Chapter 43: My Life in Xilin is Miserable! It's All Your Entire Family's Fault

The other two disciples, upon hearing their senior brother’s words, instantly guessed what he was plotting.

Far from holding him back, the two of them chimed in to cooperate.

"Yes! Don't kill us."

"We know what the new emperor of the Great Zhao Kingdom and the second prince of the Northern Ji Kingdom are planning."

"Spare our lives, and we will tell you everything."

Li Muchen looked at the three of them in confusion, temporarily unable to figure out what they were up to.

"Very well, I will give the three of you a chance."

"However, if you dare to play any tricks on me... I will have Xuanwu devour you on the spot!!"

Only at this moment did the three realize that the name of the terrifying demonic beast that had captured them was actually Xuanwu.

"We wouldn't dare... We would never dare to deceive you!!"

"Speak, then. What do you intend to reveal?"

Li Muchen had been wondering why the imperial family of the Northern Ji Kingdom would meddle in the affairs of the Great Zhao.

Why go to the trouble of purposely finding someone from who knows where to impersonate the illegitimate son of his late uncle, the former emperor, who had been raised among the commoners?

Wasn't all of this far too bizarre?

Now, he could hear from the mouths of these three what kind of secrets lay hidden beneath the surface.

"The three of us are senior disciples of the Qingmu Mountain."

"Over twenty years ago, Qingmu Mountain was forcefully annexed by the second prince of the Northern Ji Kingdom and made into a subordinate sect under his command."

"Forcefully annexed? Why?"

Their statement left Li Muchen somewhat bewildered.

Was this second prince of the Northern Ji Kingdom truly so arrogant and unruly in his actions?

"Your Majesty of Great Zhao, perhaps you do not know..."

"The second prince has a violent and bloodthirsty temperament. He forcefully brought Qingmu Mountain under his name simply so we could run errands for him."

"Run errands? What kind of errands?"

"Naturally, to find people for the second prince. The cultivation arts he practices are utterly vicious—they require drinking human blood."

"Yes! Exactly! Yes!"

"Moreover, the blood of the dead is useless; it must be the blood of the living to enhance his cultivation."

"What—?!!"

Li Muchen abruptly stood up from his chair, his expression a mask of profound shock.

"You three, explain this in detail!!"

"Our task under the second prince was to procure more fresh human blood for him."

"Ever since Qingmu Mountain was forcefully seized by the second prince, we have been carrying out these acts in the shadows."

"However, the cultivation arts practiced by the second prince conflict with those of orthodox practitioners."

"Therefore, the blood of most cultivators is completely unsuitable for elevating his cultivation level."

"Because of this, the second prince set his sights on mortal humans."

"These mortals possess no cultivation, and the blood within their bodies does not reject the second prince's physical constitution."

"Using their blood is nothing short of ideal."

"For all these years, Qingmu Mountain has been scouring the Northern Ji Kingdom in secret, searching for more mortals to offer up as sacrifices."

"Yet, the Northern Ji Kingdom is, after all, a small nation."

"Furthermore, humans, cultivators, and demons coexist there."

"The supply of pure mortal blood has steadily dwindled."

"Over the past twenty years, as more and more people went missing, others began to grow suspicious."

"With no other choice left..."

"The second prince had no option but to abandon the Northern Ji Kingdom and look outward to other nations for pure human blood."

"The Great Zhao Kingdom is close to Northern Ji, and moreover, it is a nation ruled entirely by mortals, making it the most suitable choice of all."

"The second prince assigned this task to us at Qingmu Mountain, holding us responsible for its execution."

"We found an orphan boy with no parents, sent him into the second prince's manor, and had him acknowledged as the second prince's adopted son."

"That boy was later raised in your Great Zhao Kingdom by your side, right beside the Eldest Princess Xilin, who had married abroad."

"For all these years, we have been secretly nurturing the second prince's adopted son, all for the sake of sending him back to the Great Zhao Kingdom when the time was ripe."

Hearing this, Li Muchen had already roughly guessed the events that followed.

"That boy must be the current new emperor of the Great Zhao Kingdom, right?"

The three dared not conceal the truth. "Yes, it is the new emperor, Li Jiahuo."

The deeper Li Muchen thought about it, the more his heart pounded with horror.

According to these three disciples of Qingmu Mountain...

Li Jiahuo was merely a puppet of the second prince of Northern Ji, having grown up by the side of his Xilin maternal aunt while studying the customs and lifestyle of the Great Zhao.

The true objective of Li Jiahuo ascending the throne of the Great Zhao was none other than the hundreds of thousands of subjects of the realm.

Li Jiahuo and that second prince, Ji Hanliang, were truly utterly conscience-less, damned beasts!!

The hundreds of thousands of innocent commoners of his Great Zhao Kingdom were treated by these demonic cultivators as nothing more than steamed buns soaked in human blood.

In Li Muchen's mind, there suddenly flashed the image of his late uncle, the former emperor, who had once treated him just like his own flesh and blood.

If his late uncle could look up from the netherworld and witness the Great Zhao Kingdom, which he had diligently ruled for so many years, about to be trampled into ruin by Ji Hanliang and Li Jiahuo...

And if he knew that his hundreds of thousands of subjects were about to be sacrificed as human-blood offerings...

His late uncle would surely die with eternal regret and eyes wide open even in the underworld!

And all of this...

All of it was a scheme meticulously plotted by those two chief culprits: Ji Hanliang, the second prince of the Northern Ji Kingdom, and his own bloodless Xilin maternal aunt.

"Maternal Aunt Xilin... Maternal Aunt Xilin..."

"My mother and my late uncle treated you so well, treating you as a true princess of the Great Zhao."

"Yet what about you...?"

"How is this how you repay the boundless grace bestowed upon you by my mother and my late uncle?"

Gritting his teeth, Li Muchen glared at the three Qingmu Mountain disciples and demanded, "I ask you again—!!"

"Why did my maternal aunt Xilin agree to collude with your second prince in plotting against my Great Zhao? Do you know the reason?"

"This... it seems to be because..."

"The Eldest Princess Xilin suffered a miscarriage caused by the other secondary consorts and concubines in the second prince's manor, which severely damaged her constitution and left her permanently barren."

"Because she could no longer bear children, although she held the position of the second prince's primary wife, the Eldest Princess Xilin lived an extremely difficult life."

"The secondary consorts in the manor frequently banded together to bully her."

"The Eldest Princess Xilin placed the blame for all her suffering squarely upon your late uncle and your mother."

"She believed that had they not arranged her marriage in the first place, she would never have had to endure such torment."

"Moreover, we have also heard..."

"Heard what?!"

"That the idea to sacrifice the commoners of the Great Zhao Kingdom to the second prince actually originated from the Eldest Princess Xilin herself."

"The proposal to adopt a boy and have the second prince recognize him as his foster son was also initiated by the Eldest Princess..."

"It seemed to be done so that she would have something to rely upon in her later years."

"With a child to lean on, even if it were merely an adopted son, her life would still be better than it had been."

"Ever since the Eldest Princess put forward this idea, the second prince has treated her, his primary wife, much better than before."

"As for the rest... it was later on that the Master of Qingmu Mountain used sorcery to prevent rain from falling upon the Great Zhao."

"And then, came the forced abdication and rebellion..."