Stealing The Heavens

Xiang Yu’s eyes were as firm as mountains and as hot as fire. Although his cultivation base was far inferior, Wu Qi could feel a burning pain on the face under his gaze. Pointing at Yuji, who was suspended midair, Xiang Yu said coolly, “Put her down. I want to ask her what all this is about.”

Compared with the determined Xiang Yu, Huang Xie was a bit of a cunning old fox. With his hands on his belly, he smiled and said to Wu Qi, “I do love Yueyan, but if she is really a spy and has fooled me for more than two thousand years, then… I’ll leave her at King of Dong Hai’s discretion.”

Huang Xie smiled lightheartedly, and the cruelty and ruthlessness between his words chilled those who heard him.

Yue Tan’s nominal brother, Li Yuan, Great Chu’s current minister of state, smiled faintly at Wu Qi and nodded. “Although Yueyan is my family, state affairs are the most important and the law of the state cannot be violated. If she really did something against Great Chu, King of Dong Hai, please help me get rid of her.”

Compared with Xiang Yu’s firmness, Huang Xie and Li Yuan’s ruthlessness, Ying Zheng’s face was dark with rage and his whole body was shrouded in a faint layer of black vapor. “If King of Dong Hai hadn’t told me,” he said darkly, “I wouldn’t have known that my queen… is actually a pawn someone has planted next to me. To think I yearned for her for so many years! Whoever is behind this, I will kill him myself!”

Those related to Yuji, Yue Tan, and Yuyao had all spoke up. Apart from Xiang Yu’s ambiguous attitude, Ying Zheng, Huang Xie, and Li Yuan had shown the attitude that an ambitious hero should have. Perhaps this was in line with Cao Cao’s ¹ famous statement: ‘I would rather betray the whole world than leave them to betray me.’ Ying Zheng, Huang Xie, and Li Yuan were real ambitious heroes. Women and affections had a place in their hearts, but they were not the most important things in their lives.

Xiang Yu, on the other hand, might not be a qualified ambitious hero at all. He was at best a sad hero.

Wu Qi ignored the three men. He just stared at Xiang Yu seriously and asked, “My advice is to kill her now, and then you go find yourself thousands of beautiful women, spend a few years with them, and you will forget about her. Do you really want to get to the bottom of it?”

Xiang Yu looked at Wu Qi coldly. He shook his head and said, “A few years? I’ve yearned for her for more than two thousand years! Even if her answer will break my heart, I’ll still want her to tell me the truth!”

Shaking his head helplessly, Wu Qi said in a deep voice, “This is your choice, then. Don’t blame me afterward!”

After saying that, he pointed a finger. Yuji, confined in midair, gave a muffled groan as the black ribbons around her disintegrated and disappeared, causing her to fall to the ground. Xiang Yu took a quick step forward, put his arms around her waist and held her firmly in his arms. Wu Qi could not help but sigh in his heart at the sight. He had planned to send Xiang Yu to cause some trouble for Liu Bang, but now it seemed difficult to say whether this man would be able to keep his heroic spirit of the Hegemon-King of Western Chu, if he failed to get past his affection for Yuji.

Clearing his throat, Wu Qi retracted his avatar of the Dragon Kill and sat down again. He rested his eyes on Yuji, who had buried her head in Xiang Yu’s arms, and said, “Yuji, well, maybe that’s not your real name, but it doesn’t matter. First of all, we have to make one thing clear: you seduced me in Meng Mountains. Do you admit that?”

Yuji sighed softly. Instead of answering Wu Qi’s question, she reached out her hand and touched Xiang Yu’s face.

“When I first saw my lord that day, you happened to have just subdued Dapple, who later become your warhorse,” she said with a sob in her voice. “The two of you rode together as heroic and splendid as dragons, and the look of my lord galloping and shouting wildly had completely wiped out the impression Yong Master had left in my heart. Compared to you, who is so spirited, Young Master, even though he is all good, is just a lifeless clay sculpture, and I have no idea what he is after.”

Wu Qi lowered his eyelids and said nothing. He sat upright, locked both hands into a lotus incantation gesture and placed it before his dantian, and breathed slowly.

“Who is this Young Master? Who is he?!” cried Xiang Yu in a hoarse voice as he grabbed Yuji by the shoulders.

Yuji snuggled her whole body into Xiang Yu’s arms. “Young Master…” she said in a soft voice, “his name is Yu Xin, the young master of Liangzhu’s Yu Clan. I was originally a descendant of a convicted minister, but when I was a child, Young Master bought me back to be his maid. Yue Tan and I are sisters from the same parents, and sister Yuyao is actually a descendant of Liangzhu’s Yu Clan, but from a distant branch.”

Her hands gently touched Xiang Yu’s face as she sighed and said, “I was sent to you because someone had picked you and wanted to use your strength to unify the world and built an empire of the human race in that world. Unfortunately, the son of the Heaven’s Crimson Emperor had come to the same world later. You lost every time you fought him, and eventually you lost everything in the battle of Gaixia, and were taken to Myriad Immortals Planet.”

There was a tremor in Xiang Yu’s body. Looking down at Yuji with clenched teeth, he could not speak for a long time.

Then Wu Qi’s cold voice rang out, “Now that you’ve spoken so honestly, why don’t you tell us why were you on Myriad Immortals Planet?”

Yuji turned around, leaned back against Xiang Yu, and said contemptuously with a cold grin on her face, “Why? Can’t you guess? It’s no more than keeping my lord under control and making him do what I want him to do.”

She gave a strange laugh, heaved a long sigh, and said, “Although all the people in the six states are controlled by Young Master’s father with the Black Celestial Forbidden Curse, where in the world can there be a curse that cannot be broken? The only curse that cannot be broken in the whole universes is ‘love’!” Chuckling, she reached her hands back and put them around Xiang Yu’s waist. “With me by my lord’s side, even if he managed to break the curse, he’ll still have to serve Young Master, right?”

While Wu Qi remained silent, Ying Zheng burst into a sneer, “Is that why Yuyao came back to me?”

After a long silence, Yuji nodded slowly and said, “I may as well tell Your Majesty that sister Yuyao has always loved Young Master. Your Majesty is just a chess piece that she valued, and that was why she approached and nurtured Your Majesty when Your Majesty was young and poor.”

Again she gave a strange laugh, and then said in a tone full of irony, “You should have realized this, but you are deluding yourself all these years. If sister Yuyao really loves you, why is that after so many years of being your queen, she still refuses to give birth to a child for you?”

Ying Zheng’s face suddenly turned livid as he growled, “Shut your foul mouth up, bitch!”

Xiang Yu snorted, turned and glared at Ying Zheng darkly. “Ying Zheng, Yuji is my woman!”

Ying Zheng narrowed his eyes as they began to gleam sharply like blades; murderous aura gushed out frantically from all over him, while dragon roars could be faintly heard coming from his fists. The aura of dragon surged violently in him, and he was about to give Xiang Yu a full blow.

Wu Qi sighed and clapped his hands loudly. “Please don’t forget that we are allies now,” he said. “Whoever dares to start an internal disorder, I’ll wipe out his entire clan. If you don’t believe me, try it!”

Ying Zheng’s aura became stagnated. He glared at Yuji in exasperation, then slowly stepped back and sat down. He never looked at Yuyao again, as though she were a dead thing suspended in midair. Even his face was calm again, as emotionless as an emperor should be.

Huang Xie and Li Yuan exchanged a glance. Li Yuan shook his head lightly, while Huang Xie sat back in silence, smiling. Now that Yuji had explained their origins, it would be foolish for them to keep such dangerous women around.

Wei Wuji, sitting at one side, took a sip of tea, then while fingering his neatly trimmed mustache he nodded to Ying Zheng with a smile and said, “It’s no use for women like this to stay, and I think it’s better to dispose of them as soon as possible. Your Majesty Ying Zheng and Duke of Chun Shen are indeed decisive men. Aye, it’s just a pity that these two beautiful women are gone forever!” His tone was frivolous, as if Yuyao and Yue Tan were worthless piles of rubbish, and their lives were but a matter of words.

All eyes in the great hall, including those of Wu Qi and Ao Buzun, were on Xiang Yu. There was no doubt that Great Chu was an indispensable part of the six states, and the power represented by Xiang Yu was half that of Great Chu. If anything went wrong with him, even those who had been at odds with him would feel a little pity.

“How foolish is a man to hesitate for a woman?!” cried Huang Xie suddenly.

“Huang Xie, if you don’t shut your shit mouth now, don’t blame me for being cruel to you!” Xiang Yu snapped.

Huang Xie immediately closed his mouth tightly. He picked up a teacup and waved it near the corner of his mouth, then thumped it on the table in front of him.

Ao Buzun stood behind Wu Qi, squinting at Xiang Yu and muttering in a low voice, “Why, he behaves like he is going to die for just one woman. If I were him, wouldn’t I be dying hundreds of times a day?” He paused, clicked his tongue and said again, “As long as I have my spear, I can have all the beautiful women I want, and as long as I have the stamina, I’ll never have to worry about the lack of beautiful women!”

After a tumult in the hall, the dead silence returned. Facing Wu Qi, Yuji’s body gave a sudden jolt, and a bizarre, silvery gray trace of blood began to slowly trickle down the corner of her mouth. “My lord,” she whispered, “the reason I have broken your heart with this little boy Wu Qi is so that you can absorb Chiyou’s blood essence in your fury and form the true body of Chiyou.”

Looking at the trace of silvery gray blood at the corner of her mouth, Wu Qi sighed softly and said, “I wasn’t able to discover this, but when I met you all again this time after my cultivation base has taken a huge leap, I finally realized that Xiang Yu is the first and only one who has been freed from the Black Celestial Forbidden Curse… so the solution is to break it with Chiyou’s blood essence when he is in anger?”

Yuji gave a little smile. “I have to guide it with my own energy essence, only then can the curse be completely removed. As for the process, I don’t think I have to say anything more about it. Now that the curse has been removed from my lord, and there is no more room for the three of us in the six states… well, it happens that I’m already weary of all these, and it’s time for me to leave.”

Her words startled Xiang Yu. Hurriedly, he turned her around, and his body trembled violently when he saw the bizarre silvery gray blood pouring out of her mouth. He looked at her eyes, which were getting dimmer as life left her rapidly, then suddenly shouted to Wu Qi at the top of his lungs, “Save her! I swear I will serve you willingly!”

Wu Qi was struck dumb.

Xiang Yu shouted again, “Save her! I know you can save her! Save her life and I’ll serve you all my life!”

The great hall was as silent as death, while the faces of both Ying Zheng and Huang Xie turned extremely unsightly.