Chapter 971: Start of the Struggle for the Throne
Shangguan Qingrou ended up as the fuse that set off the struggle for the throne.
In brief, the two sides were fighting viciously and it was hard to predict the outcome.
Based on what Ning Shu knew, Xuan Hongyu had sent out a troop of death soldiers, but almost the entire troop got wiped out. Only a few came back. So many living people were gone just like this.
Ning Shu was quite alarmed to see this. She knew that she really didn’t have much time left, so she could only work hard to increase her own strength.
One day, while the emperor was addressing the imperial court, he suddenly coughed blood and fell from the dragon throne. When the imperial physicians checked, they said that he had been poisoned and wouldn’t be able to live past half a year.
The emperor became so angry that he spat another mouthful of black blood, then passed out.
The emperor had been poisoned, so the crown prince naturally took over the duty of supervising the nation. All that the emperor had to do now was wait for death.
However, not long later, it was exposed that it was actually the crown prince who had poisoned the emperor. He had bribed the emperor’s personal eunuch. There were all sorts of evidence. Even that eunuch confessed and said that he had been following the crown prince’s instructions.
The reason was because a while ago, a lot of the crown prince’s crimes had been exposed. For the sake of keeping his status as crown prince, he poisoned the emperor. Once the emperor died, he’d naturally become emperor.
These pieces of evidence left the crown prince speechless. He knelt by the bed of the emperor crying ‘this subject son is wrongly accused!’ The emperor was so angered that he coughed blood. Ever since he got poisoned, he vomited blood nearly every day. The blood was always black and carried a terrible stench.
It was seriously unpleasant to wait for death. The emperor truly felt like he was about to die. When he saw that it was his own son that had poisoned him, he didn’t kill the crown prince and just demoted him to the status of a commoner. Even though he really wanted to drag a person down to die with him, he still had to take into consideration his reputation in history.
Mutual attempts to kill between father and son was a terrible scandal.
As for the crown prince, since he had been demoted to being a commoner, he was already defeated and no one paid any more attention to him.
Once the crown prince was kicked off the stage, Xuan Hongyu and Xuan Xiaotian instantly adjusted the direction of their spears. The two that had been collaborating just yesterday immediately started fighting.
Things happened really quickly. It had been too much for Ning Shu to even take in. The last part was like this:
The emperor had only half a year to live at most, so both Xuan Hongyu and Xuan Xiaotian had to enter the palace to attend to the emperor. They had to do their filial duty, but of course, it was also to contend for the throne.
As of now, there were only two adult princes. The others were still children that didn’t really have any contending power. If nothing unexpected occurred, one of these two would become the emperor.
Ning Shu didn’t feel like Xuan Hongyu could become emperor. The male lead, Xuan Xiaotian, would be emperor while the empress would be Shangguan Qingrou. The love story of having only one love this entire lifetime was a paragon of the imperial family that always went down in history.
After increasing the speed at which she trained, she had become stronger than before. If she encountered Xuan Xiaotian’s old hidden guards again, with the help of her weapons and poison, she definitely wouldn’t lose.
Who cared about all the billowing waves in the world? Ning Shu just silently worked on practicing martial arts since she already knew the outcome.
It wasn’t that Ning Shu hadn’t considered helping, but Xuan Hongyu definitely wouldn’t tolerate someone who was supposed to just be a tool criticizing his actions. In any case, her task was only to save Xuan Hongyu, so there was no point worrying about anything else.
It was just that the task of saving him would take some effort.
Xuan Hongyu and Xuan Xiaotian stayed by the emperor’s side regardless of the time of day or night. They moved into the imperial palace. Although it was said that the emperor would have half a year left to live, the poison had flared up in just a month. The emperor’s entire body became purple and bruised. The poison had already severely corroded his internal organs. Even though the imperial physicians were doing all they could to treat it, they couldn’t save the emperor’s life.
Since the emperor was about to die, he naturally had to pass the country to his son.