Chapter 3: The Scorned Prince's Revenge
The grand hall descended into sepulchral silence. Courtiers who moments earlier had been effusing felicitations now sealed their lips, exchanging furtive glances pregnant with implication. *The Fu scioness has transgressed all bounds of propriety;* their unspoken censure reverberated. Though Sixth Prince Ye Ling had long endured mockery as the capital's jester-prince, the divine ichor of imperial lineage still flowed through his veins – sacrosanct blood no mortal dared openly disparage.
All present recalled the immutable truth: Ye Ling's memory for slights stretched longer than the imperial ancestral scrolls.
---
### **Celestial Wrath Manifest**
**"Do these allegations hold substance?"** Emperor Shang's countenance darkened like storm clouds over Mount Kunlun. His progeny might wear imperfection as mortal men do robes, yet remain heaven's chosen scion – the empire's living jade seal no tongue might besmirch.
Minister of Rites Fu Hai prostrated himself, his ceremonial headdress trembling. "This lowly earthworm implores celestial benevolence! My wayward daughter's impudence shall be rectified—"
**"Still thy tongue!"** The Son of Heaven's glacial tone froze the chamber. **"Our bloodline tolerates no peasant's mockery."
Fu Hai scrambled forward in performative contrition, forehead striking marble before Ye Ling's dragon-embroidered boots. "This grovelling ant kowtows to expunge familial disgrace!" Beneath his obsequious display, resentment simmered. *Let the marriage contract burn to ashes if the chit finds royal union repugnant!
The emperor's stormy visage softened—until Ye Ling's unexpected chuckle fractured the tension. With panther-like grace, he raised the trembling minister.
**"No lasting offence taken. Once Yuan Yuan graces my inner chambers, our fates shall intertwine as bamboo roots beneath soil."
*Kinship?!
The emperor's phoenix eyes narrowed. **"Ling'er, you'd still claim this serpent-tongued girl?"
Fu Yuan Yuan – the capital's celebrated prodigy and the Fu clan's crowning jewel – reduced to concubinal status? The court would erupt like lava from Taishan's molten heart.
Ye Ling knelt with oiled humility, his voice honeyed arsenic: **"Though she rejects me as husband, her brilliance commands admiration. In humble petition for today's service avenging the Thirteenth Imperial Uncle's honour... Celestial Father, let this unworthy son's desire be sanctified."
Fu Hai's left eyelid twitched like a dying moth. This b*st*rd princeling's audacity mocks the Jade Emperor himself!
---
### **Edict of Humiliation**
With a sigh that stirred the palace's golden wind chimes, Emperor Shang extended his dragon-headed sceptre. **"Let Fu Yuan Yuan enter Chaohua Palace—as sixth-rank *Baolin* consort."
The lowest rung in the hierarchy of royal concubines. A silken slipper's blow to aristocratic pride.
Fu Hai's molars ground like millstones, crushing jade. **"This... grateful worm thanks Heaven's boundless mercy."
Ye Ling's lips curved into a smile as sharp as a crescent moon blade. **"Your filial son receives this celestial boon."** *Exquisite,* he mused. His third-rank concubine, Lü Wu, would now tower over the haughty heiress like a phoenix above a sparrow. Let the proud peacock choke on this feast of ashes.
*She forfeited her throne. Now she'll warm my bed as night soil nourishes orchids.
As his fingers caressed the phoenix hairpin trophy from last autumn's conquest of General Zhao's wife, his thoughts drifted to Zhao Ling'er, that untamed western desert gazelle. Perhaps she'll keep Yuan Yuan company ere long...
---
### **Serpent's Hiss**
Leaning into Fu Hai's personal space until their nose bridges nearly touched, Ye Ling's whisper carried precisely to the minister's ear:
**"Have her scrubbed with peony dew and delivered to my chambers before the night-blooming cereus opens."
The minister's complexion aged ten harvest cycles in a single breath.
The Price of Arrogance
Fu Hai's knees buckled as though struck by celestial lightning, his jade belt plaques clattering like fractured ice against marble. The assembled mandarins observed the Minister of Rites' ashen countenance with veiled schadenfreude, their silk sleeves concealing trembling hands that secretly rejoiced at this seismic shift in court dynamics. The capital's golden phoenix is now plucked to sixth rank, *Baolin – a cosmic demotion rendering her scarcely distinguishable from palace laundresses in the celestial hierarchy.
---
### **I. The Celestial Sovereign's Paradox**
When vermilion-tasselled court whisks cleared the hall, Ye Ling commanded Liu Ren to orchestrate a symphony of renewal – bloodied warriors transformed into jade-armoured sentinels polishing *modao* blades before Taiji Hall's vermilion pillars.
Emperor Shang's dragon throne creaked as he leaned forward, amber eyes narrowing. **"Must thou court discord ere victory wine cools? This humiliation of Fu's lineage forges not allies but vipers in thy bedchamber."
The prince's countenance blossomed into a beatific smile as he proffered ginseng-steeped tribute. **"What fortress stands impregnable beneath Heaven's mandate when guarded by the Vermilion Bird's wings?"**
**"The Fu clan's roots entwine three dynasties,"** the emperor countered, though approval glimmered beneath censure. For decades, Fu Hai's machinations to crown his daughter through princely courtships had festered like untreated war wounds. **"No jade countenance may scorn the Azure Dragon's spawn,"** he mused, stroking his beard. *Let all maidens prostrate themselves before my flawed pearl.
Ye Ling executed a pantomime of contrition, jade guan dipping. **"Even conquerors kneel before moonlit beauty – does the Dragon Emperor not know his son's fatal weakness?"**
**"Enough theatrics,"** the sovereign rumbled, though celestial approval warmed his voice. **"Reveal the demon blade that shattered Chu's cavalry like terracotta warriors."
---
### **II. The Modao's Bitter Revelation**
Ye Ling unfurled silk scrolls inked with metallurgical secrets. The emperor's initial euphoria evaporated like morning mist confronting mountain realities.
**The Threefold Crucible:
I **Prodigious Material Toll**: Forging one *jin* of celestial steel devoured a hundredfold crude ore-alchemical transmutation, bleeding the treasury white.
**II. Artisan's Crucible**: Fifteen blades demanded a hundred souls' toil – eunuchs hauling bellows, guards mining nightsoil-tainted iron, Master Lu's beard singed by a three-month furnace vigil.
**III. Heavenly Mandate's Limit**: **"Only Fu Xi's golden age could birth ten thousand such phoenix blades,"** Ye Ling confessed, tracing a smith's charcoal fingerprint on vellum.
The emperor's shoulders sagged beneath nine-dragon robes. **"Three thousand might exhaust our realm's iron veins,"** he murmured, returning the scrolls as one might relinquish immortality elixir. **"Keep these dragonbone diagrams. When jade stepsisters grace thy reign..."
---
### **III. Tenebrous Portents**
- **Ministerial Viper's Coil**: Fu Hai's hunched silhouette at the moon gate promised venom distilled through generations of bureaucratic warfare.
- **Dual Mandate's Mask**: Behind Ye Ling's filial nods lurked cold calculus – *my ascension shall melt iron veins into rivers of celestial steel.
**Ephemeral Legacy**: The furled scrolls in the vermilion lacquer casket embodied dying celestial authority's last breath and dragonfire ambition's first spark – twin phantoms dancing on history's parchment.
The Emperor's Gambit
### **I. A Strategic Masterstroke**
Had Ye Ling remained the indolent prodigal of yore, Emperor Shang would never have contemplated him as heir apparent.
**"Father, the *modao* served merely as an interim countermeasure against the Chu cavalry,"** Ye Ling remarked nonchalantly, casting the schematics into the brazier's flames. **"Pressed by exigency, we resorted to crude forging."
Yet even this formidable blade remained but a primitive instrument. The true cataclysms lay concealed within Ye Ling's clandestine armoury.
**"An interim measure?"** The emperor stared at the curling ashes, thunderstruck.
For the first time, he perceived an unfathomable depth in his son's gaze.
How could such revolutionary artifice be dismissed as ephemeral?
All lingering doubts regarding Ye Ling's genius dissolved like morning mist before the sun.
**"Do you recall the prior design, Father?"** Ye Ling's smile held arcane knowledge as he unfurled a familiar parchment. **"For the third trial, I shall gift Chu an astonishment that shall quell their ambitions for a decade."
Paper pacts meant naught to waning empires. Only through absolute devastation could adversaries be cowed into lasting submission.
Upon the scroll gleamed the **firearm** blueprint – its alchemical mysteries still confounding, yet its annihilative potential seared into imperial memory.
**"Can this... abomination of steel be wrought?"** The emperor's voice trembled between awe and trepidation.
**"Grant me ten days,"** came the unshakeable reply. **"Then witness creation's fury."
**"So be it."** With a nod, the emperor shifted his gaze toward Liu Ren standing sentinel with the *modao*. After measured contemplation, he decreed, "For valor displayed this day, Liu Ren ascends to Dragon Guard General. Upon trial's conclusion, he shall be your sworn blade."**
*The Dragon Guard.
A sovereign's entourage – reserved solely for princes receiving fiefdoms.
This transcended mere reward.
It was a tacit coronation: **Ye Ling would be enfeoffed as regent prince, claimant to the Phoenix Throne.
Liu Ren nearly stumbled in his fervent kowtow, a grin splitting his weathered face.
Who could foresee? A mere prison warden, elevated to princely confidant through timely message-bearing!
*Fortune favors the audacious.
---
### **II. Phoenix in Ashes**
Meanwhile, a tempest engulfed the Fu manor.
**"I shall not comply!"
**"Rather embrace death than endure this disgrace!"
Fu Yuan Yuan's lamentations echoed through moonlit courtyards, her shears trembling at her ebony tresses – a nun's tonsure her desperate gambit.
CRACK!
The slap reverberated like summer thunder, crimson handprints blooming across jade cheeks.
**"You cultivated this bitter harvest!"** Fu Hai's roar shook lacquered beams. **"The imperial decree stands immutable. Should death claim you, your corpse shall be conveyed to Chaohua Palace!"
Rage simmered beneath his ministerial robes.
*Foolish chit! Had you feigned illness or devised a pretext rather than openly provoking royalty...
Now the Vermilion Edict bound them all – willing bride or shackled corpse.
The Humiliation of a Fallen Star
### **I. A Demotion Beyond Endurance**
The designation of **sixth-rank *Baolin*** within the Sixth Prince's household—a pale shadow of the promised **Principal Consort to the First Prince**—reduced Fu Yuan Yuan's years of political machinations to ashes.
**"That reprobate attempted to violate me that night! Were it not for—"** Her voice fractured, trembling like winter-brittle leaves.
How could **the capital's celestial jewel**, a woman whose radiance once rivalled the moon's silver glow, be reduced to servitude beneath this **feckless libertine**? Yet now, after his inexplicable triumph in the imperial trials, he dared compound her degradation. The injustice clawed at her throat.
For the first time, she yearned for **First Prince Ye Changfeng's** absent shadow. *Had the throne been his, all would have been different.
**"Enough!"** Fu Hai's patience crumbled like ancient parchment before her tears.
**"Father—"**
Her swollen eyes implored, but the minister turned his jade sceptre toward the moonlit courtyard. **"The Sixth Prince's edict stands. Cleanse her, adorn her, and deliver her to Chaohua Palace ere midnight."** His voice frosted the chamber's incense-warm air. **"You cultivated this bitter fruit. Now swallow its seeds."
A *Baolin* held less value than the lacquer peeling from ancestral tablets, even should Ye Ling ascended to princedom. To the Fu clan, **a spent pawn merits only the discard pile.
Fu Hai's mind whirled—*Perhaps a foster daughter from the second lineage might yet salvage alliance with the First Prince.*
---
### **II. Nocturnal Degradation**
Like a marionette stripped of its strings, Fu Yuan Yuan endured the ritual scrubbing—jasmine oils masking **the livid imprint of paternal betrayal** upon her cheek. By the witching hour, she stood at Chaohua Palace's vermilion gates, her embroidered slippers sinking into night-dewed pebbles.
Within, the Sixth Prince had long concluded **two carnal hours** entwined with his favoured concubine, Lü Wu. Their primal symphony spilled through paper screens, each gasp and groan branding Fu Yuan Yuan's consciousness—**her porcelain complexion aflame, jeweled nails carving crescent wounds in trembling palms.**
As lowly *Baolin*, she **dared not withdraw** without obeisance to her lord.
**"You shan't depart, Lady Fu,"** hissed Matron Rong, her silver needle glinting like a venomous fang. **"Protocol demands attendance at the sovereign's chamber. Should summons find you wanting..."** The unspoken threat hung heavier than palace silks.
The needle's cruel promise drained colour from Fu Yuan Yuan's lips. *This humiliation is meticulously staged!
Matron Rong's smile curdled like spoiled milk. Though ignorant of why the prince demanded **name alterations and needle-brandished threats**, the tactic proved deliciously effective.
---
### **III. Sovereign's Arctic Reception**
Four eternities later, the carnal storm abated.
Emerging in **obsidian silk that drank the candlelight**, Ye Ling surveyed his newest acquisition. Lü Wu trailed like a sated panther, smugness perfuming the air thicker than sandalwood. His gaze raked Fu Yuan Yuan's tear-ravaged countenance.
**"You linger?"** he drawled, tone dripping with ennui as one might address stray hounds at the feast's periphery.
The Bitter Fruit of Pride
### **I. A Prince's Waning Patience**
Ye Ling had initially harbored **a flicker of remorse** toward Fu Yuan Yuan—even contemplating formal matrimony.
Yet her **brazen contempt** had extinguished all clemency. Observing her tear-streaked defiance, his resolve faltered but momentarily. Perhaps after witnessing Ye Changfeng's true nature, her penitence might yet merit elevation in station.
She remained, after all, the capital's **resplendent scholar and paragon of beauty**. Excessive degradation would be profligate.
**"Prostrate yourself before His Highness!"** Matron Rong brandished her argent needle, its cold gleam lancing through Fu Yuan Yuan's obstinacy.
**"I would sooner perish than yield to a libertine of your ilk!"** Fu Yuan Yuan trembled yet unbroken, her voice a blade. **"You are not fit to breathe the same air as the First Prince! Confine me eternally—my heart shall never cleave to yours!"
Ye Ling chuckled darkly. **"They claim enforced nectar lacks sweetness, yet it slakes thirst nonetheless."
**"My soul remains forever beyond your grasp!"
**"Why crave what holds no worth?"** He cast aside his robe, revealing a physique paradoxically honed by decadence. **"You are but a condiment—scarcely the feast."
Fu Yuan Yuan averted her gaze, revulsion palpable. *This brute wears royalty's mantle yet lacks its essence!
---
### **II. Claws Beneath the Silk**
Ye Ling's form, an ironic inheritance from his debauched lineage, possessed **a savage potency**—capable of wearying even Lü Wu, his court-trained enchantress, through nocturnal marathons.
Yet Fu Yuan Yuan perceived only vulgarity. **"You reek of depravity!"
**"And you languish in my halls, sighing for another's shadow,"** Ye Ling riposted. **"Which of us wears shame's mantle?"
Some women, he mused, thrived on tragic theater. The more one indulged their theatrics, the more they **embraced martyrdom's gilded cage**. Fu Yuan Yuan, armored in her **"preeminent beauty"** hauteur, required reality's ungentle tutelage.
**"You orchestrated this ruin!"** She keened. **"My destiny lies shattered by your hand!"
**"Still clutching at phantoms?"** Ye Ling's smirk dissolved. **"Pitiable. You embrace falsehoods lest truth rend your delusions."
---
### **III. The Delusion Shatters**
Fu Yuan Yuan's anguish erupted like dammed torrents.
- **"The First Prince embodies sagacity and sovereign might!"
- **"You are but a gilded parasite, unfit to grasp the scepter!"
- **"Your defilement of the Fu lineage reveals a knave, not a noble!"
- **"The First Prince shall ascend the Dragon Throne! Through him, Da Shang's glory shall blaze anew!"
Her voice fractured. *I was ordained **empress**—now reduced to Baolin's wretched rung!
Ye Ling observed, then sighed. **"Clutch your dreams tight—they'll fade swiftest."
Her venom mirrored **self-inflicted blindness**. Let her cherish false dawns—time's inexorable march would school her in crueler verities.
The Weight of Delusion
### **I. The Chasm Between Dream and Reality**
The chasm separating Fu Yuan Yuan's **shattered illusions** from her humiliating status as a lowly *Baolin* plunged her into **searing, molten wrath**. All former suspicions regarding the First Prince dissolved—her universe now contracted to a singular revelation: *Ye Ling had plundered every entitlement.
Her **imperial diadem**, her **destiny wed to a scholar-warrior of peerless virtue—all supplanted by this lecherous degenerate masquerading as royalty.
Her tirade suspended breath within the chamber.
*Even a dead duck keeps its beak rigid*, the attendants marvelled. To openly vilify the Sixth Prince while extolling his rival? This was a court-martial execution.
Lü Wu's muscles coiled. History whispered that those who dared juxtapose Ye Ling's imperfections against Ye Changfeng's virtues had met grisly demises.
---
### **II. The Prince's Diamond-Edge Riposte**
**"If your contempt runs so deep,"** Ye Ling purred, unperturbed, "what compelled this pilgrimage of degradation?"
No shackles had bound her. She might have fled, scarred her famed beauty, and embraced ascetic vows—**any sacrifice but this genuflection to expediency**.
*Where now resides your vaunted purity?
**"Does my noble elder brother comprehend the... fervour of your allegiance?"** His laughter slithered like silk. "Had he glimpsed how tenaciously you clutch his saintly mantle, perhaps he'd have spared you this indignity of being stripped bare and delivered as tribute."
His serenity became a scalpel. Each syllable dissected her self-deceptions.
**"The First Prince would never—!"** She spat, yet a sliver of corrosion seeped into her certitude. She must not fracture. Not before this profanity.
---
### **III. Reclamation of Sovereignty**
With a derisive snort, Ye Ling hoisted her across his shoulder like a grain sack.
**"Release me! Cease this indignity!"
**"To perpetuate your Ye Changfeng reveries?"** His grasp turned vice-like. **"Certain flowers only bloom after being steamed in the rice cooker."
Fu Yuan Yuan thrashed ineffectually—**a hothouse orchid against tempered steel**. Futile.
As Ye Ling bore her toward the bedchamber, Lü Wu exhaled tremulously—not from apathy, but **instinctual survival calculus.
*Not even my warrior's endurance can sustain his... appetites indefinitely*, she reflected, wincing at fresh memories of nocturnal marathons. The man possessed incubus-like stamina.
---
### **IV. Afterglow: Silence and Condensation**
**"Your directives, *Liangdi*?"** Matron Rong sheathed her embroidery needle in deference.
**"Draw the royal bath,"** Lü Wu commanded. **"Install the new *Baolin* in the Western Tertiary Pavilion. And—"** Her tone crystallised. **"Let tonight's farce remain entombed within these walls."
Ye Ling always demanded ablutions after such exertions. **Protocol-mandated anticipatory service.**
The Night of Reckoning
### **I. The Predator and His Prey**
*"The newly appointed Lady Fu shall endure a harrowing evening,"* Lü Wu contemplated, completing her tasks before withdrawing prematurely.
The bedchamber lay shrouded in silence, save for two solitary figures—Ye Ling and Fu Yuan Yuan, now utterly isolated.
*"Ye Ling... you monstrous—"*
*"Cease this... desist!"
Her resistance proved futile against his inexorable advance.
*"Declare unto me,"* his voice oozed sardonic delight, *"Whom dost thou favour... Ye Changfeng or me?"
*"Gaze intently—discern thy master."
*"Thou art mine. Banish fantasies of lesser men."
A cruel pinch at her alabaster waist punctuated his dominion.
---
### **II. The Storm Before Dawn**
For interminable hours, the inner sanctum reverberated with defiance, then supplication—until at length, as dawn's pallid fingers clawed the horizon, tumult yielded to stillness.
Sated, Ye Ling drew her languid form against his labouring chest.
Where Lü Wu had been yielding satin, Fu Yuan Yuan's obstinacy had kindled primal flames—her willowy frame and unvanquished spirit intensifying his relentless conquest. *Transcendent.
Enfolded within his grasp, she lay depleted, jet tresses cascading across fevered flesh, too enervated to rebuff the fervour of his embrace.
---
### **III. The Aftermath: Tears and Tempers**
Her psyche roiled—humiliation, wrath, and darker undercurrents. That beguiling musk of his... *Why did it not revolt her?
*Never!* She clenched bloodless palms. *This brute incarnates all I abhor!* Yet tears betrayed her resolve, coursing mutely until Ye Ling's measured respirations signalled oblivion's claim.
He slumbered profoundly; she gazed vacantly at brocaded draperies, eyelids marred by morning's swollen reproach.
---
### **IV. The Morning After**
At first light, the Emperor summoned Ye Ling to deliberate on the third ordeal. Rising, he cast a glance at the chrysalis of linens concealing Fu Yuan Yuan—and the carnage of their nocturnal warfare.
*"Tend her with diligence,"* he decreed to Lü Wu, now Chaohua Palace's undisputed matriarch during his absence.
Only when his footfalls dwindled did Fu Yuan Yuan venture a furtive glance, met by Lü Wu's glacial decree:
*"Attend thy sovereign. The *Baolin* stir"s.*
Their gazes clashed—one smouldering defiance, the other glacial supremacy—ere Fu Yuan Yuan averted hers in submission.
The Phoenix Hairpin and the Firearm
### **I. The Duel of Pride and Regret**
Lü Wu stood regal in her cerulean court robes, her hair sculpted into an intricate coiffure adorned with the mandated hairpins of a *Liangdi*—save for one resplendent aberration: a phoenix hairpin, its gemstones shimmering like celestial fragments frozen in time. More than mere ornamentation, it symbolised Ye Ling's improbable triumph over the Chu cavalry—a trophy of imperial favour and Da Shang's martial pride.
Fu Yuan Yuan winced as she attempted to rise, her limbs heavy with the lingering toll of the previous night's humiliation.
*"A... strenuous evening, sister?"* Lü Wu observed, her voice honeyed with faux sympathy as the younger woman flushed scarlet.
*"I require no pity,"* Fu Yuan Yuan hissed through clenched teeth, leveraging her weight against the trembling arms of her attendants. Yet her gaze remained shackled to that cursed hairpin.
**The irony cut deeper than any blade.** Lü Wu—a former *Yangzhou shouma*, a courtesan scarcely fit for concubinage—now eclipsed her, a scion of nobility, through imperial caprice and Ye Ling's mercurial patronage.
A serpent of remorse coiled in Fu Yuan Yuan's chest. *Had she tempered her disdain for Ye Ling, might that jewelled phoenix have perched in her tresses?* But the thought dissolved beneath renewed acrimony. * Never. That feckless princeling could never rival the Crown Prince.
Lü Wu studied her rival's silent torment with glacial detachment. Whether this fragile blossom thrived or withered mattered less to her now than the shifting winds of power.
---
### **II. The Emperor's Arsenal**
In the gilded silence of the throne room, Master Lu unveiled his magnum opus: a firearm forged from Ye Ling's visionary schematics.
*"Your Majesty, the firelance—perfected as the Sixth Prince ordained,"* the artisan proclaimed, reverence threading his words.
Emperor Shang traced the weapon's contours with a strategist's scrutiny. * "Efficiency befitting your reputation, Master Lu. My eldest's crossbow endeavours languished thrice as long."
*"The Sixth Prince... defies convention."* Master Lu ventured, then stiffened—aware of the precipice his words skirted.
*"Elucidate,"* the Emperor commanded, his voice a whetted blade.
*"His designs possess surgical precision. Resources materialise unimpeded,"* the artisan confessed, omitting the damning contrast: the Crown Prince's coffers squandered on vanity projects while Ye Ling cultivated innovation like a master gardener.
The Emperor's approval hardened to frost. * "Should these whispers prove truths, reckonings shall follow. Serve Ling well, and history will carve your name in jade."
---
### **III. Themes and Symbolism**
- **The Phoenix Hairpin**: A prism refracting power's alchemy— Lü Wu's metamorphosis mirrors Ye Ling's inexorable ascent, while Fu Yuan Yuan's venomous envy seeds storms yet unborn.
- **Master Lu's Loyalty**: His gravitation toward Ye Ling's orbit illuminates pragmatic meritocracy eclipsing hereditary decay—a silent revolution in artisan allegiances.
- **The Firearm**: Both catalyst and omen, its barrel whispers of Ye Ling's tactical genius—a thunderclap heralding war's new epoch.
The Flaw in the Gunpowder
### **I. The Emperor's Trial**
Master Lu prostrated himself in reverence. *"This unworthy craftsman is eternally grateful for Your Majesty's boundless benevolence."* The selection between Ye Changfeng and Ye Ling presented no true dilemma—only a witless man would cling to a vessel already swallowed by the tides.
Meanwhile, Ye Ling scrutinised the sample of _huoyao_ (black powder) cradled in his palm. Though indispensable for armaments like the newly forged firelance, its pungent odour carried an unsettling..._irregularity_.
*"Ling'er, attend me!"* Emperor Shang summoned him to the imperial proving grounds for a martial exhibition.
**KA-THUNDER! SNAP!
The firelance's deafening detonations reverberated across the field. When attendants displayed the straw effigies—now rent asunder at 500 paces—the emperor's gaze kindled with ambition. *"To claim a general's head from half a _li_! Even our mightiest longbows pale before this marvel!"
Yet shadows gathered beneath Ye Ling's brow. * "Merely 500 paces? My schematics promised _twice_ that reach."
---
### **II. The Tainted Alchemy**
*"You dare find _a blemish_ in this wonder?"* The Emperor's fervour faltered.
Ye Ling ground the granular powder between thumb and forefinger. *"The _huoyao_ has been debased. True black powder gleams like midnight charcoal, yet this..."* He elevated a lacklustre clump veined with sulphurous streaks. *"Ancient formulae demanded richer nitrate and sulphur. This stinks of thrift—charcoal adulterated beyond measure."
A quivering steward confessed, "This stock was surplus from the Ministry of Works' Lunar New Year pyrotechnics." *
Master Lu drew breath through clenched teeth. * "Small wonder last winter's firecrackers required _double_ their customary charge!"
Emperor Shang's countenance hardened like jade struck by frost. *"So the ministry fattens its coffers with dross while bleeding our treasury?"* His voice carried the finality of a sealing tomb. *"This ends with the setting sun."
---
### **III. Portents Unveiled**
- **Ye Ling's Alchemical Rigour**: His exacting analysis lays bare institutional decay—a diamond's precision contrasting the Crown Prince's leaden oversight.
- **The Throne's Wrath**: The corrupted powder transforms into synecdoche for empire-wide rot, kindling preparations for a purgatorial reckoning.
- **Whispers of Destiny**: The firelance's _latent power_ versus its _crippled performance_ whispers of future refinements...and cataclysms yet unspooled.
The Emperor's Wrath and the Forge of Destiny
### **I. The Unraveling of a Crown Prince**
Emperor Shang's countenance darkened like storm-laden clouds as the implications of the defective *huoyao* settled upon the imperial court. Years of governance supervised by Ye Changfeng now reeked of decay—corruption festering within the Ministry of Works, a domain firmly entrenched under the Crown Prince's dominion.
*"Would the Crown Prince truly debase himself by pilfering mere coppers from the coffers?"* Ye Ling enquired with feigned naivety, his words laced with serpentine provocation. *"As the firstborn son of the Shang Dynasty and scion of the Chen Clan, could golden treasures possibly elude his grasp?"*
The sovereign's gaze crystallised into glacial frost. * "Simpleton! Do you presume all men share your apathy toward dominion? Coin clasped in palm outweighs reliance on blood ties."
The unuttered truth permeated the chamber like miasma: Ye Changfeng's lattice of influence spanned the triumvirate of ministries—Rites, War, and Works. Had Ye Ling not intervened, the Jade Seal might have slipped into his brother's clutches, ushering in an era where even a transmigrator's foresight would crumble like sun-baked clay.
**Retribution arrived swift yet ceremonial:** *"Crown Prince Ye Changfeng, for permitting rot to fester among his subordinates, shall prostrate himself daily for two hours within the Hall of Ancestors."* A token admonition, yet an unmistakable clarion call to vigilance.
---
### **II. The Birth of a Superweapon**
As the Son of Heaven withdrew in celestial displeasure, Ye Ling presented Master Lu with schematics that caused the artisan's weathered hands to tremble.
*"An... augmented firelance?"* The master armourer stammered, calloused fingers tracing dimensions resembling not a handheld weapon but a behemothic barrel girthed like an ancient oak's trunk.
*"Nomenclature matters little,"* Ye Ling countered with a vulpine smile. *"Let this 'Colossus' strike targets beyond ten *li*. Envision foes reduced to ash ere thunder's echo reaches their ears." *
The ultimatum carried existential weight: *"Complete this within eight dawns. Through this creation, our borders shall remain inviolate for a decade's turning."
Master Lu's former reservations about Ye Ling dissolved like morning mist. Behind the princeling's youthful visage resided a mind forged of celestial iron—unshaken by bedlam, pragmatic yet anchored to principle. * Had decades of political alignment been squandered on inferior stock?
---
### **III. A Vision Beyond War**
Ye Ling's ambitions soared above mere artillery. * "Once we repulse the Chu emissaries, we shall reforge the empire's economic bones—novel spinning jennies, hydraulic wheels, and systemic innovations."
Yet the path writhed with thorns. Ye Changfeng's legacy festered as a necrotic bureaucracy: embezzled silver, annexed farmlands, and a peasantry groaning under the yoke. *Without purification, the Middle Kingdom would hemorrhage vitality like a sl*t-pulsed stag.*
The Serpent's Stratagem
### **I. The Crown Prince's Fury**
The Yuqing Palace quaked as Ye Changfeng shattered priceless Ming vases, his ceremonial kneelers still imprinted with the weight of imperial decree. Crimson-faced, his roars reverberated through gilded beams:
*"Ye Ling! Thou baseborn cur! Dost thou ride spectral coattails to pilfer my birthright?"
Spittle glistened on his jade belt as he vowed, "When I ascend the throne, thy head shall adorn the Meridian Gate!"*
The celestial blows cascaded—Fu Yuanyuan bestowed upon Ye Ling's palace, Grand Tutor Lu's betrayal and public disgrace, staining vermilion robes. A decade of meticulous scheming crumbled to dust within mere days.
---
### **II. The Venomed Pact**
A trembling eunuch dared interrupt his tempest: *"Your Celestial Highness... a handmaiden professes gifts from the Sixth Prince."
*"Preposterous!"* Ye Changfeng sneered—until moonlight revealed her countenance.
Zhao Ling'er, the serpentine Chu operative, stood draped in a servant's hemp, her smile mirroring dawn's treacherous beauty. *"Hail, Dragon Scion. Shall we parley of intertwined destinies?"
The prince's grip whitened around porcelain shards. *"Treason? Thou overreach thy station."
*"Do I indeed?"* She circled like a temple fox, venom cloaked in lotus whispers. *"While Ye Ling breathes, the Dragon Throne remains beyond thy grasp. Eliminate him... and history shall cleanse thy stumbles with silken brushes."
Her barbs pierced deeper than Jian swords: *"He claims thy betrothed. Steals thy celestial glory. Reduces thee to kowtowing vermin. What Son of Heaven endures such defilement?"*
---
### **III. Descent Through Nine Hells**
As rubies of madness bloomed in the prince's eyes, Zhao Ling'er concealed her triumph. The golden hook had found its gills.
*"Name thy poisoned price,"* he growled, the words tearing from his throat.
*"A trifling courtesy,"* she cooed, *"Merely unbar the northern gates when celestial signs align."*
The Crown Prince hesitated—until her final serpent's kiss: *" Or shall chronicles etch thee as the trembling whelp who watched his brother defile thy Phoenix?"*
With a bestial snarl, he seized her jade wrist. *"Welcome to my inferno, enchantress."*
The Serpent's Coil
**I. A Web of Shadows**
Zhao Ling'er leaned closer, her voice a venomous whisper as she unfurled her intricate scheme to Ye Changfeng:
"The imperial drill grounds adjacent to the palace—we orchestrate their sabotage. Compel the third trial to relocate to the Northern Hunting Lodge." Her fingertips glided across the air as if etching a spectral map. "Your men shall then guide our assassins through its concealed vulnerabilities. By twilight, Ye Ling's lifeless form shall nourish the ravens."
The Crown Prince's jaw tensed. The stratagem reeked of treason, requiring stolen architectural schematics, manipulated guard rotations, and most perilous of all: weaponising Fu Yuuan's lingering fealty.
"I shall… deliberate," he murmured, yet Zhao Ling'er's smirk deepened. She recognised his hesitation as mere theatrics. The allure of obliterating Ye Ling—and seizing the throne—pulsed like an unquenchable flame.
As she departed Yuqing Palace, the Chu spy's smile sharpened to feral intensity. *This time*, she vowed silently, *I shall reduce the Shang Dynasty to ash.
**II. Blood and Betrayal**
The machinations accelerated:
*Ye Changfeng's Gambit*: Through tear-stained epistles, he ensnared Fu Yuanyuan into espionage. "Feign devotion as his concubine," he penned. "Unearth Ye Ling's secrets… And your recompense shall be a queen's diadem."
*The Trap Springs*: Leveraging Ye Changfeng's military influence to breach the hunting lodge's defences, Zhao Ling'er and Zhuge Yao—Chu's master strategist orchestrated the infiltration of two hundred elite assassins. Their true quarry? The Emperor himself.
*Slay the sovereign amidst the pandemonium. Let Ye Changfeng's avarice hoist him onto the throne. Then observe as his ineptitude unravels the empire within a decade.
**III. The Fragile Pawn**
Within Chaohua Palace's Western Pavilion, Fu Yuanyuan trembled as she concealed Ye Changfeng's latest missive.
"Merely… idle reading," she stammered when Ye Ling materialised without warning.
His fingers clasped her chin, tilting her face upward. "Since when do verses paint your cheeks crimson?" The inquiry hovered—a blade suspended by a gossamer thread.
As Fu Yuanyuan masked her dread with counterfeit ardour, the letter's damning decree lay entombed beneath a volume of poetry:
"Unearth his clandestine endeavours. The empire's destiny now rests within your grasp."
The Serpent and the Butterfly
### **I. A Dance of Blades and Silk**
For three dawns and twilights, Fu Yuanyuan oscillated between wailing inconsolably and hurling venomous barbs at Ye Ling—until this moonlit hour.
*"Does His Highness... find me unworthy?"* She murmured through clenched teeth, her arms coiling about him like a silken gallows. Malice simmered beneath her quivering lashes.
Ye Ling's laughter rumbled like distant thunder. *"What mortal spurns Aphrodite's embrace?"* He recognised the serpent coiled within her sudden warmth yet indulged the charade—for the true fool lay elsewhere.
As he swept her aloft, Fu Yuanyuan's gasp carried unwonted sincerity. * "Release me—!"
*"The die is cast,"* Ye Ling purred, unwrapping her robes with ceremonial sloth. *"From the moment you crossed into Chaohua Palace's sanctum, no other paramour could trespass its hallowed bounds."
The glacial implication behind his words crystallised her veins. * Had he intercepted the clandestine missives?
---
### **II. Poisoned Nectar**
Ye Ling's next utterance became damask-shrouded stilettos:
*"My noble brother greets me with ambrosial smiles while whetting sacrificial blades. Would such a soul prize sullied treasures?"
Each syllable etched itself upon Fu Yuanyuan's psyche. She veiled her anguish behind coquetry's mask: *"Must Your Magnificence profane this hour with lesser men's shadows?"
"Yet you once hymned his virtues to Olympus' peaks,"* Ye Ling mused, his marauding hands mapping territories of conquest. *"Do mortal gods tarnish so swiftly?"
Pinned beneath his weight, she breathed honeyed falsehoods: *"The Crown Prince... dims to stardust before your solar splendour."
*"Manifest this truth."
As her traitorous body arched in pagan worship, Ye Ling marvelled at the cosmic jest—this celebrated muse of scholars, reduced to a pawn by love's blindness. His grip turned vice-like. If she chose marionette's strings, he'd ensure they flayed her soul.
---
### **III. The Puppeteer's Paradox**
**Ye Ling's Stratagem:
- **Psychological Sovereignty**: Alluding to Ye Changfeng's epistles without direct indictment, he destabilises Fu Yuanyuan's equilibrium—a manoeuvre echoing Sun Tzu's *"Feign vulnerability amidst invincibility."
- **Calculated Severity**: His metamorphosis from jester to executioner mirrors the Crown Prince's Janus nature, compelling her to confront complicit shadows.
**Fu Yuanyuan's Delusion:
Her silent liturgy—*"The Crown Prince transcends such vileness"*—obscures the tragic irony: both scions exploit her, yet only Ye Ling wears the predator's crown without pretence.
To be continuous…