Chapter 449: Patricide and Regicide, an Upheaval in Xijin

Two maids appeared, fanning the air. They knelt respectfully in greeting.

Yu Wen Tiancheng was finally no longer standing like a wooden statue. He turned to face the doorway.

A graceful woman in a snow-white dress glided in. Her nails, painted with crimson dye, brushed against a curtain embroidered with a crescent moon totem.

She was a woman of poppy-like beauty, on whose face time had left no mark.

The Old Emperor’s murky eyes were shot with blood. When he saw the woman walking toward his bedside, his eyes widened as if to split, and his jaundiced pupils burst with bloody spots.

He recognized her at once. "Gao Zhao Yue!"

"You... you’re not dead..." The Old Emperor coughed up another mouthful of blood. "You actually... You two... are in this together..." His voice was hoarse and grating, terrible to hear.

In her hands, Gao Zhao Yue held a length of white silk that seemed to shimmer with moonlight.

She greeted him, "Yu Wen Shuo, long time no see. Don’t get so worked up."

Gao Zhao Yue’s lips were painted a seductive red. She smiled and said, "I was afraid you wouldn’t be able to find me in the underworld, so I came especially to tell you that I’m still alive."

Yu Wen Tiancheng interrupted, "Mother."

Gao Zhao Yue said, "Alright, alright. I’ll stop talking. No more reminiscing. I’ll get straight to the point."

She tossed the white silk in her hands onto the Old Emperor’s body.

"Our high and mighty Emperor should know what this is."

The Old Emperor’s head rested on half a pillow, the bright yellow brocade quilt stained with filthy blood. His mouth was twisted and his eyes were askew as he glared at her.

Seeing him in this state brought Gao Zhao Yue no satisfaction. Her red lips curled into a mocking arc.

"Back then, you couldn’t stand to see my Heavenly Moon Clan prosper. To annihilate my people, you conspired with the Empress’s family to frame me for having an affair with a guard. You even spread rumors that my three-month-old daughter, Tianxin, was a bastard. I was forced to raise Tianxin outside the palace. They say even a vicious tiger won’t eat its own cubs, yet you were heartless enough to have someone abandon her."

Thinking of the past once more, Gao Zhao Yue said hatefully, "You sent people to force me to kill myself, using Cheng’er’s life as leverage. I had no choice but to agree!"

"After I faked my death, you slaughtered my entire clan and concocted a story that a celestial phenomenon had driven the Heavenly Moon Clan mad, causing them to kill each other. You don’t deserve to be human, let alone an emperor."

Gao Zhao Yue wrapped the white silk around his unusually old and flaccid neck.

"Now, it’s your turn to taste death."

The Old Emperor summoned all his strength, raising a hand to grab Gao Zhao Yue’s neck.

Just then, a man’s hand clamped down on the Old Emperor’s arm. The young man’s muscles were vigorous and powerful, nearly breaking the old man’s elbow.

The Old Emperor said in agony, "You... you unfilial son... Let go..."

Yu Wen Tiancheng did not let go. He remained silent, helping Gao Zhao Yue tighten the white silk. The Old Emperor quickly lost the strength to speak.

Only after everything was done did he withdraw his hand and resume his place by the bedside.

Gao Zhao Yue tied one end of the white silk to the headboard. Looking at his withered face, she elegantly smoothed her black hair at her temples, revealing the flawless skin of her profile.

Her tone was leisurely, the same one she once used to speak of romance and poetry with him.

"Yu Wen Shuo, you’ve been bedridden for several years. Did you really think it was a relapse of an old illness?"

The light in the Old Emperor’s eyes was fading, but his gaze remained venomous.

Gao Zhao Yue smiled. "Wrong. From the moment you fell ill, I had the chance to kill you. But I didn’t. Can you guess why?"

The Old Emperor let out a ragged gasp.

Gao Zhao Yue said, "Don’t get the wrong idea. I have no lingering affection for you. For you, I have only endless hatred."

She narrowed her crescent-moon eyes and said with satisfaction, "Because there is nothing more exhilarating to me than making the emperor of a nation, once strong and utterly supreme, slowly feel himself become old, helpless, and weak."

With that, she burst into laughter, the sound echoing through the inner chamber.

The Old Emperor’s gaze shifted to the fine Crown Prince he had personally groomed.

"You... How dare you commit regicide..."

Yu Wen Tiancheng’s face was a mask of numbness.

He showed not the slightest flicker of emotion for the Old Emperor, who was on the brink of death, as if this man were not his own father.

Yet, Yu Wen Tiancheng had been made Crown Prince precisely because he greatly resembled a young Yu Wen Shuo.

"Patricide and regicide—isn’t that just the way of Xijin? You’re the one who taught Tiancheng!"

The woman’s vicious voice rang out.

Gao Zhao Yue stared at him. "Didn’t you seize your throne by killing your own father and brother?! You even stole Xiao Fangzhi. She was your own brother’s wife, but she became your Empress."

Hearing the Empress’s name, the light rekindled in the Old Emperor’s eyes. He made an indistinct gurgling sound in his throat, his words unintelligible.

Gao Zhao Yue loosened her grip slightly, allowing him to gasp in a few breaths. He wasn’t going to live through the night anyway; she was just toying with him to pass the time.

"Xiao Fangzhi hated you until the day she died, didn’t she?"

She let out a cruel laugh. "No, that’s not right. ’Hate’ is too strong a word. Until her death, you were never in her heart at all."

The Old Emperor’s throat felt as if it were being scoured by a sandstorm. Her words pierced his heart, and bloody tears streamed from his eyes.

"You... you venomous shrew! How are you worthy... worthy of speaking Fangzhi’s name..."

Gao Zhao Yue said, "So what if I am a venomous shrew? I’m still better than a disgusting thing like you, who is worse than a pig or a dog and should have gone to hell long ago."

She looked at him with disgust. "I am not worthy? You are even less worthy to mention her."

While alive, Xiao Fangzhi was a puppet, used by her clan and then abandoned by them. In the Xijin Imperial Palace, she was the one with the least control over her own destiny.

The Old Emperor loved her, but it was a twisted, pathological love.

Xiao Fangzhi could not even ask for death, and in the end, she died without any apparent illness.

The Old Emperor coughed, his chest tearing apart. He looked at Yu Wen Tiancheng’s face, which bore some resemblance to the late Empress, his gaze greedy as if trying to drink in the sight one last time before death.

Yu Wen Tiancheng turned his head away and reminded her, "The hour has come. We can delay no longer."

Facing him, the hatred in Gao Zhao Yue’s eyes finally dissipated somewhat. She said quickly, "I know, I know."

She stood up and gestured for the two maids to come forward.

Then, the white silk was pulled taut. The Old Emperor’s hand reached for a yellow ribbon on the bed curtain, but his withered, gnarled fingers only grasped at empty air before falling limply over the side of the bed.

Yu Wen Tiancheng took a deep breath, finally showing a flicker of emotion.

"Summon the imperial clan to the palace to hold a vigil. My father, the Emperor, has passed away."

「The side hall of Tongde Hall, Xijin Imperial Palace.」

Yu Wen Tiancheng pushed open the hall doors, already changed into full mourning clothes.

Gao Zhao Yue picked up a red apple from the fruit platter and took a bite of its crisp, sweet flesh. Hearing the doors open, she saw him enter.

She asked with a surprised expression, "What are you doing here? You’re needed to preside over Yu Wen Shuo’s funeral rites."

Yu Wen Tiancheng didn’t speak. He walked over to her and wrapped his arms around her waist.

"Mother."