It is said that Qin Shihuang was controlled by a daughter

Chapter 613 Li Si Goes South, Crisis in Lingcheng

Yao Jia arrived at the Prime Minister's residence.

This was the forty-third day of the emperor's fifth tour.

On the fifth day after the Prime Minister declared himself seriously ill, Wei Liao assumed the presidency.

Yao Jia was constantly worried. Having served in the same court for many years, Yao Jia knew very well that Li Si was an extremely vindictive person.

Only a few important officials knew about Han Fei's death, one of whom was Yao Jia.

Outsiders only knew that the hermit in Zhongnan Mountain had died, but they did not know why martial law had been imposed in Xianyang.

He was very worried that Li Si would bring up the old story of how he had killed Han Fei in Xianyang prison.

Yao Jia had previously followed Wang Wan's lead and had made a significant miscalculation for a considerable period. He feared that Li Si would settle accounts with him at this time. ...His old colleague had become his direct superior, and he couldn't afford to make any mistakes now that he had finally been reinstated by the emperor.

As the autumn wind blew, the study was still quite warm. Before even stepping over the threshold, Yao Jia heard a low cough coming from inside.

The servants in the mansion invited him to take a seat, but he was terrified.

The screen is removed.

Yao Jia seemed not to recognize the person dressed in the prime minister's robes sitting at the table.

Li Si had visibly aged; his sideburns and beard had turned white.

But Yao Jia didn't expect that the instructions he received were unrelated to this.

Li Si mostly talked about recent official matters, and Yao Jia's mood gradually calmed down from being anxious.

It turned out that Li Si had received an imperial decree and would be heading to the mausoleum city within a few days.

Before Yao Jia left, Li Si asked a question, "The position of Censor-in-Chief has been vacant for a long time. Does Minister Yao have anyone to recommend?"

The Assistant Censor assists the Grand Censor in handling daily supervisory affairs and is responsible for impeaching officials. The next step up is the Grand Censor, a position that was held by figures such as Feng Quji and Wang Wan.

Yao Jia pondered for a moment, thinking it over and over again, "In my opinion, Chen Ping is a man capable of undertaking important tasks..."

Yao Jia said that Li Si glanced at him with an unusually strange look in his eyes.

Yao Jia was unaware of the details of what happened in the Lishan underground palace.

He also listed some of Chen Ping's achievements in recent years, especially starting with his mission to the State of Qi where he won without a fight, and said that he was very good at overall planning and had outstanding abilities.

“Zhang Liang was famous throughout the world for his brilliant strategy in the Battle of Jingxing. I believe that Chen Ping was no less brilliant.”

"Do you know who recommended him? You and he are both from Wei."

"...Chen Ping did indeed enter the court through Yong'an's recommendation...but the Great Qin has always appointed people based solely on their talents. The Prime Minister must be certain that I am not acting out of personal favoritism."

Yao Jia's appearance had faded, but his voice remained familiar to Li Si.

After a moment's thought, Li Si finally agreed to the matter.

"The chief minister is acting in the best interests of the Qin Dynasty. Li Si should not hesitate to recommend talented individuals for the position of chief minister."

As Yao Jia left his residence, scenes from the past flashed before his eyes once more.

Zhao Gao used despicable methods to humiliate the court officials. The tall, obese Yao Jia was forcibly shoved into a small shackle. Disheveled and filthy, he looked at Zhao Gao, then at Li Si. "Li Si, oh Li Si, I once envied you, I hated you. But now, a mere eunuch has manipulated you to this extent! I despise you. You've made me despise you… Jia, a mere man of Wei, entered this world as a commoner. Glory and wealth, honor and disgrace, all were bestowed upon me by the Qin Dynasty. Now, the emperor has died, the empire has been overturned, and the prince has perished… Jia, I have no face to live on, and shall follow the late emperor in death." He spoke with tears streaming down his face, mustering all his strength, and slammed his head against the prison wall.

Running your head against a wall won't kill you; they assumed Yao Jia had knocked himself unconscious.

But he didn't move for two days in a row.

When the jailer went to check, he turned him over and discovered something unusual... a broken piece of wood file was embedded in his temple.

Similar words spoken by different people, yet appearing with varying degrees of tragedy, haunted Li Si's mind, leaving these images and echoes lingering there forever...

Upon hearing Yao Jia's voice, Li Si suddenly felt a sharp pain in a certain part of his body.

He finally realized, belatedly, that there was one person's voice he would never hear again in his lifetime.

he died.

The spring breeze on Zhongnan Mountain is bone-chillingly cold.

When he arrived, Han Fei had already stopped breathing.

He couldn't believe that so much scarlet blood was flowing from his body, the excessive amount of blood soaking through his clothes.

He never heard what Han Fei said before his death.

Li Si thought to himself, "Probably he doesn't have anything to say to him either."

He ruined too much of himself. He damaged his body, causing him to suffer from a mouth ailment for nearly a decade.

He betrayed their friendship, destroyed his ambitions, and ruined his country and home.

Even Han Fei's once proud handwriting was rewritten by Li Si, who forced him to write Qin seal script after he became Wen Shan.

Blood was the most filthy thing in his eyes. He couldn't stand it even if Li Xian had blood on him.

Li Si dared not touch Han Fei now, feeling that it was his hands that were filthy.

Most of Han Fei's status as a prince of the state was overshadowed by the appearance of the name Wen Shan.

I remember he was one of Han Fei's men; most of them were killed or wounded.

He left behind few belongings in this world.

If we were to categorize it, it would likely be limited to Legalist thought.

Then Li Si is considered one of them.

Two hours later, Li Si decided to risk his life to send him back to the Han King's Mausoleum complex in the old territory of Xinzheng.

He moved him and saw the Qi script hidden under his sleeves, written on the ground.

Li Si, who was always cold-blooded and almost inhuman, finally broke down in tears.

Han Fei's blood, Han Fei's last words, everything in Zhongnan Mountain—what he saw, or rather, what truly made him 'remember' that past.

The incident at Lingcheng was deliberately orchestrated.

Han Fei's death was by no means an accident.

The secret letter from his son in Lingcheng completely stirred up Li Si's inner turmoil.

He misunderstood his son countless times, thinking he was a complete, love-struck fool.

Only then did he realize that Li Xian's strangeness stemmed from this. And he had made twenty years of effort. For more than half of those years, his family's influence still surpassed that of Ying Hehua.

Even today, in order to uphold his father's dignity, he tries to take all the blame for the past.

Those sins are my debt; please, Father, allow me to repay them.

In his secret letter, Li Xian also emphasized one thing to Li Si: "Regardless of Your Highness's surname and given name, whether she is Xu Zhi or Yong'an, she is absolutely His Majesty's daughter. Father, please do not listen to slander."

A day later, the officials chatted in small groups after court.

"When Marquis Wucheng (Wang Jian) ​​passed away and Marquis Longxi (Li Xin) returned to the court in triumph in the south, Prime Minister Li went to the temporary palace in Lingcheng. The newly appointed Imperial Censor is none other than the Director Chen Ping. I wonder what changes will take place in the court in the future."

This is the bustling noise of the magnificent palace complex.

The prison in Xianyang was extremely quiet and clean. The torches that had been burning for a long time had shed a lot of ash, which drifted down from the air like moths.

A woman with her hands and feet bound is being tried.

The harsh laws and severe punishments were not empty words. Just as the second layer of punishment was being added, the clamp was suddenly removed from Shen Zhi's hands.

"Ha, this female prisoner is lucky. The higher-ups said to send her to the imperial palace for His Majesty's judgment."

The person Shen Zhi met upon her release from prison was neither Chen Ping nor Yao Jia, but Li Si.

She didn't have much affection for the Li family.

The father and son secretly plotted and schemed against each other, making it impossible to guard against them.

She barely wiped the blood from the corner of her mouth, and glanced coldly at Li Si through the prison cell. A few months ago, she had just arrived in Xianyang when she was arrested and imprisoned. Xianyang Prison was as impenetrable as copper walls; it truly was a place where one could not cry out to heaven in vain.

It was hard for her not to suspect that the Li family had seized power by stepping on Zhilan Palace.

Li Si seemed like a completely different person.

"Her Highness the Princess has always been patient and persuasive in her guidance of the Prime Minister, but he has not appreciated it for many years. Even His Majesty has issued an imperial decree, and the Prime Minister speaks such words to a prisoner like me today. Don't you find it somewhat ridiculous?"

He stated explicitly that the matter in Lingcheng was complex and complicated.

A meteorite falling from the sky is never a simple matter.

The six kingdoms will use a powerful sorcerer to confuse the mystery of the princess's origins.

To resolve this predicament, besides his willingness to go, the Empress herself must also go.

However, Li Si could no longer easily meet Empress Zheng Li as he had during the Qin Dynasty.