Chapter 86: Song Yilou, Give Me the Throne
Yun Wuxiang slept deeply this time.
When he opened his eyes, the only sound in the empty carriage was his own breathing.
Where was Song Yilou?
He lifted the door curtain. For some, opening a door might bring a pleasant surprise; for others, it would be a massive shock.
A pile of bloody corpses lay on the grass, stacked together like sacks of grain to form a small mound.
Song Yilou sat atop the pile of corpses in the pose of The Thinker. The movement of the carriage caught his attention. When he turned and saw Yun Wuxiang, a smile instantly bloomed on his face like a bright, warm bouquet.
“Youâre awake! Iâve already slaughtered five batches of assassins.”
He hopped off the corpse pile like a restless monkey. He had only taken one step toward the carriage when Yun Wuxiang called him to a halt.
“Stop right there. Youâre covered in blood.”
Song Yilou didn’t care in the slightest. “So what if I have blood on me?”
“It will stain my clothes.” Yun Wuxiang swept a look of deep disdain over Song Yilouâs filth-streaked garmentsâclothes that had just been sitting on a pile of dead bodies.
It was truly troublesome that even a simple Cleansing Art couldn’t be used here.
“Find a nearby water source and wash yourself clean. Change your attire before coming anywhere near me.”
Song Yilou quirked an eyebrow. Using his Qinggong, he lunged toward the carriage. The very moment he moved, Yun Wuxiang unhesitatingly grabbed the horsewhip by his side and lashed out in front of him.
The hand holding the whip was caught. The man, flashing his two canine teeth, opened his blood-stained palm and left a smear across Yun Wuxiangâs pristine white inner robe.
“I won’t.”
Yun Wuxiangâs gaze swept over the bloody handprint on his leg. He looked up, meeting the eyes of the man with the punchable grin with perfect composure.
The wrist holding the whip flickered. Like an eel impossible to grasp, he broke free of the hold and immediately swung the whip again.
Song Yilou dodged to the right, nearly colliding with a lunging dagger. He didn’t evade it; instead, he reached out as if to catch the blade with his bare hand.
In a flash, the dagger twisted, grazing past his hand at an angle. It sliced a slit through his sleeve, revealing an arm with excellent muscular definition.
“Wow, how dangerous! I almost lost a hand.” Song Yilou waved his bare arm around, shouting theatrically.
“Cough… cough cough cough.” Yun Wuxiang had intended to maintain a cold expression, but his fragile body betrayed him. A little movement was enough to make him feel faint.
A hand moved to his back, rubbing gently to help him catch his breath. The playfulness vanished from Song Yilouâs voice. “What is wrong with this body of yours?”
“Don’t provoke me. If you dare mess with me, Iâll show you how quickly I can die,” Yun Wuxiang said calmly once he finally stopped coughing.
Song Yilouâs expression turned strange. Was he… being threatened?
As a tyrant of Songxuan who never went back on his word and detested being threatened, he narrowed his eyes. He let his gaze wander between Yun Wuxiangâs pale face and the faint flush at the corners of his eyes from coughing. His train of thought took a sharp detour.
“With a body this weak, how are you going to ‘want’ me? You look like youâd be incapable, both top and bottom.”
“Cough cough cough cough!” The breath Yun Wuxiang had just managed to recover was utterly shattered by Song Yilouâs words. He coughed even harder.
Song Yilou helped him catch his breath again, then was promptly sent off with a whip crack to go wash the clothes.
Standing by the river, Song Yilou looked at the inner robe in his hands and muttered to himself, “Why is an Emperor like me washing someone else’s clothes?”
How was one even supposed to wash clothes?
Just throw them in the water to soak for a bit and give them a couple of rubs, right?
A short while later, Yun Wuxiang was presented with his tattered, blood-stained, “dying-with-unclosed-eyes” inner robe, along with a Song Yilou who didn’t feel like heâd botched the job at all.
The man dodged responsibility immediately: “The material of your clothes isn’t very good.”
Yun Wuxiangâs state of mind was exceptionally peaceful: “Letâs keep moving.”
They needed to find a town where people lived to buy new clothes; this robe was a lost cause.
Sitting back in the carriage, Yun Wuxiang reflected on himself. How had he ever thought Song Yilou would know how to wash clothes?
The cold must have muddled his brain.
…
The sky was falling!
The Emperor of Songxuan had returned to the Royal Capital!
Usually, an Emperor wouldn’t leave the capital easily, and any trip would be accompanied by a grand procession. But the Songxuan Emperor was different; he left frequently, and the officials and palace maids actually prayed for his departure.
As for taking advantage of his absence to plot a rebellion and seize the throne? What would be the point? To sit on it for two days before being sent to the imperial mausoleum?
Anyone with the guts for that had already been slaughtered by the Songxuan Emperor.
With his return to the palace, every face in the capital was twisted with miseryâthe Imperial Academy of Medicine most of all. The Songxuan Emperor, who hadn’t spared a thought for the Academy in eight hundred years, had suddenly issued an imperial edict.
Two of the oldest physicians stepped forward. Under the grieving yet admiring gazes of their colleagues, they clutched their medicine boxes and stepped into Jingxuan Palace, the Emperorâs residence.
“Song Yilou, what do you think the shape of the State of Songxuan looks like?”
The two physicians looked at each other, both seeing a face of pure terror in their peripheral vision.
Who was so bold as to call the Emperor by his name?
If they went in now, would they stumble upon the Emperorâs latest execution and get cut down as a bonus?
“A scorpion. Iâm still missing a ‘tail’ that I haven’t conquered yet. Once I finish that, itâll be a scorpion.” Song Yilou didn’t care what the map originally looked like; he wanted it to look like whatever he envisioned.
“If your A-jie hadn’t been causing trouble, my map would have been finished long ago.”
If the Emperor of Yu’an knew that Songxuan had been attacking for all these years just to turn a map into the shape of a scorpion, he might have ceded the land voluntarily. It would have been better than letting military power stay in the hands of the Yu’an Prince’s Manor, leaving him unable to sleep at night.
But aside from Yun Wuxiang, no one else dared to ask Song Yilou such a question. Because the Yu’an Emperor didn’t trust the Yu’an Prince, he was destined to spend these years living in constant fear.
Song Yilou sat on the armrest of the wooden chair next to Yun Wuxiang, one hand on his shoulder as he leaned his weight against him. He asked nonchalantly, “What do you think it looks like?”
“Like a flower.” Yun Wuxiang looked at the map in his hands, mentally connecting the map of Yu’an with it. The outline of a flower formed.
The Black-and-White Floating Life Flowerâit seemed he had found it.
But how was he to obtain it?
Did he have to unify the territories of both nations?
No, it wouldn’t be that simple. Countless people had entered this small world; it was impossible that he was the only one to have discovered the secret of the map.
Yun Tianqing… the Demon Phoenix Seal’s reaction…
The Black-and-White Floating Life Flower was a primordial object born of the Dao, capable of allowing celestial and demonic energies to coexist. What were the odds that Daozun Tianqing had once obtained this flower and tried to research a method for converting those energies through it?
Ninety-nine percent. The remaining one percent was simply Yun Wuxiangâs natural caution.
If Daozun Tianqing had been here, what were the odds that his “chum,” Daozun Jiangzi, knew of this small world’s existence?
One hundred percent.
“This subject pays respects to Your Majesty. Long live the Emperor…”
The two physicians had been standing outside for a while. Hearing no violent commotion within, they gritted their teeth, stomped their feet, and walked in tremblingly.
Yun Wuxiang glanced at the medicine boxes in their hands. “Youâve already checked my pulse. Why did you call the physicians?”
“To try our luck. Your body is too weak. If it stays like this, when will we ever be able to consummate our marriage?” Song Yilou said dissatisfactorily.
The two physicians: !
Yun Wuxiang quietly rolled the map into a tube and gave Song Yilou a thwack on the head. “Wait until your next life.”
The two physicians: !!!
Song Yilou caught the map. “I don’t want the next life. Why should I give the person I found to my future self? You two, regulate his body and get it into shape.”
“This humble subject will surely give his all!” The two physicians, who had just managed to lift their heads slightly, buried them back down again.
Yun Wuxiang let go of the map and said slowly, “Don’t waste your energy. They can’t cure it.”
His illness was an “identity trait” dictated by the rules of this world. No one could change it.
Besides, he had no interest in “that kind of thing.” Only Song Yilouâs head was filled with nothing but “yellow” trash.
“Medicinal soups are bitter; I won’t drink them. If you dare force me, one of us will surely die.” Yun Wuxiang could endure a lot, whether it was pain or anything else, but drinking medicine here was utterly pointless. He refused to suffer bitterness for no gain.
Song Yilou could tell Yun Wuxiang was serious, which made him unhappy. “In that case, Iâd rather you die on the bed.”
“Stop playing around. What are we eating tonight?” Yun Wuxiang changed the subject with perfect naturalness. If they were still in the outside world, he would have definitely had a match with Song Yilou with his cultivation. With this fragile body, however, heâd pass; hitting Song Yilou twice would likely leave him bedridden for days. It wasn’t worth it.
This broken body truly forced him to cultivate a much more “harmonious” temperament.
“Medicinal cuisine,” Song Yilou said on purpose.
Yun Wuxiang never took a loss. “Fine. Iâll eat one bite, and youâll eat two.”
“Why do I have to eat more?” Song Yilou rolled his tongue. He didn’t like bitter things either, and most medicinal cuisine had a bitter aftertaste.
“You have a bigger appetite than me. Iâve estimated that you eat twice as much as I do at every meal.”
By the time they finally changed dinner from medicinal cuisine to a full mutton feast, one of the physicians spoke up tremulously, “From this young master’s complexion, he likely suffers from a weakness of the spleen and stomach. He should not consume too much meat or greasy food.”
Yun Wuxiangâs tone turned chilly. “The more a person talks, the faster they die.”
Song Yilou acted as if he had only just noticed the two people who had been standing there the whole time. “You two haven’t left yet?”
The two physicians were fuming but didn’t dare speak: Who would dare leave if you didn’t say so!
Song Yilou refused to give up and made the physicians check Yun Wuxiangâs pulse again. In the end, he chased them out as the two old men wailed that they couldn’t possibly brew a medicine that tasted good.
The two old men fled Jingxuan Palace as if for their lives. As their colleagues gathered to offer “condolences,” they ended up serving a massive scoop of gossip.
Gossip knows no age. The news that the Songxuan Emperor had brought someone back from the State of Yu’an spread through the entire capital overnight.
At this time, the State of Yu’an was in utter chaos.
With the Emperor dead, Yu’an had fallen into a succession struggle. Almost every person with ambitions for the throne realized they couldn’t ignore the Pale Dragon Army.
Yun Tianqing had no interest in them; she was busy searching for her brother!
After the victory banquet, Lin Yue found the letter Yun Wuxiang had tucked into the medical book and sent it to Yun Tianqing along with the current situation in the capital.
The gist of the letter was: A-jie, do not worry. Songxuan’s Emperor and I knew each other once. I will live well in Songxuan. I will write to you when I have time.
Did Yun Tianqing believe it? It would be a miracle if she did!
What was the Songxuan Emperor’s reputation? Capricious, moody, a fratricide, a patricideâcruel and bloodthirsty!
He even took her little brother to a banquet to kill an Emperor!
How could her brotherâs frail constitutionâone that would be bedridden if a light breeze hit itâwithstand the antics of such a man?
Yun Tianqing was fraught with worry. The more she thought about it, the more she felt her brother was suffering in Songxuan, like a little cabbage about to freeze to death in the snow.
In reality, Yun Wuxiang was living like an ancestor in Songxuan.
Ever since he arrived, Song Yilou surrounded him every day. The entire palace catered to Yun Wuxiang’s every whim, hoping only that he could keep the Emperor by his side and stop him from tormenting everyone else.
Once Yun Wuxiang discovered that the territories of the two nations were related to the Black-and-White Floating Life Flower, he began preparing to unify the world.
By his judgment, Yun Tianqing would almost certainly rebel, and taking Yu’an wouldn’t be difficult.
As for Songxuan…
Yun Wuxiang looked down at the man sleeping with his head in his lap. “Song Yilou, give me the throne.”
“Hmm?” Song Yilou took the leaf off his eyes that he was using to block the light. He looked at Yun Wuxiang from the shadows of the foliage. “What fun thing do you need the throne for? Can’t I do it?”
Yun Wuxiang: “Love the people as if they were your own children, create a prosperous era of peace, and ensure a world of ‘pure rivers and a calm sea.'”
Song Yilou immediately lost any desire to do it himself upon hearing those words. But he was curious about Yun Wuxiang’s goal. “And then?”
Yun Wuxiang: “And then, I will be able to see the Black-and-White Floating Life Flower.”
He had thought it through. The flower was with the merman tribe, and the mermans were in the territory of the Demon Realm. Someone from the demons must have unified the world before, but how did they manage it? According to the tradition of the Demon Realm, it must have been a matter of “the winner takes all.”
But Daozun Tianqing was likely a “good person.” If she had been here and left a trial, this was most likely it.
Unification of the world, national peace and public orderâworld peace.
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