Chapter 473: Chapter 473

Ji Zhui hurriedly released his grasp and continuously retreated. He dared not look at Emperor He but instead obsessively stared at the blood on his fingertips.

Yet he remembered, every time he angered Emperor He, it resulted in either beatings or scolding.

He was the Crown Prince.

Destined by noble fate to become the Emperor.

Yet Emperor He always whispered in his ear that he was not as good as Ji Teng. After Ji Teng was sent away, it became that he was not as good as Ji Wang.

How could he not feel resentful after hearing that so often?

Emperor He never saw him. He doted on Princess Consort Jing and even kept Ji Wang at his side to carefully guide him. Yet what of it, Ji Wang still rebelled. Follow current novᴇls on noveⅼfire.net

Was this not just to save his own life?

Ji Zhui, trembling, lifted his hand to his nose and shudderingly sniffed. He had killed people before, but this was the first time he had killed a close relative.

The sound of weapons clashing still hadn’t ceased outside the hall.

Ji Zhui knew his uncle was dead, but his influence still existed, and his loyal followers would fight to the death to protect him. Once Ji Wang succeeded, those who surrounded him would meet no good end. They would surely fight to the death.

Emperor He, with his abdomen bleeding, quickly soaked his robe. His eyes filled with rage and his teeth clenched: "Brute."

Ji Wang looked on coldly, yet felt utterly exhilarated.

Unknowingly to him, smoke bombs were set off in various hidden spots around Shengjing.

His forces stationed outside the city were defeated, collapsing like a crumbling mountain. Thousands of troops surged in from all directions, unstoppable. Finally converging mightily, they pressed straight towards the Imperial Palace.

Ji Wang would always remember his mother before the mirror, applying rouge, always imitating Consort Shao’s style, desperately trying to please Emperor He without any dignity.

He knew Ji Teng’s misery. Yet he humiliated this boy superior to him time and time again. He had made him crawl under his crotch, and even had him fight with dogs for food.

He also remembered his younger days, sneaking to the imperial study, inadvertently sleeping in a palace corner behind a vase with a dragon-carved pillar shielding him, unnoticed. He heard enough to fuel several nights of nightmares.

Emperor He, full of spirited enthusiasm, entered and dismissed everyone else. He then spoke to the leader of the Imperial Guard, "It’s just two cities, Da Qi has plenty. Now that the Cui family father and son are dead, it has relieved a great burden from my heart."

He joyfully instructed, "That young one from the Cui family, as haughty as his father and brothers, keeping him might lead to trouble. I really don’t like him, you deal with him as well."

He sat leaned forward slightly on the Dragon Chair, smiling at the corners of his mouth.

"Minister Cui died a horrendous death, protecting my lands and thousands at dawn, I am deeply saddened, I shall personally offer incense later. May the departed rest in peace."

Ji Wang, at that moment, held his breath, terrified.

After all, he knew the Cui family was made of unyielding loyalty.

It was then that he truly understood.

What the Emperor says cannot be challenged, everyone before him is but an ant.

Ji Zhui raised the dagger to strike again. But before he could touch Emperor He, a sharp arrow shot straight from outside the palace, piercing his chest. In less than a breath, his body fell backwards, landing heavily on the ground, dead.

This sudden turn of events startlingly shocked Ji Wang, who turned around just in time to see Ji Teng walking slowly towards him.

No longer timidly evasive, he seemed like a long-sheathed sword finally drawn, sharpness fully revealed.

Commander Yan was the quickest to act, rushing towards Ji Teng. But someone was faster, seizing his arm in a flash, flipping him over and breaking his neck.

At his motion, elite soldiers behind him swiftly subdued Ji Wang’s men inside the hall. Blood splashed everywhere.

The situation was completely reversed.

The still alive but struggling Emperor He looked over with hope. But what he saw was Ji Teng, who was walking casually as if strolling in a leisurely garden.

"Your son has come late to save you."

Ji Wang incredulous: "Impossible."

Ji Teng should not have been a threat!

He had thought, with Jin Zhong and Xie Xun encountering mishaps so coincidentally, therefore, he had personally visited them, more cautiously had the trusted Medical Staff check their pulses. After confirming there were no mistakes, only then...

But clearly, this was a trap.

And these two men, were loyal to Ji Teng.

The leader of the Imperial Guard staggered in from outside, his right arm gruesomely severed.

Behind him was Cui Yun, carrying a blood-dripping sword and entering the hall with indifferent extremity. He did not kill with one strike but intentionally let him taste the sensation of being murdered and dying in a pool of blood. Just like how Xue Tuan trembled before becoming cold and rigid in his arms back then.

He knelt heavily on the ground.

Just then, with a buzzing sound, Ji Wang’s whole body shuddered.

He knew better than anyone that Ji Teng wouldn’t let him go.

Emperor He’s complexion became even paler, exuding an aura of death.

Ji Teng actually looked very much like Consort Shao. Emperor He seemed to see through her, seeing another person.

It was Consort Shao nestling in his arms, reading his given name, once inseparable: "Tell me, is this child a boy or a girl."

"If it’s a boy, he will be like me; if a girl, like you, I will like both."

Consort Shao believed him, she playfully scolded: "Always sweet-talking me."

She looked at her coldly, her gaze no longer affectionate, but filled with hatred.

"This kingdom was built by my Shao family’s ancestors alongside the Supreme Emperor. My brother is utterly loyal, my sister-in-law is gentle and graceful. My little nephew is about to be born, so why can’t you tolerate anyone from the Prince Huai’an Mansion!"

Emperor He could empathize with her grief of losing loved ones, but Consort Shao could not let go. Thus, he used Ji Teng to threaten him.

"Ah Hui, stop making trouble with me. You provoke me unintentionally, I can’t bear to be angry with you, but someone must suffer for you."

But Emperor He didn’t know, once or twice, with time, the heartbroken Shao Jinhui would eventually break down.

Later on, she went to her death, leaving no words for him.

He then began to hate Ji Teng.

And never felt he himself was in the wrong.

He is an Emperor who controls the power of life and death, the thunder and dew are all signs of royal favor.

But Shao Jinhui breathed no more. Ji Teng was holding Shao Jinhui and wailing bitterly; he stepped forward and kicked her. Ji Teng hit her head on the corner of a table, her face covered in blood.

Later on, he personally made Ji Teng a hostage like a ’city that lost its battle’.

"It’s your own incompetence, you couldn’t keep your mother."

He didn’t manage Ji Teng, leaving him to his own devices, but he didn’t expect Ji Teng to come back with sharp fangs and claws.

"Teng’er. Quickly find the imperial physician for Father."

He knew Ji Teng was no longer the youth he could manipulate, but he was already at his wit’s end, betrayed with no one to save him.

"You are the good one, I am making you Crown Prince, and one day this kingdom will all be yours."

Ji Teng heard this and laughed.

"Too slow, your son cannot wait that long."

"The debts you owe, the lives you bear are too many."

He picked up the dagger on the ground Ji Wang had given to Ji Zhui.

The voice was cut off.

Ji Teng stuffed a medicine pill into his mouth. To protect him so he wouldn’t die easily. At the same time, the dagger chopped off his thumb. Fresh blood spurted out, it was Emperor He’s scream of agony.

"You framed my uncle, slaughtered the entire Prince Huaian Mansion."

Then the index finger.

"You deceived my mother, treating her affection as worthless."