I Rely on Beauty to Stabilize the Country Chapter 143

Chapter 143

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The visitor was the Emperor of Xixia.

Gu Yuanbai looked at him for a while before curling his lips into a cold smile. Li Angyi wiped the blood from his head and sighed lightly. “Please send a military doctor to treat my wounds, given my current appearance.”

Gu Yuanbai said, “Bring someone.”

Fifteen minutes later, Li Angyi’s head wound had been hastily bandaged. The Donglingwei found Li Angyi on the battlefield. At that time, he was trapped under the carcass of a fine horse, barely an arm’s length from a crevice.

The candlelight in the tent flickered with the cold wind, casting dim and obscure shadows on the faces of the two emperors.

Li Angyi didn’t need much thought to know how many soldiers and horses were stationed outside the tent. With tens of thousands of people guarding him alone, even if Li Angyi had three heads and six arms, he wouldn’t be able to escape from the Great Heng army camp.

He sighed again and relaxed, leaning back in his chair. He looked at Gu Yuanbai as if they were old friends meeting again after a long separation. “You look like you haven’t been injured.”

Gu Yuanbai adjusted his robe and, with a raised eyebrow at the remark, replied, “Indeed, I’m doing better than you.”

“Fate is unpredictable,” Li Angyi said with a helpless look in his eyes. He fell silent for a moment, then suddenly said, “The moon is nice tonight. How about taking a walk together?”

The guards in the tent were on high alert, gripping their blades at their waists.

Gu Yuanbai stood up directly. “Let’s go.”

***

The moon was high in the sky, yet the Great Heng military camp had not yet fallen asleep. Soldiers holding torches were patrolling everywhere, and disaster relief efforts were proceeding in an orderly manner.

Li Angyi glanced at the bright moon overhead and said slowly, “After such a catastrophe, the moonlight is still so pure, truly merciless. The earthquake came too suddenly, precisely when you and I were personally leading the expedition. It seems to have a hint of divine punishment.”

Gu Yuanbai stepped over the rubble and spoke slowly, “You don’t believe it.”

“I do,” Li Angyi turned his head and looked deeply at Gu Yuanbai. “I believe it very much.”

Gu Yuanbai narrowed his eyes.

“Before I came to Great Heng, perhaps you heard of my reputation for being ‘lucky’,” Li Angyi smiled slightly, with a hint of irony in his tone, playing with the phrase. “‘Lucky,’ it really makes me uncomfortable.”

Gu Yuanbai remained silent, and Li Angyi didn’t seem to expect him to respond. He spoke softly, almost as if talking to himself, saying what he wanted to say: “You may not know this, but I was born in a latrine. My mother was of low status, but she was fortunate enough to conceive the dragon seed on her first attempt. She was terrified that someone would ruin her path to power, so she hid in the latrine every day to eat and drink. Amazingly, under her fearful avoidance, those vipers in the harem never discovered her.”

“But a lowly palace maid hiding from the concubines and giving birth to a lowly second prince made people think she was outrageously disrespectful and deserved death,” Li Angyi lamented, his tone cold and indifferent, as if the person he spoke of was not his birth mother. “Her ambition outweighed her ability, and her actions were disgusting. If she didn’t die, who should?”

“The second prince, born amidst the mix of blood and stench in the latrine, truly deserved to die as well.”

“Because he was too dirty,” Li Angyi said.

Gu Yuanbai replied indifferently, “Yet you posthumously honored your mother as Empress Dowager.”

Li Angyi laughed, “Because she had a son,” he said playfully, “who was resilient.”

“Don’t rush, I’m not finished yet,” Li Angyi placed his hands in front of him, his slightly curled black hair matted with dried blood. “I grew up in extremely difficult conditions. The common people worry about three meals a day, about feeding their children, and I too worried about food and survival. Just talking about these hands,” he waved his hands in front of Gu Yuanbai, “these hands were once trampled underfoot by the palace concubines. Because she felt the stones hurt her feet, she made me use my hands to pave her path. The stone path wasn’t long, but being young at the time, it felt endless. I still remember those days vividly. I would lie on the ground like a dog. When the concubine lifted her back foot, I had to quickly move the hand that had been stepped on to the front, so she could step on it again, repeatedly.”

“Do you know why this Niang Niang treated me like this? Because I am stubbornly lucky. Just five days before her son was born, I managed to come out from my humble mother’s womb and became the second prince of Xixia, surpassing her son.”

Li Angyi muttered to himself, “No wonder she doesn’t like me.”

“People are forced to do things they don’t want to do either to survive or to gain power,” Li Angyi paused, as a cold wind suddenly blew through, rustling everyone’s robes. “These things can be good or bad, pushing you step by step forward. If you don’t do them, you won’t survive. No one doesn’t want to live. Don’t you want to live? Of course, you want to live. From birth to the birth of the future emperor, you’ve hardly suffered any hardships. The most troublesome thing in your life should be the proximity to great power and this frail body. You’ve noticed the incense problem so quickly and paid attention to your physical discomfort. The desire to live that way, you should understand how strong it is.”

Gu Yuanbai remained silent.

The cold wind blew his temple’s hair, and there were small wounds on his face from the stone debris.

Li Angyi smiled bitterly as he murmured, looking at him, “I want to live, just like any other person.”

“I want to wear clothes that befit my prince status, eat at a table, and have others not mockingly throw a steamed bun into the outhouse for me to pick up and eat,” Li Angyi said. “Hmm, I have to be honest, even if the most delicious thing rolls in the outhouse, it’s hard to swallow.”

Gu Yuanbai met his gaze, standing in front of the broken tiles and ruins, his eyes seeming to emit a faint light of amusement. The two emperors of their respective nations quietly stared at each other.

The smile on Li Angyi’s face faded, and he became expressionless.

The seventh prince of Xixia was handsome, Li Angyi and Li Angshun resembled each other about thirty percent, but his features were otherwise quite ordinary. Once he retracted his smile, his ordinary face revealed an unusually gloomy and ruthless expression. “I first had to become like an animal to survive in the filthy harem of Xixia. On that stone path, my hands were trampled until they bled profusely by the concubine. She wished to cripple my hands. And the maid by her side scolded me for dirtying the stone path and slapped me five times in public. When I used the clothes on my chest and back to wipe away the blood, I resolved that I must become a person.”

“To be a real person, one who can take revenge on everyone who has harmed and beaten me,” Li Angyi said, his face somber. “Who are the people in the harem most afraid of becoming emperor? They fear me the most. Because I have suffered the abuse of everyone, and everyone wants to bring me down, they know that if I rise to power, they will die.”

“The eldest prince was arrogant and treated me like a stable boy; he deserved to die. The third prince seemed gentle, but secretly made me eat burning incense ash; he and his mother deserved to die. The fourth and fifth princes, born of the same mother, helped each other and deserved to die too… As for the seventh prince, hah, an utter fool, but a perfect pawn.”

Li Angyi continued, “Can you guess what expressions they had when I ascended the throne?”

Gu Yuanbai replied, “I guess they were terrified.”

Li Angyi couldn’t help but laugh, a muffled laugh that bent his back, “You guessed right.”

The oil in the torch crackled, scattering sparks that flared up again.

Straightening up, Li Angyi’s voice turned cold, “But after all my efforts to become a person, I have now lost.”

“I believe in Heaven, but Heaven does not favor me!” Li Angyi’s eyes slowly filled with blood, “It does not let me live well! I have exhausted all my efforts, my tens of thousands of troops, millions of taels of silver, and the entire Xixiia under my control, set to revive in my hands, but Heaven will not let me!”

He suddenly pointed at Gu Yuanbai and shouted, “Heaven favors you! What have you suffered? You are loved by the people and officials alike; whatever you want, you get! Even if you want my life, I must break a leg to save myself!”

The guards, Donglingwei, and soldiers immediately drew their swords and spears, surrounding Gu Yuanbai and pointing their weapons at Li Angyi.

The cold light flickered, and the firelight reflected the danger.

Li Angyi’s intense emotions calmed down in an instant, and he resumed his bitter smile, “Heaven sends disaster, you are unharmed, but I am trapped in enemy territory. This is fate; it is my destiny. Gu Lian,” he said softly, enunciating each word clearly, “I did not lose to you; I lost to Heaven.”

“Heaven wants me dead, so I must die.”

Only then did Gu Yuanbai suddenly smile, unpredictably, “You think you lost to Heaven, not to me?”

Li Angyi replied frankly, “Yes.”

“Then I will show you who you really lost to,” Gu Yuanbai turned, his robes swirling as he took large strides, “Take him away.”

****

The day after the earthquake, Gu Yuanbai led his army to the outskirts of the Xixia camp.

The people of Xixia were in a panic, the gates tightly shut, and the city walls crowded with Xixia soldiers.

Xixia lacked sufficient medicine for the injured, and due to the ambush in the rear, there were twenty to thirty thousand wounded. With the emperor of Xixia missing, the generals were anxious, spending the night tracking the emperor. They didn’t even have time to search for food. The uninjured soldiers had been taken out by the generals, leaving only the wounded in the city.

Looking at the Great Heng army beyond their range, those who hadn’t had a drop of water since the earthquake began to feel despair.

Why had the Great Heng army arrived at the gates of Xixia the day after the earthquake?

Gu Yuanbai, clad in armor, looked at the city gates and calmly said, “General Zhang, relay my words.”

General Zhang acknowledged, “Yes!”

Gu Yuanbai said, “People of the city, I know you are all wounded soldiers.”

Zhang Hucheng raised his voice and conveyed the message in the language of Xixia to the city walls.

“Injuries without medicine will only lead to death. After days of heavy snow and disaster, you probably don’t even have enough food to last a few days,” Gu Yuanbai continued. “On the battlefield, you know the consequences of being injured. Food supplies will be prioritized for uninjured soldiers, and you, with your broken limbs, will be abandoned, becoming nameless corpses of war. Look back at the ruins behind you, where many of your comrades are buried, waiting for rescue, but you cannot save them because you can barely survive yourselves.”

“Your emperor, your generals cannot guarantee your safety,” Gu Yuanbai chuckled briefly. “They are neither good emperors nor good leaders.”

Among the crowd, Li Angyi, who was restrained, showed a slight change in expression.

The soldiers of Great Heng listened to the emperor’s words, lifting their heads to look at the opposing soldiers on the walls of Xixia. They saw the dirt on their faces, still unwashed, and the walls beneath their feet, dilapidated as if they would collapse with a single blow.

Obviously, in just one night, they had hastily erected the city walls.

There was simply no comparison with Great Heng.

The Xixia soldiers knew they shouldn’t listen to the Great Heng emperor’s words and should argue back, but they remained silent, taking each word to heart.

“Come,” Gu Yuanbai suddenly ordered.

Soldiers from the rear pushed out carts. As soon as they loosened their grip, the bulky carts immediately tilted, their contents sliding to the ground.

Soldiers untied layer after layer of cloth, revealing overflowing supplies of food and herbs.

Gu Yuanbai raised his voice and declared, “Save those who surrender! Kill those who resist!”

The army trembled, tens of thousands of voices roaring, “Save those who surrender! Kill those who resist!”

The resounding voice made the ground and the walls tremble.

All the people of Xixia within the city heard this thunderous declaration. They endured their pain, exchanging glances with their companions in twos and threes.

In the ruins at the corners of the wall, many people were still moaning in despair, their lives slipping away rapidly, staining the ground red with blood.

More people were buried under the broken walls, waiting for death in despair.

Every corner inside the gray walls was filled with such scenes of loneliness and helplessness.

No one cared for them, no one saved them.

Medicinal herbs and food were the soldiers’ lives.

With a clang, a weapon fell to the ground from someone’s hand. This sound seemed to awaken the entire city, and the clatter of iron weapons falling continued one after another.

Gu Yuanbai led the army, watching as the gates of Xixia slowly opened before them.

Gu Yuanbai exhaled a deep breath, looking at the uneasy Xixia people. He turned to his generals and said succinctly, “Save them.”

A large number of troops rushed into Xixia city. Amid the fearful eyes of the Xixia people, they lifted those who laid on the ground in pain to the military doctors. The ruins were cleared one by one. Occasionally, soldiers of Great Heng saw lightly wounded individuals and immediately tore cloth pouches from their waists, handing over medicinal herbs to stop the bleeding.

Everything was orderly, neither rushed nor slow.

Gu Yuanbai rode atop his swift horse, turning his head to look at Li Angyi in the crowd.

“Release him.”

Li Angyi was pushed out of the crowd and stood before the Great Heng army.

Gu Yuanbai looked down at him and said, “Natural disasters are ruthless, and they spared me no mercy. Go see the situation in your city and compare it with mine. Great Heng will never take advantage of others’ misfortunes. I release you to let you see who is truly bringing ruin upon you.”

“The soldiers you can’t save, I will save. The people you can’t protect,” Gu Yuanbai leaned forward, his dark eyes deep, staring directly at Li Angyi, “I will protect.”

Gu Yuanbai stood straight, his voice clear and forceful, “You believe in fate, while I tread the heavens.”

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