Chapter – 06
On the celestial screen, Liu Sanqi looked at the camera and said:
“Many darlings hearing this might think that Emperor Jingwu’s situation was like the classic trolley problem, right?”
“The trolley problem generally goes like this: a madman ties five people to the tracks a train is about to pass, and one person on another track. You can decide whether to change the train’s direction, sacrificing the one person on the other track to save the other five.”
“But in fact, this wasn’t a trolley problem at allâit was actually an insidious trap set by the Najie tribe for Emperor Jingwu!”
“In recent years, historians, based on a newly unearthed batch of historical documents from the Great Jing Dynasty, have discovered that the Najie tribal leadership had long decided to massacre Zhenbei City. In the Najie’s plan, they wanted to turn Zhenbei City into their military stronghold, and hoped that massacring the population would reduce the pressure of ruling over it.”
“At the same time, they also intended to use the massacre of Zhenbei City as a warning to the residents of the other two cities they had occupied, forcing them to submit quietly to Najie rule.”
“So regardless of whether Emperor Jingwu agreed to that traitorous treaty, the Najie would never have spared the people of Zhenbei City!”
Beneath the celestial screen, the people of Zhenbei City, enraged by the Najie’s despicable treachery, burst into curses, heaping abuse on the Najie’s ancestors for generations.
In the midst of this heated emotional moment, a young man standing at the entrance of a blacksmith’s shop looked up at the celestial screen with a complex expression. Slowly, however, his gaze grew firm.
Thin and frail, he turned to the blacksmith shop owner beside him. “Master, I’m sorry, but I want to join the army!”
The blacksmith shop owner was taken aback. “Join the army?”
“Yes!” The young man lowered his head hastily, hiding his reddening eyes. “I never told you this, but my parents actually died under the Najie’s sabers. Three years ago, we were traveling with a merchant caravan when we were ambushed by the Najie. My parents deliberately made themselves bait to draw the Najie cavalry away so I could escape.”
The young man sniffled, then suddenly slapped himself hard across the face. Clenching his teeth, he said:
“I’m a coward. Those bastards had terrified me so much that I couldn’t even bear to mention them. But… I don’t want to run anymore!”
With eyes red, he looked at the blacksmith. “Emperor Jingwu is rightâonly by completely crippling the Najie will we never have to lie awake in fear of them again! But he can’t do it alone! I know I might die at the Najie’s hands too, but even so, if we can achieve the glorious future that the celestial screen speaks of, I’ll die without regrets!”
“Master, take care of yourself. I’m going!”
After speaking, the young man bowed deeply to the blacksmith and turned to leave.
“Wait!”
Hearing the blacksmith’s call, the young man stopped and looked back.
The blacksmith walked to the counter and pulled out a cloth bag of coins from underneath.
He walked back to the young man and pressed the bag into his arms. “It’s not much, just over two hundred coins. Buy yourself some foodâbuild up your strength so you’ll have the power to kill those Najie bastards!”
The young man clutched the bag, his hands tightening around it. After taking a deep breath to steady the surging emotions in his chest, he bowed again in gratitude to the blacksmith.
He understood that the blacksmith hadn’t needed to give him this money. After all, as an apprentice learning a trade, he wasn’t entitled to wages from his master. The master providing food and lodging was already more than generous.
The blacksmith let out a heavy sigh and patted the young man’s shoulder gently. “Boy, come back alive. When you do, I’ll find you a wifeâthen your parents in heaven can rest easy.”
“Yes!”
The young man raised his hand to wipe away the moisture at the corner of his eyes, then turned and strode forward with determination.
After the young man had left, the blacksmith suddenly spoke: “He’s long gone. If you don’t come out now, you won’t even see his back.”
The moment the blacksmith finished speaking, a young woman burst out from behind the curtain connecting the shop to the back courtyard.
She stood at the shop entrance, gazing with deep longing at the young man’s gradually receding figure.
Only when his silhouette completely disappeared from view did she reluctantly withdraw her gaze. With red-rimmed eyes, she looked at the blacksmith and asked:
“Father, he will come back, won’t he?”
The blacksmith scratched his head anxiously. “In this damn world, who can say for sure! But since that young lady on the celestial screen said Emperor Jingwu can wipe out those Najie bastards, maybe the future isn’t so bleak after all.”
“I’ll wait for him!” the young woman said, her voice choked with tears. “If he doesn’t come back, I won’t marry!”
“Sigh, just wait and wait. That boy is hardworking and can endure hardshipâlife with him won’t be bad at all.”
Hearing her father say this, the stubborn young woman’s face finally showed a hint of happy smile.
And at this moment, all across the Great Jing Dynasty’s border cities, many people like that young man suddenly emerged.
Sometimes, people are just missing a glimmer of hope. And Liu Sanqi’s revelations about Emperor Jingwu on the celestial screen happened to give those who bore deep blood feuds with the Najie tribe a glimpse of the dawn of success.
…
On the grasslands, at the Najie tribal camp, it was deathly silent outside the tents.
Just moments ago, the Najie King had flown into a rage over the contents of the celestial screen, so furious that he drew his blade and hacked two of his maidservants to death on the spot.
Though their bodies had been dragged away, the fresh, warm blood they left on the grass had not yet dried.
If the Najie King had been ecstatic upon first hearing Liu Sanqi say that the Najie tribe had breached Zhenbei City and fought all the way to the capital, then upon hearing that the Najie tribe had been completely annihilated by Emperor Jingwu, he was consumed with uncontrollable fury and hysteria.
The Najie King had never regarded the people of the Great Jing Dynasty with any respect.
In his view, the Great Jing people, who were always talking about benevolence and moral cultivation, were nothing but a flock of weak, cowardly sheepâno match for the blood and spirit of the Najie.
Yet it was precisely these people he looked down upon who had destroyed his tribe.
At this moment, a faint trace of fearâeven dreadâbegan to creep into the Najie King’s heart.
“Father, I think the appearance of this celestial screen is actually a great blessing for our Najie tribe!”
Hearing his second son, Sehuoke, say this, the Najie King shot him a piercing glare like an arrow.
Since Sehuoke dared to speak at this moment, he had already formulated his argument in advance.
Unfazed by the Najie King’s stare, he continued calmly: “Father, since this celestial screen has made Emperor Jingwu out to be so formidable, then as long as we eliminate him, it will surely deal a tremendous blow to the Great Jing Dynasty!”
The Najie King’s sons were not all born of the same mother, and with the Najie King now advanced in age, they were all ambitious for his throne.
So, the moment Sehuoke finished speaking, the Najie King’s eldest son, Yadunni, immediately retorted:
“Sehuoke, that’s easy for you to say! Setting aside the fact that we don’t even know who this damned Emperor Jingwu is, even if we did find out his identity, assassination would be no simple task! We Najie look clearly different from the Great Jing peopleâwe can’t possibly blend in!”
Sehuoke had anticipated Yadunni’s move to target him.
He looked at Yadunni and raised his voice deliberately: “Elder Brother, your concerns are certainly thorough. As it happens, I have already planted some Najie peopleâborn of Great Jing slave womenâwithin the capital of the Great Jing Dynasty! They look exactly like the Great Jing people on the outside, but they were raised in our Najie tribe from childhood and are willing to pledge their lives to our Najie cause!”
Yadunni had never expected that Sehuoke had prepared such a move well in advance. The smug expression on his face instantly turned stiff.
As for the Najie King, upon hearing that Sehuoke had been so forward-thinking as to plant Najie agents in the Great Jing capital, he let out a booming laugh, so delighted that he even exclaimed “Good! Good! Good!” three times in a row.
Fearing that the news might leak, the Najie King instructed Sehuoke to come to his tent later in private to discuss the matter further.
Yadunni and the Najie King’s other sons, seeing that Sehuoke was clearly about to gain the Najie King’s favor, were all filled with envy toward him.
…
“After all this talking, Sanqi suddenly realized I almost left out one person!”
“Although Emperor Jingli was a useless piece of trash who brought more harm than good to the Great Jing Dynastyâso much so that his flaws outweighed his flawsâsince I’ve remembered him, I might as well talk about him too.”
“Darlings should still remember that earlier, when I mentioned the Najie trying to force Emperor Jingwu to sign that traitorous treaty, I briefly brought up how the Najie threatened to behead Emperor Jingli.”
“But the truth is, the Najie didn’t just refrain from beheading Emperor Jingliâthey even deliberately released him two years later!”
Beneath the celestial screen, Yin Ning looked at Yin Rui, who was kneeling again before the Jingming Emperor, her face full of disbelief as she exclaimed:
“So you actually didn’t die? How could you have the nerve to keep on living?”
Hearing this, Yin Rui couldn’t help but look up and glare at Yin Ning, his face contorted with indignation:
“Yin Ning, don’t go too far!”
“Too far?” Yin Ning looked at him in astonishment. “What right do you have to accuse anyone of going too far? With all the rotten things you’ve done, if I were you, I’d smash my head against a wall right now and die, rather than continue living to bring shame upon myself!”
Hearing Yin Ning’s words, Yin Rui was suddenly rendered speechless, unable to muster any defiance.
Because even now, he still couldn’t bear to part with his own life.
The Jingming Emperor merely glanced at Yin Rui and immediately guessed what was going through his mind.
His expression remained calm and unruffled, because in his heart, Yin Rui was already as good as dead.
The Jingming Emperor’s attention quickly shifted back to Liu Sanqi on the celestial screen.
“The Najie tribe had never done anything decent, so their decision to release Emperor Jingli wasn’t out of any goodwill or kindness!”
“They simply wanted this incompetent ruler to contend with Emperor Jingwu for the throne, thereby creating chaos in the Great Jing court!”
Beneath the celestial screen, upon hearing this, the Jingming Emperor furrowed his brow.
As a monarch who had ruled for many years, he knew very well that no place could ever be completely united.
Wherever there were people, there would inevitably be conflicts of interest and factional struggles.
And Emperor Jingli’s return could indeed pose a certain challenge to Emperor Jingwu’s rule.
At this moment, the Jingming Emperor thought of what Yin Ning had just said to Yin Rui and found her words all the more reasonable.
Why couldn’t Yin Rui just have died?!
