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Chapter 518: The Imperial Concubine is Pure and Elegant (268)

Chapter 518: The Imperial Concubine Is Pure and Elegant (Two Hundred and Sixty-Eight)

Ji Mingjie had already thought about the use of these treasures of the Wu clan. After he took them for himself, he would use them to build palaces for his enjoyment, buy weapons to defend against the enemy, and send assassins from which forces to kill King Lounan and Liang Sheng. Unfortunately, Ji Mingjie's private vault was destined not to be able to hold a large amount of treasures.

The treasures disappeared without a trace, and no matter how hard Wu Lan and Ji Mingjie searched, they couldn't find them. Ji Mingjie had to face up to the situation, realizing that the people who attacked the Wu tribe were well prepared, and the forces behind them were huge, with many people in the Ji Kingdom.

Ji Mingjie paced anxiously in the hall, wondering if the person who attacked the Wu clan was Emperor Liang. If it was really Emperor Liang who sent someone to do this, then it meant that Emperor Liang's influence in Ji State could not be ignored. Ji Mingjie was panicking, fearing that he would become the king of a ruined country.

He was terrified. For some reason, he suddenly remembered the old queen mother's previous prediction that the Ji State would be destroyed by the Liang State and his father would be the last king of the Ji State.

Now that he has become the ruler of the Ji Kingdom, the prophecy will not come true, right? What if he replaces his father and becomes the ruler of a fallen nation? What should he do then?

When the day finally came when his life was at its wit's end, the city gates had been breached, and the palace had fallen, should he commit suicide or surrender? No, no, no! Ji Mingjie didn't want to commit suicide, nor did he want to be reduced from emperor to a vassal king. Perhaps he should choose a third path: neither commit suicide nor surrender, but flee, find another place to settle down, and wait in the dark for his opportunity!

Ji Mingjie knew that a defeated emperor without a fight was unfit for the job. If he himself was dreaming of faking his own death one day to escape, how could his subjects fight to the death to defend their country?

But now the situation was hopeless, with Qi annihilated. How could the Ji Kingdom resist the Liang cavalry? The previous alliance between Ji and Qi had resulted in a crushing defeat for the Ji army and the destruction of Qi. Thinking of the current King of Western Xinjiang, Ji Mingjie secretly resented the former Liang Prime Minister. He had sent people to persuade Xuan Yunian to form an alliance with him, both openly and covertly, to seize Liang Sheng's throne, but Xuan Yunian refused to ally. Consequently, he launched no fewer than five assassination attempts, all of which failed!

After Qi was incorporated into Western Xinjiang, Ji Mingjie sought to disrupt order there. Back when he was still the Crown Prince, he had sent numerous people to cause chaos there, but his schemes were discovered by the King of Western Xinjiang. He considered kidnapping the Princess and the Crown Prince of Western Xinjiang, but the cunning mother and son tricked his men. The loss of so many lives was too much for Ji Mingjie to accept, so he temporarily refrained from sending his men to cause chaos there.

Ji Mingjie thought of the former Princess Xicheng of Qi State. It was said that she had fallen in love with a general who had revolted with her. Now she was living with that man, feeling very uncomfortable. She had not remembered at all how her country was destroyed!

Ji Mingjie was known for his strictness with others and leniency with himself, so he found it hard to understand how someone could overthrow their own country. In his view, Qi Baoping, while dissolute and immoral, was still Princess Xicheng's uncle—truly unfilial! And Xuan Yunian, rumored to be Qi Yu, the former crown prince of Qi, had no interest in becoming emperor. Ji Mingjie felt that this brother and sister were unworthy of being members of the imperial family, lacking any of the greed and desire inherent in imperial families.

When Ji Mingjie criticized Princess Xicheng, he completely forgot that he had forced the emperor to abdicate and seize the throne, which made the late emperor paralyzed in bed.

Ji Mingjie tasked Consort Wen and the Third Prince with caring for the late emperor, promising to die whenever he died. How could two pampered individuals know how to care for others? News of the late emperor's impending death spread frequently, and Ji Mingjie was mentally prepared. However, despite the late emperor's coma, his will to live was strong, and despite repeated attempts to stun him, he remained alive. Consort Wen and her son, frightened several times, gradually learned how to care for a patient.

Ji Mingjie went to see the late emperor once, and seeing that he was just suffering, he didn't care whether he was dead or alive.

No matter how Ji Mingjie cursed the people and things that made him depressed in the palace, after dawn, he could only vent his anger on the court officials and palace maids. He was powerless to change the country's increasingly declining situation.

When Liang Sheng met Cai Shuang, he was shocked to learn from her that Cui Li and his son might not be dead. After Cai Shuang left, his eyes were red. After sitting there all night, he immediately asked someone to thoroughly investigate what happened that year and secretly search for the whereabouts of Cui Li and his son.