The Blessed

Since ancient times, it was the generals who pacified the world, but the generals never had the chance to enjoy the peace. In the early days, in order to conciliate those meritorious officials, it was reasonable to reward them with the death-exemption tokens. But here one could tell Emperor Gaozu was quite smart, and had treated those meritorious officials quite appropriately. But that also left a lot of trouble for the later generations.

After generations of inheritance, many of the descendants of those meritorious officials had average abilities, but they could still swagger around replying on their background, some were even bold enough to violate the national laws. Anyway, they had the death-exemption tokens in their hand, they wouldn’t lose their heads. Over time, their ambitions grew bigger and bigger and some day they’d only breed great disaster.

Emperor Gaozu was taken as an emperor that would only appear every thousand of years. Now thinking back, it should be that they had also foreseen this, so they’d exchange it with the title of empress. He thought he made a good plan, and Chu family was stupid enough. Even if their legitimate son or daughter became the empress, so what? Emperor Gaozu had already dug a trap for them. Pity that Chu Yunhan became the direct victim.

"Jingxuan, do you believe in immortals with divine force?"

Raising his eyes, Chu Yunhan looked at him and once again broke the silence. Ling Jingxuan faintly picked his eyebrows, “That none of us has ever seen it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. In principle, I am an atheist. I only believe that men can conquer nature, but never beg heaven to open his eyes. But if one doesn’t have his belief, he would be like a walking dead. So I’d rather believe in the existence of ghosts and immortals.”

He might not believe it before, but after having transmigrated in here and mastered that magic crescent spring the transmigration immortal had bestowed him, he could only believe it.

"So you would believe me if I said I had transmigrated back to three years ago after I have been dead for a year?”

Rebirth?

Hearing here, if Ling Jingxuan still had no clue what he was talking, he had lived those two lives for nothing. But this was kind of beyond his expectations. He really hadn’t anticipated that Chu Yunhan had come back this world after rebirth. That was to say, everything now, he had experienced it once already? No, if so, he shouldn’t have performed so scared, or run away three years ago.

"So you're going to die in a year?"

Squinting, maybe even Ling Jingxuan himself didn’t notice that he didn’t like this assumption, very much!

"If history does not change, not only I, even Seven and the whole Chu family would be rooted out. And…”

Thinking of those bloody scenes, Chu Yunhan still couldn’t help shuddering, like he would break down at any moment. Ling Jingxuan abruptly stood up, walked over and pressed his head against his chest, “Don’t be afraid. Everything will be all right. Since heaven gives you a chance to start all over again, he wouldn’t let the same tragedy happen again. Yunhan, human’s strength might be weak, but sometimes it could move the mountains and reclaim the sea. It depends on how we make the choice.”

Chu Yunhan was absolutely not a coward. He had become the crown princess at the age of 12, and become the empress in his twenties. If he was so stupid, he should have already been killed like a hundred times. He would never have chance to make it till he could be a motherly model of the whole kingdom. All along, he had no idea what he was being afraid of. But now, at this moment, more or less, he knew a bit. According to his saying, Chu family getting rooted out, the kid’s death, those should all get setups, tricks and blood involved.

"In Chu family, my father is in charge. That year when he asked me to marry the crown prince, I said no. I had really never expected that as the only legitimate son of the family, I would marry out. But for the future of the family, I had to put on the wedding gown. Then they even offered my half-sister to the crown princes. That was the first time my parents made me disappointed. Then they planned to dump my half-sister after she gave birth to a son. For their male offspring and that little bit ambition, they didn’t care about my half-sister’s life at all. From that moment on, I suddenly felt that if some day something happened to me, would they also give up on me for interest?

So, no matter what my half-sister thought, after Seven was born, I kept her alive at the cost of my life, I even suggested the crown prince to confer her as a concubine. But it seemed that the crown prince didn’t like my half-sister who resembled me a lot, and didn’t give her any title. Only after he ascended the throne did he confer her a minor Lady of Bright Deportment title. And everything started there.

After the new emperor took power, naturally I became the empress, but right at the time, Chu family’s all emperor-deceiving doings were exposed. Six years ago, only two years after the emperor had ascended the throne, Noble Consort Xiao framed me up for making her having a miscarriage, the emperor removed my title under great anger. On the surface, Chu family got involved because of me, actually it’s just that the emperor wanted to take the chance to weaken their force. But the strange thing is, when Chu family had the last breath, the emperor gave us hope again. Instead of ordering me to move into the cold palace, he suddenly issued a decree of conferring my half-sister as one of the four noble consorts. And he at least spent five days in a month in her palace. Not only me, even the whole Chu family saw some hope, thinking that the emperor still had some affection for us.

I was thinking that as long as my half-sister and the kid were fine, it was nothing that Chu family suffered a bit. In the future, I could ask for a minor title for Seven and go to a fief far from the capital, and that’d be enough. But…but…”

Speaking here, Chu Yunhan suddenly started sobbing and couldn’t continue, with his two hands tightly holding Ling Jingxuan’s waist. After quite a while, he continued, “but, three years ago, my half-sister Noble Consort De suddenly died. Instead of asking people to investigate the cause of her death, the emperor even didn’t say some words like ‘what a pity’ to my family. And my families all thought on the surface, the emperor was trying to appease them, actually in the dark, he was planning to wipe them all out step by step. And for this, my father had been more active trying to resume my position and seize the title of crown prince for Seven. At the time, Seven and I who were imprisoned in Fuqing Palace had no idea of that. But when we knew, it was already too late.

A year later, in front of all officials in the court, Noble Consort Xiao’s father and brother revealed those crimes Chu family had committed. For power, they even colluded with the ambitious East Kingdom, which brought endless wars at the boarders, and even pushed Prince Sheng and Duke Weiyuan who had always been supportive of me to a desperate position. And the emperor flew into a rage and issued the decree of implicating the nine generations of Chu family.

And in the deep harem, at the same time, Noble Consort Xiao brought people to break into Fuqing Palace and sliced Seven’s body little by little in my face. He was only ten! Even now I could still remember his screams. Jingxuan, I’m scared. I am scared that I would go through that scene one more time. I am scared to see Seven get killed in that kind of brutal way again…”