The Emperor Reigns Them All

Chapter 26 The Past

Li Ye, Li Yan, and Wu You went back to the hall and sat down. Li Yan threw himself on the seat, leaned on it and said to Li Ye, “Will Duke Xing give in?”

Li Ye drank tea and answered, “It’s hard to say.”

Li Yan said, “If so, I won’t leave for a few days and live here. So Duke Xing won’t dare to play dirty tricks on you.”

Li Ye smiled and said, “For you, a prince, to stay here and not leave, aren’t you afraid of being criticized by others?”

Li Yan replied without care, “I don’t want to be the Heir Prince. So I needn’t care about the supervisors’ remarks on me. As long as I don’t do anything malicious, I would be reprimanded at most. It doesn’t matter. On the contrary, I care about your situation more.”

While the two were talking, Wu You’s face suddenly changed slightly. She took out the Messaging Jade Note. When Li Ye looked over, her little face was already sad. “My father asked me to go back quickly. I sneaked out before.”

Seeing her expression, Li Ye knew that Wu Hongshan must have reprimanded her in the Messaging Jade Note, which was not common. People in Chang’an City knew that Wu Hongshan spoiled Wu You very much. But Li Ye clearly knew why Wu Hongshan reprimanded her this time. Wu Hongshan was an official and couldn’t avoid all kinds of competition. Duke Xing was in the faction of Prime Minister Wei Baoheng. When Li Ye competed with Duke Xing, the Duchess of Li appeared in Prince An’s Manor, which would make outsiders think that Wu Hongshan stood on the side of Li Ye.

Wu Hongshan couldn’t bear the consequences of offending Wei Baoheng.

Wu Hongshan was the Emperor’s son-in-law. Because of this, he needed to be more cautious. Being an Emperor’s son-in-law had never been an easy thing.

Li Yan lied on the seat and didn’t want to move. He preferred to sit than stand and preferred to lie than sit. So Li Ye saw off Wu You alone. Before getting on the carriage, Wu You looked down and said to Li Ye next to the carriage. “It may be a long time before I can come to see you.”

Wu You lowered his head, and her two braids were in front of Li Ye. He touched her head and said gently, “It doesn’t matter. This storm will soon pass.”

“Really? Elder Brother Ye, are you sure you will inherit the title of Prince An smoothly?” Wu You raised her delicate face, and her watery eyes were full of hope.

Li Ye smiled and said, “Since I have become a practitioner of Qi techniques, I should have inherited the title. Now Li Yao is in my hands and Li Yan stays here and doesn’t leave. What can Duke Xing do? Won’t he be afraid of something happening to Li Yao if more time is wasted?”

“But haven’t you already ruined Li Yao’s cultivation?” Wu You asked with confusion.

Li Ye replied, “But Duke Xing doesn’t know that yet, does he?”

Wu You immediately cheered up and jumped. “Duke Xing will have to give in this time. Just thinking of it makes me relieve my anger!”

Seeing Wu You’s carriage leave the Manor, Li Ye sighed softly.

Duke Xing Li Guanshu, Prime Minister Wei Baoheng, Imperial City and Imperial Palace. From Chang’an to the world, inheriting the title only meant setting your foot on the starting point.

What was really challenging was the official career after inheriting the title.

When Li Ye came back to the hall, Li Yan was already listening to music. He tilted his legs, shook his head, and looked intoxicated. Four maids stood next to him. They handed him drinks and fed him some fruit from time to time. These maids and musicians who were playing the pipa for him in the hall were naturally the people of Prince An’s Manor.

“I just went out for a while, and you have already arranged to listen to music.” Li Ye sat down on the other side, and a maid gave him his favorite wine.

According to the reaction of these maids, it was obvious that they knew such scenes well and could manage with ease.

“Your mansion is my mansion, and my mansion is your mansion. We’re family, don’t be polite.” Li Yan said unusual words that an ordinary prince would never say. Then he sighed, “You don’t know that there were always officials by my side when I was in East Capital. I had no chance to listen to music and I felt extremely bored there...”

“Stop. You just want to go to Kang Fu lane, right? I’ll go with you.” Li Ye was very considerate.

In the past, Li Yan would be very happy and jumped up from the seat when he heard that and pulled Li Ye to go out. But now, Li Yan hesitated, and then his face suddenly became serious. He stared at Li Ye for a moment and said mysteriously. “In fact, what I want to say is that this time I went to East Capital and heard some rumors about Jianghu.”

“I thought you were going to say that you went back to the East Capital and met a beautiful Jianghu woman.” Li Ye joked.

Li Yan did not joke as per usual, but was serious. “I’m serious.”

It was rare to see Li Yan behaving in that way. So Li Ye started to be serious and asked, “What rumors?”

Li Yan hesitated for a moment and did not directly tell the truth. Instead, he first talked about Prince An Li Xian. “My uncle was excellent and was going to achieve Qi-refining at the age of 20. He read military books since childhood and was endowed with civil and martial virtues. When he became an official, in politics he could stabilize an area and was praised by the people, in the military, he could suppress a rebellion and guard the country. In politics, Wang Duo and he together were called the political pillars. In the military, Gao Pian and he together were called imperial double jades...”

Li Ye slightly frowned. The current Tang Empire was indeed not as powerful as the time of Emperor Xuanzong. The Imperial Astronomical Observatory that was in charge of the worldwide Taoist methods had repeatedly told the imperial court that many Immortal sects appeared in Jianghu and acted evilly in collusion with the governors of the vassal states. They together ignored the prohibition of the imperial court, recruited disciples without permission, passed immortal methods to ordinary people, expanded their cultivation team and increased their own strength. This was a sign that the world was going to turn chaotic and misfortune was going to come.

However, these opinions were not received by the Emperor but fell into the hands of the Eunuchs. Then the Emperor heard the slanderous words from Eunuchs and reproached the Imperial Astronomical Observatory that spread fallacies to deceive people.

For this reason, people praised Li Xian. They said that there must be many evildoers appearing before the chaos arrives, and there must be heroes to rescue people when the country is going to collapse.

Li Ye didn’t know why Li Yan suddenly mentioned Li Xian at this time.

Li Yan continued. “Two years ago, Pang Xun rebelled and local soldiers were repeatedly defeated by his army so that within a few months, his army expanded to hundreds of thousands and influenced several states in the Huainan area. The south area of the Huaihe River was rich in fish and crops, so most of the country’s finance came from that area. The local vassal state couldn’t suppress the rebellion so the imperial court called uncle to ask for advice. Then uncle was appointed as the general and Kang Chengxun was appointed as the inspector. They led 20,000 soldiers of the God Army, 100,000 soldiers came from Xuanwu, Zhaoyi, Tianping, and Ganhua, and hundreds of practitioners of Imperial Astronomical Observatory to suppress the rebellion.”

Speaking of this, Li Yan looked at Li Ye and said, “The rebellion was suppressed within half a year. Just as the whole country once again praised uncle, the news that uncle died in the battle came suddenly. After the war, the imperial court rewarded the whole army according to their contributions. My uncle, the general of the whole army, only had little merit and received a moderate evaluation. On the contrary, the inspector Kang Chengxun contributed most and was greatly rewarded by the imperial court.”

Li Yan sighed. “Uncle contributed his whole life to the country and also died for the country. All people of noble aspirations admire him. But the last battle... The imperial court claimed that when they were going to defeat Pang Xun and his army, in order to arrest Pang Xun who had escaped, uncle pursued him alone and was ambushed by Pang Xun. When the masters of Imperial Astronomical Observatory arrived, they only found that uncle was killed in the Bagong Mountain...”

Li Ye waved his hand and beckoned the maids and musicians in the hall to leave.

After a while, Li Ye said, “So, the Jianghu rumors you heard in the East Capital this time are related to the death of my father?”

Li Yan nodded. There was no need to cover up. “I heard some secrets about the battle of that day. When the two armies were fighting and our army was going to win, Pang Xun abandoned his army to escape. Because he was in the high level of Qi-refining and it was said that he had reached Level 9 of Qi-refining, the soldiers of the army and the masters of the Imperial Astronomical Observatory couldn’t catch up him. Only uncle, who had touched the realm of the Base-build Threshold, managed to catch up...”

“Original, uncle’s cultivation was higher than Pang Xun’s, so the pursuit was not difficult. But it was strange that the armies were fighting near the Fei River, yet uncle followed Pang Xun to the Bagong Mountain... So some people said that several mysterious masters helped Pang Xun when he escaped and uncle was also killed by these mysterious masters.”

Li Ye frowned. “My father had reached the Level 10 of Qi-refining, Great Completion, and reached the realm of Base-build Threshold. In the whole world, few people’s cultivations could catch up with his cultivation. What kind of mysterious masters could stop him and kill him?”

Li Yan shook his head. “I don’t know... It’s said that there was more than one master who helped Pang Xun and killed uncle.”

Li Ye was silent for a moment. “In the end, Pang Xun was caught by Kang Chengxun. If these masters who helped Pang Xun were able to kill my father, how could they fail to rescue Pang Xun who fell into the hands of Kang Chengxun? His cultivation was much lower than my father’s.”

Li Yan thought for a moment and suddenly said, “After the Rebellion of Pang Xun, Kang Chengxun was rewarded and promoted while uncle’s evaluation was not high... Later, there were rumors that uncle’s merits and praise from people threatened the Emperor, so even though he died for the country, he still had little contribution. And Kang Chengxun was helped by Eunuch Sigui, so he was promoted...”

Li Ye frowned. “Rumors of the imperial court?”

Li Yan replied, “I also heard it in the East Capital.”

Li Ye was lost in thought.

At that time, the imperial court informed him that Li Xian had died in battle.

When a person falls from power, his hangers-on disperse. After that, those cultivators of Qi-refining who relied on Prince An’s Manor all left.

In the past, Prince An was powerful in the imperial court and even the Prime Minister was polite to him. At that time, there were a lot of visitors to Prince An’s Manor. Every night the Prince An’s Manor was bright and every day many people visited Prince An’s Manor. Prince An went out with the guard of honor and came back with guests, which were of high prestige.

But overnight, there were few visitors to Prince An’s Manor. And the title of Prince An almost was not inherited by his only son.

In the Last Life, Li Ye didn’t think much about these things. Now he found out how quickly those advisors left Prince An’s Manor. And those subordinates of higher ranks also found a better job too quickly.

And it was strange that Li Yao inherited the title of Prince An as Li Ye’s cousin. Although Li Yao was a genius among the children of the Imperial clan and Li Ye was not favored, Li Ye shouldn’t have been driven out of the Manor even if it was under the fierce competition of the Imperial Clan of now because he was the only son of Prince An who contributed a lot to the country.

But if the Emperor didn’t trust Li Xian any more, then all this made sense.

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