Zhutian: My skills are not serious

Chapter 633 - End of Volume - A Loving Father and a Filial Daughter

More than half a month later, a shocking news spread in the Central Plains region.

After Jie Li's death, the various tribes in DTZ fell into chaos. His nephew Tuli, the son of the previous Khan Shibi, took advantage of the situation and first signed a non-aggression pact with the Shiwei people. Then he gained the support of the Xi people and became the most powerful force within DTZ. Because of his status and strength, the leaders of various tribes successively agreed that he would inherit Jie Li's position and held a meeting in the Turkic yamen.

However, in many cases, increased power also means increased responsibility. Tuli had to express his position at the meeting, saying that he wanted to avenge Jie Li, Bi Xuan and others and regarded Xiao Chu as his biggest enemy.

As a result, that night, Chai Shao, the Duke of Xiaochu, descended from the sky and all the leaders and followers gathered in the Turkic tent were killed, with over a thousand casualties. The situation in DTZ returned to the state before liberation overnight. After Tuli's death, the Shiwei people tore up the non-aggression pact and took the opportunity to expand westwards. The Xi people also stabbed them in the back. The Western Turks, using the excuse that the national teacher Yun Shuai died at the hands of Xi Ying and that Xi Ying's backer was DTZ, crossed the Jinshan Mountains with their cavalry and occupied the Altai region.

At the same time, in the Chang'an Palace.

Li Yuan, wearing a bright yellow robe, sat on a couch carved with a five-clawed golden dragon and the sun, moon and stars. He looked across at the woman in a plain long skirt, whose beautiful face could be vaguely seen.

"I believe that the Emperor of Tang already knows what Chai Shao did in the Turkic yamen. Tuli and Jieli are uncle and nephew on the surface, but they have always been treacherous. In this situation, he still wants to cut the grass and root it out, making DTZ pay the price for interfering in the affairs of the Central Plains. Does Your Majesty think that Li Shimin will have a good ending?"

"Xiufang, Shimin... is still your brother after all."

"I don't have a brother who would kill his brothers and sell out his friends for fame." Shang Xiufang said coldly: "I persuaded Chai Shao to spare your life because my mother came to me in a dream and begged me to spare your life."

Li Yuan's face looked like he was constipated, his cheek muscles kept twitching, and the corners of his eyes were twitching again and again. He never thought that he would still be threatened after becoming an emperor, and the person who threatened him was his own daughter.

"Is there no other way? Jiancheng and Yuanji are already dead, only Shimin..."

"You also have Li Yuanjing, Li Yuanchang, Li Yuanheng..."

"But they are still young."

The descendants that Shang Xiufang mentioned were only three or four years old, and the youngest, Li Yuanheng, could not run away. If Li Shimin died, it would be almost the end of the generation, if not the end of the line.

"You should know that Chai Shao is the leader of the Xieji Sect. It would be a piece of cake for him to destroy the nine clans of the Li family. He just wanted to do it because we are father and daughter and he didn't want it to affect our relationship. And my mother begged me in her dream, so I couldn't bear to refuse her. If you don't agree..." She stood up and said, "That's all I have to say. It's up to you whether to do it or not."

"But you asked me to kill my own son. Isn't this... Fang'er, don't you think this is too cruel?"

Li Yuan's expression became more distorted and his whole body was shaking.

The word "Fang'er" made Shang Xiufang's hair stand on end. If it wasn't for the smooth implementation of the plan, she would have poured all the tea in the teacup on this old pervert. He had not cared about her for twenty years and had never fulfilled his responsibilities as a father. Yet, he was calling her affectionately shamelessly now. It was really disgusting.

"How can you gain Chai Shao's trust if you don't do this?" Shang Xiufang said coldly, "Don't tell me you know nothing about the rumors."

When he heard her mention the rumors, a trace of fear flashed across Li Yuan's cloudy old eyes.

"But Shimin... has been living in the military camp since he retreated to Guanzhong. He has to be careful and on guard at all times... It's not easy to deal with."

"That's your business and has nothing to do with me. I've done my best by coming here to show you the way." Shang Xiufang left these cold words, walked out of the palace, and asked the eunuch to take her away.

Li Yuan slowly sat back on the luxurious couch, his expression constantly changing, sometimes fierce, sometimes gloomy, sometimes confused, sometimes fearful...

"Your Majesty, Your Majesty."

An eunuch with a severely receding hairline rushed in from outside with a happy look on his face, interrupting Li Yuan's thoughts. Li Yuan was so angry that he picked up the celadon teacup on the table and smashed it on his head.

"Who asked you to come in? Who asked you to come in?"

The eunuch knelt down on the ground with a thud: "Your Majesty, it was you...it was you who said that as long as there is news about Miss Dong...you don't have to report it..."

At this point, Li Yuan finally realized that he had indeed given such an order, so he cleared his throat and tried to appear calm: "What is it?"

"Miss Dong...Miss Dong is in much better spirits now. She cooked a few of her signature dishes today. I would like to invite Your Majesty to come to Yuhan Garden to taste them."

The gloom on Li Yuan's face was wiped away. He stood up from the couch and walked around to the table: "Really?"

"How dare I deceive your majesty?"

"Hurry, hurry, go to Yuhan Garden." Li Yuan said with a smile on his face.

Since the matter involved Dong Shu Ni, he naturally threw the difficult problem that Shang Xiu Fang threw to him out of his mind.

……

Yuhan Garden is located in the northwest corner of the imperial city, close to the back garden. It was originally a resting place for married princesses and princesses to visit their elders and stay in the palace for a short time. However, since Li Yuan ascended the throne and lived in Taiji Palace, after the unremitting ideological work of Li Yuanji and Li Jiancheng, Dong Shu Ni also agreed to move into Yuhan Garden.

The weather was getting colder, and small stoves were hung on both sides. The maid on duty added charcoal, closed the door, and retreated to the corridor, leaving only Li Yuan and Miss Dong, who was wearing a light yellow and light green patchwork skirt and a red shawl.

Dong Shu Ni does not know martial arts, and Li Yuan's martial arts skills are not much weaker than Li Yuanji's, so there is naturally no need to leave anyone to protect her.

Emperor Li Yuan of Tang, who had just been attacked by General Shang Xiufang, was staring at the woman across the dining table with her black hair and fair skin, whose every frown and smile could capture a man's soul. He was also staring at the most beautiful woman in the Taiji Palace, whom he had been thinking about for more than a year but had never been able to eat.

There were four dishes on the table: a dish of grilled shrimp, a dish of chicken with scallions and vinegar, a dish of Luohan vegetarian food, and a dish of white dragon stew. It wasn't much, but it was enough for two people. "Your Majesty, you must have been freezing on the way to Yuhan Garden. Try the white dragon stew that Shu Ni cooked herself to warm you up."

As Dong Shu Ni spoke, she picked up the spoon from the white porcelain bowl with a lotus pattern, scooped some milky white, warm fish soup with chopped green onions in it into a small bowl, and placed it in front of Li Yuan with both hands.

The lustful emperor looked at her intently for a few seconds, then looked at the dishes on the table and reached out to take them: "My niece is not only beautiful, but the dishes she cooks are also very tasty and beautiful."

At this moment, Li Yuan's face did not show any sadness due to his own daughter becoming a general, and his eyes clearly showed the word "lust".

He deliberately tried to grab Dong Shu Ni's hand, but it slipped away gently and he only touched her nails. This made him shudder and feel a kind of pleasure as if he was floating in the clouds.

Dong Shu Ni tilted her head and said shyly, "Since I came to Chang'an, I haven't had the opportunity to cook. I don't know if my cooking skills have deteriorated. What if it doesn't suit Your Majesty's taste... Shu Ni is really worried."

"How could that be!" The lustful emperor quickly drank two mouthfuls of the fish soup and praised it highly: "It tastes good, it tastes good. Just this bowl of white dragon soup made by my niece, I will never get tired of it even if I drink it for a year."

My niece?

When Dong Shu Ni heard Li Yuan addressing her, she certainly didn't think that he really regarded her as his "virtuous niece". It was just that Li Yuan and Wang Shichong had served in the same court and were old friends. Li Yuan just took advantage of the situation to bring her to live in the palace in the name of taking care of the descendants of his deceased old friend. Who knows, one day, this virtuous niece will become a little darling.

"My dear niece, why don't you eat?" Li Yuan put down the soup bowl and saw her sitting opposite him in a daze, so he raised his glass and invited her: "Come, have a drink with me."

Dong Shu Ni obediently picked up the wine glass and drank the wine in it.

Li Yuan looked at her with a lewd smile and thought that there might be something going on today. Compared to their previous encounters, her resistance was not as strong.

Dong Shu Ni seemed not to notice his fiery gaze. She didn't move after putting down the wine glass. She just stared blankly at Luohanzhai in front of her. After a moment, her eyes turned red and she shed several small tears.

Li Yuan was heartbroken.

"My dear niece, what's wrong with you? Why are you crying? Did I say something I shouldn't have said? Or..."

Dong Shu Ni shook her head, sobbed a few times, stretched out her milky white little hand, bent her index finger to wipe away the tears from the corners of her eyes, tilted her head slightly, and stared at the plate of Luohanzhai.

"I was... thinking of the eldest son."

"Completed?"

Dong Shu Ni shed tears and said, "Now that things have come to this, I will not hide it from Your Majesty. Shu Ni actually... had already secretly decided to spend her life with the eldest son. I originally thought that when he returned from Luoyang and made great achievements, I would report our affairs to Your Majesty in order to seek approval. Unexpectedly... Unexpectedly..."

By the end of her speech, she was sobbing.

Li Yuan felt heartbroken at this scene. He quickly put down his bowl and chopsticks and took out his silk handkerchief with dragon pattern to wipe her tears.

"No wonder you fell seriously ill after hearing the bad news from Luoyang and it took a long time to recover. It turns out that you did this for my son Jiancheng..." When Li Yuan mentioned Li Jiancheng and Li Yuanji, his lustful thoughts disappeared a little and he sighed heavily.

"I originally thought that the eldest and third sons... were murdered by that bastard Yu Wenzhi. It wasn't until I left the palace to relax a few days ago that I realized... I realized that it was actually..."

She buried her face in her silk handkerchief and sobbed.

The voice was so sad that Li Yuan's eyes turned red with tears.

He didn't know how to comfort the beauty. When he heard the truth about the fratricide two months ago, he was furious and wanted to kill Li Shimin, but could he really kill him? If he killed Li Shimin, all four sons he had watched grow up would be gone.

Besides, Li Shimin was not so easy to kill. After he withdrew to Guanzhong with the Changlin Army and the Black Armor Elite Cavalry, he had been living in the military camp. Even when he entered the city to meet the emperor, he led the troops and wore armor, and went back and forth on the same day, and did not live in the palace.

"Sir Zheng has been coming to Yuhan Garden every few days to ask about my well-being. I... I know what your majesty means, and I gradually figured it out..."

These words made Li Yuan shudder, his lustful heart was burning, and his fierce eyes seemed to want to tear her clothes off.

"I... can promise Your Majesty... that from now on I will serve Your Majesty wholeheartedly, even if this country is destroyed one day... I will have no regrets."

She was so excited that she blurted out these ominous words.

Li Yuan was not angry, because he had been living in fear for more than two months, fearing that Chai Shao would come to deliver the clock to him. Until today, when Shang Xiufang came to his house and posed a difficult problem to him, he also eased his inner fear.

Come to think of it, he is Chai Shao's father-in-law. No matter how cruel that kid is, he can't kill his father-in-law, right?

"I have only one request."

Dong Shu Ni raised her head and said with tears in her eyes: "Your Majesty, please avenge the eldest son and kill Li Shimin."

By the end of her words, her eyes were filled with hatred.

(End of this chapter)