Thousand Miles of Bright Moonlight

Chapter 46: First Shift

The heat was most stifling in the Taiji Palace. Ice basins were placed in all four corners of the room, the ice slowly melting, the trickling drip drip drip sound echoing in the empty hall.

Li De focused all his attention on Yaoying, his phoenix eyes slightly upturned, the corners of his eyes lined with tiny wrinkles.

Yaoying sensed his suspicion and caution but looked as normal.

She knew Li De was paranoid and that she shouldn't have said such things to him, but things had already developed to this point. She was about to marry far away and had nothing left to worry about.

Before she left, she had to properly plan for Li Zhongqian and Noble Consort Xie.

"Ah ye," Yaoying looked straight at the gloomy-faced emperor sitting across the dragon table, "Back then, the Xie family and you reached an agreement. Promising that if you could achieve great things, you would share the riches and honor with the Xie family. The Xie family used their entire clan's strength to raise an army for you. To help you recover Wei County, they united with the noble families such as the Zheng family, the Cui family, the Xue family, and the Zhao family, and they appointed you a great general. This is the second account."

Li De did not make a sound.

Yaoying paused for a moment and said, "My uncle Xie Wuliang has died, the Xie's family children and women, both young and old, took poison to kill themselves. The Xie family's bloodline is no longer, and the Xie clan's elders who allied with you back then are gone...... but my aniang is still on this earth. She is a woman of the Xie family, my elder brother is a grandson of the Xie family, and I am a granddaughter of the Xie family. "

She spoke each word clearly, "I, Li Yaoying, as a granddaughter of the Xie family, ask Wei County's Li De to fulfill the promise of that year."

Li De narrowed his eyes, his expression becoming colder and colder.

Yaoying continued, "Before he died, Uncle had instructed my brother not to rely on our old friendship to ask Your Majesty for anything because he understood that Your Majesty had long had the mind to break the promise. He knew that forcing Your Majesty to honor the promise would only infuriate Your Majesty and make things even more difficult for my aniang and elder brother.

"Uncle had a noble character. He cherished all lives under the sky and had all the intention to support Your Majesty in governing the country. He always thought about the big picture, not caring in the least about his own gains and losses."

Yaoying paused and her cool gaze fell on Li De's face, "My uncle's broad-mindedness is not justification for you to break your promise."

......

Xie Wuliang was good at reading people. Back then, he had only seen Li De once, but immediately identified this man in dire straits as a formidable person who could change the current division in the Central Plains, so he was willing to ally with the Li family.

But he firmly opposed his younger sister Xie Manyuan's marriage to Li De.

The Xie family's di lineage was declining, so the two siblings had been dependent on each other since childhood. Xie Manyuan, who had not set a single foot outside Jingnan, was naïve and innocent, and asked her brother, "Elder brother, since you say Li De is an unrivaled hero, why don't you allow the clan's matriarch to marry him? Elder brother, haven't you always been lamenting that our family lacks a son who can lead troops into battle?"

Xie Wuliang replied, "Sister, Li De is capable of conquering and fighting, strict in ruling the army, good at enlisting the people, and dares to go against society and depend on people of poor and humble families. I would like to follow him and assist him. He will surely achieve great things in the future, and become a good and prudent ruler. But, that does not mean he will be a good husband. Moreover, our Xie family has been century-long history and tradition of guarding this region and sheltering the people. We are already very noble; we have no need to seek wealth and glory through marriage."