Chapter 72: The Sickly Prime Minister Poisoned to Death by Her Beloved

When the Eldest Princess left, it was at the beginning of the year. Xiao Jinse frantically mobilized the Imperial Forest Army to search inch by inch through the Capital Region, nearly turning the entire Imperial City upside down and digging three feet deep.

To no avail.

The Great End’s Eldest Princess vanished into thin air, completely losing her trace from the heavily guarded Prime Minister’s Mansion, which was patrolled every three steps.

No one knew where she had gone, nor how she had escaped.

Xiao Jinse trusted no one and personally went to search for her. Her body was so frail that she could barely walk far. By the time she reached the outskirts of the city, she was coughing so violently she could hardly hold the reins. She led elite cavalry in pursuit for over a hundred li before finally collapsing from her horse.

That spring felt exceptionally cold to Xiao Jinse and everyone else. A sudden spring chill struck in early March, worsening her condition. She vomited blood continuously for half a month, falling gravely ill. The imperial physicians were at a loss, and Xinyi desperately sought doctors everywhere, but to no effect. Soon, not only the Capital City but the entire realm knew of Chancellor Xiao’s dire illness. Almost everyone awaited the moment Xiao Jinse closed her eyes, anticipating a shift in the court.

Officials in the capital had already chosen sides between Xiao Jinse and the Emperor. The Little Emperor began mobilizing his forces recklessly to inquire about Xiao Jinse’s condition, but the Prime Minister’s Mansion was sealed tight as a drum, letting no news leak out.

The tighter the lid, the more it proved Xiao Jinse was on her last legs. The Little Emperor nearly thanked his aunt for her willful flight—it had taken just this one escape to enrage Xiao Jinse to death.

“It’s almost here, almost!” In the nine-layered high platform, the Emperor’s hands trembled slightly.

He believed his talents were no less than Xiao Jinse’s; he was merely a few years younger and had always been constrained by her. Now, the person who had loomed over him like a dense cloud since his youth was finally dying.

He had waited for this day far too long.

Gu Ciyan stood at his side, hands cradling her sword, her lowered voice laced with inevitable excitement.

“Your Majesty, the hidden guards sent a secret message: Chancellor Xiao has been unconscious for days, taking no food or water. Her oil is spent, her lamp flickering out—she likely won’t last more than a few days…”

Meanwhile, the Prime Minister’s Mansion presented a different scene.

At the end of March, with several braziers still burning in the room and windows sealed tight against any draft, a faint bloody scent mingled with medicinal bitterness hung in the air.

The woman, her face pallid as gold paper, lay with eyes closed against a jade pillow. Her lips were cracked, her eye corners glistening perhaps from excessive coughing, yet her voice was icy cold.

“Any news?”

Her voice was hoarse, as if it could dissolve into the spring breeze and vanish at any moment. She was indeed gravely ill, but her mind remained clear and calm, showing none of the rumored days-long coma or dying embers.

Xinyi shook her head, her brows shadowed with gloom. “None. Still no word of the Eldest Princess anywhere.”

The woman on the bed seemed to twitch her lips. Her slender fingers clenched the bedding tightly. “Have all the official and minor roads been blocked?”

“They have…” Xinyi lowered her head, her voice thick with difficulty. “Still nothing…”

Nothing… still nothing…

Xiao Jinse’s expression darkened like storm clouds. Her long, upturned lashes trembled faintly before slowly closing, as if her heart had turned to ash. After a long pause, she suddenly laughed—a sharp, abrupt sound. Her lips curved an inch as she repeated the words, enunciating each chillingly, sending shivers through hearts.

“Nothing—”

Everyone in the room fell utterly silent, breaths held to the minimum. The vast chamber echoed only with the woman’s shrill, bone-chilling cold laugh.

Indeed, even after she spread word of her deathbed state, hanging by a thread and longing for one last glimpse of Her Highness, the princess refused to return even for a glance.

Shi Qingyi, what a ruthless heart.

Her scheme of self-inflicted suffering had been performed for the blind.

The silence stretched endlessly. At last, the woman on the bed slowly pushed aside the covers. Xinyi moved to help, but Xiao Jinse shoved her away. She struggled up alone, extending one hand.

Her fingertips were like tender bamboo shoots, white as jade, but so thin it alarmed the heart—wrist bones protruding, azure veins starkly visible. Anyone glancing at them knew she was a long-term invalid.

“The medicine—give it to me.”

Xinyi paled in shock, jerking her head up with a rasp. “Prime Minister!”

Her eyes nearly begged, but the woman on the bed remained unmoved. Her gaze was pitch black, deep as an abyss admitting no light—only emotionless cold.

“Must I repeat myself? The medicine—give it to me.”

Xinyi’s hands shook as she finally produced a small purple porcelain vial, pouring out a longan-sized pill. Xiao Jinse grasped it and closed her eyes briefly.

“The arrangements I ordered—how are they progressing?”

“Nearly complete,” Jiang Changche replied from behind, head bowed. “The Northern Frontier troops must guard against barbarian movements and cannot be mobilized. The rest around the Capital Region can receive secret orders today and stand ready at your command.”

Everything was prepared, awaiting only that eastern wind. Then it would blaze like prairie fire, toppling heavens and earth in an instant.

Xiao Jinse closed her eyes and tossed back the pill, its bitter medicine sliding down.

No matter. It didn’t matter if Her Highness refused to return. She was, after all, Great End’s Eldest Princess, with the Emperor and the realm in her heart. When the time came, Xiao Jinse would seize the Emperor, toss the entire imperial clan into Zhao Prison. For every day Her Highness didn’t return, she’d carve a piece from the Little Emperor’s flesh, slay one imperial relative. Even if she didn’t come back then, she’d have to!

She would always end up in Xiao Jinse’s hands.

She could forget escaping this lifetime. Xiao Jinse had given her a chance—it was she who went back on her word. So she couldn’t blame her…

Dark currents surged in the Imperial City as all awaited that moment. In the frontier desert, a hooded woman trudged through wind and sand. The camel bells had faded into the wastes; she journeyed alone, staggering onward amid endless dunes.

“How much longer?”

“Almost, almost. At most one more hour to Fu’e City.” The System checked the map. Having lingered too long in this broken world, even it now spoke in hours.

“Host, Chancellor Xiao spread such a pitiful message. Why not go back and see her?”

“Go back for what? So she can chain me even tighter?” The woman extended her thickly wrapped arm and poured water down her throat. In the desert, moisture evaporated quickly; she was bundled head to toe in her long robe.

Xiao Jinse’s words were just pretty lies. Shi Qingyi had never truly believed her from the start.

The reborn Xiao Jinse was no longer the naive, easily fooled Chancellor of old. She trusted no one but herself.

Cool spring water soothed her scorched throat somewhat. She lifted her head to the boundless sands, squinting. “This truly isn’t a place for humans. The Chen clan exiled here en masse, forbidden from leaving for generations—no wonder the Little Emperor promised three years later to free them from servitude and return them to the heartlands. They fought so desperately.”

As a tasker, she had a basic grasp of the world. With the System, she knew most of the plot ahead, including the Little Emperor’s later glorious deeds.

A sharp glint flashed in Shi Qingyi’s eyes. “So even for the sake of their descendants escaping this torment, joining a rebellion shouldn’t be impossible.”

The System vaguely sensed something off.

It was supposed to have her rewrite the plot here, let the villain feel love and warmth, allow the protagonists to live well. Why was she now doing the male lead’s deeds?

But clearly, it was too late now.

Shi Qingyi readjusted her hood and pressed on through the gale, murmuring her calculations.

“War-torn Jiangnan, Yizhou lagging in imperial exams year after year, Fu’e City enduring exile and torment at the border—enough…”

Her “jaunt” outside hadn’t been mere sightseeing. In that year, she contacted old acquaintances, ambitious courtiers, and the desperate without avenues.

Including able officials the Little Emperor would later employ—she had gathered them all under her wing.

At this moment, all the vague pieces seemed to fall into place. The System panicked briefly as its instruments calculated something dire. “What about Jiangnan?”

Why expose it right now with accusations to the capital, pinning it squarely on Xiao Jinse? Even without that, Xiao Jinse might not have come here—

The woman’s voice remained faint, emotionless. “They’re right. I was indeed the bait to lure Xiao Jinse here.”

A fierce gust whipped up her hood, veiling half her stern face, hiding her expression.

Not everyone wanted to choose between Xiao Jinse and the Emperor. She had netted the neutrals—and those opposed to them. Jiangnan’s granary held no grudge against Xiao Jinse.

But what did it matter? With her here, Xiao Jinse needed a legitimate excuse to march on Jiangnan—so now there was a grudge.

The System suddenly felt a chill down its spine. It seemed from the very beginning, this hadn’t been a simple—

Shi Qingyi ignored it. In the distant hazy yellow sky, crumbling battlements emerged—ancient and desolate.

“We’ve arrived. Fu’e City.”

She stood atop a dune, her robe flapping wildly in the wind, her gaze steady as stone.

The final puzzle piece on frontier troops clicked into place, blocking any reinforcements. Neither the Emperor nor Xiao Jinse could cross this barrier.

She breathed a light sigh of relief and descended with nimble steps.

“Perhaps you’ve heard: the snipe and the clam fight, and the fisherman profits.”

The System fell silent. It began reviewing countless past details, trying to pinpoint when Shi Qingyi, who had clung to it through thick and thin, had silently orchestrated all this.

Shi Qingyi didn’t await its response. She recalled the promise she’d made to herself in the previous world.

The feeling of being controlled and powerless was utterly awful. This time, she wanted to be the one holding all the strings.

Soon. Very soon.

Mid-May, rain poured like waterfalls, unrelenting for days. The moment it ceased, Shi Qingyi spurred her horse toward Qi Yu Mountain, a mere thousand li from the Capital City.

By mid-May, word spread of Xiao Jinse’s deathbed illness. All awaited the news—but it never came.

The Imperial City suddenly sealed shut, no messages escaping, like a city of the dead. Rumor held Xiao Jinse had made a desperate last stand.

Early June, news from the capital: Xiao Jinse—defeated.