Zhutian: My skills are not serious

Chapter 482 - End of Volume - Ye Ling'er
Chu Pingsheng's voice turned cold: "Give me a reason."

"I...I...I'm poisonous."

"No, you are not poisonous, you are the antidote." Chu Pingsheng said with a half-smile, "Specially used to cure the lust poison in me, the King of Xihu Mountain. Since you like to resist, let's have a night of resistance-themed love."

After saying that, he covered her mouth and quickly untied her red shirt, revealing her fair arms and beautiful shoulders.

woo woo woo woo……

Ye Ling'er couldn't break free, and the words in her heart rushed to her lips, but all they turned into unclear hums.

She doesn't want to die.

She wants to live.

Better to die than live!

But...but it seemed like fate was playing a huge joke on her.

Before she married into the Chu family, she wanted to die and wanted to take him with her. But after that night, seeing so many familiar people die, she didn't dare to die anymore. But now Chu Pingsheng didn't even give her the chance to tell the truth.

Her body... is poisonous!

Ye Ling'er's eyes were red and she sobbed, tears streaming down her eyes, wetting her hair at the temples, flowing through her ears, and falling drop by drop onto the wedding quilt embroidered with a pattern of a baby holding a fish.

……

a long time.

Chu Pingsheng pulled the quilt over her body, got out of bed, put on his boots, walked to the desk in the outer room, picked up the red porcelain teapot with twined twigs pattern that was tributed from the Xilei Kiln, poured a cup of tea into the matching tea bowl, and without thinking it was cold, he brought it to his mouth and took a sip.

Ye Ling'er opened her eyes wide and looked at the quiet bed curtain, waiting and waiting...

Waiting for the poison of Hongxiuzhao to take effect.

However, from the time Chu Pingsheng stopped torturing her, to covering her with a quilt, kissing her, and then getting out of bed to drink tea, there was nothing unusual except the pain in her lower body.

Until he finished his tea and returned to bed, he was alive and she was alive too.

"Are you waiting for the poison from Hong Xiu Zhao to take effect?"

The voice echoed in Ye Linger's ears for a while before she woke up. She stood up and said, "You...what did you say?"

Her movements were a little violent, affecting her injury. She squinted and frowned in pain, and gasped.

"No need to wait, I'll cure your poison for you."

"My poison has been cured? When?"

Chu Pingsheng moved closer and whispered in her ear.

"Why do you think the three departments tried to poison me but it didn't work several times?"

After receiving such a reply, Ye Linger covered her face with her hands and cried again: "Why, why..."

"I want you to know how good it is to be alive, so that you don't have to cry to me every day and always mention that I killed your father and brother. Just based on Ye Liuyun's attitude of being Li Yunqian's lackey, there is no possibility of reconciliation between me and the Ye family. The end of the Ye family will surely be like the Qin family, the Liu family, and the Yan family, who were all exterminated. If you still can't let it go, then tell yourself that the women of the Ye family can survive because you were willing to be my concubine, otherwise they would have been killed by the sword guards long ago."

Ye Ling'er burst into tears.

The sound floated through the window, out of the courtyard, into the second courtyard through the hall, and fell into the ears of Lin Wan'er who was lying facing the window.

……

Seven days after Li Yunqian's funeral, Crown Prince Li Chengqian ascended the throne and changed the reign title to Qingping. Many officials who survived in Kyoto were rewarded, but Chu Pingsheng was never honored again. After all, when the crown prince ascended the throne and became emperor, he became the Grand Tutor, a proper first-rank official. In Li Yunqian's time, Lin Ruofu would have to bow and greet him when he saw him.

All officials above the fifth rank who survived this catastrophe for the nobles could more or less figure out the context of the events that night and knew what Chu Pingsheng meant to the two countries of Qing and Qi. Official positions, titles, and honors were no longer meaningful to them.

Originally, the Censorate was a popular department. The noble families in Kyoto would try their best to get their children in. Because of the great power, they were directly under the emperor, and they supervised all officials. Everyone fawned over them and everything went smoothly. But as a result of Chen Pingping and Fei Jie's actions, the Censorate became the most dangerous department. Anyone who had any connection with it would be held accountable, and all the sponsors and deputy sponsors would have their property confiscated and their families exterminated, without exception.

What does it mean to watch him build a tall building, watch him entertain friends and guests, and watch his building collapse? This is it!

It was as if that group of ninth-rank masters borrowed by His Royal Highness the Crown Prince had an irreconcilable feud with the officials and nobles of the Kingdom of Qing. Those who were exiled would be beheaded, those who were beheaded would have their entire families exterminated, and those who were imprisoned would have their hands and feet chopped off. In short, they treated the officials, nobles, and even the gentry connected with the Kingdom of Qing equally. In a word, they would kill them with swords if they did not do their job.

After all, they were Qi people, and had no interest or relationship with the court officials here. So when they killed people, would they care whether you were the brother-in-law of a high-ranking official? Or the distant cousin of a leader in water transportation or a big iron smelter? Money was meaningless to these people, and there were even many cases where the garrisons of prefectures and roads were slaughtered in battalions.

As for the officials being gone, what should they do? They could promote young officials or transfer people from Northern Qi to take charge of the work temporarily. The former was better, but the latter meant that the new emperor was dissatisfied with the local officialdom, and there would be another massacre. In short, a palace coup led to a reduction of more than 50% of the officials and military officers in Qing State, and many of them were exterminated. Everyone was in danger, and the officials were terrified.

In the past, faced with such a situation, the civil officials would have certainly been furious. They would have submitted petitions, pledged their loyalty, or even publicly denounced the move, saying it would shake the foundations of the court and endanger the imperial power.

However, they didn't dare to do so this time, because the Sword Guards were too cruel. Not to mention the censors of the Censorate, even the historians who dared to write a few bad reviews would have their homes confiscated and their entire nine clans exterminated.

In other words, this group of people regarded killing Qing officials as fun.

At a banquet one night, Chu Pingsheng said after drinking that if he heard Li Chengqian complain in front of him that officials were rebellious and did not do their jobs properly, he would order the sword guards to massacre all the local officials in Qing State, taking the prefectures as units, and then transfer people from Northern Qi to take charge.

When Ye Qingmei set up the Supervisory Council, it proved to be useless. So it would be better to kill all the noble families, change the soil structure, and replace them with a group of students from poor families. At least they can have a prosperous trend for 20 years. The old nobles will always suppress the newcomers and the lower classes. This kind of conflict of interest cannot be solved without killing, given the cognitive level of today's people.

These murderous words made any local official who thought that the emperor was far away and the court had no power over him behave himself.

Afterwards, the new emperor stepped in to appease the people. He first raised salaries, then issued a general amnesty, reduced taxes, and lightened corvee labor. He quickly gained the hearts and minds of officials and the people as well as cohesion.

Anyone with a discerning eye knows that Chu Pingsheng and Li Chengqian are playing the villain and the good guy respectively, but no one dares to have any hope because this guy is too cruel and is a complete devil.

……

Another half month passed.

Winter is approaching, and the mountains are cold.

The imperial study of Xingqing Palace.

The target made of armor was thrown away, the screen facing the corridor was changed in color, and only the bookshelf for books and bamboo slips remained.

Li Chengqian stood in front of the window wearing his crown and robes, looking at the beam under the eaves not far away, where Hou Zhigang was hanged.

"His Majesty."

Accompanied by the sound of tapping footsteps, a handsome young eunuch with a tall hat, a handsome face, and slanted eyebrows walked in from outside, holding a pair of heavy black cylindrical objects in his hands.

"It's Hong Zhu, what's the surprise?"

Li Chengqian turned around and looked.

"Your Majesty, look, this is what was taken out of Chen Pingping's chair."

"What do you mean?"

"That's right." Hong Zhu bowed and smiled, "Huang Xingyu, the assistant minister of the Ministry of Justice who was handling Chen Pingping's rebellion, found this thing when he was checking his wheelchair. Because the late emperor liked to study firearms, he sent someone to the palace and asked me to bring it to Your Majesty for review."

"What is this thing... useful for?"

"According to Minister Huang, this should be a very powerful firearm. Even the best armor in the army cannot withstand its attack. Moreover, the projectiles inside have a splash effect, and the attack range is extremely large."

"So, Huang Xingyu is going to present it to me?"

"Exactly."

Li Chengqian said with his hands behind his back: "Hong Zhu, why do you think Minister Huang presented it to me?"

"I think it's for... self-defense."

"Self-defense? Defend yourself from whom? Defend yourself from my teacher?"

"This... I don't know... I will ask Minister Huang to take it back and destroy it." Hong Zhu quickly took his leave.

"Do you think I don't know about your relationship with Fan Xian?"

These words made Hong Zhu tremble.

"Do you think I transferred you to my side because you are smarter than other eunuchs?" Li Chengqian said coldly, "How did Huang Xingyu know that there was this thing in the wheelchair? And why did he ask you to deliver it to the palace? You are just a chess piece used by the teacher to test whether Fan Xian is honest."

"Your Majesty, I don't know Fan Xian at all..."

Hong Zhu was panicking inside, but he appeared calm on the surface.

Li Chengqian waved his sleeves and said, "Come here, take Hong Zhu out and hand him over to the Ministry of Justice for detention. Next month, he will be tortured to death together with Chen Pingping and Yan Ruohai."

Yan Xiaoyi, who was on duty outside, led his men in, set up the Hongzhu and walked out.

"Your Majesty, I really don't know Fan Xian."

"Your Majesty, I really ..."

"His Majesty……"

The sound went farther and farther away and became smaller and smaller.

Li Chengqian shook his head.

Want to use this to alienate the relationship between him and Chu Pingsheng? How ridiculous.

As for his half brother Fan Xian, he could only sigh that it was his own fault.

Chu Pingsheng is a very trustworthy man. He promised Lin Wan'er that he would spare Fan Xian's life as long as he behaved himself, and he would definitely keep his promise. But if Fan Xian is not honest... then Lord Chu cannot be blamed for wiping him out completely.

Fan Xian thought he had placed a nail next to him, but he didn't know that this nail had already become a chess piece for Chu Pingsheng to break the game.

(End of this chapter)