Jiangshan Fengwuzhi

Chapter 158: The Power of the Dragon
Yin Kuo never thought that one day he would be betrayed in public.

When Gu Jingnian used his wings of fire to burn him again, none of his ministers standing around stepped forward to stop him. He couldn't believe this result. The pain it brought was even greater than the physical torture.

But that's what power is.

In the past, all the ministers respected Yin Kuo because of his power, and their loyalty made Yin Kuo mistakenly believe that it was his personal charm and prestige.

But now, Prince Xin is dead, and there is an intact body of Yin Kuo in the palace. Who would go against the trend to protect that strange body covered with mucus?
This time, Gu Jingnian directly burned Yin Kuo to ashes.

Yin Wanqing stood nearby and watched with a calm expression.

Only Gu Jingnian noticed that her hands were shaking constantly.

So, on the way back to the palace, Gu Jingnian whispered: "You didn't kill him. You couldn't kill him with that sword. I burned him to death."

"I know." Yin Wanqing looked at her hand. "I know the truth, but I clearly cut my grandfather with a sword."

Gu Jingnian stopped comforting her and asked, "Why did you chop it?"

"If I chop him off, others will be more likely to believe that he is a monster, and it will also prevent him from coming back to life too quickly, giving me more time to convince Lord Qu."

"It is necessary." Gu Jingnian said, "Then you did the right thing."

“You don’t know how to comfort people.”

"Just telling the truth."

Yin Wanqing let out a long sigh. Although she had not yet come out of the shadow of the sword, she was able to start thinking about other issues.

"Do you think he has another body?"

"I feel so." Gu Jingnian answered quickly.

This was not the answer Yin Wanqing wanted to hear. She asked, "Why do you say that?"

"Didn't you notice that his resurrection was very slow?" Gu Jingnian said, "Yin Yucheng was cut into two pieces, and he grew back not long after."

"Of course he discovered it." Yin Wanqing said, "But there could be many reasons. For example, Yin Yucheng had already turned into a salamander for many days, while he had just been resurrected not long ago, and their ages were also different."

"Then just pretend it didn't happen. As long as you can rest assured." Gu Jingnian nodded casually.

He was not as reverent to the Eastern Palace as others were, which made Yin Wanqing feel out of control.

But she was not displeased, instead she reminded: “It’s us, we are already in the same boat.”

"How did you convince Qu Jizhi?"

"It's very simple. If Lord Qu stands on Grandfather's side this time, the Yong Kingdom will inevitably develop alchemy, which will greatly damage the national strength. Moreover, the overall situation has been decided. My father has ascended the throne in the palace. If he helps Grandfather to restore his position, a war will inevitably ensue."

Gu Jingnian nodded, and in his heart he approved of Qu Jizhi's attitude.

"I want to talk to him."

"it is good."

Gu Jingnian finally had the chance to chat with Qu Jizhi alone on the last leg of the journey before entering the palace.

Qu Jizhi was sitting in the carriage, looking lonely. When he saw Gu Jingnian coming in, his face turned cold and he said indifferently, "You have committed the crime of regicide, how dare you come to see me?"

Gu Jingnian knew that Qu Jizhi wanted to intimidate him and extort more information from him.

He was not intimidated and said, "Your Majesty was assassinated in Yongshou Palace."

Qu Jizhi wanted to ask more, but Gu Jingnian said, "I am not interested in the fight for the throne. I came here today because I want to ask Lord Qu something else."

"Just ask."

"I heard that Lord Qu got some clues about Ying Yao?"

Qu Jizhi nodded and asked, "Who told you that?"

"Axolotl."

Hearing this, Qu Jizhi's face darkened and he let out a long sigh.

He might have guessed it all.

The emperor turned into a salamander, and the prince was the ultimate beneficiary of the entire palace coup.

But what can we do if we guess it?

"Do you know why I still support the East Palace?"

"I don't know."

Qu Jizhi said: "What are the people in the court concerned about? The war with Rui State has expanded the territory by thousands of miles, which powerful foreigners have emerged in the capital, and who is more favored by Your Majesty, the Crown Prince or Prince Xin. Only Prince Zhao has always been concerned about the drought in the southwest and how much the people have suffered."

"Yes."

Qu Jizhi said: "Prince Zhao will be a good crown prince, and he will also be a good emperor in the future."

Gu Jingnian listened to Qu Jizhi's words patiently and said, "We have strayed off topic. Mr. Qu has not yet answered my question as to whether he has any clues about Ying Yao."

"I have just told you the clue."

"what?"

Gu Jingnian just asked a question, and then quickly responded, "Severe drought in the southwest?"

Qu Jizhi nodded and said, "I found out that the drought in the southwest might be related to the appearance of the Phoenix."

When Gu Jingnian first arrived in Yongjing, he heard Yin Jinggeng mention the severe drought in the southwest, but he didn't pay much attention to it, and never thought it would be related to Ying Yao.

"and then?"

"I only visited Lianzhou before the drought, where there was a fire that stretched for hundreds of miles, and someone saw a firebird." Qu Jizhi shook his head, "I don't know the rest."

Gu Jingnian said: "But the people of the village said that you will find Yingyao soon."

"He lied to you."

"How do I know that Mr. Qu is not deceiving me?"

Qu Jizhi looked into Gu Jingnian's eyes and suddenly asked, "Do you want to become stronger?"

"think."

"Have you ever thought about this? If you get a lot of phoenix blood, you will be stronger, and even be able to be reborn after death. In this way, you don't have to worry about having your head chopped off."

Gu Jingnian shook his head. "Why are you shaking your head?" Qu Jizhi said, "You just said you wanted to become stronger."

"It's not worth it for me to hurt Yingyao."

"How about a different one? Like, one that lets you breathe fire, too?"

Gu Jingnian was silent for a long time and shook his head.

He didn't tell the reason, and Qu Jizhi didn't ask. He just sighed and said, "It's not easy to restrain greed... The reason I say this is that you need to be careful of Gu Beiming."

"Why?"

"You know, he wants to refine the phoenix, so the clues you and I talked about today should not be easily known to others." Qu Jizhi said: "Also, you'd better not go to Lianzhou to look for it. If Gu Beiming knows you've been there, he will know Ying Yao's whereabouts."

Gu Jingnian asked: "Why do you want to help me?"

"Do you trust me more than Gu Beiming?" Qu Jizhi asked instead of answering.

As they were talking, the carriage arrived at the palace.

Yin Jinggeng has woken up.

He was injured and even lost face when he was captured, but he did not blame anyone for it. He personally led everyone to pay homage to Yin Kuo's coffin, and reported to Yin Yuhe their great contribution to "eradicating the rebels."

This broad-mindedness and magnanimity won praise from all the civil officials in the court.

Many people knew that this time, the prince was helped to ascend the throne by King Zhao alone.

A few days later, the national mourning was over, Yin Yuhe ascended the throne, issued a general amnesty, and rewarded his meritorious officials.

Gu Jingnian was not interested in these things.

He brought Pei Nian, Feng Niang and others back to Gu's house, stayed indoors, and thought about how to go to Lianzhou in the southwest to find Ying Yao while avoiding being noticed by Gu Beiming and Kaiping Division.

The new emperor of Yong State did not forget his contribution and rewarded him soon.

That day, he was playing chess with Pei Nian, Feng Niang and Zhang Xiaofang when he heard Lao Hei coming over and saying that someone from the palace had come to announce an imperial decree.

The reason why Lao Hei was the one who came to pass the message was that the servants who were originally monitoring Gu Jingnian had already been withdrawn, and the entire Gu residence was now filled with their own people, which made things much easier.

Gu Jingnian turned around and saw Zhang Xiaofang holding the chess pieces in deep thought. Feng Niang took the opportunity to push the chessboard apart.

"In that case, then I won't go down."

Pei Nian was about to win, and smiled slightly when he saw this.

She was too lazy to argue with Feng Niang, so she turned around and looked, somewhat curious about what reward Gu Jingnian had received.

After all, he was a fan of officials, so Pei Nian was actually quite envious.

……

"Marquis Chengye?"

"Yes, please accept my order as soon as possible."

In the Gu residence, when Gu Jingnian received the imperial edict awarding him the title, he became the Marquis of Yong State in the blink of an eye.

Before this, many people in the court always believed that Gu Jingnian had committed the crime of regicide.

Faced with this situation, Yin Yuhe confirmed Gu Jingnian's merit in following the emperor with an extremely tough attitude.

What this means is that the one who died under Gu Jingnian's fire wings was the monster who pretended to be the late emperor, and this cannot be doubted.

"Congratulations, my Lord." The eunuch who delivered the decree brought another pile of clothes and said with a smile, "His Royal Highness the Crown Prince and Princess Changming invite you to come to their house tonight for a chat."

At the moment, the Crown Prince is referring to the former Prince Zhao Yin Jinggeng, and as for Princess Changming, she is naturally Yin Wanqing.

But an eunuch who came to summon the emperor also brought a message for the prince's private banquet, which was enough to show how powerful this prince was.

Gu Jingnian agreed and went to the East Palace for the banquet that night.

The previous emperor had just passed away and banquets were still prohibited in Yongjing, so the table was very simple and there was not even any wine.

Yin Jinggeng and Yin Wanqing, brother and sister, were both there. When they saw Gu Jingnian arrive, they raised their glasses and drank.

The entire palace coup actually centered around these three people, so there was naturally a tacit understanding between them.

Gu Jingnian sat down and asked directly, "Have you found the salamander?"

"No." Yin Jinggeng shook his head.

"Can you confirm if there are any resurrected salamanders?"

"I tend to think there is, but I can't be sure." Yin Jinggeng said: "There is another person, we haven't found him since the palace coup."

"Who?" Gu Jingnian asked.

Yin Wanqing couldn't help herself and said, "It's someone you know. Why don't you guess?"

There was a barely perceptible hint of mockery in her eyes.

Gu Jingnian thought for a moment and said, "Yin Shu?"

Yin Wanqing said: "She is deeply in love with you, it's a pity that you just remembered it now."

Yin Jinggeng said: "That day, Yin Shu entered the underground palace. But my people never found her whereabouts."

"Maybe he was burned to death?"

"It's possible." Yin Jinggeng said, "But I'm worried that she has left Yongjing. During this period of time, he was only focused on finding his grandfather and ignored her."

Gu Jingnian asked, "So what if she escaped?"

Yin Jinggeng ate two mouthfuls of food before saying, "You know what? As long as there is enough mucus, even if there is only a small piece of the salamander left, it can be resurrected."

Upon hearing this, Gu Jingnian said, "That's better than me."

Yin Wanqing said, "Brother, why worry too much? The overall situation has been decided. Even if he escapes, it won't cause much trouble."

"good."

Yin Jinggeng was open-minded and stopped talking about this matter. He said, "Let's talk about business. After experiencing what happened to my grandfather, I have a deep understanding of the harm of alchemy. I want to eliminate all the alchemists in Yong State. Is Marquis Chengye willing to help me with this?"

Gu Jingnian looked over and saw that the young prince's eyes were bright and determined, with burning enthusiasm.

(End of this chapter)