Chapter 56: Unkillable, but Not Immune to Starvation?
Xiao Li had passed out from the drug, but she only managed to sleep for two hours.
She woke before dawn. When she tried to get out of bed, her legs gave out from under her, and she nearly fell. Her entire body felt limp and weak.
"Princess..."
Lan Yue and Hong Yue were keeping watch together. Lan Yue, the lighter sleeper, immediately noticed that Xiao Li was awake.
Xiao Li waved a hand at her. "Go back to sleep. I’m just going for a walk."
Lan Yue stood and draped an outer robe over Xiao Li’s shoulders. "There’s a chill in the night air, Princess. You’re still weak; you mustn’t catch a cold."
Xiao Li let her finish, then pinched her cheek. "There, I’m fine. You don’t need to follow me."
She pushed the door open and stepped outside. It was surprisingly bright; the full, round moon still hung in a corner of the sky, casting its lingering glow.
Only now did Xiao Li finally have a chance to properly appreciate the Mid-Autumn moon. It was truly as bright and round as could be.
She didn’t need any lanterns to see her surroundings clearly. She followed the covered walkway all the way up to the third-floor loft.
Lighting a candle, she retrieved the shotgun from a hidden compartment.
She had used up all the shells she had made before and hadn’t been in any hurry to replenish her stock. Now, all she had was an empty gun.
A gun without ammunition is just scrap metal. She had grown careless.
She’d grown careless because she knew she couldn’t kill Liu Xueyin and, for a time, couldn’t find a way around that fact.
’What a stupid mistake.’
’Especially since that moment of carelessness nearly led to her being assaulted by Lu Yanzhi. A complete humiliation.’
Her body was still very weak, with barely any strength in her hands. The drug hadn’t fully worn off, leaving her body unusually sensitive. The slightest exertion brought on a wave of both pain and itchiness.
However, this didn’t stop her from crafting new shells.
Filling the casing with gunpowder, adding the iron pellets, tamping it down, and sealing it shut.
Loading the shell.
She raised the gun, aiming down from the loft. That was the direction of the quarters where Lu Yanzhi was now staying.
A pity this wasn’t a sniper rifle.
’But it won’t be long now,’ she mused. ’I’ll be able to build one soon.’
Whether it was because of the medicine Cen An had given her or for some other reason, she felt remarkably calm, even as she contemplated killing Lu Yanzhi.
She was calm to the point of having no emotional ripples whatsoever. Killing him was a necessity, as simple and certain as drinking a glass of water. It wasn’t worth wasting any emotion on.
Xiao Li suddenly realized—this was her true self.
All that indignation, resentment, and frantic madness—those were emotions she had absorbed when she was trapped in this body’s original consciousness.
She herself... had long ago become a person whose heart was like stagnant water, devoid of sorrow and joy.
Despite having just gone through something so infuriating, Xiao Li’s mind was now unnaturally calm.
She couldn’t kill Liu Xueyin, but on a chessboard, an isolated king is doomed to fall.
She couldn’t kill Liu Xueyin, but she could certainly weaken her.
She had no particular attachment to her identity as a Princess, but in a world so fixated on rank and status, the title made things much more convenient.
Therefore, while maintaining her status, she had to eliminate everyone around Liu Xueyin, and then... capture the woman herself.
’That’s right,’ she realized. ’If I can’t kill her, I can still starve her, can’t I?’
Only an Immortal can survive without food or water, and Liu Xueyin was no Immortal.
"Haha..."
Xiao Li couldn’t help but let out a short laugh. She’d love to see what that ghostly thing protecting Liu Xueyin would do about that.
But dealing with Liu Xueyin wasn’t the immediate priority. She still needed to find a place to hide her. Otherwise, if one of her many capable admirers managed to rescue her, guided by some unseen hand of fate, the whole plan would be for nothing.
So, the most important thing for now was to get rid of the people around her.
The first on that list, of course, was Lu Yanzhi.
Killing Lu Yanzhi would be easy. If she ran over and put a shot in him right now, he definitely wouldn’t see tomorrow’s sunrise. But after she killed him, the Lu family would certainly demand her life in return.
Even if she didn’t kill Lu Yanzhi with her own hands, if he were to die out in the world, the Lu family would never let her off the hook.
Imperial Power and the aristocratic families. On the surface, a relationship of ruler and subject; in reality, a system of checks and balances.
The Emperor feared those aristocratic families, and he feared the Lu family.
----
The day after the Mid-Autumn Festival was supposed to be a day of rest, but because of the previous night’s events, the Emperor had only slept for a short while before rising early.
He had just finished dressing when a eunuch came to announce, "Your Majesty, Princess Xuanyang requests an audience."
The Emperor glanced at the sky in surprise. "This early?"
The eunuch replied, "The Princess arrived the moment the palace gates opened."
"Let her in."
The Emperor washed his face and went to the front hall, still pondering the reason for Xiao Li’s visit at such an early hour.
Xiao Li was dressed in red, garbed as a young nobleman. Her hair was bound up in a coronet, accentuating her tall, slender figure. With her waist cinched by a wide belt and a folding fan in hand, she cut the perfect figure of a handsome, debonair young man.
Before the Emperor could question her attire, she flashed a brilliant smile, her voice clear and bright.
"Brother, I’ve come to do you a favor."
The Emperor’s expression immediately turned skeptical. "You must have misspoken. Surely you mean you’ve come to ask for my help?"
Xiao Li shook her head. "Not at all. I am here to do you a favor, Brother."
Hearing such a joke first thing in the morning seemed to wake the Emperor up completely.
"Very well. Tell me, how could you possibly help me?"
With a flick of her wrist, Xiao Li snapped her fan open—a stylish flourish. She then quickly stepped up to the Emperor, using the fan to shield their conversation as she whispered, "I will help you eliminate the Lu family."
The Emperor was speechless. ’This joke is even less funny than the last one,’ he thought. ’It’s not funny at all.’
"Stop this nonsense and get out. I have matters to attend to."
Xiao Li sighed. "I knew you wouldn’t believe me, Brother."
The Emperor shot her a cold glance. "You’re spouting nonsense. What is there to believe?"
Xiao Li looked up, her eyes twinkling. "Then, Brother, do you dare to make a wager with me?"
The Emperor’s brow furrowed in annoyance.
Xiao Li lightly tapped his shoulder with her fan. "Why so angry, Brother? I haven’t finished."
"One month... hmm, that’s a bit short. Within two months, I will make the Lu family vanish from the imperial court. What do you say to that, Brother?"
"You only need to provide me with some small conveniences as I make my move, Brother. I’ll handle the rest. As for my reward, I want an imperial edict of divorce, inscribed on a Golden Dragon Jade Scroll."
The Golden Dragon Jade Scroll was the highest form of imperial edict, one that had to be publicly proclaimed throughout the realm.
"Do you think it’s a fair trade, Brother?"
The Emperor and the Princess were standing extremely close, and the great hall was so vast and empty that even the nearest eunuch couldn’t discern what they were saying.
They only knew that Princess Xuanyang was smiling when she left, and that she carried a golden order from the Emperor with her.
"Attendant!"
"Your servant is here."
The Emperor asked, "What happened between Xuanyang and the Prince Consort last night?"
The eunuch was slightly surprised, seemingly not having expected the Emperor to be unaware.
"Reporting to Your Majesty, last night, Princess Chen stumbled and fell, and the lion charged at her. Prince Chen moved to fend off the lion. The Prince Consort, in his haste to save her, pulled Princess Chen back but continued to embrace her, forgetting to let go. After the rampaging lion was slain, the Princess drew a knife and began slashing, only stopping once she had wounded Prince Chen."
The Emperor frowned. ’Was it all just a fit of jealousy?’
But Xiao Li’s expression hadn’t seemed like that of someone blinded by jealousy.
On the contrary, he was the one who had been swayed by just a few of her words and had actually agreed.
The Emperor was starting to have regrets, but Xiao Li had spoken with such absolute conviction.
Two months. He would give her two months. He would see what kind of storm she could really stir up.