The Mo Country was an expansive country. Two hundred years ago, the empire was divided into seven parts, with the Mo Country occupying the most territory. Coupled with a pleasant climate and fertile land, the local population lived in abundancy of resources.
This may seem like utopia, but the current reality was the exact opposite. Ever since the emperor became seriously ill and the empress dowager had taken the head seat of the government, the tax revenues in the Mo Country had increased. This was, in order to build a beautiful, temporary imperial palace for her, forced labor had to become heavy, causing the citizens to complain.
Some people, dissatisfied with Her Majesty’s tyranny, wrote thousands of words to mock her–a woman who usurps authority. In order to eliminate the discontent in her regime, the empress dowager made a prison for these people, and added dozen, different kinds of torture to deal specifically with those who were against her.
In her power, she would occasionally make an example of others. Now, under fear, no one dared to say anything anymore.
Just some time ago, the empress dowager, who has been a dictator for five years, expressed her dissatisfaction with her current status as “Regent”.
The emperor’s only remaining son, the crown prince, was nowhere to be seen–his whereabouts continued to be unknown. All of the emperor’s other brothers has also been killed off by her. At this time, who wouldn’t understand what the empress dowager was trying to convey?
She wanted to be a female emperor!
There has never been such a precedent before. Therefore, the empress dowager wanted everyone to acknowledge her, but she still found it a bit difficult. Even if she spent a great amount of effort to do it–and just when she was about to succeed, a sudden news caught her by surprise!
The crown prince has returned!
The crown prince had returned–although the empress dowager had ordered the crown prince to be detained at the relay station due to the fact that his identity had yet to be confirmed, the old officials who had been waiting for him all came to visit him, regardless of her orders, at the first possible moment.
He was the legitimate emperor, the tattoo of a coiling dragon on Mo Linyuan’s back spoke volumes of the truth of the matter. No matter how much the empress dowager wanted to be the emperor, when Mo Linyuan returned, she would immediately lose her credibility for the throne. And once Mo Linyuan officially acknowledged his ancestors, she would have to return a portion of the rights back to him.
To the ambitious empress dowager, this was more painful than flesh being cut!
Inside the imperial palace of the Mo Country, the Phoenix Dynasty’s Yuan Palace, the empress dowager angrily smashed the cup in her hands. The court ladies kneeled on the ground, not a single one of them didn’t tremble in fear.
“Are you sure it is the crown prince? And not someone who is just passing off to be someone else?”
Her gloomy voice made the people outside shudder. “Absolutely! The high tutor and the prime minister have personally gone over to verify and confirmed that it is undoubtedly the crown prince himself!”
The empress dowager’s expression turned even more unsightly…
Her eyebrows were raised, making people feel that the corners of her eyes were extremely sharp like daggers, her stare cutting through their souls. After a long while, she finally let out a snort and sneered.
“This Empress Dowager already sent so many assassins, but they still couldn’t kill one measly, brat. Counting the years–he should be ten years old now, but what can a child his age do?”
She paused for a moment and then laughed, “If the crown prince died before he could acknowledge his ancestors, then I would be there grieving for him. It took him so much effort to return home, but this empress didn’t even manage to catch a glimpse of him…”
Her tone and words made it seem as if Mo Linyuan was already dead to her. No one dared to say anything when they heard her words, and they could only mourn the child in their hearts.
After Mo Linyuan returned, the first thing he did was to find the Silent Buddhist Master, but this master was elusive–often going into seclusion or closed the door to meditate privately. It means, it was a tricky matter to get to him–he was not an easy person to see. So, he had sent him many letters, explaining the situation and the urgency of the matter.
As time quickly passed without a reply, there was no other way left but to use other methods. On the third day after returning home and after dealing with the ministers who had come to visit him, Mo Linyuan had asked someone to lead him to the master.
The first time he visited, and the other party didn’t see him, Mo Linyuan left thinking of asking help for another day. Yet, on the second time, the other party still rejected him for the same reason.
“Almsgiver, the host is currently meditating and will not see guests for the time being.”
Mo Linyuan looked at the tall, thin young monk standing in front of him and suddenly smiled.
“And if I do?”
The monk revealed an awkward expression, “The host said that we are not meeting any guests…”
It has been a long time since Mo Linyuan last saw such a stubborn person, and his smile became even more dazzling. “Even if someone’s life is in danger, he’s still not going to see us? How come I heard that he saved an old woman, who was selling vegetables on the streets a few days ago, when she begged him to help? Or am I the only person he doesn’t want to see?”
The monk didn’t know how to reply under Mo Linyuan’s barrage of questions.
“Forget it. If he doesn’t want to see me, then I’ll go see him. If you block my way, then I’ll fight my way in!”
The monk did not expect Mo Linyuan to actually resort to using force! After living for so long, who would not be respectful to his master? Even the empress dowager placed her utmost respect for his master—every time she wanted to hear Buddhist scriptures, she still had wait for the master’s consent.
In contrast, this person was truly rude!
However, Mo Liyuan had truly exhausted his patience. Seeing that the other party was adamant on not giving him an answer, he directly said to Wen Feng.
“Let’s go.”
“You can’t!” Many monks ran over when they saw the situation becoming ugly. However, they were no match for Wen Feng’s martial arts, and in just a short span of time, the fight continued all the way until the end of the ninth hall.
At this chaos, a person finally walked out. “Amitabha Buddha! Why did you demolish my Buddhist temple?”
Even as a monk, the person in front of him was really too handsome for words. His long, white monastic robe dragged on the ground. He had slightly raised eyebrows and the corners of his eyes were curved—he looked more devilish rather than pure. Bu the monastic Buddhist beads wrapped around his gave him instead a strange aura akin to an ethereal deity.
Mo Linyuan bowed upon seeing him and said, “May I ask if you are the Silent Master?”
“I am.”
“Then, I would like to request your help to save someone.”
The other party’s eyebrows twitched, and then he revealed a compassionate and gentle smile, “Mister, you came kicking the door, harming many people innocent people. In the process, you destroyed the temple and acted impolitely and sinfully under this holy place… Forgive me, but I don’t want to save this person.”
At this refusal, Mo Linyuan’s phoenix eyes turned icy, and his piercing gaze became even more dangerous.
“I’ll give you two choices.”
The silent buddhist master looked at him in askance.
“One, I’ll burn this place down. Or two, you save a person.”
When the rest of the monks heard this, they looked at them in fury, as if they were unreasonable bastards. Still, Mo Linyuan was not afraid at all, and only stared at the monk in front of him unflinchingly.
“I heard a monk shows mercy. I have pleaded for help several times, yet your only response in kind is the opposite. I believe that even if I burn this place down, the lord Buddha would not blame me. What do you think?”
He said the last sentence seriously. As if, if the Silent Buddhist Master dared to refuse him again, he would burn the place down without second thought and ask someone else more qualified to take his place.
Time slowly passed, and just when everyone thought that this monk would be stubborn to the end, he finally gave in.
“If you want me to save someone, that’s fine with me. But first, you have to repair the damage you’ve inflicted on this Buddhist temple, and then I will make my move.”
Wen Feng frowned, thinking that this person was truly a pretentious one.
However, Mo Linyuan had already agreed. “It’s a deal.”
True to his word, the anxious Mo Linyuan quickly found someone to repair the temple. However, he had a gut feeling telling him that something was suspicious with the monk…so he also sent Wen Feng to investigate in secret.
“If this monk is…” Although Mo Linyuan did not say much, the deep look in his eyes said it all.
At this point, Wen Feng already knows in his heart how the Crown Prince holds high regard for the Miss Ye, so he nodded reverently and seriously said, “Your subordinate will definitely not leave a single stone unturned!”
Satisfied with this reply, Mo Linyuan nodded, his gaze falling next to the unconscious Ye Mu on the bed. In his extremely icy orbs, a trace of his complicated feelings emerged.
“I’d rather you woke up and scolded me like before.”
He reached out his hand to softly stroke Ye Mu’s head. “It’s your birthday the day after tomorrow. It seems like you’re going to spend the night in your dreams once again.”
The little child continued to ignore him. Her eyes were closed, she looked as if she was just in a deep, serene slumber.
Mo Linyuan silently sighed and looked at her face a few more times. Only then did he brace himself and leave the temple with a determined expression to return to the relay station, continuing to handle various matters.
Silently witnessing this scene, the expression on the Silent Buddhist Master continued to remain unfathomable. He could really see that this cold crown prince who had suddenly appeared back in the Mo country valued this girl greatly, and even he was not aware of her identity.
After a long while, he gathered his wayward thoughts and began to examine his sleeping patient. He was originally very calm, but as soon as he checked her pulse, his expression changed to that of immense surprise!
Although the little girl in front of him looked no more than six or seven years old, she had accumulated more than a hundred years of internal Qi! Apart from the likelihood that she is an ancient monster inside, there was only one other possibility–she had learned the Divine Terminator Technique and forcefully absorbed numerous people’s energy. Yet, even in this dreadful event, she did not die even after absorbing so much.
In that case, this child lying on the bed is not some deity, but rather… an evil incarnate in human skin? When he thought of this, his eyebrows creased tightly.
Wen Feng, who was at the side, quickly asked, “Master, can you treat our Young Miss’s illness?”
Locked in his thoughts, he did not say anything. But he thought, as long as this little girl absorbed the inner strength within her body for her own use, she would naturally wake up. But if she woke up earlier, perhaps a more negative effect would happen instead.
Cultivating the Terminator Divine Technique is said to make a person short-tempered. In the event she woke up early, with the absorption of the raging internal Qi in her body still incomplete, then her temperament would possibly become even more brutal. At the same time, she would also be placed in high risk of going berserk.
After thinking carefully, he quietly turned the Buddhist beads in his hand solemnly. Only after a long time did he say, “It can be treated…but it will take some time.”
The Divine Terminator Technique was a type of martial arts that allowed the user to steal the inner Qi of other people. It sounded like a good shortcut to forcefully break levels in cultivation, but if it was really something good, everyone should have been taking its route.
This was because, it had terrible, terrible side effects–so appalling that most people would not accept it.
Other than making the cultivator ill-tempered, there were also some days in the month where the cultivator would become particularly bloodthirsty for no reason. If he didn’t shed blood of a few people, regardless of whom they are, his whole body would definitely feel uncomfortable, as if countless needles were scratching him.
Moreover, people who cultivated this method had to absorb inner Qi every so often. As they would have too much inner Qi in their body, they had to take a steady stream of external energy to balance it out. However, this was proving more to be the short end of a stick, as the more the user ingests Qi, the more broken his temperament becomes. And the more irritable he feels, the more he need to ingest other people’s Qi to stabilize his self.
In this way, it only becomes a vicious circle.
In general, only those who did not put other people’s lives in their eyes would learn such type of martial arts. After all, how could people with principles and are morally upright allow themselves to become a demon in flesh that killed their own kind for abominable reasons?
Especially since these types of cultivators would fight tooth and nail to the very end for their survival, their humanity would gradually disappear. Until even those whom they trust and are beside them would not be left off…
As the Silent Buddhist Master thought of this, he retracted his hand holding a needle that he had intended to insert into Ye Mu. The inner Qi he learned was the Heart Cleansing Formula—the type of technique that was very stimulating for the Divine Terminator Technique. So, if Ye Mu were to be given to someone else for healing, it would be very difficult for her to wake up in the other person’s hands.
However, to the Silent Buddhist Master, it was only a very simple matter.
But…if he woke her up too early, it would be the same as speeding up the evolution of a devil. Was he truly going to do something catastrophic as that?
Praying to the benevolent Bodhisattva, the space between his eyebrows silently wrinkled. In the end, he placed down the needle, giving Ye Mu only a little bit of medicinal soup.
*
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On the other side, not long after Mo Linyuan returned to the relay station, he was ambushed.
The other party clearly harbored a never-ending desire to kill him, that even if her dreadful acts were to be caught, she would opt to bite a poison sac and commit suicide. Thus, she didn’t hesitate to send his people over to make ruckus for Mo Linyuan.
After all the assassins had been cleaned up, it was obvious that the tutor who had come to visit Mo Linyuan had become very depressed with the unfavorable situation.
“This isn’t the way to go on…Your Highness should enter the palace as soon as possible. Because as long as your identity can be recognized, the Imperial army can then be mobilized by you. This way, the Empress Dowager won’t be able to do as she pleases.”
As he said this, Mo Linyuan on the other hand had already received a reply from a letter he had sent out earlier.
“Grand Tutor, rest at ease.”
After a fierce battle, Mo Linyuan actually displayed a smile after reading the contents of the letter. “It won’t be long before esteemed Empress Dowager personally goes out of her way to invite me to the imperial palace.”
He said this very confidently–but how could that possible?
Everyone felt that Mo Linyuan was just boasting. As a ten-year-old child, apart from some of the imperial clansmen he had and some ministers supporting his bloodline, he had nothing else. It was a difficult feat for the empress dowager to personally send him a message inviting him when his identity is currently unknown; especially right now when the empress dowager wanted nothing more than to have him assassinated.
And even if the tattoo on Mo Linyuan’s back could prove his identity, he couldn’t just impudently take off his clothes and show it to other people!
When the ministers heard the Grand Tutor’s words, they all felt worry in their hearts. It looked like the old officials like them had to think of a plausible way–the crown prince was truly still too young.
And as with everyone’s expectations, Mo Linyuan stayed at the relay for half a month with the empress dowager still continuing to ignore his presence. It was clear that she didn’t want to acknowledge him as the Mo crown prince. Therefore, the old ministers applied pressure every time through written letters, but the empress dowager would only use various methods to add fuel to the fire and send more dead soldiers to kill people at the station.
But one day, a report from the border suddenly disturbed the hearts of many people. But the empress dowager’s cloudy face only cleared up after reading this war report.
Didn’t those old ministers always nag her to bring the crown prince back?
Good! If you want him back badly, then I’ll do it!
This report was nothing more than the Yue country sending their troops to the Mo Country. And with lightning speed, they had already conquered two of the Mo Country’s border cities.
The opposing party was the new emperor of the Yue country himself. In order to show off his might, he had burned the flag of the Mo Country in front of countless people, and he had even laughed at the fact that there was no one in the Mo Country willing to step forth and defend them.
However, everyone knew that the Emperor had been sick for several years and secluded himself. So how could he accept this challenge in his physical state?
But right now, there was only one other suitable candidate.
The empress dowager had planned things out very well. With so many ministers forcing her to bring the crown prince back, it was actually impossible for her to hold him back for a long time.
However, the newly ascended Emperor of the Yue country had come knocking on their country’s door, blatantly asking the Emperor of Mo Country to set off for a war.
Then…she might as well go with the flow and bring Mo Linyuan back!