Chapter 289: The Closest Encounter with Death

"If you weren't surnamed Chen, I wouldn't even bother saying a single word to you."

Seeing Liu Xiao Chuan's smug look, Chen Guanlou felt an urge to land a punch on his face.

"Are you certain no one is rebelling? Is the source of the news reliable?"

"Why would I lie to you? I can tell you with one hundred percent certainty: no one is rebelling. Everything is just the old Emperor's paranoia."

Liu Xiao Chuan was very certain, while Chen Guanlou remained half-doubting.

"Is the old Emperor really poisoned?"

Liu Xiao Chuan hesitated noticeably. "It seems, perhaps, he almost was. Anyway, they definitely discovered poison inside the Taiji Palace. I heard the old Emperor has been bottling it up, and after bottling it up for so long, he went mad. No one expected him to actually mobilize troops into the capital."

"What about the Crown Prince?"

"The Crown Prince is the prime suspect. Even if he isn't rebelling, this time he'll be forced to confess under torture and bear the charge of rebellion. He's done for! Ever since the Grand Tutor was thrown into prison, the Crown Prince has been doomed. Are you going to the Hou Fu to assemble or not?"

"I'm not going! What's the Hou Fu's stance? Are they supporting the Crown Prince?"

"How could they support him? The Master isn't in the capital, and they have no troops in their hands. Are they supposed to support him with their lives?" Liu Xiao Chuan looked at Chen Guanlou with contempt, shocked that he could ask such a stupid question.

Chen Guanlou clenched his fists. "Did you hear all of this from Liu Guanshi?"

"Mm, some of it I figured out myself." Liu Xiao Chuan gave a smug smile.

Chen Guanlou let out a cold laugh and decisively left. The fog had lifted, and all his doubts had been answered.

He went to visit his eldest sister. Her family was safe; Su Dacheng was indeed well-informed and had arranged for the whole family to go into hiding early, avoiding the scourge of war. With that, he felt at ease.

But he didn't rush back to the Heavenly Prison. Instead, he went home, ate a hot meal, changed his clothes, and sat in the courtyard with wine, waiting quietly.

By the second half of the night, Qi Wuxiu dragged his exhausted body over the wall and entered. "I'm dead tired." He picked up a cup of tea and gulped it down.

Chen Guanlou looked at him and asked, "How many days have you been pulling all-nighters?"

Qi Wuxiu held up three fingers. "Three full days. Lend me a bed in a bit. Ask whatever you need to ask quickly." After saying this, he yawned, tears welling up; he was so sleepy he could pass out at any moment.

"What's the situation now? It's still a mess outside. The people from the Divine Artifact Battalion are still wandering the streets, killing at will. Is no one going to stop them?"

"No one can stop them."

"What are you guys in the Embroidered Uniform Guard doing?"

"Heh!" Qi Wuxiu gulped down another cup of tea before saying, "We're in a tough spot too. Without orders from the palace, we can't do anything."

"Who exactly is rebelling?" Chen Guanlou had asked this to many people, and everyone had a different story.

Qi Wuxiu froze, seemingly considering whether to tell the truth. "I can only tell you that the Crown Prince is imprisoned in the Donggong."

"What about the Donggong guards?"

"They're just guarding inside and outside the Donggong gates."

"Is there anything else?"

"The Divine Sharp Battalion has surrounded the entire Donggong."

"They haven't started fighting?"

"The Crown Prince stopped the Donggong guards. But whether they'll end up fighting, no one can say for sure."

Chen Guanlou lowered his eyes in deep thought, his mood indescribable.

With such a mad Emperor, why didn't the court officials take this opportunity to pull him off his horse? Was there really not a single person among the officials who could persuade those troops to turn back? Was there no one with the prestige to mobilize a great army?

"What is the officials' stance? Are they just watching, continuing to indulge the Divine Artifact Battalion as they wreak havoc in the capital? This is shaking the very foundation; don't they realize that?"

"Don't ask me, I don't know anything. The officials are all in the palace right now, kneeling outside the Taiji Palace gates. His Majesty is acting arbitrarily and has beheaded seven or eight officials in one go. Sigh..."

After saying this, he downed a cup of wine in one gulp, feeling incredibly depressed.

"What exactly does the old Emperor want to do?" Chen Guanlou asked.

"Depose the Crown Prince!"

Qi Wuxiu let out a mournful sigh, his expression numb, his eyes filled with a despair that made one want to cry.

"If this drags on, I'm worried that the Emperor will kill off everyone in the Crown Prince's faction," he said sorrowfully, unable to bear looking. This duty had left him physically and mentally exhausted, yet he was powerless to do anything.

"How could it come to this? Did His Highness the Crown Prince commit some unforgivable crime that he must be deposed?"

"I don't know. I've only heard snippets of the inside story. What the real truth is, I suspect it will never be revealed to the world."

Qi Wuxiu fell asleep, his brows still furrowed in his dreams.

Chen Guanlou looked toward the north, toward the direction of the Imperial Palace. In the darkness before dawn, he moved like a bat, silently arriving at the perimeter of the palace, crouching on a roof, not daring to move.

He couldn't sense a single trace of a Grandmaster's aura, but he was certain there was more than one Grandmaster in the palace. Qi Wuxiu had clearly told him there was a Grandmaster in the Donggong responsible for protecting the Crown Prince, and Grandmasters outside the Donggong responsible for guarding him. The old Emperor definitely had Grandmasters by his side too.

An old Emperor so afraid of death would never feel at ease without Grandmasters guarding him.

He looked toward the Taiji Palace; there were no fewer than a hundred civil and military officials kneeling there, all begging the old Emperor to rescind his order and not be so obstinate. It looked like the effect was terrible and counterproductive. Because he could smell the stench of corpses wafting from the direction of the Taiji Palace.

Officials had been beheaded, but their bodies hadn't been cleared away; they were left brazenly outside the Taiji Palace gates to intimidate the rest. Indeed, some officials couldn't handle the scene, fainted on the spot, and silently withdrew from this forced abdication movement.

"Is it a good show?"

A clear, bright voice rang out from behind him.

Chen Guanlou felt his hair stand on end; cold sweat poured down his forehead like a waterfall, soaking his entire body.

A Grandmaster!

He really shouldn't have come to the Imperial Palace; he really was tired of living. Someone had arrived right behind him without a sound, and he hadn't noticed at all.

His heart hammered like thunder; he didn't even dare to turn his head to look. Maintaining his stiff posture, his throat creaked like rusted metal as he struggled to spit out a sentence: "It feels very tragic!"

"Tragic? Yes, it is indeed very tragic! Yet one is powerless to do anything."

The voice was ethereal and erratic; one second it was behind him, the next it seemed to be above his head.

Chen Guanlou maintained his stiff posture; at this moment, he truly didn't dare to move. Even though sweat fell like heavy rain and his brow itched intensely, he didn't dare reach up to wipe it.

"Are you very nervous?"

"This junior was impulsive and offended the senior; my heart is filled with fear and unease."

"Afraid I'll kill you?"

"Yes!"

"You're quite honest. You're a very strange person. Could it be you've had some miraculous encounter, or is your cultivation technique special? It doesn't look like Hidden Meridians."

Chen Guanlou felt like he was facing a formidable enemy; the real test had only just begun.

"You're so nervous—are you afraid that I might covet your cultivation technique? Absurd!" The tone suddenly turned severe, and the surrounding air became viscous, as if it had substance, making it difficult to breathe.

Chen Guanlou said quickly: "Not at all! This junior is afraid of saying the wrong thing and angering the senior."

"You do have quick wits."

"The senior flatters me!"

Chen Guanlou was drenched in sweat; a pool of water had already formed on the roof tiles in front of his forehead. ===== CHAPTER 290 =====