping liked Lady Ning and that Lady Ning admired Chen Pingping. As the master, you stabbed a knife in and took Lady Ning. Brother Emperor, don't think that just because I was young at the time, I don't know about this. Why was mother so angry? Was it just because of Lady Ning's identity? Why did she have to be executed? If Ye Qingmei had not interceded, Lady Ning and the Great Prince would have long ceased to exist … do you know such a thing as honor? "
"Don't say nonsense like Chen Pingping is a eunuch!" the Eldest Princess said viciously. "Do you think you are cleaner than me?"
…
…
What disappointed Li Yunrui was that the Emperor did not seem to be shocked or uneasy. He only looked at her coldly.
The Emperor slowly increased the strength of his hand and said, word by word, "Before you die, you still did not forget to drive a wedge between me and Director Chen. Yunrui, I truly admire you, so I cannot keep you alive."
… …
In the Eastern Palace, the pitiful mother and son were still terrified and uneasy. The pale-faced Crown Prince was much better off than the empress. Although he knew that he was about to face a terrifying end, he was, after all, the son of the Qing Emperor. He had always been raised as the next Emperor. The terrifying calmness and calmness in his blood came into effect at this moment.
If he wanted to save himself, he had to first save the Eldest Princess. The Crown Prince knew that there was only one person in this Palace who could save someone from his angry father's knife.
Furthermore, the Emperor would not tell that person the truth. The Emperor, who was filial to his mother, would not let the scandal of the royal family harm his elderly body.
Thus, the Crown Prince knew that he still had a chance of survival.
However, the Eastern Palace had long been surrounded by the people Eunuch Yao had brought. It was impossible to make contact with people outside the Palace. Even the trusted aides the empress and the Crown Prince cultivated in the other palaces were unable to get close in the thunderstorm.
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