Chapter 1651: A Play Between Aunt and Nephew
"That's right," she thought. "Before long, Fan'er will contract some strange illness and die in his prime. It was to save him that I first set foot on the path of cultivation."
"And my desperate efforts later—cultivating with all my might, devising new techniques—were largely driven by the need to extend his life, since he couldn't cultivate himself."
In that instant, scenes from her countless cycles of reincarnation flashed through Rinsing Moon Bai's mind, and a wave of profound emotion washed over her.
"Time rushes on, yet some things remain..."
She gazed at her nephew, who seemed somewhat bewildered, but her thoughts suddenly drifted to another young man she had encountered in her reincarnations: Ou Shangtian.
She and the Immeasurable Wall had unintentionally caused the death of his father, Ou Daozi. To avenge him, the young man had been willing to sacrifice everything, even his own life.
"Kill me or carve me up, do as you please! Don't think for a second I'm afraid of you two fiends!" Ou Shangtian's furious roar seemed to echo in her ears once more.
A sudden, whimsical thought struck Rinsing Moon Bai: "If something were to happen to me, what lengths would Fan'er go to?"
The moment the thought took root, it spread like wildfire, consuming her mind until it was impossible to suppress.
Yet, at the same time, a faint dread stirred within her.
She was afraid of what she would do if Fan'er's reaction disappointed her.
Rinsing Moon Bai firmly believed that Li Fan was a good boy.
But...
She subconsciously closed her eyes, refusing to dwell on the dreadful possibility.
But this momentary escape did not banish the thought. It clung to her like an inner demon, refusing to let go.
"Aunt, are you feeling unwell? You should go back to your room and rest. I'll make dinner."
Seeing her strange behavior, Li Fan remarked, his voice filled with concern.
Rinsing Moon Bai nodded and walked into her room, her steps unusually heavy.
After the door closed, a deeply conflicted Rinsing Moon Bai mulled it over for a long time before finally making up her mind.
"So, it seems my aunt wants to play a little game of make-believe. Very well, I'll be happy to play my part."
"Let's just call it an appetizer before my ascension to Sainthood." While his every action and expression perfectly matched the persona of a simple, honest nephew, Li Fan was laughing inwardly.
That evening, the aunt and nephew shared a meal, each lost in their own thoughts.
The next morning, while Li Fan was still fast asleep, a squad of menacing bailiffs burst into his room and brutally dragged him from his bed.
"Who are you people?" Li Fan demanded, a mixture of shock and fury in his voice.
"Quiet down! Scholar Li, your crimes have come to light!" the head bailiff sneered, forcing a heavy wooden cangue around Li Fan's neck.
"This is absurd! I do nothing but read and write at home all day. What crime could I possibly have committed? You must have the wrong man!" Li Fan cried out, trying to proclaim his innocence while instinctively struggling against his captors.
But as a mere scholar, he was pitifully weak. A couple of sharp blows left him hunched over and coughing violently, and he finally stopped resisting.
"The wrong man? Scholar Li, you underestimate us," the bailiff scoffed. "All that reading and writing... Hmph. You scholars are the worst kind! You act all innocent and unworldly, but behind the scenes, you're always hatching some unspeakable plot."
"Chief, I found it!"
Just then, another bailiff emerged from Li Fan's study, a stack of papers in his hand.
"Is this your handwriting?"
The head bailiff waved the papers in Li Fan's face.
Li Fan recognized his own script, of course, and nodded instinctively. But as his eyes focused on the words written on the top page, a cold sweat broke out on his brow.
"No! I didn't write this! Someone is trying to frame me!"
Before he could finish, a wad of rough cloth was shoved into his mouth, silencing his protests.
The head bailiff narrowed his eyes and began to read from the page in a cold, deliberate voice.
"Cold stars glare down a misty, wave-tossed road; the jade flute's song is lost in roaring tides. Ten years of hardship honed my sword's sharp edge, a loyal heart with fishers now abides. The court's high dais sees no worthy men, while in the wilds, the proudest chargers rise. I wait for thunder to erupt from earth, to write new histories for a fallen line!"
"Heh heh heh. 'To write new histories for a fallen line,' indeed," the bailiff sneered. "You've got the guts to be thinking of things that warrant the execution of your entire clan. Men, take him away!"
"Mmph... mmph..."
Li Fan was swiftly taken into custody.
It wasn't just him; his aunt was implicated as well.
The bailiffs showed her no courtesy, handling the woman just as roughly.
"Mmph... Mmph!"
When aunt and nephew saw each other again under these circumstances, Li Fan felt as if he had a thousand things to say, but all he could manage were muffled groans.
Rinsing Moon Bai, for her part, was weeping uncontrollably, her body trembling with what appeared to be sheer terror.
Soon, the two were separated and thrown into different cells.
The verdict was delivered swiftly: conspiracy to commit treason, an unpardonable crime.
Sentence: death row, with execution to be carried out after the autumn harvest!
Upon hearing the sentence, Li Fan crumpled to the floor. He began to roar like a madman, screaming that he had been framed.
A few sharp cracks from a guard's rod silenced him.
He was unceremoniously dragged away to a cell on death row.
Utterly devoid of hope, Li Fan slumped to the floor of his cell, his expression bleak, and simply waited for death.
"You don't seem like a vicious criminal. How did you end up in here?"
Half a month later, deep in the night, a soft voice drifted from the adjacent cell.
Startled, Li Fan looked toward the sound and saw a figure that was little more than skin and bones, a living skeleton.
He was so frightened he couldn't even scream, and he scrambled backward away from the bars.
"Such a coward," the voice chuckled mockingly. "You must have been framed."
Perhaps the words resonated with him. After a long pause, Li Fan summoned his courage, approached the bars again, and recounted the injustice he had suffered.
"I swear to the heavens, I did not write that treasonous poem!" Li Fan said, his teeth clenched.
"Have you offended anyone recently?"
Li Fan looked blank. "I spend all my days cooped up at home. I never go out, so how could I have offended...?"
Suddenly, he recalled his aunt's strange behavior and jolted. "Could it be..."
He quickly explained how the village chief had been coveting their family's land.
"..."
"Just a village chief, with such power?" the voice from the next cell asked, doubtful.
"It has to be him! I heard his son fancies himself a scholar. He must have been the one who wrote that poem!" Li Fan insisted fiercely.
An eerie silence fell over the adjacent cell.
In the darkness, only Li Fan's muttered curses echoed off the stone walls.
Several days later, for no apparent reason, Li Fan suddenly broke down in tears.
"A true man faces death with dignity. What's all this crying about!" the voice next door chided in a low, angry tone.
"These past few days, I've had time to think. My life is worthless, so being beheaded means little. But my poor aunt... she was dragged into this because of me. At her age, to suffer such a fate."
"I lost my parents when I was young. My aunt raised me through tireless effort. Though we share no blood, I have long considered her my mother..." Li Fan was overcome with grief, his wails echoing through the dungeon.
He only stopped when he had no strength left.
Late that night, the soft whisper returned from the next cell. "Of all virtues, filial piety is foremost. To feel such devotion for your aunt... you are not entirely worthless, it seems."
Li Fan lay limply on the ground, as if he hadn't heard.
But in the next moment, he shot up in horror.
In the darkness, it felt as though a slimy, damp snake was coiling around him.
"What is this...?"
"Hush, it is I!"
Li Fan stared, and though the thing coiled around his legs was shaped like a long python, it had the head of a man!
"A ghost? Am I dead?"
Terrified, Li Fan frantically felt his own neck, thinking he must have already been executed and was now seeing spirits.
The python-headed figure almost laughed in exasperation. It tightened its grip slightly, restraining Li Fan's panicked movements.
"This is the Art of the Hundred-Changing Soaring Dragon! What ghosts are you talking about!"
"Senior, who... who are you?" After a long while, Li Fan slowly came to accept the rather terrifying sight and asked cautiously.
"You have no need to know my name. All you need to know is that I can help you escape this prison!"
"Is that true?" Li Fan's voice rose sharply, but he quickly caught himself and lowered it again.
"Wait. If you have such an ability, you would have escaped long ago. Why are you still trapped in here?"
The figure sneered. "I simply have no desire to leave. I've grown accustomed to this place. The dazzling world outside is far less comfortable than it is in here. Enough nonsense. Do you want to learn or not? My mind might change by tomorrow. If it weren't for your filial devotion..."
But Li Fan didn't agree immediately. He hesitated.
"Once I escape, I'll be branded a true traitor. I'll never be able to clear my name..."
"You won't be able to clear it if you're dead, either. Besides, your aunt is old. She won't last much longer in this dungeon. She'll likely die long before her execution date," the figure taunted.
Li Fan's expression shifted. "Fine. I'll learn!"
Seven days later: "Why are you so useless? You can't even learn such a simple technique!"
Thirty days later: "You've finally grasped the basics, and only because I transferred my entire internal energy to you. Ai, to think I'd find such a worthless disciple."
One hundred and three days later, with only seven days left until his execution.
Li Fan could finally transform completely into a soaring dragon and escape the death row prison.
Before leaving, he gave a deep, solemn bow to his master, whose name he never even learned, and who had now become a pile of bones.
Then, he slipped away into the night.
The first thing Li Fan did after his escape was search for his aunt.
But the news he discovered struck him like a bolt of lightning.
Just three days earlier, his aunt had succumbed to the harsh conditions of the prison and died of illness.
"Impossible! Impossible!"
Li Fan was like a madman until he saw his aunt's body with his own eyes. Only then did the truth sink in, and he stood frozen in shock.
"Aaaahhhhh!"
Tears streamed down his face, and he was consumed by regret. "If only I had learned faster... could I have saved her?"
"Why am I so slow-witted? I deserve to die!"
The pain was so intense Li Fan could barely breathe. He could only hold his aunt's body and wail.
He cried until his tears ran dry and his throat was raw.
Only then did he slowly regain his composure.
With a heart shattered by grief, Li Fan buried his aunt's body.
Then, a roaring flame of vengeance ignited in his eyes.
"Aunt, if you can see me from the great beyond, watch as I make them all pay for what they've done!"
In the darkness, a sinister, coiling dragon sped across the land.
Armed with a supreme technique, Li Fan had little trouble capturing the county magistrate and the entire village chief's family.
Under interrogation, the truth came out. The village chief had indeed coveted his land and maliciously framed him, bribing the magistrate to quickly secure the conviction.
"Spare me, Little Fan, spare me! Uncle knows he was wrong..."
The village chief was a mess of tears and snot, begging for his life.
Li Fan's otherworldly appearance had already scared him witless.
Li Fan's eyes blazed with fury, devoid of any pity, only boundless rage. "Sparing you is easy..."
"First, give me my aunt's life back!"
With a single palm strike, he shattered the village chief's head.
As red and white matter splattered across the room, Li Fan's rage did not subside. He proceeded to slaughter every guilty party present.
The village chief was one thing, but the magistrate was a court-appointed official.
In his fury, by killing the magistrate, Li Fan had truly become a rebel.
"If that's the case, then to hell with them all!"
Swept up in a torrent of emotion, Li Fan used the blood on the floor to scrawl his own rebellious poem on the wall.
"Today the thunder rises from the land, and I shall write new histories with my own hand!"
Then he signed it: "The killer is Li Fan!"
Without a backward glance, he strode away.
In the Great Xuan Dynasty, it was common for the people to be oppressed by officials.
But the empire had known peace for a long time, and unless they were starving, the common folk would not rise in rebellion.
When Li Fan raised his banner, very few answered his call.
The government soon dispatched troops to suppress him. Relying on his Hundred-Changing Soaring Dragon Art, Li Fan repeatedly repelled the soldiers.
He then established a stronghold in the mountains under a banner that read "Enforce Justice on Behalf of Heaven," gathering followers and stockpiling supplies, biding his time.
Several years later, a great drought and a plague of locusts struck the Jiangnan region.
The land was filled with the starving, and the people's suffering was immense.
Li Fan seized the opportunity, igniting the flames of rebellion.
This time, people from all corners of the Great Xuan flocked to his cause.
After a decade of struggle, Li Fan finally led his army into Xuanjing.
He overthrew the old dynasty, donned the yellow robe, and became the ruler of all under heaven.
"We wish to posthumously name Our Aunt as Empress Dowager. What are your thoughts, esteemed ministers?"
One day in the imperial court, Li Fan suddenly posed this question.
The officials looked at each other, perplexed.
But one who knew Li Fan's story stepped forward decisively. "This minister believes it is an excellent proposal!"
"Everyone knows that Your Majesty lost his parents at a young age and was raised solely by his aunt."
"Her care in his youth was like that of a loving mother..."
He spoke at length, leaving most of the officials stunned and wide-eyed.
Seeing Li Fan's look of deep satisfaction, the others instantly regretted their silence.
In the end, Li Fan posthumously titled Rinsing Moon Bai as the "Empress Dowager Zhaohui Cisheng." He reported the decree to his ancestors with the highest rites, presented golden seals and jade tablets, and had the hundred officials perform four full bows of reverence.
Li Fan personally composed the "Ode to a Nurturing Mother's Memory" and built an altar in the suburbs of Xuanjing, where he burned a memorial to the heavens.
He then ordered the construction of a magnificent mausoleum and had Rinsing Moon Bai's remains moved there.
Li Fan reigned for over seventy years, passing away from old age after his hundredth birthday.
He ruled with a light touch, reducing taxes and levies, and the people all remembered his benevolent reign.
On the day of his passing, the entire nation mourned.
Emperor Li Fan's tomb was built right next to Rinsing Moon Bai's mausoleum.
At this moment, a figure quietly materialized in the air.
Floating above, she gazed down at the two imperial tombs below.
It was Rinsing Moon Bai!
"Fan'er..."
Her expression was complex, but it was also as if a great weight had been lifted from her heart.
Her eyes gradually grew firm and resolute.
(End of this chapter)
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