The Empress’ Livestream

“My surname is An, and my first name consists of a single syllable, Cui.” Despite wearing the clothes of a soldier, the person still bowed and said his greetings courteously, not breaching etiquette.

“I’m Liu Xi,” replied Jiang Pengji. Then she asked, “If I haven’t made a wrong guess, Brother An, you are from the south, right?”

An Cui recalled what Jiang Pengji, Wei Ci, and the rest had been chatting about when he came over and gave up on the idea of concealing his identity.

Looking rather haggard, he said, “Yes, I am a citizen of Nansheng.”

Although An Cui had not heard about Liu Xi back when he was in Nansheng, how could he possibly not have heard of her after escaping to northern Dongqing?

He’d thought that Liu Xi would probably be a staid and mature man, but at that moment, he was surprised to see that the other party was a high-spirited young man. Even though Liu Xi had handsome looks, he still retained some childishness, making him look slightly androgynous. Looking back at himself, An Cui could only sigh emotionally and lament that heroes were born young.

An Cui’s courtesy name was Duoxi [1].

“Cui” meant “worries.”

Despite sounding rather cheesy, the courtesy name of “Duoxi” which An Cui’s elders had given him was full of their wishes for him.

It was a pity that An Cui’s life had changed completely on the day the four factions of Nanman conquered the royal capital.

Wei Ci sighed secretly — It was really him.

While Jiang Pengji and An Cui talked, Wei Ci looked down inconspicuously. One hand silently clutched the other hand hidden beneath his long sleeves tightly, squeezing until his nails left a few pale blue marks on his hand. Wei Ci recalled that when he’d first met An Cui in the previous incarnation, the latter was a nobody that few had heard of.

In An Cui’s own words of self-mockery, he had been “toiling uselessly for ten plus years, wondering when this life of going back and forth meaninglessly would come to an end”.

His nation was no longer there. Silver hair crept up his temples.

He had been running to and fro until, without realizing it, he was already more than 40 years old.

Assuming that nothing unexpected was to take place, he had already lived more than half of his life, yet he still wanted to exact revenge on the four factions of Nanman.

There was indeed a deep-seated blood-feud that could not be resolved between An Cui and the four factions of Nanman.

Wei Ci sat beside him with his head down, listening to them talk, his mind occupied with his own thoughts.

It wasn’t that Wei Ci had never thought about this lord that he’d served after being reincarnated, but he knew that An Cui was not a suitable ruler for him.

An Cui was too vengeful, especially after leading a wandering life for 10 plus years. His hatred towards the four factions of Nanman had already become deeply ingrained in him, and seeking revenge had become his personal demon and obsession. Wei Ci could still remember the scene when An Cui gave orders for the slaughtering of the four factions of Nanman.

Being from the Central Plains, Wei Ci had no liking for the barbarians, but that didn’t mean that he could stand aside while An Cui gave orders for the slaughtering.

However, one could deduce the outcome of Wei Ci’s argument with An Cui from what happened in the end.

Wei Ci lost.

All the 630,000 barbarian civilians, regardless of age or gender, were slaughtered. Several major rivers of Nansheng were clogged up by the bodies. The waters were completely dyed red.

An Cui gave no orders to restrain his troops, and Wei Ci knew all too well what the troops had done before the slaughter and what the barbarian civilians had been put through.

Wei Ci gradually grew distant from An Cui after the quarrel.

Wei Ci wanted a wise ruler who could unite the nine states, a saint that could save the people from the sufferings caused by war, not a butcher who committed countless sins similar to his enemies’ as a result of being blinded by hatred! Was there really any difference between what An Cui had done in the end and what the four factions of Nanman had once done?

Wei Ci admitted to An Cui’s accusations of him being a goody-two-shoes and that it was easy for him to make many virtuous claims as a bystander.

After all, An Cui was the one who’d had his nation destroyed, his wife killed, his children taken away, not Wei Ci.

But it wasn’t an excuse for An Cui to exact revenge with similar means.

There were plenty of other ways to punish the four factions of Nanman and still exact revenge.

Why did An Cui choose the cruelest, most despicable method?

Wei Ci could understand An Cui’s desire for revenge, but he disapproved of An Cui’s actions.

An Cui revolted purely to seek revenge, and revenge was the only thing he had in mind. What the civilians were going through had nothing to do with him.

Someone who gave up everything for revenge was totally not the wise ruler Wei Ci was looking for.

Those whose pathways in life were different could not lay plans with one another.

So, Wei Ci didn’t deliberately take note of the lord he had once served after being reincarnated.

But humans were fortune’s fools, and they had surprisingly ended up meeting so many years in advance.

At this point, Nansheng had only been annihilated for little more than one year, and An Cui had only spent several months wandering around after escaping from what was once his nation. He still looked young, maintaining a trace of the airs unique to people in power. He still managed, albeit barely, to maintain his dignity, the only thing he had left. It was completely different from how he would be 10 plus years later.

Although he was just over 40 years old, his hair and beard had turned completely silver. His face was haggard-looking, his shoulders had sunk in, and his back hunched, making him resemble someone in their seventies. Only his eyes still had a sharp, unrelenting look in them.

Feng Zhen noticed Wei Ci’s unusual behavior and secretly tugged at his sleeves. “Why are you zoning out?”

Wei Ci kept his eyes down and said, “It’s probably because I didn’t sleep well last night and I’m feeling drowsy.”

Feng Zhen cleverly went along and said, “If you aren’t feeling well, you should go back to the carriage and get some rest.”

Sickly people should be self-aware and go get some rest when not feeling well. After all, one would need good health to be able to stir up trouble.

Their voices caught the attention of Jiang Pengji and An Cui.

An Cui looked in the voices’ direction and was caught off guard by Wei Ci’s looks and airs.

For the time being, An Cui had yet to experience ten plus years of wandering around and drifting about, and Wei Ci’s looks were somewhat aligned with his aesthetics.

Jiang Pengji also said, “Don’t force it if you aren’t feeling well. Get some rest first, everything else can wait.”

Wei Ci didn’t insist upon staying and got up to leave.

Feng Zhen blinked, then bowed and took his leave, briskly walking to catch up with Wei Ci.

“Why did you follow after me?” Wei Ci wanted to spend some time with his own thoughts, but the thick-skinned Feng Zhen followed him and climbed into the carriage.

“You know An Cui,” Feng Zhen said confidently. “What’s his background? He doesn’t seem like an easy person to get along with, judging from his looks.”

Wei Ci didn’t deny it, but instead said, “An Cui is from County Zhe, which is in Jiangzhou of Nansheng. His father, grandfather, and great-grandfather, all three generations of them were very powerful ministers. His family could be considered one of the new noble houses in Nansheng. An Cui himself had a very good reputation in Nansheng as well. His mother is the youngest sister of the ruler of Nansheng, and he has ties with the royal family of Nansheng as well. The day Nansheng was destroyed, An Cui’s whole family was…”

Feng Zhen didn’t question why Wei Ci knew so much, as the latter always got wind of the latest happenings at a fast pace. “An Cui was the only one to escape?”

Wei Ci nodded. “Yeah.”

At the moment, An Cui was probably 27 or 28, in one of the best stages of life. Had Nanman not invaded, he would be excelling in life.

It’s a pity that An Cui’s parents and family members had died tragically, that his wife couldn’t stand the humiliation and committed suicide, and that his daughter and son’s dead bodies were nowhere to be found.

He was the only one left dragging out an ignoble existence.

Putting himself in the other man’s shoes, Wei Ci could understand why An Cui hated Nanman so much.

But his understanding didn’t mean that he agreed.

If An Cui was just a civilian that sought bloody revenge from his enemies, Wei Ci would praise him for being manly. But An Cui was one of the warlords trying to rule the world back then. How could a person that was irrationally fixated on hatred and had ordered the slaughter of all the Nanman people rule the world?

Even if he was to become the ruler of the world by luck, how many years could his nation last?

Feng Zhen said emphatically, “How pitiful, he probably hates those barbarians to death.”

Wei Ci said, “That’s an understatement… With his capabilities, maybe he can win Nansheng back.”

Feng Zhen recalled the flame-patterned tattoo on An Cui’s arm and seemed to have understood something.

He said, “This man… is rather ambitious…”

[1] The literal meaning of Duoxi is “plenty of happiness”.