Chapter 729 - The Imperial Palace Breaks, the Emperor Falls (II)
Chapter 729: The Imperial Palace Breaks, the Emperor Falls (II)
The emperor held up his hand to stop her from continuing. “As long as I believe you, we don’t need to care about what others think. I wasted my time raising these traitors, but every single one of them is a savage that is after my life. These insects that plan on taking their father’s throne don’t deserve to live!”
The minister thought that Huijun was the one who had enabled the fall of the emperor’s successors and even the murder of the prince.
But in reality?
Even though Huijun had played a role in this, she was just going with the flow and was at most an accomplice and catalyzer to the event. She was not the real culprit.
Who was the real culprit then?
It was the emperor!
“Jun’er’s body is like a salve that my body younger by the day,” the emperor said obsessively. “We are still so young. If we have eight or ten children in the future and raise them well, they’ll definitely be better than those ruinous pawns…”
But why was the emperor willing to kill his own sons?
First, the princes were all young and powerful. They all set their eyes on the throne as soon as the current emperor’s authority began to decline, but the emperor was simply unwilling to yield his position.
Second, under Huijun’s purposeful provocation and manipulation, the princes had already planned to conspire against the throne, so the emperor didn’t need to hold back when punishing them for treason.
To an emperor, were his children or his throne more important?
His position and life were clearly more important.
He had a position of authority and life, as well as the blessing of his body getting younger by the day. As long as he had a woman, anyone could bear him sons.
Instead of saying that Huijin had calculated and plotted against the princes, it would be more accurate to say that the emperor had put the blame on Huijun and used it as an excuse to kill his own son.
“Your highness…” Huijun lifted her head up shyly and spoke in an angry but not too angry tone. The emperor laughed from the bottom of his heart as he admired her beauty. The two laid on the bed and rolled together until the sound of their breathing merged and created a suggestive atmosphere. Their clothes got messy from the sweat dripping from their skin.
Another day passed. An elite army of about 20,000 men arrived like a savior and surrounded the low-security area of the Chen Province.
The flames of war ignited both inside and outside the city.
The people fled in fear, everyone perplexed. The ministers were carefully packing up their properties in order to flee from this chaotic situation with their wives and children.
Inside the Royal Palace, imperial maid Huang Men walked around in anxious circles as people looted goods amid the chaos, preparing to escape from the capital city.
In the imperial harem, the consort beauties frantically began packing up their jewelry and clothing.
Everyone was in a panic except for two people.
The emperor breathed heavily in anger as he scolded the minister and messengers, his chest pounding in furious pain as his face turned blue.
The entirety of Dongqing was his territory, but the traitors from the outside were about to invade his place. They were out for his life!
The other person was the current queen, Huijun. She sat quietly on a fancy bed as the imperial maid serving her quickly packed everything up.
“My queen, is there anything else in particular that you would like to bring?” the maid asked.
Huijun played around with a fancy dagger decorated with various gems and stones. She pulled the blade out of the sheath and revealed the cold light of the blade.
Her gaze floated into the distance as she answered with a smile, “Nothing particular, you can decide on your own.”
The maid served the queen every day but was still frightened of her. She studied the queen once again to find that the queen’s smile no longer had its seductive charm. It was more innocent and pure, which was surprisingly more alarming. The maid pulled her attention back and returned to packing up the goods inside the queen’s room.
Huijun lowered her gaze to the dagger and closed it back in its sheath. She then tied the dagger onto her arm and hid it inside her sleeve.
Damned emperor!
If it hadn’t been for this useless emperor, she would have had a kind and caring father and a beautiful and virtuous mother to care for her as their treasured child. Yet because of this damn emperor, her father had been killed, and her mother had been sent to the imperial palace while pregnant to serve a strange man.
After stealing her family and happiness, why had he sent her and her mother into the slums of the capital and let them become lowly wanderers?
He’d destroyed her family and her life. Therefore, she also wanted to destroy this man’s family line and bring the country down with her!
Huijun sneered as she made a decision inside her heart.
The emperor wanted to flee, but he wouldn’t forget about Huijun.
When Huijun was carried away on a chariot, she was surrounded by the sobbing voices of all the consorts who had been left behind by the cold emperor.
What would happen to the emperor’s consorts once they were captured by the opposing army?
Huijun couldn’t spare a moment to think about it. She wanted to pity these women but found that she no longer had the benevolent heart to do so.
“Jun’er, why does your expression look so unsettling?” the emperor asked as he held her hand.
Huijun answered with a blank face, “I saw the girls on the way, but they…”
The emperor interrupted. “Those women are short-sighted and came from a lowly background, why are you feeling sorry for them?”
Huijun’s heart sank. Those girls were all people the emperor had brought in through various means, but now he was throwing them away like nothing!
She answered, “I’m just voicing my concern and grieving for my fellow sisters.”
The emperor carefully consoled her as he held her in his arms. “Rest assured, Jun’er, I will never let you down. I will protect you with my life.”
Huijun leaned into his embrace with a warm smile on her face. Her gaze remained cold with no hint of happiness in it.
The emperor and his ministers escaped the capital city under the protection of the imperial army. Prince Changshou’s elite troops only stood at around 20,000 men, so there was no way they can surround the entire capital city. Unfortunately, their whereabouts were exposed two days later and the enemy continued to chase after them.
The group that first caught up with the emperor was the calvary vanguards. 10,000 imperial troops awaited them on the frontlines as the battle cries of war exploded from the outside.
The emperor’s face grew pale. He could only find comfort while gripping onto Huijun’s hand.
“Your highness, you’re the true descendant of the dragon, you will definitely overcome this adversity.”
The emperor touched Huijun’s hand, his pale face slowly relaxing.
At first, the imperial army could withstand the calvary vanguard’s offenses, but as the enemy’s backup increased, the imperial army began to lose their stronghold. The line of defense was broken, and the casualty rate rose. The cries outside were not only from the troops, but from the ministers as well.
The emperor’s face slowly turned from pale white to blue when a human head flew into the imperial chariot.
“Your highness, we can’t hold up against the enemy’s backups anymore…”
The emperor could no longer sit still. He let the eunuch prepare a set of casual clothes for him in hopes that the dead soldiers would help him escape this situation.
However, that would mean he couldn’t bring Queen Huijun with him.
His gaze turned cold as he reminisced on old memories, then asked his subordinates to prepare white silk wine for Huijun.
Huijun’s face turned pale when she heard the order. She then turned to him with a defeated smile. “I shall wait for your majesty at the bridge to hell.”
“I’m sorry, I still let you down. You are the queen of this country and must not be shamed by the treacherous army, do you understand?”
“I understand.” Huijun’s eyes held in a trace of tears as she leaned into the emperor’s embrace lovingly. “Your highness, I have no other wish before I die except for you to listen to a story from my past. I can then live completely inside your heart without regrets.”
The emperor’s anxiety lowered and he grew a bit more patient under Huijun’s consolation. “You may speak.”
“I…”
Huijun’s left hand held the side of his face affectionately as the dagger in her sleeve slid out into the palm of her right hand.
Poof!
The emperor’s eyes widened in shock and anger as he struggled. The dagger Huijun held in her right hand dug mercilessly into the left side of his chest as she drilled into his flesh. Her left hand covered his nose and mouth as she forced him down onto the ground. Huijun’s face twisted into a horrifying expression of awful vengeance and hatred. “I want you dead!”