Chapter 726

【This chapter is a side story, unrelated to the main text; if you're not interested, please skip.】

Yellow Springs Realm

The Great King retook the cities occupied by the Xianbei Three Tribes, but shyly withdrew to Youzhou, only sending a message to the distant Xiongnu, sitting and waiting for them to take the bait. The situation turned around, and the Eleventh Hall found his mood quite relaxed.

Amidst cheers and laughter, a few days passed; before the Xiongnu and assassins arrived, it was the second wave of palace attendants sent by Baili Jin with the imperial edict, and King Xuan returned to the capital to attend Ning De's funeral.

Taizu glanced at Ning De, said nothing, and Ning De first felt guilty, feeling that Taizu's glance wrote three words: 'Do you deserve it?!'

His scalp tightened; just as he decided to keep a low profile today, he heard his eldest son crisply reply: 'Not going!'

Ning De ground his teeth, not daring to make a sound.

Lao San is no longer the old Lao San.

The Great King didn't care what his dead father thought; this guy, with his chattering mouth, talked back to the Edict Eunuch, bluntly saying Baili Jin wanted to trick their brothers into returning to be wiped out in one fell swoop.

"Please, Your Highness, think twice! The late emperor's burial in the imperial mausoleum is a major affair, but only the crown prince is present among the close relatives; to avoid being too desolate."

Ning De nodded, thinking it made sense; although it seemed posthumous honors were useless to him now…… an unfilial son who doesn't go would lose face in the human world!

Just then the eldest son shouted loudly there: "Fifth brother, sixth brother, aren't they our own sons?"

His little expression was quite complicated; he had discovered some big secret.

Cough—cough—cough!

Ningde choked on his own saliva and burst into a violent cough: "Unfilial son!" How dare he spread rumors about his father!

His young, pure grandfather gave him a sympathetic look; Ningde hated seeing it so clearly, "Unfilial son!" Even so he didn't dare shout "unfilial son" again—just now the great-grandfather hadn't taken offense, but another might not be so tolerant.

When the king spoke to Wei Shen, Bai Li Jin only believes what he wants to believe; compared to his brother's success, it's still relying on the Marquis of Dongdu that puts his mind at ease.

Hearing the third elder's sharp comment about the eldest, Ningde stared blankly at the skyline, as if meeting this son for the first time.

His father, Emperor Zhangzong, added a sarcastic remark: "Little Three, if you just think about it, you could easily toy with that crown prince of yours in the palm of your hand. Your act as crown prince isn't as good as yours back then—don't tell me you can't see through this? Compared to the ancestral empire, you seem to favor your Wang-surname concubine more."

Ningde defended himself: "No, I also considered that the Langya Wang clan is a prominent family of the present age, with deep foundations…"

"Oh, same five surnames—isn't the fourth's Cui clan deep? The second is either the Yue or Li family, right? You've fabricated such a pale excuse."

Ningde: ……

From then on Ningde seemed to have become mute; even if he survived as best he could, the heavenly curtain seemed intent on opposing him—Youzhou dropped from the heavenly curtain view, and it began to broadcast the Xiongnu of Liangzhou and the rebel kings sprouting like spring shoots after rain in the south.

Watching this, Ningde also grew angry: "Great! His good brothers and nephews, he started perfunctory while alive, and now he doesn't even bother to pretend."

When he saw the fertile granaries all in chaos, and the southern gentry began an arms race, raising large numbers of armed guards, the relaxed mood the Eleven Palaces had when viewing Youzhou could never return.

The heavenly curtain's content these days can be summed up in one sentence: watching all the powers frenziedly pry away the Bai Li clan's realm.

Taizu's face was drawn long; even his own son Xuanzong dared not turn his head randomly, for fear of accidentally meeting his father's gaze and getting scolded. Every day he hoped the heavenly curtain would shift to Youzhou—he's been dead for several hundred years; can't he just not see and not be annoyed?

Maybe the prayer worked; after another two days, the heavenly curtain's angle finally aligned with Youzhou at dawn. The result was that Youzhou's developments were changing by the day—the king again mustered troops and launched a grand oath-taking ceremony?!

"Where are they going to fight?"

"Or is the grassland coming to attack?"

The Eleven Palaces instantly felt half their deathly aura dissipate, and they could breathe again.

The view began with a distant overhead look at the king's imposing Xuanjia cavalry, standing neat and straight. No troops are idle under heaven; anyway, here the king's men and horses are all neatly aligned.

They gradually pulled the heavenly overhead view closer, inching past thousands of troops, until they finally saw the king on the platform.

The king wore silver-white armor, and in a soft, crisp voice he said: "……Youzhou needs the Changzhou Southwest Army's mutual support; we will help them survive this calamity, and also go to Bingzhou and Liangzhou to meet the Xiongnu……"

"I haven't seen Little Three in a long time—I don't understand; what happened to the Southwest Army?"

"Good, good, good! Looks like we're going to retake Bing and Liang provinces!"

"Little Three's cavalry is truly different! They stand so straight~"

When the ten thousand Black Wind horses galloped, their hooves pounding the chariot road, the Eleven Palaces were filled with earth‑shaking roars. In three hundred years of the Great Jin, when have we ever seen such imposing cavalry!

After many days, Taizu finally showed a smile; even the roaring couldn't drown out the old man's applause.

"What a fine 'How can others sleep soundly beside the couch'! All the spiritual energy of our Bai Li clan over three hundred years has been given to this lad!"

The old man's praise of the village's hope made the twelve mediocrities from Xuanzong to Ningde feel as if their collective knees had been stabbed.

Taizu: if he doesn't speak, fine; once he opens his mouth, he pulls down and steps on three hundred years of twelve generations.

【Tomorrow we will correct the main text.】