Kyushu · Endless Nagato

Chapter 67 The Elegy (2)
When people nowadays mention the queen mother, they are always in awe and awe.When Emperor Shengde suddenly died of illness and Emperor Hongjing was still young, she stood up to support the overall situation, defeated wave after wave of usurpering plots, and solved all political enemies with various bloody and treacherous methods. Listening to the government, he firmly held the power in his own hands, and solved countless major issues for the country during the period of listening to the government, including defusing a possible all-out war with the Yu people, and winning a peaceful life for the people.And when her son became an adult, she quickly gave up her position, and since then retreated behind the scenes, never asking about political affairs again.But in the hearts of the people, the queen mother has always been a legend, a de facto empress who combines toughness, tenacity, wisdom, cruelty and indifference.People feared her, but also admired her.

But no one knew the Queen Mother's inner world, and no one knew that every year on Emperor Hongjing's birthday, she would have abnormal emotions, sometimes sad and sometimes irritable.But she would not show this emotion, she just told her son that she was tired of listening to all kinds of civil and military officials' flattery during those years of listening to politics behind the curtain, so she didn't want to show up on such a day.

Emperor Hongjing has always respected and loved his mother, so naturally he would not rebel, so every year during the lively time of the emperor's birthday, the queen mother would not appear.She just stayed quietly in the palace, shunned all the maids, ordered them not to be disturbed unless called, and digested those worries that could never be resolved by herself.

This night was also the same. Sitting alone by the lotus pond, listening to the sound of frogs one after another, the queen mother fell into the reminiscence of the past.But at this moment, a burst of footsteps disturbed her thoughts.

"It's better if the sky is falling," said the queen mother in a flat tone, "otherwise you will have to move your head."

"It is indeed a big event that the sky is falling," the visitor said in the same flat tone, "especially for you, not only the sky is falling, but even the earth will be engulfed in flames."

The content of this sentence was enough to surprise the queen mother, and the voice turned out to be a deep baritone, which made the queen mother even more horrified.She hurriedly turned her head and saw a tall man walking towards her.The footsteps of this man were very light, so the Queen Mother didn't notice him until he was very close.But when the man walked up to her, she could hear that the footsteps of this man were different from ordinary people. It sounded like two sticks of wood poked on the ground. They were actually two wooden artificial legs, but this man was probably light. He has good body skills, so he can control his steps.

"Who are you?" After all, the Empress Dowager used to manipulate the life and death of a country. Although she knew that this person's background was not trivial, and that disaster might be imminent, she still remained calm.

"Who am I? Maybe I should ask you this question," said the other party sharply. "It was 33 years ago that you and I met last time. At that time, you probably didn't even see what I looked like. This time, you can take a closer look."

The queen mother was shocked, and her first reaction was to close her eyes, as if she didn't have the courage to face the person in front of her.Her face was pale and bloodless, and her lips trembled slightly. Even when she faced the threat of war from the Yu clan more than ten years ago, she had never been in such a mess.After a long time, when she slowly opened her eyes again, the majesty she had just had disappeared, and her eyes were filled with panic, fear, despair, resentment, sadness... and at the same time, there was a hint of joy.

She stood up slowly, and when she spoke, her voice was already calm: "It's you...you're not dead? Can you let me see you? Let me see your face?"

The man strode forward, exposing his face to the clear moonlight.This is a handsome man in his early thirties, with a hint of arrogance in his sword eyebrows and starry eyes, but the wrinkles on his face were formed earlier, and there are a lot of white dots in his hair.And this face is very close to the Empress Dowager's appearance, the same high nose bridge, eyebrows and eyebrows are almost portrayed according to the same mold.Faced with such a face, even a majestic and dignified queen mother could not help but tremble.

"What should I call you? Queen Mother? Or Mother?" the man said in a very strange tone.

That night, three uninvited guests came to the Yuanshou Palace where the Empress Dowager lived alone, namely An Xingmian, Tang He and Bai Qianyun.With Tang He's help, An Xingmian and Bai Qianyun hid in two large prop boxes and entered the palace together. Then, taking advantage of the hustle and bustle after the performance, the three of them entered the harem together.The ranger Yu Fengxian, who was bullied by Xue Huaiqing, had already found out the exact location and movement of Yuanshou Palace, and this time, he absolutely did not dare to play tricks.

So now, all three of them came before the Queen Mother.An Xingmian and Tang He were originally fearless figures, but in front of such a big man who once held the lifeline of the whole country with one hand, they could still feel the invisible oppression, so that neither of them dared to talk much.But Bai Qianyun obviously didn't have such scruples, perhaps because the blood of the emperor already flowed in his veins.

"I really want to know, is becoming the emperor's mother and empress dowager so important to you?" Bai Qianyun asked, "In order to achieve this goal, you just abandon your own son, but you still have to find ways Kill him?"

The Empress Dowager's expression was dull, and it took a long time before she said four words: "Love is what you have to do."

"What kind of love is unavoidable?" Bai Qianyun was furious, "Is a shitty son of the emperor more important to you than your own flesh and blood?"

The Queen Mother didn't answer, but just stared at Bai Qianyun's face for a long time. Suddenly, she stepped forward and held Bai Qianyun's face with both hands, her eyes filled with the kindness that a mother should have.Bai Qianyun was originally full of anger and hatred, wishing to tear the Queen Mother's body to pieces, but when his mother's hand touched his face, it suddenly aroused his long-held longing and attachment to his biological parents.He was originally a straightforward person, and he was never good at lying. In an instant, tears were streaming down his face, and he was speechless.

This is terrible, An Xingmian thought in a complicated mood, this trip was originally to find the queen mother to make a final settlement, if the mother and son are deeply in love with each other, and the other has a fit of filial piety, how can it be settled?However, he thought again, is revenge really that important?

An Xingmian's heart was in turmoil, and it took a long time before he returned his attention to the Queen Mother and Bai Qianyun. Thirty-three years later, Bai Qianyun must have countless questions in his heart to ask, but at this moment, the positions of the two sides are so opposite that he cannot speak out.

"Since you have found me, you must be aware of everything I have done?" In the end, it was still the Queen Mother who spoke first.

"We even found that strange nameless old man," Bai Qianyun tried his best to suppress his emotions, so that his voice seemed a little unnatural, "Unfortunately, we couldn't figure out his identity in the end."

"So, he is dead?" The queen mother was very surprised.

Bai Qianyun nodded, and the Empress Dowager slowly walked back to the cool chair where she was sitting before, sat down, and said after a long time: "Poor him, he has tried all the tricks, but in the end he still can't get what he wants. Can you tell me, How did you unravel all this. Just a moment ago, I thought the whole plan was flawless."

She paused, and then added: "There are no secret passages here, and no one can save me before you do it. Just rest assured. I'm not delaying time, I just want to satisfy my curiosity."

Several people looked at each other, facing such a calm queen mother, all the intimidating and intimidating strategies prepared before could not be used.An Xingmian sighed: "I just realized now that the so-called emperor's air is not flattery."

An Xingmian briefly explained the process of finding out the case, but erased all the names of the people involved in order to avoid misfortune.After listening to the Queen Mother, she was speechless for a while, and finally sighed: "Sure enough, man is not as good as God, he is conceited and wise, but you still expose the truth, and I have finally waited until this day, maybe everything should be over .You guys do it."

Bai Qianyun was stunned: "Do it?"

"Didn't you come here at such a risk to kill me to avenge Nagato?" The queen mother said lightly, "As for you, naturally you also need to add the hatred of being abandoned by me. Let's count it together, anyway. I only have this life, and although it can't be worth the lives of so many monks in Nagato, it's all I can do."

"You... you just... you don't have anything to say?" Bai Qianyun stammered and asked.

"Your conjectures are correct at all. Is there anything else I need to say?" The Queen Mother said, "It's as if you saw it with your own eyes. I admire it very much. Yes, on this night 33 years ago, I gave birth to... this child, but found that he is deformed, and he will never become a crown prince in the future, which will make all my dreams come to naught. Fortunately, I have already grasped the situation of the maid, and secretly ordered Ouyang Duan to go Delivering her was actually aimed at replacing her healthy baby."

"I was greedy for glory, snatched away the maid's son, but abandoned my own son. Afterwards, I sent someone to kill Dr. Ouyang Duan who knew about it. He was already on the way to escape from the apocalypse, but was captured by my people. Wing Bird killed his whole family. After the child was rescued, I persuaded the emperor to send Jinwu guards to hunt him down. I didn't expect that female Tianluo would hide the evidence in the basket of the long-door monk and was arrested for it. It was sealed into the book collection cave. I never thought that after 32 years, someone would still know this secret and threaten to make it public, which would destroy everything about me.”

"I tried to torture the Changmen monk to get an answer, and I also sent people to look for villagers near Suoheshan who might have known about it, but I didn't get any answers. The Changmen monk is too firm, so firm that any torture is useless, and Their actions were very secretive, and no mountain people knew about them. I had no choice but to adopt the advice of the old man and arrange this trap. Unfortunately, it failed in the end, and it is impossible for me to have Second chance."

"I understand. I once met a mountain dweller in Nanhuai City in the middle of the night who was forced to question me. It turned out that he belonged to you." An Xingmian nodded, "I also met a eunuch who pretended to work for the emperor. The banner, but obviously there is something hidden, he was also bought by you, right?"

The queen mother did not deny: "I have some evidence of his corruption in the palace. Let the emperor know that he will be beheaded. In addition, he has also seen some of my ways of handling things, so he is more afraid of me than me." emperor."

"So when he said 'I don't want to try his method', he was actually referring to 'her', referring to you." An Xingmian said.

"That's right, that's true. That wimp is very afraid of death and can be used by me." The queen mother said.

This is not right, there must be something hidden in it, Tang He frowned, why did the Queen Mother speak so happily, it was so unnatural, as if she was forcing herself to believe and kill her quickly.She was about to point this out, but she felt that someone was quietly tugging on her sleeve. Looking sideways, An Xingmian was shaking her head slightly.Although she didn't understand what it meant, she still obediently didn't speak.

"Then, what kind of evidence is Dr. Ouyang hiding?" An Xingmian asked, "What kind of ironclad evidence can threaten your plan like that?"

The queen mother smiled bitterly: "it's a note, which I wrote to Ouyang Duan myself."

"A note?" An Xingmian understood a little bit.I think it was at that time that the queen mother wrote a note to Ouyang Duan, ordering him to secretly deliver the baby for the maid, and then snatch the child to deal with the deformed child she gave birth to.But I didn't expect that Ouyang Duan's conscience still existed, not only took Bai Qianyun away, but also left the note.It's a pity that he couldn't escape the queen mother's poisonous hands in the end.

"Yes, with that note, it will be clear how I ordered the replacement of the baby," said the Queen Mother. "It will be a catastrophe to overthrow the dynasty."

There was a hint of pleading in this sentence, An Xingmian sighed softly in his heart, on the surface he was noncommittal, "Then, what is the identity of that old man? According to him, all your actions are actually Manipulated by him behind the scenes."

"Come with me," the queen mother stood up, "to see something, and I'll tell you after I finish. If you're worried, you can put the knife on my neck."

"That's not necessary," Bai Qianyun muttered, as if he couldn't bear to actually threaten his biological mother, "You just lead the way."

three

The empress dowager's bedroom was unexpectedly simple, with almost no extra furniture and decorations. This had the advantage that it was not easy to hide ambushes.Even so, An Xingmian and the others were still careful in every step, not daring to be careless.

"On the head of my bed, the third carving from the left can be rotated. If you rotate it three times to the left, you can open a hidden compartment," said the Queen Mother.

"I'll drive." Bai Qianyun just took a step when he was stopped by Tang He.Tang He said to him: "I don't know martial arts, if I get caught in an ambush by some mechanism, I will lose the least damage."

Bai Qianyun understood that what she said was reasonable, so he gritted his teeth and stepped aside.Tang He came to the Empress Dowager's bed and found the knob, so he stretched out his hand and hung it three times to the left.Then she let out a loud exclamation.

"What the hell are you doing!" Bai Qianyun thought that Tang He had been tricked, growled, and pointed the knife at his mother.But Tang He had already spoken: "Brother Bai, don't want it! I didn't get the trick, it's just... I was just taken aback."

Bai Qianyun and An Xingmian looked intently, and they both couldn't help feeling cold.With trembling hands, Tang He took out a flowerpot from the hidden compartment, but what was planted in the flowerpot was not a flower or plant, but a human head.

The head of a lifelike old man.This is a thin and haggard old man, but blood can still be seen on his face, his eyes are slightly closed, as if he is taking a nap.What is especially incredible is that the nostrils of this head moved slightly, and it was still breathing!
"That person has been trying to control me, but I didn't expect that I was also manipulating him behind my back," said the Queen Mother. "People who are too smart tend to be conceited, so conceited that they regard others as fools, but we are so stupid... A person like this is never easily controlled by others, even the secret he has been hiding in that underground stone room, I sent someone to dig it out."

"What were you talking about just now?" An Xingmian asked sharply.

"It's nothing... the person who has been advising me behind my back, or manipulating me, is named Yin Changsi. You have already met him," the queen mother nonchalantly avoided An Xingmian's question, "and this head...is Yin Changsi's teacher, Hou Buning. He really didn't come up with a good name, and now it's really hard to find peace after his death."

"This head... is it alive?" An Xingmian asked in surprise, "This man named Hou Buning... is still alive?"

"To be exact, only this head is alive," the Queen Mother replied. "Since you have investigated this matter so clearly, you must also know the origin of the Bloodwing Bird? I am not referring to the killer, but to that animal. "

"The legendary monster from Yunzhou lives with the jalan flower. The jalan flower spreads pollen to poison the animals and leaves a brightly colored head. The blood wing bird hunts this kind of head for the jalan flower for decoration," An Xingmian Answer, "But that is just a legend after all. Most of the legends related to Yunzhou have no evidence. Do you mean..."

"Yes, the evidence is right in front of you," said the queen mother, "the poison of the blue pollen can concentrate the vitality of a person's whole body into the skull. If it is combined with the secret technique taught by Chenyue, there is a way to make a person People survive with only their heads left."

(End of this chapter)