At the thought of the rumors from several days ago, and seeing the expressions on His Majesty’s and Chancellor Wei’s faces, some officials felt that their opportunity had arrived.
“Your Majesty, even if General Wei has found a way to counter the Great Yan army’s gunpowder, that cannot make up for the crime of losing three cities in succession. General Wei may be spared the death penalty, but he must still face punishment. This minister proposes that Wei Qingyi be immediately escorted back to the capital to stand trial!”
“This minister seconds the motion. Wei Qingyi’s crimes are unforgivable. He ought to be investigated and dealt with.”
“This minister seconds the motion!”
“This minister seconds the motion!”
One official after another stepped forward in support, demanding that Wei Qingyi be prosecuted for losing the cities.
Bei Ji still did not speak at once. Instead, he lowered his eyes as though deep in thought, while the corner of his eye swept toward Chancellor Wei and several of the officials standing behind him.
“Your Majesty, I believe the words of these gentlemen are rather one-sided. As for Wei Qingyi…”
“What happened to Wei Qingyi?”
Sitting in the Great Yan court, Yue Fuguang was still able to learn of the developments in Northern Li in a timely manner, thanks to the system acting as her informant.
[He was suddenly stripped of his position as Left General today and is being escorted back to the capital to stand trial.]
“What’s the reason?”
[Counting the losses from the previous few days, Wei Qingyi has now lost four cities in succession. How could the Northern Li court possibly continue to tolerate him? They’ve been arguing in court for more than ten days, demanding that he be punished.
Actually, officials had already begun impeaching him after he lost the second city. But at that time, Bei Ji still didn’t know about the relationship between Chancellor Wei and his favored concubine.
Besides, he understood the might of Great Yan’s gunpowder. It was not something human strength could withstand, so he went out of his way to defend Wei Qingyi.
After the loss of the third city, Bei Ji had already grown suspicious of Chancellor Wei. When the court censors impeached Wei Qingyi again, Bei Ji stood by coldly and watched the Chancellor’s faction clash with the opposing side.
Although he did not strip Wei Qingyi of his position as Left General, he did issue an edict reprimanding him and sent several military supervisors to the front line.]
Yue Fuguang chuckled. “So after Wei Qingyi lost yet another city, Bei Ji decided to punish him?”
[Yes and no. If three more cities fell, the Great Yan army would be able to march all the way to Northern Li’s capital. Naturally, the court wanted to replace the commanding officers, so the impeachment of Wei Qingyi intensified. They weren’t only targeting Wei Qingyi; they had no intention of letting any of the generals on the front lines off the hook.
However, the reason Bei Ji finally acted against Wei Qingyi was that Chancellor Wei ultimately couldn’t resist secretly contacting the Noble Consort—and Bei Ji’s people found out.]
Yue Fuguang froze. She could easily imagine how chaotic the Northern Li court must be at that moment. The emperor had turned against the trusted and heavily relied-upon minister at his side, with a favored concubine and a prince caught between them.
The front lines were under pressure, while the rear was not only in crisis but also actively undermining itself. For Great Yan, this was the perfect opportunity—one that would certainly help them accelerate their conquest of Northern Li.
As it turned out, Yue Fuguang’s guess had been exactly right. In the early spring of the tenth year of Yuankang, two months after Great Yan captured Nanzhao, Northern Li also fell into Great Yan’s hands.
“Little Zhu, are you saying that Wei Qingyi and Bei Ye are both dead?”
The cherry in Yue Fuguang’s hand nearly fell to the ground. “Weren’t Zheng Feng and my second brother escorting them to the capital? How did they suddenly die?”
She felt that the two of them being dead was better than their being alive, but she had truly never imagined that anyone would make a move against them.
Yue Fuguang did not want to assume it was some conspiracy. Could Emperor Mingxi and the others have acted ahead of schedule?
[Master, after Wei Qingyi was impeached, Bei Ji ordered that he be escorted back to the capital. He was kept in Northern Li’s imperial prison the entire time. Later, Bei Ye returned to save him.
As a prince, he worked things out through numerous channels and managed to prevent Wei Qingyi from dying in prison. His health…]
Before the system could finish, Yue Fuguang interrupted it. “Wait. Why was it Bei Ye who went to great lengths to help him? What about his father, Chancellor Wei? Didn’t he care? And what about his aunt and cousin? They just stood by and let him die? Did they decide Wei Qingyi was a useless piece and abandon him? That’s awfully heartless!”
After all, Wei Qingyi’s predicament was inseparable from these people.
As it turned out, the general temporarily appointed to replace Wei Qingyi was no better than him. He failed to gain even the slightest advantage against the Great Yan army.
The cities that were destined to fall still fell. It was only thanks to the methods Wei Qingyi had previously devised for dealing with Great Yan’s gunpowder attacks that the Great Yan army’s progress in taking the cities was slowed somewhat.
The Northern Li court could not possibly have failed to notice this. Chancellor Wei could not have simply hidden his head in the sand.
[Chancellor Wei’s explanation was that there was already a rift between His Majesty and himself. If he stepped forward, it would only make His Majesty more wary of the Wei family.]
“Do you believe that?”
[I don’t, but that didn’t stop Bei Ye from believing it. So for more than half a year after returning, he had no time to fight for the throne at all. He spent all his time thinking of ways to rescue Wei Qingyi.
Unfortunately, before he could save Wei Qingyi, the Great Yan army broke through the capital and captured all of them. They had been perfectly safe on the road under escort, but no one knows why the Eighth Prince—who had already become a prisoner—still dared to attack Bei Ye in the chaos.
He had intended to poison Bei Ye without anyone noticing, then pin the blame on your second brother, Zheng Feng, and the others escorting them.]
“So Bei Ye was poisoned to death by the Eighth Prince, and Wei Qingyi committed suicide for love?”
When the ministers and officials of Great Yan heard Yue Fuguang’s guess that Wei Qingyi had died for love, their expressions shifted in complicated ways.
Perhaps Wei Qingyi would not have done such a thing in the past. But now that he had become a prisoner of Great Yan, with his future uncertain, it was entirely possible that he would choose to end everything himself.
As for the Eighth Prince’s attempt to use this as an excuse to shift the blame onto Yu Boming and the others, the officials of Great Yan paid it little mind.
Even if they had not known the truth, they would never have punished the heroes of their own nation over it. To them, the death of an enemy prince and a dismissed general was perhaps less important than the death of an ordinary citizen.
Besides, the army of the Grand Preceptor’s Yue clan was not something just anyone could order around.
[Master, you guessed wrong this time. The Eighth Prince poisoned Wei Qingyi, not Bei Ye. The poisoned chicken soup was originally meant for Bei Ye. But Bei Ye was worried about how badly Wei Qingyi’s health had deteriorated, so he tricked him by saying that he had already drunk it and gave all the soup that was meant for him to Wei Qingyi instead.
Wei Qingyi drank the soup, and before long, he stopped breathing. He died in Bei Ye’s arms.]
After capturing the Northern Li imperial family, Great Yan did not mistreat them. They were afraid that, having grown accustomed to comfort and luxury, the prisoners might die on the journey, so they occasionally gave them some extra food.
That was precisely what gave the Eighth Prince his opportunity.
Yue Fuguang thought about the scene and then considered the feelings between the two men. She felt that Bei Ye must have gone mad at that moment.
