The salty sea breeze rushed into the cabin.
The candlelight flickered wildly, nearly dying out.
“Your Majesty, how do you feel?” The Marquis of Ningyuan looked at the pale young emperor on the couch, his eyes filled with worry.
That day, the young emperor had urgently summoned him to the palace, begging to be taken out, even resorting to threatening his own life.
Left with no choice, the Marquis had complied with the young emperor's wishes.
Who could have expected that this journey would be so fraught with difficulties? If it wasn't everyone suffering from food poisoning, it was the carriages breaking down.
The most absurd part was what happened recently.
On a stormy night not long ago, a bolt of lightning had suddenly struck from the sky, blasting their sea vessel into splinters...
“Cough, cough...”
The young emperor forced himself to sit up in bed, pretending to be fine. He said to the Marquis of Ningyuan, “Minister Shen, Our body is not in any serious danger. There is no need to worry about Us. We must rush to Zhenbei Prefecture as quickly as possible to find the Divine Lady!”
The Marquis of Ningyuan hesitated slightly before speaking. “Your Majesty, this old minister has something to say, though I do not know if it is appropriate.”
Shen Ying, holding a silver spear in her arms, rolled her eyes dramatically at her father and complained, “Father, if you have something to say, just say it. Why are you dragging your feet? You're a military man, yet you insist on acting like those scholars who beat around the bush. It's annoying.”
...
The Marquis of Ningyuan glared at his daughter.
He truly had not expected that despite going to temples every year with his wife to burn incense and pray to Buddha, they would end up raising such a little terror.
He wondered what sins he had committed in his past life. His sons gave him no peace, and now his daughter was breaking his heart too.
But she was his daughter after all, so he naturally had to protect her.
“Your Majesty, my daughter is crude and undisciplined. Please forgive her.”
The young emperor was not stupid. Grand Tutor Xu Nan had urged him to seek refuge with the Divine Lady in the north, likely planning to use him as a bargaining chip to secure his own position. The Marquis of Ningyuan was different. He was upright and honorable, and he would never betray his sovereign.
Besides, at this point, the Marquis of Ningyuan was the only one he could rely on. How could he risk offending him?
“Miss Shen is innocent and straightforward. She is much better than those double-dealing hypocrites in the palace. We like her very much.”
Upon hearing this, alarm bells rang in the Marquis of Ningyuan's mind. “My daughter has been wild and undisciplined since childhood. I fear she is not a suitable match for Your Majesty.”
“The Marquis of Ningyuan misunderstands.”
The young emperor quickly explained.
“We did not mean it that way!”
The Marquis of Ningyuan remained noncommittal, merely giving Shen Ying a look to signal her to leave.
Shen Ying glanced at the young emperor and let out a cold snort.
“Weakling. Who cares if you like me?”
Although she spoke softly, the young emperor still heard her. His face flushed, turning a mix of green and white.
Worried that the young emperor would take offense, the Marquis of Ningyuan discreetly nudged Shen Ying with his foot and quickly ushered her out of the cabin.
Immediately after, he changed the subject. “Xu Nan is a deeply scheming man. I fear he harbors ulterior motives toward Your Majesty.”
“It does not matter,” the young emperor said, his expression calming down. “State Preceptor Guo Rong killed my mother and my grandfather's entire family, forcing me to play dumb in the palace just to survive.”
His eyes gradually reddened, and his hands tightly gripped the silk quilt over him, his voice dripping with pure hatred.
“Yet even so, he refused to let me off. Xiao Quanzi merely left the palace to deliver a letter to you on my behalf, and Guo Rong had him strangled to death right before my eyes.”
“I do not care what the Grand Tutor intends to do with me. Right now, I only want the State Preceptor dead. I want him to suffer a miserable death!”
“If the Divine Lady can help me kill those people, I will willingly hand Great Yong over to her!”
The Marquis of Ningyuan frowned deeply. “Your Majesty, you are the Emperor of Great Yong. How can you say such things?”
“Emperor? Hahaha!” The young emperor laughed, tears streaming down his face. “An emperor like me is nothing but a joke! I couldn't protect my own mother, my grandfather's family, or even the young eunuch who grew up alongside me!”
“This piece-of-shit emperor—whoever wants to be it can be it!”
His hysterical roar echoed in the cabin, as if he were releasing all the grievances he had bottled up inside.
If he could, he would rather not be the emperor.
Then his mother, his grandfather, and Xiao Quanzi would still be alive, and he wouldn't be locked in the imperial palace like a caged bird, living in constant terror every single day.
Seeing that the young emperor had clearly been driven to the brink of madness by the State Preceptor and the others, the Marquis of Ningyuan felt a complicated mix of emotions.
In truth, he quite agreed that the young emperor should abdicate and yield the throne to someone more capable. However, as a minister of Great Yong, he could not say such things. Especially since his two sons were currently serving under the Divine Lady, he could not show even a hint of approval for the emperor's abdication.
Just as he was about to offer some standard words of counsel, he heard Shen Ying's anxious shouts from outside the cabin.
“Father, something terrible has happened! Come out quickly!”
The Marquis of Ningyuan's heart tightened. He hurriedly lifted the curtain and stepped out, only to be hit full in the face by the sea wind carrying salty spray.
Shen Ying stood at the bow, clutching half of a snapped thick rope, her face as pale as paper under the moonlight.
Before the Marquis of Ningyuan could speak, she raised her hand and pointed toward the sea, her voice trembling uncontrollably. “Father, look!”
“There's a fish over there that's even bigger than our ship! It looks like the legendary Kun! What do we do?”
The Marquis of Ningyuan followed the direction of her finger.
He saw it.
A pitch-black mass was rising from beneath the water.
Immediately afterward, the entire sea began to violently shake.
Under the moonlight, one could faintly make out a massive, arched back slowly rising from beneath the surface, barely twenty zhang away from the bow, looking like a moving black island.
Seawater cascaded down its back.
Then, that back grew wider and longer, quickly expanding beyond the limits of their vision.
The young emperor stumbled out of the cabin. Gripping the mast for support, he looked up at the colossal shadow that blotted out the sky.
His eyes widened in sheer terror.
A Kun!
There truly was a Kun in this world!
“Turn the rudder! Turn it immediately! Let it pass!” The Marquis of Ningyuan bellowed, his voice hoarse with urgency.
Unfortunately, it was already too late.
The giant fish merely tilted its body slightly.
A dull thud echoed from the bottom of the ship, as if a colossal hand had lifted it from below and violently flipped it.
The entire vessel tilted sharply to the right. The mast creaked and groaned as several cables snapped. Everyone on board was thrown off balance, instinctively clinging to the railings for dear life amidst a chorus of terrified screams.
“Help...”
“Someone save me...”
“Aaaaaah!”
One soldier was thrown directly into the sea, only to be slammed back onto the deck by a crashing wave, where he lay retching up water.
“Hold on! Everyone, hold on!”
Stepping forward, the Marquis of Ningyuan grabbed the rudder handle. Veins bulged on his arms as he used all his strength to force the ship back upright.
Yet, it was completely futile.
The giant fish merely flicked its tail fin slightly, and the ship was pushed sideways like a fallen leaf. The rudder spun wildly in his hands, the wood creaking on the verge of snapping.
The crowd fell deeper into despair.
“It's over, we're all doomed...”
“Sob, I don't want to die...”
“Help us...”
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