Chapter 1960: The Sage Emperor’s Secret!
Translated by: Hypersheep325
Edited by: Michyrr
‘Tenth month. Vermillion Bird Street. Third Son Xuan encountered a beautiful Hu concubine. In anger, he killed the Duke of Shan’s son and seized her… this matter was publicly known, and the One Above was enraged…’
‘The fourteenth year, first month. Qu Province was struck by a flood, and the disaster relief money was embezzled… the One Above ordered the imperial censors to investigate the matter… Third Son Xuan was involved, privately engaging in usury within Qu Province… enraged, ordered the Imperial Clan Court to thoroughly investigate the matter!’
As Wang Chong read record after record, his eyebrows twitched and his mind reeled.
Riding a eunuch as a horse… having the eunuchs fight with each other… gambling with another Prince… beating up eunuchs… stealing auspicious beasts… privately punishing palace maids… killing the Duke of Shan’s son… engaging in usury… All of these deeds left Wang Chong flabbergasted and alarmed.
Is this really the Sage Emperor?
Wang Chong muttered to himself in confusion.
In every aspect, these records recorded an incapable prince who was arrogant, lascivious, irritable, presumptuous, and contemptible. There was nothing here that could in any way be connected to the image of a wise sovereign.
But the imperial records of the palace could not be falsified. While the court historians were different from the Yan Clan, they also placed great weight on their words. Moreover, the court historians directly answered to the Son of Heaven and could not be controlled by the Princes. There was no doubting the authenticity of these words.
But… what in the world happened?
Here was an unworthy Prince who had no respect for decorum and who would savagely beat eunuchs. With so many flaws, Wang Chong suddenly understood why Gao Lishi had destroyed these records to cover for the Sage Emperor.
But what had happened in the middle of all this?
Why had the Third Son Xuan that the previous Emperor had said was unworthy and incapable of succeeding the throne suddenly turned into the beloved and wise Sage Emperor?
These two had completely different personalities. How could they be the same person?!
Wang Chong felt like his mind was in disarray.
Countless thoughts flooded into his mind, and then, suddenly, the image of the double fish jade pendant the Sage Emperor had given him floated to the top of his mind. This jade pendant was constantly turning, and the two lifelike black and white fish were seeming to turn with it.
Wang Chong suddenly had an absurd theory, but he quickly rejected it.
Wang Chong raised his head and muttered, “I’m still missing a little, one last piece of crucial information…”
Just like a puzzle, he had seen so many pieces but was still missing the crucial center piece. Without this critical piece of information, he could not connect the others and create the complete puzzle.
Wang Chong continued to ‘dig’.
Whoosh! With a thought from Wang Chong, all of the remaining burned books flew up.
And when he saw one last page fly past, his pupils constricted and his face paled.
Unlike all the other pages that had caught his attention, this one did not record one of Third Son Xuan’s misdeeds. Instead, it recounted a minor incident in the palace.
‘…Third month. Third Son Xuan became severely ill, his fever unabated as he rested in Jade Dragon Palace… three days later, Xuan awoke. His personality had greatly changed. He dismissed all the palace ladies and generously treated the eunuchs and guards…’
Boom!
This short line of words made Wang Chong’s entire body shudder in shock.
Severe illness… fever… awakening… personality change…
Wang Chong was no stranger to this. Around two years ago, his transmigration and reincarnation experience had been exactly like this.
How could this be?
A flash of lightning crossed through his mind, and Wang Chong’s eyes flew open. Gripping the piece of paper, he trembled.
A man could easily change what he ate and drank, but in a single day, it was impossible to change one’s personality.
And more importantly, the contents recorded here were far too similar to his own experiences.
Before the age of eighteen, the Sage Emperor had been the unworthy ‘Third Son Xuan’, but after eighteen, he had become the wise and powerful monarch revered by all.
And before the age of sixteen, Wang Chong had been a hedonistic scion well known through the capital, an incompetent idler who liked cock-fighting and dog-fighting. But after sixteen, in the space of a few years, he had become the Supreme Marshal of the realm and feared by all the other countries.
Wang Chong had never imagined that he and the Sage Emperor would have such a similar course in life.
The same person experiencing two completely different lives… Could it be that the Sage Emperor was also…
Wang Chong stopped thinking there. The truth had come too abruptly and was too shocking.
Even though Wang Chong had had this theory before, he still quickly rejected it. It was far too absurd!
Could one world really have two people like this?
And even more shocking was that if everything was really what he thought it to be, what roles had Eunuch Gao, his grandfather, Minister Yao, and Old Master Yan played?
How many of them knew the truth? One or a few?
What else had Old Master Yao guessed?
Or perhaps they had not guessed at anything. Perhaps they had simply agreed to conceal the Sage Emperor’s inglorious past to maintain the Sage Emperor’s image as a wise sovereign.
But if everything was really as he had imagined, what did that say about the Sage Emperor’s current change? Could it be that Third Son Xuan had…
The room was silent, and Wang Chong stood for a long while in a daze.
Wang Chong didn’t even know how he had walked out of the estate. By the time he met up with Xu Qiqin and the others outside, he was still completely out of it, his mind in chaos.
“Did you find the answer?” Xu Qiqin asked in concern, her bell-like voice ringing out. She could sense that Wang Chong’s mental state was very unstable, making her rather worried.
“Mm!”
Wang Chong nodded.
“I have some ideas, but they need to be verified. When the time is right, I’ll tell you.”
Xu Qiqin asked no more, only giving an understanding nod. The party quickly left.
Time slowly passed. The truth concealed in the missing books and his own unspeakable truth were buried in the depths of Wang Chong’s mind.
There were some things that could not be said, but at least Wang Chong was no longer so confused.
Meanwhile, as Wang Chong was investigating the Sage Emperor…
Far to the north of the capital, past the Great Steppe, past thousands of li of deserted land, farther north than Lake Baikal, was the extreme north of the continent.
This place was a bleak land, far from human civilization. Even the Turkic shepherds and the scattered barbarian tribes were not willing to travel so far.
Dingling!
The jangling of bells rang out, and a few moments later, two teams of horsemen rapidly galloped over the vast and barren land.
These two teams of horsemen were encased in heavy armor, and their saddles carried sabers, spears, and bows. These were not Turkic cavalry, but cavalry of the Great Tang.
These were the elite cavalry Wang Chong had sent to scout the extreme north.
Twenty-some days had passed since the initial order. The men had cautiously made their way past the Great Steppe, going completely undetected, and had finally reached this vast and deserted land.
On this boundless and flat land, they had already encountered several dangers: cavalry belonging to unknown factions, tribal warriors, wolf packs that vanished into the night, venomous snakes… there were even massive bears that seemed to come out of nowhere. It was only through the bells on the necks of the horses, whose sound traveled several hundred li, that they were able to keep in touch with each other and avoid these dangers to reach this place.
“So cold!”
The two teams joined together. At the front, mounted on a white horse, was a muscular man with extremely energetic and bright eyes. As he looked toward the north, he let out a breath of cold air.
Starting from a few days ago, the scenery had begun to change. The sparse and withered grass on the ground had begun to be covered in frost, and the entire world was layered over with a faint white. And as they went farther north, the air became colder and colder, and the snow thicker and thicker.
A cold gust blew past, containing dense snowflakes that were visible with the naked eye.
“Everyone, get ready! Take out your fur coats. In another thousand li, we’ll reach the end of our mission. Once we finish surveying the area, we’ll immediately report back to His Highness!” the squad leader sternly said.
The elites who had reached this place were brimming with Stellar Energy and were extremely resistant to the cold. But as they traveled farther north and the cold air thickened, they began to feel a greater drain on their Stellar Energy, and it was getting harder and harder to go on.
“Hyah!”
The horsemen swiftly took out the prepared fur coats, and they formed into one long convoy that made its way northward.
Whoosh!
Another cold wind blew, this one bringing with it a snowstorm.
It was difficult to imagine that while the Central Plains was calm and peaceful, the trees lush and green while cows and sheep happily chewed on their cud, in this place, snowstorms howled and lashed the land with freezing cold.
The cold winds sliced across their bodies like sharp blades, and even the war horses were affected. The horsemen were forced to part off some of their Stellar Energy to help the war horses resist the cold.
“Look there! It’s a forest!” someone suddenly shouted.
The others became revitalized, and looked up ahead. Truly, ten li away, a large white forest rose up from the horizon.
A forest meant a place where they could rest and shelter from the snowstorm.
“Let’s go!”
The horsemen picked up the pace and quickly entered the white forest.
In the lands of the extreme north that were devoid of human habitation, the trees had been allowed to grow freely for several hundred to several thousand years. Each one was thirty to forty meters tall, and some of them had even reached an astonishing height of nearly one hundred meters.
Such tall trees would be regarded as divine trees in the Central Plains.
As they entered this primordial arctic forest, the power of the snowstorm waned as expected.
As elites from the army, they had long ago developed a sense of cohesion and teamwork. With the snowstorm’s power blunted by the forest, one part of the group set up camp and rested while the other part stood on guard.