Chapter 249: Acting Vice Emperor (Six thousand)

The twenty-third year of Jiajing, New Year's Eve.

The Hour of the Tiger.

The Emperor slowly opened his eyes, subconsciously wanting to use his arms to support the ground to get up.

But there was no movement.

No tactile sensation came.

"Whew~ tsk tsk tsk."

A whistling sound came from the side.

"Your Majesty, don't bother, you can't get up."

"Or, you can lift your head and look at yourself."

The Emperor woke up suddenly.

Just now he had just woken up, his mind was muddled, only thinking he was still in the palace. But Li Miao's voice sounded, instantly pulling him back to reality.

He lost.

In this struggle concerning life and death, he ran, so he lost.

The Emperor barely lifted his head, looking at his body.

"Hah—"

A dull, hoarse scream came from his throat.

Arms, legs, all gone.

Even the parts below the crotch had all disappeared.

He listened to the sound from his throat, trying to move his tongue, but found his tongue couldn't reach his upper palate.

His tongue had also been cut off.

The Emperor had become an out-and-out "human stick," lying on the ground like a meat worm.

The wounds were sealed by proliferating flesh and blood; this wound was "healed" in a sense, unless the proliferating flesh was cut off, the healing technique was useless.

It was precisely because the wounds had been "cured" that he didn't feel pain, not reacting for a while, still trying to support himself.

By the time he saw his situation clearly, the nerves slowly poured unbearable numbness and dull pain into his cranium, but he couldn't even move a limb to relieve the itch.

"How about it, Your Majesty, is it comfortable?"

Li Miao's arm had healed, he sat on the steps of the Xiaoling main hall, supporting his chin with one hand, placing the other on his leg, looking at the Emperor with a teasing face.

"Just now if you had continued to fight, you might have really won. You ran fast enough, if it weren't for Sect Leader Ji, I might not have been able to keep you."

"I, the Jianwen Emperor, and Sect Leader Ji took turns saying it to you many times, earnestly and repeatedly. Saying don't run, running is death; saying the heart of a martial artist, saying the principle of fighting."

"Unfortunately, you didn't listen to a word of it."

"Fooled you so many times, yet you still dared to believe my words."

Li Miao pointed to the tomb sealing the Jianwen Emperor on the square.

"Just now Sect Leader Ji and I stuffed the Jianwen Emperor's corpse back in, and then I went to your grave to take a turn, looking at your Heaven-Man corpse hanging on the wall, I suddenly got inspiration."

"Thinking, should I hang you up to be comfortable too? But I was afraid you would wake up and move around, so I cut off these useless parts of yours."

"How do you feel now? Is there a feeling of returning home? Do you want to lie directly in your grave and sleep?"

"Woo woo woo woo—"

A series of whimpers came from the Emperor's mouth; he wanted to speak, but could only make an ugly sound like livestock waiting to be slaughtered.

Li Miao smiled, turning his head and shouting.

"Hey, Sect Leader Ji, are you done?"

Ji Tianrui raised her palm, blasting the tomb burying the Jianwen Emperor's corpse to collapse, then turned and smiled.

"Almost."

"If you're done, come over, heal His Majesty's tongue, I want to talk to him."

"Okay."

Ji Tianrui drew the soft sword from her waist, slowly walking to the Emperor's side, reaching out to pinch the Emperor's cheek.

"Your Majesty, don't move around. You have tried this sword of mine. If you move, it won't be good if I cut off some other meat."

She smiled gently.

The Emperor widened his eyes instantly, no longer struggling.

Hiss—

A painful groan squeezed from the Emperor's throat, and then blood poured back into his trachea, making him choke and cough suddenly, his whole body curling up like a shrimp.

"Don't move, don't move."

Ji Tianrui said with a light laugh, reaching out to pinch the Emperor's pulse, true energy slowly passing in.

The other wounds on the Emperor's body had all "healed," so she was not afraid that the healing technique would heal other places.

Flesh and blood proliferated, and the Emperor's tongue slowly grew out.

"Don't kill me!"

The first moment his tongue was healed, the Emperor screamed.

Ji Tianrui stepped back a few steps and stood still, looking at Li Miao.

"Lord Li, do you still want to chat with him for a while?"

"Of course, it's not easy to finish a fight, if you don't mock your opponent after winning, then what's the point of winning?"

Li Miao stood up, patted the dust off his body, and walked slowly to the Emperor's side.

"Your Majesty, continue."

"If you say it nicely, maybe I will really spare you?"

"You, don't kill me, I'll give you everything, whatever you want, I'll give you everything!"

The Emperor tried hard to move his bald shoulders, turned over on the ground, lifted his head, and looked at Li Miao flatteringly.

"What do you like? Official position? I'll appoint you as the Chief Grand Secretary, add the Nine Bestowments, enter the court without rushing, praise without naming, sword and shoes on the hall, how about that?"

"Do you like beauty? I have twenty-one concubines, over a hundred show girls, and countless palace maids, all of them beautiful, if you like them, I'll give them all to you! And the Empress, I'll give them all to you!"

"And, and, right, money! I still have a million taels of silver in my inner treasury, and this year's salt tax is all in the Taicang treasury, there are also millions of taels, I'll give them all to you, I'll give them all to you, how about that?"

The Emperor begged constantly.

"I only ask to survive, you come to be the Emperor, let me be a rich man, how about that?"

"Sect Leader Ji," he turned to look at Ji Tianrui on the side: "I appoint you as the National Teacher, appoint the Ming Sect as the state religion, you persuade Lord Li."

Ji Tianrui shook her head with a light laugh.

Li Miao also let him struggle and beg on the ground, not saying a word, watching him with a smile.

He gradually despaired.

"Heaven-Men, martial arts, I'll give them all to you. With my harem, you can give birth to as many descendants as you want, plus the Jianwen Emperor's technique, you can continue on my path."

"Don't you want to continue cultivating? The inheritance of nature cultivation has long been lost, the only methods now are the two books of the Founding Emperor and the Jianwen Emperor, if you kill me, you won't be able to take over the Heaven-Men collected by the imperial court, and you won't be able to practice this technique, right?"

"Speak..."

The Emperor said tremblingly.

"Heh."

Li Miao sneered.

"Practicing these two pieces of junk, Sect Leader Ji and I would truly be wasted."

"You want to rely on these two techniques to cultivate to six-path integration, like Bodhidharma and Zhang Sanfeng, to ascend as an immortal, or take a step back, seeking immortality is also fine."

"But you don't think about it—"

A disdainful smile appeared on Li Miao's face.

"Do Bodhidharma and Zhang Sanfeng eat people?"

"One is Taoism, one is Buddhism, do Buddhas eat people? Or do immortals eat people?"

"Only ghosts eat people."

"You are also a martial artist, don't you know that using other people's moves will not be smooth? Can other people's realms be used randomly?"

"Idiot."

The Emperor's face was iron-blue.

How could he not know this principle, but he had no choice!

There were only these two books of nature cultivation methods, if he didn't practice this, what else could he practice?

The offerings were all cultivated from one-path Heaven-Men, he "used" the one-path Heaven-Men, the offerings would become fewer and fewer, and the Heaven-Men of the entire imperial court would also become fewer and fewer, and the control over the Jianghu would become weaker and weaker.

Precisely because of this, the Ming Sect could save up these Heaven-Men, which allowed Ji Tianrui to have the capital to push her plans step by step, forcing him to this point.

If he hadn't practiced this method, the imperial court would definitely have more offerings than now, and Li Miao and Ji Tianrui would have to avoid their edge.

He understood all these principles, but he had no choice!

Now, it was too late to regret.

The Emperor made his final struggle.

"You, cannot kill me..."

"Right, you cannot kill me!"

A glimmer of hope suddenly rose in his eyes.

"Although I haven't attended to court affairs for many years, the ministers of the imperial court are all loyal to me! I am the real-power Son of Heaven!"

"There are many people who came here today, the Embroidered Uniform Guard, the Ming Sect, your identities absolutely cannot be hidden, if you kill me, you will be the target of public criticism. Those who want to replace me will be the first to kill you and get the name of righteousness!"

"With your martial arts, you might be able to escape, but your friends and family and forces will also die with me!"

"You cannot kill me, the imperial court is not stable now, the Japanese pirates in the southeast, the Tatars in the north repeatedly offend the borders, if I die, I don't know how many people will be buried with me!"

"Lord Li... no, Chief Grand Secretary Li, you might not care about human life, but you surely don't want to live under an alien imperial court."

"Keep me, the Great Shu is still the Great Shu, at worst..."

The Emperor gritted his teeth.

"You abolish my martial arts, all the Heaven-Men of the imperial court will be for you to use! I don't seek immortality anymore, let me live until I die, how about that?"

Li Miao shook his head and sighed.

"How should I put it, Your Majesty, what you said is indeed quite reasonable."

"The conditions you promised, I truly don't take them to heart. But killing you, and bringing the world down with you, is indeed not a result I want to see."

The Emperor was right.

During the late-night talk with Zhu Zai in the palace, Li Miao had actually discussed this topic. Whether it is a prosperous age or a chaotic age, whether it is a wise monarch or a foolish monarch, the Emperor cannot be killed casually.

The Emperor is not just a "person," but one of the roof beams that maintains the Great Shu. Killing him is not a simple cut, this action itself is a political act sufficient to shake the entire world.

This cut is likely to send the entire Embroidered Uniform Guard and even the entire Great Shu into the grave with the Emperor.

Li Miao might be a martial arts maniac, but he is not a fool who only knows how to kill. Killing is simple, not bearing the consequences after killing is the real difficulty.

The Emperor heard Li Miao's words, and a glimmer of hope appeared on his face.

But Li Miao had a strange smile on his face.

He suddenly changed the topic.

"Your Majesty might not know, before tonight, I had actually been guessing whether you were possessed by Ji Tianrui. The first topic I discussed with Sect Leader Ji after we met was also this."

"Finally, we added it up and set two plans. We would see if you were Ji Tianrui, and then we would decide how to act."

"Hearing Sect Leader Ji confirm that you are not Ji Tianrui tonight, I actually breathed a sigh of relief."

The Emperor showed a puzzled expression.

Li Miao raised his eyebrows.

"I truly cannot kill the Emperor, the influence is too great, there are too many things, it might make my days difficult."

"New Year's Eve is a good day, I have no interest in finding trouble for myself."

Li Miao looked at the Emperor on the ground, and a strange smile suddenly appeared on his face.

"But, not being able to kill the Emperor, doesn't mean I can't kill you."

"???"

Li Miao's words were confusing, and the Emperor only felt that they were upside down and illogical.

Can't kill the Emperor, but can kill me!?

Am I not the Emperor!

Could it be...

The Emperor was suddenly shocked, hurriedly opening his mouth.

"Could it be that you want to replace the prince with a civet cat, and have someone disguise themselves as me?"

"Impossible!"

The Emperor said decisively.

"Although I have lived in the deep palace for a long time, I often meet with the important ministers of the cabinet, and there are countless eunuchs in the palace, they are all smart people, and they know me incomparably well!"

"You want someone to replace me, but you might be able to disguise yourself vividly, but you cannot imitate my actions, and you cannot know the things I have entrusted to them!"

"In less than a month, they will inevitably discover flaws; within three months, they will test out that something is wrong, and finally they will definitely find out about you!"

"The result will be the same!"

Li Miao waved his hand.

"No need to say this nonsense, I know."

"I also won't use such a stupid method."

The Emperor opened his mouth.

"Then—"

Li Miao no longer paid attention to him, turning to look at Ji Tianrui.

"Sect Leader Ji, it's your turn."

"Lord Li is done talking?"

Ji Tianrui laughed lightly, walking to the Emperor's side and slowly squatting down.

"Your Majesty, unlike Lord Li, I hope you are my father."

"He died too suddenly, I didn't even have a chance to talk to him properly. Being able to talk to his substitute for a few words, I also feel it is a comfort."

She sighed.

"Unfortunately, you are not him."

Her expression was soft, as if she were truly a young girl mourning her father. But whether it was the Emperor or Li Miao, they could hear the deep-as-the-sea killing intent contained in her voice.

If the Emperor were Ji Tianrui, falling into her hands, the outcome would absolutely not be better than being cut into a thousand pieces.

Ji Tianrui laughed lightly.

"Alright, I have nothing to say to Your Majesty either. Since I promised Lord Li, I shouldn't break my word."

"Let's do it."

Ji Tianrui reached out her left hand, pulled open her sleeve with her right hand, revealing her snow-white wrist, and drew a line on her wrist with her fingers.

Pfft.

This cut was extremely deep, and blood immediately pumped out, flowing down her arm.

Ji Tianrui's expression was as usual, actually reaching two fingers into the wound, fumbling for a moment, before slowly pulling them out.

The Emperor looked at her fingers.

There, a bug was clamped.

This thumb-length Gu bug was clamped between Ji Tianrui's two fingers, its shell reflecting a blue-black luster like rotten corpse ointment.

Twelve pairs of appendages were as thin as hair, with dense bone spurs embedded in the joints; flocculent matter floated in the translucent abdominal cavity, slowly floating and wriggling; the compound eyes reflected a strange light in the moonlight.

The mouthparts were spiral-split meat tubes, the inner layer densely covered with sawtooth-like keratin, with sticky silver threads hanging between the gaps, emitting a faint fishy smell.

The shape was strange and fierce, just one look, and it made one instinctively feel a chill from the bottom of their heart.

"This, this is..."

The Emperor said tremblingly.

"Gu bug, the name is 'Mingling'."

"Your Majesty, you should have seen it, right?"

Ji Tianrui said with a light laugh.

As her words were spoken, the Emperor trembled like chaff, his teeth making a "clatter clatter" collision sound, clearly terrified to the extreme.

He had seen it.

Fifteen years ago, he had seen it.

"You, you..."

His lips turned pale, but he couldn't squeeze out a complete sentence from his throat. His heartbeat deviated from its track, as if pumping blood into his trachea, bringing up a smell of rust along his nasal cavity.

"You really recognize it."

Li Miao said with a light laugh.

"That's right, this is the same kind of Gu bug that Ji Tianrui sent people to bring to the Shun Tian Prefecture fifteen years ago. It is the root cause of the Miao King's death without stiffening."

"Mingling, taken from the 'Ming River Floating Ling' in the 'Youming Record'."

"In the original book, it is a soul-ferrying bug."

In an instant, the Emperor understood what Li Miao and Ji Tianrui said.

Why Li Miao said he couldn't kill the Emperor, but could kill him.

Because Li Miao wanted to erase his consciousness from this body, and then let someone else live from his body. The "Emperor" indeed did not die, but he died.

Why Li Miao said he breathed a sigh of relief after knowing he was not Ji Tianrui.

Because a person cannot be possessed a second time, if he were Ji Tianrui, this means would be useless to him.

After a struggle with the Miao King in the Miao Frontier, Li Miao had already figured out what this so-called "possession" was all about.

Different from Li Miao's "soul travel," this Gu bug cannot completely replicate someone's soul onto another person.

The person is still the original person, and remembers everything, but the underlying logic of behavior is thoroughly changed. Likes and dislikes, beliefs and persistence, all become the appearance of another person.

Used on the Emperor, it couldn't be more suitable.

Ji Tianrui asked.

"The Gu bug is handed to you, Lord Li."

"However, I don't know who you want to live in his body?"

Li Miao raised his head, revealing a smile.

"I have an excellent candidate."

————————

"Commander, from today on, you are the Acting Vice Emperor of the Great Shu! You must not let down my painstaking cultivation!"

"Ah!?"

Zhu Zai had not yet recovered from the shock of "the Emperor being cut into a human stick," hearing Li Miao say this, he suddenly widened his eyes.

"What the hell!?"

He had finally led several imperial clan members to stabilize the situation, and was commanding the Embroidered Uniform Guard to fight with the Forbidden Army, but was coldly snatched by Li Miao, who descended from the sky, by his belt, and for a while, how could he react?

"Wait a minute, wait a minute."

Zhu Zai took a long breath, trying hard to calm down his restless true energy, and then turned to look at Li Miao.

"You say, say slowly!"

Li Miao saw the old man catch his breath, and then told Zhu Zai about the process and subsequent plans in this way and that way.

"In short, I left the Emperor's shell for you, later, the one sitting on the throne will be a good Emperor who thinks what you think and hates what you hate, you take time to train him, soon you will be the mastermind behind the entire Great Shu."

"With the Emperor himself cooperating, won't it be easy for you to eliminate dissidents and control the court? Wait another seven or eight years, until the situation is firmly in our hands—"

Li Miao cut down with his hand, saying with a sinister smile.

"Give him a sudden death, pull him to the grave and bury him."

"You summon the hundred officials, I'll prepare a deer for you, you lead the deer to the Hall of Supreme Harmony, point at the hundred officials and ask if it is a deer or a horse, I will kill those who say deer directly, and keep those who say horse for use."

"Wait another two or three years, those who don't listen will be dead, I'll get you a yellow robe, drape it over you, you say 'You have harmed me so much!',..."

Li Miao clapped his hands.

"We're done!"

"Rebuilding the glory of the Great Shu, our generation is duty-bound!"

"How about it! Commander, do you feel particularly excited, particularly wanting to give me a few years of vacation, and issue a salary of tens of thousands of taels?"

Zhu Zai was dumbfounded, and didn't recover for a long time.

"Commander? Are you still there?"

Li Miao waved his hand in front of Zhu Zai.

"Didn't understand? Then I'll say it again?"

"The old man understood."

Zhu Zai said hoarsely.

He looked Li Miao up and down, and after a long time, sighed long.

"The old man truly doesn't know whether picking you up back then was right or wrong. How could a task of the Mount Huashan Sect be turned into a usurpation of the throne by you."

"The old man, has been a loyal minister for half a lifetime..."

He was sighing there, but Li Miao clapped his hands and cheered.

"Yes yes yes, that's the expression, that's the tone!"

"When I drape the yellow robe over you, you just act according to this! It's great, natural!"

"Get lost!"

Zhu Zai glared at Li Miao unhappily.

Unlike Li Miao, this extraterrestrial demon without a lord or father, he was a native imperial clan member of the Great Shu. Listening to Li Miao's rebellious words, he instinctively wanted to scold. After a long time, he sighed again.

The things Li Miao said actually had high feasibility, it just depends on whether he can cross this hurdle in his heart.

More importantly... what else can he do?

The Emperor has been cut into a human stick!

If you don't rebel, what else can you do, hang yourself!?

"Forget it, forget it, the old man owes you in the previous life."

Zhu Zai sighed slowly.

"How to do it?"

"Sect Leader Ji, how to do it?"

Li Miao turned to ask Ji Tianrui.

"One drop of heart blood is enough."

Ji Tianrui had been standing on the side for a long time, looking at Zhu Zai with interest, before answering with a smile.

After taking the blood and healing the wound, Zhu Zai waved his hand.

"You do it, the old man, can't bear to look."

He had been a loyal minister for half a lifetime, even if he had been forced to this point by Li Miao, he still couldn't cross the hurdle of watching the Emperor suffer.

"Okay, you go out and wait, I'll hand the person to you when I'm done here."

Li Miao smiled.

Zhu Zai nodded and turned to leave.

Li Miao walked slowly to the Emperor's side and squatted down.

"Your Majesty, did you understand everything?"

The Emperor did not answer.

Tears flowed from the corners of his eyes, his teeth clenched, a wisp of blood flowed from the corner of his mouth, and regret almost solidified and pressed against his heart.

One step wrong!

Just one step wrong!

"I—"

"Alright, shut up."

Li Miao stuffed the Gu bug into the Emperor's mouth.

"Everything that should be said has been said, I have no interest in listening to the rest, you just honestly become the shape of my commander!"

The Gu bug entered his mouth, and the Emperor's lying body suddenly arched, the curved arc almost breaking his own spine.

His eyes were about to split, blood tears flowed from the corners of his eyes, his mouth was wide open, but he couldn't make a sound.

After a while, he suddenly lost his breath, lying softly on the ground.

"Failed?"

Li Miao asked with a frown.

"Succeeded, this thing was originally like this."

Ji Tianrui smiled.

"I added something to this Gu bug, when he wakes up, he will forget what happened in the last month, including your and my identities."

"And the transformation will be completed immediately, it won't be like my mother who suddenly woke up and ran outside to give birth to a sister for me."

"From today on, he is already dead."

Li Miao nodded.

"That's good."

"Heal his limbs, hand him to my superior, the subsequent matters will have nothing to do with you."

Ji Tianrui nodded and smiled without saying a word.

"However, you cannot leave."

Li Miao said.

"Oh? Does Lord Li want to distinguish life and death with me now?"

Ji Tianrui asked with a smile.

"Depends on the situation."

Li Miao replied.

"Then, does Lord Li have something to say to me?"

Ji Tianrui smiled beautifully.

"I only have one question."

Li Miao stared at her eyes.

"What are you plotting?"

"Tossing from Qi and Lu to the Miao Frontier and then to the Shun Tian Prefecture, calculating two Emperors, dragging me in, risking my life to fight this night..."

"What on earth do you want?"

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 250 =====

(End of chapter)