Chapter 173

Chapter 173

Side Story I: The Empress Regnant (Sheng Yao)

Sheng Yao was sixteen the year she ascended the throne.

Before his death, Wei Yi had swept away every obstacle in her path, leaving her a peaceful and prosperous realm.

The borders were secure, and the people lived in comfort and abundance.

She rarely smiled the way she once had. Seated upon the cold throne, she felt as though all emotion were gradually slipping away from her.

Sheng Yao could no longer clearly remember what her mother looked like.

She had left this world very early.

When Sheng Yao was eight.

She had forgotten what kind of day it had been. She only remembered that it seemed to be an afternoon like any other. Her mother had walked out of the house and gone to the blank stone monument, never to return.

Sheng Yao had still been young then, and once again, no one told her what death was.

But she still remembered the question she had once asked her mother.

“Will this uncle ever come out of the ground again?”

Her mother had told her no.

So when her mother was buried in that same patch of earth, alongside that man, Sheng Yao knew she would never come out of the ground either.

She cried for a very, very long time that day.

It was only many years later that Sheng Yao learned Sheng Zhaoning had chosen to die on the anniversary of Wei Heng’s death.

She had raised Sheng Yao for eight years, and spent those same eight years longing for him.

When Sheng Zhaoning left, she wore plain, unadorned robes and no makeup. Afraid that blood would stain her clothes, she chose poison. Clutching the Plum Blossom Seal tightly in one hand, she lay beneath the stone monument with a smile and peacefully closed her eyes.

At first, Sheng Yao might have resented her. She resented her for abandoning her, for casting everything aside to follow that man into death.

Only later did she understand that every moment Sheng Zhaoning remained alive had been an agony of longing.

Had it not been for Sheng Yao, she might not have been willing to wait even those eight years.

After Sheng Zhaoning’s death, she was buried together with Wei Heng.

Their names were carved upon the once-blank stone monument. After what felt like half a lifetime apart, they could finally stand openly beside each other as husband and wife.

In the second year after her mother’s death, Sheng Yao was brought to Capital City by Wei Yi.

It was only the second time she had ever seen him.

He told her that he was her father.

Before outsiders, she changed her name to Wei Yao. But Wei Yi continued to call her Sheng Yao.

She became the Crown Princess and Heiress Apparent.

As Wei Yi’s only child, her path as the Crown Princess and Heiress Apparent was remarkably smooth and unobstructed.

He summoned the finest scholars in the realm to oversee her studies and had Han Xu personally teach her martial arts. The techniques came from the same school as those her mother had taught her.

Zhou Lingsheng passed on everything he had learned over the course of his life without reservation.

Wei Yi personally taught her warfare, power, and the art of checks and balances. He taught her every quality an emperor ought to possess.

Sheng Yao matured quickly.

She possessed both warmth and generosity, as well as decisiveness and the resolve to kill.

She was far-sighted and perceptive, adept at wielding authority, and accomplished in both civil and martial pursuits.

In some ways, she was stronger than both Wei Yi and Wei Heng.

Wei Yi died on a spring day.

It was the day after the anniversary of Sheng Zhaoning’s death. He hanged himself beneath the apricot tree at Changhua Hall, fallen petals covering his shoulders.

He was interred in the Imperial Mausoleum, ten thousand miles from Suizhou.

But Wei Yi had left Sheng Yao a secret edict. After his death, his body was not to enter the Imperial Mausoleum. Only a cenotaph containing his ceremonial robes and crown was to be buried there.

His body was to be reduced to ashes and scattered from a high mountain.

That way, one tiny speck of dust might eventually drift to Suizhou and silently remain by Sheng Zhaoning’s side.

Sheng Yao climbed the mountain herself and fulfilled his final wish.

After ascending the throne, she seemed to grow up overnight.

Her bright, radiant manner gradually gave way to composure and gravity. She held supreme power in her hands and commanded the course of the realm, yet every night, loneliness swallowed her whole.

Sheng Yao missed her days in Suizhou dearly.

They had been the carefree years of her childhood.

After she was brought back to Capital City, her maternal grandparents returned with her.

Zhou Wei and Jin He bickered their way into each other’s hearts, then set off to roam the world together.

After teaching Sheng Yao the art of medicine, Zhou Lingsheng returned to Mobei.

The people who remained at her side were He Sui, the Grand Secretary of the Cabinet; Chi Yu, the Grand General; and Li Ji, the Chief Minister of the Court of Judicial Review.

He Sui married a refined and striking wandering swordsman.

It was a strange match.

Supposedly, it had been love at first sight.

For He Sui alone.

According to others, the man bore a passing resemblance to Lord Sheng in her youth. He was handsome and unworldly, with the pure, noble bearing of jade and a refreshing air about him.

He Sui pursued him for a long time before finally winning over the cold-faced wanderer. Only afterward did she learn that the martial faction behind her great hero wielded immense power. A force that had once had nothing to do with the imperial court suddenly found itself bound to it by countless ties.

Their son, however, was utterly detestable.

Knowing that Wei Yi had hired the finest teachers under heaven for Sheng Yao, He Sui naturally sent her own child over to sit in on the lessons.

The little brat was two years younger than Sheng Yao and had been cunning to the core from an early age. Neither could stand the sight of the other. He would scheme against her, and she would retaliate in kind.

He tossed a toad into her book bag, so she mixed live loaches into his food.

Their bond as classmates was more like that of two sworn enemies destined to cross paths.

Sheng Yao hated Pei Yanchuan.

Pei Yanchuan did not like Sheng Yao either.

The two of them seemed born to be enemies. Whenever they stood together, an argument was inevitable, and when tempers flared, they would come to blows.

Both had been martial arts prodigies from an early age, and whenever they fought, neither could gain the upper hand.

With a perfectly matched opponent to spar against, both of their skills improved considerably over time.

During her years of study, Sheng Yao spent nearly every day racking her brains for new ways to deal with Pei Yanchuan. Then, to her astonishment, she discovered that this insufferably arrogant brat was actually afraid of water.

Lotus leaves spread across the pond beneath the rockery in Bailu Garden.

Cicadas droned in the midsummer heat, and the blazing sun made the air stifling.

As Pei Yanchuan flailed in the water, Sheng Yao carried a little stool into the pavilion, sat down, and watched with great interest.

Pei Yanchuan was always pulling stunts like this to scare her.

A severed fake tongue suddenly dropping from his mouth, a bloody gash appearing across his neck, making a ghost face at her bedside in the middle of the night, pretending to be gravely ill before walking over and vomiting blood all over her…

Sheng Yao had fallen for it once or twice, but after he did it too many times, she would simply punch him without changing expression. Then the two of them would fight from inside the room all the way outside.

This time, at least, he had come up with something new.

Pretending to drown, and acting so convincingly at that.

He really wasn’t afraid of drowning for real.

Sheng Yao propped her chin on her hand and watched with great interest, making no move to go over.

It was impossible to say how much time passed. Only when the disturbance on the water gradually grew quieter and Pei Yanchuan’s face began turning paler and paler did Sheng Yao finally realize that something was wrong.

Her heart lurched.

She sprang to her feet and hurried toward the pond. Seeing the figure at its center slowly sinking beneath the surface, she leaped into the water without a second thought, plunging in with a splash before swimming desperately toward him.

Waterlogged clothes were terribly heavy.

The pond was both broad and deep.

Gritting her teeth, Sheng Yao dragged the unconscious Pei Yanchuan to the shore with great effort.

“Hey, wake up. Pei Yanchuan!” Sheng Yao slapped his face hard several times.

There wasn’t a single person around. Only the agitated cries of cicadas echoed endlessly through the air.

Pei Yanchuan was completely unconscious, his eyes tightly shut and his lips pale.

Sheng Yao had no time to hesitate. She tore open his clothes and used the method taught by Zhou Lingsheng, pressing down on his chest and breathing air into his lungs mouth to mouth.

Their lips met, and warm breaths passed endlessly between them.

Sheng Yao had always been uninhibited and willful, rarely caring about the constraints of conventional morality. Even though such intimacy could, in the eyes of others, ruin a woman’s reputation, she felt no psychological burden when saving a life was the reason.

Pei Yanchuan clearly did not see it that way.

After the water blocking his nasal passages, chest, and lungs was expelled, his lashes, still beaded with droplets, trembled as his eyes opened. His vision slowly cleared.

In his hazy state, the soft warmth against his lips did not disappear at once. Instead, it lingered for a long time.

A delicate fragrance unique to a young girl wound around his heart.

It seemed that Pei Yanchuan was realizing for the first time just how beautiful Sheng Yao was.

Beneath the brilliant warmth of the sun, most of her face was half-submerged in light and shadow. Her delicate features were touched with the pure beauty of jade and snow, her skin fine and fair, her loveliness like warm jade painstakingly carved by a master.

His gaze drifted downward against his will. Her shimmering azure gauze dress, soaked through after she fell into the water, clung tightly to her body, clearly outlining her slender waist that could be encircled with one hand. As they struggled in the water, her outer robe had slipped from her shoulder and hung precariously from one forearm, revealing a smooth, luminous white shoulder and the full line of her collarbone.

The boy was at the age when his blood ran hot.

A rush of heat thundered through his entire body from his mind outward.

It never cooled again.

From that day onward, everything changed in a bizarre way.

Pei Yanchuan no longer targeted her at every turn. Instead, he became attentive and considerate in every possible way.

Before she could even say she was thirsty, water would already be brought to her. Whenever she was hungry, the pastries he carried with him would already be waiting on her desk.

He had an ice fan for her in summer and a brazier to warm her in winter.

To Sheng Yao, this change was even harder to accept than eating a toad raw.

She couldn’t help wondering whether Pei Yanchuan was plotting some scheme behind her back that she knew nothing about.

She spent a long time on tenterhooks.

It was only after she became the first Empress Regnant in the history of Great Wei that everything seemed to gradually return to normal.

Sheng Yao no longer needed to attend lessons at Wenhua Hall.

She also saw Pei Yanchuan less and less.

His father’s family held power far away in the martial world, not in the imperial court.

Pei Yanchuan had been destined from birth to wander beyond the bounds of court and city.

There lay the vast world he yearned for: settling grudges with a sword, answering injustice with justice, free from all restraint, and roaming the ends of the earth with a blade at his side.

He disliked the splendor and vanity of the Capital City.

His father had been willing to remain in the Capital City for his mother, but Pei Yanchuan had never experienced such a life of carefree freedom.

He left in the second year of Sheng Yao’s reign.

By then, she rarely smiled anymore.

She was trying to become a worthy ruler, hiding her emotions and growing cold and detached.

Without realizing it, she seemed to be pushing everything and everyone farther away.

After Pei Yanchuan left the Capital City, there was no one left who could keep her company or speak with her.

Sheng Yao suddenly understood the helplessness of being an emperor. At last, she also understood why her Imperial Father, despite possessing the entire realm, had been willing to die without a trace of reluctance.

Every towering palace wall shut the warmth of the human world outside.

All that remained for the person on the throne was endless loneliness and cold silence.

In the fifth year after ascending the throne, Sheng Yao began expanding Great Wei’s borders to the north.

It was a vast stretch of land. During Wei Yi’s reign, the empire had focused on building up its strength and had lacked the power to launch a campaign.

Now its troops were strong, its horses well trained, and its provisions abundant. It was the perfect time for a northern expedition.

The Empress Regnant led the campaign herself. In silver armor atop a red horse, she wielded a black spear tipped with a red tassel and slaughtered her way through every battlefield.

The enemy nation retreated step by step, losing more than half its cities. In a desperate counterattack born of an all-or-nothing struggle, it actually managed to force her into danger.

Driven to the edge of a cliff in a gorge, Sheng Yao had already prepared herself to perish alongside her enemies.

Countless shadowy figures from the martial world burst through the encirclement like ghosts.

She retreated, her back pressing against a hard, broad chest.

Her trembling gaze turned inch by inch, meeting a pair of clear eyes she had not seen in many years.

“How are you still this stupid?” he asked, looking down at her.

“You damned bastard.” Sheng Yao laughed and cursed at him through her tears.

Yet another young hero of the martial world had hidden himself in the Capital City, willingly keeping watch beneath its high walls.

From then on, Yaoyao’s candlelight glimmered in the distance.

She was no longer alone.