It is said that Qin Shihuang was controlled by a daughter

Chapter 523: Aggressive!

Zhangtai Palace

Unburnt orchid oil floated in the bronze mirror, its pale blue flames casting flickering light on the cloud-patterned murals on the four walls.

The palace servants of Zhangtai Palace originally thought that the emperor would go to Ganquan Palace or Jiaofang Palace first. The moment they saw Ying Zheng's figure appear, they instantly stopped breathing. Even before Ying Zheng stepped into the palace, a huge crowd of them knelt down.

It was very quiet, almost too quiet.

The copper water clock at the corner of the palace dripped, each sound like a hammering on cold stone bricks.

Following closely behind the emperor were Li Si and Wang Ben. Their expressions were more solemn than ever before.

In the stillness of the night, an announcement came from outside the palace: "The Imperial Physician, Feng Quji, requests an audience with His Majesty the Emperor."

The sound lingered for a long time before returning to the spacious hall.

Ying Zheng held a scroll of bamboo slips between his fingers, the ink already blurred from being rubbed by his fingertips, yet he didn't turn the pages for a long time. Suddenly, he gripped the bamboo slips tightly, his knuckles grinding against the edges of the bamboo, making a soft "crack" sound.

When news of Zhao Ji's death at the Yongcheng Palace arrived, he was looking at a map in his carriage when he suddenly pierced a bamboo slip with his vermilion brush, the ink splashing onto the two characters "Handan" and spreading into a deep brown.

In an instant, the place in his heart that had been abandoned for thirty years was filled with an inexplicable pain.

He quickly dismounted from the carriage and, to the astonishment of Li Si and Wang Ben, spurred his horse and galloped away.

Handan, Lü Buwei, Changping, Lao Ai, Cheng Jiao—these people and events were intertwined and passed by in a flash.

The poplar trees along the official road had long since shed their leaves, their bare branches piercing the gray sky like withered bones. With each passing gust of wind, they emitted a mournful "whoosh," as if spirits were flitting among the branches.

He headed in the direction of Ganquan Palace.

However, Ganquan Palace was a detached palace, separated from Shanglin Garden and the Wei River.

It seemed that Shanglin Garden was destined to bring him no peace; it was as if fate had chosen this day to teach him what cruel destiny truly meant.

A second secret order has been issued.

Li Si, who was accompanying him, felt his heart sink and dared not utter a word. He knelt down immediately.

"Old injuries have relapsed, and he is too ill to recover?" Ying Zheng paused, and a second later, a sharp pain shot through his temples, and his vision went black as he was about to fall off his horse.

"His Majesty!"

"Your Majesty! Your Majesty, please take care of your health!"

Beyond mountains and seas, the majesty of an emperor, in the face of birth, aging, sickness, and death, is as fragile as a glass cup.

Without his mother and wife, he could not have escaped the siege of Zhao and fled Handan.

His mother's love? When those two children in Yongcheng shouted that they wanted to kill him and become the King of Qin, everything had already collapsed in his heart.

What can he believe?

He regained his memories of his wife, the happiness he had so desperately sought, now teetering on the brink of death. He was the supreme emperor, the first man to rule this world, yet he could do nothing. He could only hear Xia Wuqie trembling as he said, "I will die, but please seek Bian Que's remedy."

From the age of twelve when he ascended the throne, he repeatedly told others that one can conquer nature.

He considers himself a person who absolutely believes in reality.

But just when he was at the height of his ambition, in the second year after the Fengshan ceremony at Mount Tai, he was made to know that there must be something—destiny trumps human affairs.

He felt the cold of winter. The blades were sharp as knives, inch by inch, slice by slice, cutting into his body and face.

Heaven wouldn't let him retain anything by his own will.

Just then, a man claiming to be a celestial master invited Xu Fu to travel east to seek immortality. Xu Fu claimed that he could obtain the celestial methods to bring the dead back to life and achieve immortality.

What can he still believe in? What can he hold onto? What will God give him?
Just now, Li Si had reached out to help the emperor, but how could Li Si compare to Zhao Gao, who was highly skilled in martial arts?

Zhao Gao quickly steadied him, then cleverly bypassed Li Si and immediately approached Ying Zheng, saying, "Your Majesty, Your Majesty, have you forgotten? Bian Que's medicine is in the palace. The Prime Minister's son once presented this medicine to help Han Fei's scheme, and gave Your Majesty two breath-holding pills."

A single sentence can kill without shedding blood.

Li Si's expression visibly froze. When Han Fei was imprisoned and attempted suicide, Li Xian had not yet come of age. Could it be that at that time, his son was already working for Ying Zheng? A chill ran down Li Si's spine.

Ying Zheng proposed to immediately hand this item over to Xia Wuqie.

Zhao Gao lowered his eyes and bowed his head respectfully, saying, "Your Majesty, that pill has always been kept in the Imperial Household Department. It was only the Inspector Li who took it away the day before yesterday."

"Your servant will immediately send someone to fetch it."

Lead-gray frozen clouds pressed low over the city of Xianyang, shredding the last ray of sunlight into dust.

Xu Zhi was not taken back to Zhilan Palace by carriage as Meng Yi had predicted.

Zhao Gao smiled and repeated what he had told Ying Zheng.

"Your Highness, please don't blame me for not reminding you. As the saying goes, the dead cannot be brought back to life. The Empress Dowager has passed away, and His Majesty the Emperor has not even visited Ganquan Palace. You must not disappoint Lord Meng, who broke the law to let you leave the palace."

"What do you mean?"

Zhao Gao deliberately chose to stay in this alley so that she could see Zhang Han being escorted away.

"Prefect Zhang was in charge of many affairs such as palace supplies and royal expenses, yet he lost such a precious item at such a critical juncture. His Majesty has transferred him to the frontier to guard the border."

"What, was the matter of the Junior Chamberlain also the work of the Prefect?" Zhao Gao heard that her tone was still relatively calm. He lifted the corner curtain and saw that she was wearing plain Qin robes, so she must have been to Ganquan Palace.

However, she was truly composed, her expression even calmer than Li Si's.

He quite admired it.

Then Zhao Gao laughed and said, "Your Highness has been favored by His Majesty the Emperor since childhood, and has always been quick-witted. I have always hoped that Your Highness can be a good princess... I think that Your Highness's most urgent task is to care about the living."

Xu Zhi frowned. "What did you do to my mother?"

"How dare I? Xia Wuqie said that the Empress's illness is exactly the same as that of Zhang Shaofu back then. How could it not be the work of the Yan people? Princess, your priority is not to argue with me. You should hurry up and find the lost items of the Shaofu."

Xu Zhi gradually realized the truth of her destiny.

She returned to the beginning with the ending in hand. The vegetation along the road was different, but the mountains remained the same. She held onto the order of her answers from last time, and had finally managed to pass the A version of the War of Annihilation, but the difficulty of the B version had increased exponentially.

"I believe that Lord Li's medical skills are superb, and he may be drawing on Bian Que's medical methods to treat his eye injury."

Zhao Gao was indeed a hidden danger to the Qin Dynasty, but he was not the only one who posed the problem.

He was either trying to drive a wedge between her and Li Xian, or he was feigning concern to remind her that Li Xian was not trustworthy.

Xu Zhi laughed to herself. No wonder Li Xian didn't want her to touch Zhao Gao, the one who stirred up trouble in the world. His ambition was evident.

Li Xian was never a kind person. He could endure for several years in Shu in order to return to Xianyang, and he could also abandon her halfway to destroy Han, not to mention plotting against Zhang Liang and using Wang Wan.

He had even considered rebellion. In Xu Zhi's view, he seemed to have no bottom line, so she could seem to accept even the most outrageous things.

She glanced at Zhao Gao, whose face remained calm and composed, showing no trace of resentment or malice.

Faced with the cold winter wind, she surprisingly developed a resolute will to fight against the frost and snow.

"Hehe, thank you for the reminder, Magistrate."

Zhao Gao was clearly puzzled by her smile.

The next second, before the smile on her lips had faded, her eyes were cold and silent. "I will ask Li Xian myself. However, not long ago, I happened to hear about many of your crimes. I urge you, Prefect, to take heed."

After she finished speaking, she walked alone towards Zhangtai Palace.

She pushed open the palace doors, looked up at the throne, and shattered the solemn and profound darkness.

-

It's likely that Li Xian only remembered some moral bottom lines when he realized that Li Xian was a doctor who could heal the sick and save lives.

Liu Bang was surprised. Li Xian was no ordinary person; he was a high-ranking official in Qin, and the kind who was ruthless and unapproachable. He had survived countless near-death experiences in Kuaiji, and the two of them had supported each other until Fusu's army came to their aid, but even that couldn't persuade Li Xian to drop the charge of investigating the murder of the Han nobleman on his journey.

Fortunately, thanks to Ying Hehua, the so-called bandits of Chu were held responsible for a lot of the blame.

However, Li Xian actually came to visit in person.

He knelt at the door. Liu Bang was not the kind of person who would never take advantage of others, even when he heard his son crying loudly.

He still planned to find out why Lord Li was so kind before Li Xian used the medical skills that Lü Ze had described as unparalleled.

When Liu Ying finally saw the "miracle doctor" his uncle had mentioned, he cried even louder and tried to flail his arms and legs, but he couldn't move his body.

The boy's groans of pain.

Just then, a little girl grabbed his sleeve.

He couldn't see, but he could hear the girl's voice.

"Ah Chun, please save my brother. I beg you, please save him."

Save him.

Save her...

Once he decides to become a doctor and save lives, he will do his best and never deviate from his path.

The pill, once swallowed by Liu Ying, barely saved his life.

He took out silver needles, heated them over a lamp, felt and pressed the bones, and accurately located several acupoints such as Geshu and Pishu.

Despite being drenched in sweat, Li Xian didn't stop for a moment.

He never married, nor did he have any children or grandchildren.

He couldn't grasp the things his father had suddenly realized on his deathbed.

In his decaying soul, a trace of the bitterness he once longed for but could not find was touched.

"Since you are someone the princess values, what difficulty would it be for me to lend a helping hand to your son?"

Liu Bang initially didn't understand the cause and effect. However, seeing his son's complexion turn rosy, he breathed a sigh of relief. He then thought about what he had heard and completely agreed with Lü Ze's words: having some connection with Ying Hehua could save one's life.

The room was filled with a mixture of bloodstains and the smell of medicine.

Severe criminal penalties and special considerations
Analogous to theft: Qin law regarded "concealing public property" as theft. If an official deliberately destroyed records or falsified accounts to cover up the loss, he would be punished according to the "Theft Law" and might face "tattooing on the face and hard labor" or even the death penalty.

Special items incur heavier penalties: If the lost item is a "heavyweight" symbolizing imperial power, such as an imperial seal or military tally, it may be considered a crime of "great disrespect," which can result in death by public execution or being cut in half at the waist.