Chapter 107: The Dragon Carrying Destiny
June 17th
As those men drew their swords and rushed forward, Shi Wenbin started to shout. Those men were a little panicked and retreated one after another.
The imperial guards were nearby and rushed over when they heard the shouting.
Wang Sheng originally wanted to kill Xu Chong in a few moves, but seeing that he could not succeed, several people behind him also ran away, so he also made a feint and fled. Xu Chong looked carefully and saw that those people fled in all directions. Only the palace maid and Wang Sheng seemed to flee in the direction of Kunning Palace where the queen was, but he did not see it clearly.
He did not dare to chase them, but just shouted. There were responses from all over the palace, and soon several teams of people gathered here. Shi Wenbin directed these people to search for the rebels everywhere.
Fortunately, Xu Chong recognized all four people, so he passed on their names. He also sent eunuch Ma to the Kunning Palace where the queen lived to search for the palace maid Lianxiu carefully. If she saw them, she just shouted. Then he dispatched the personal soldiers who recognized the four people to search everywhere. Shi Wenbin specifically ordered that they must be captured alive.
Things took a sudden turn for the worse. How come these people, who had participated in the investigation of the Hat Monster, turned out to be the insiders? He had to bear the responsibility.
After a while, they heard the sound of gongs from the west, as if there was a trace. Xu Chong and Shen Kuo rushed over and found that it was Sun Li, one of the four, who wanted to steal the armory, but was caught by the guards. In fact, no one recognized him at first, and thought he was also catching a traitor, but he panicked and hacked at people, and was killed by the sword.
When they arrived, the man was already dead. Shen Kuo had someone tear open Sun Li's shirt and found a tattoo on his chest, a wolf's head, not the swastika commonly seen on Maitreya followers.
"Brother Xu, have you seen this tattoo?" Shen Kuo asked.
"I have never seen them, but I have heard that the Liao Iron Forest Army is mostly composed of tigers, leopards, jackals and wolves."
The guards did not find anything on him. The palace was in chaos. It was said that Empress Cao had personally put on military uniform and carried a sword to protect the emperor and capture the rebels. However, the emperor was hiding somewhere, seemingly avoiding the empress.
Shi Wenbin was also a man of shrewdness. He had long realized that something was wrong. This group of people were conspiring in the imperial garden behind the Queen's palace. After the plot failed, some of them ran to the Queen's Kunning Palace. Among them, the maid Lianxiu was a close friend of the Queen. There were too many suspicious points. After all, he was very shrewd. He did not allow the guards to approach the Kunning Palace, and only sent the eunuchs in to avoid any unclear explanation if something happened.
At 3:30 pm, Guo Kui, one of the people, set fire to Tianzhang Pavilion in the northwest and was surrounded. When Xu Chong and Shen Kuo arrived, Guo Kui had fallen from the burning building and was already foaming at the mouth. Everyone remembered that Shi Wenbin said they wanted to keep him alive, so they surrounded Guo Kui, who was writhing in pain on the ground, and slowly approached him, but he rolled his eyes and died.
Judging from the death, it didn't look like he fell to death. Sure enough, a medicine bottle was found in his sleeve, which seemed to contain some highly toxic medicine. When he looked at his chest, he saw a wolf head tattoo. Shen Kuo had also heard that many Song soldiers had dragon tattoos, and some had Guan Yu tattoos, but no tiger, leopard, jackal or wolf tattoos. But the Liao warriors loved to have these tattoos.
Guo Kui and Sun Li were both soldiers recruited from Hebei. Wang Shengyanxiu, who had not yet been arrested, also ate and drank with Xu Chong on weekdays. Xu Chong knew that they were all transferred to Hebei from the Western Army. He didn't know how they got together.
At the hour of Chou, another of them, Yan Xiu, was surrounded.
He hid in the shadows outside the Wende Hall, and was spotted by patrolling soldiers. However, there was another round of killing, and Yan Xiu fought to the death and finally died of his injuries. Three of the thieves died in a blink of an eye, leaving no one alive. Now only the maids Lian Xiu and Wang Sheng in the Queen's Palace were left. But no one knew where he had hidden?
At the hour of Yin, someone suddenly came to report that two people were seen hiding secretly under Zuo Chengtian Xiangfu's door, and they seemed to hear a quarrel, and one of them seemed to be a woman.
At this moment, two hours had passed since the conspiracy of the five people was discovered. The palace had already been under martial law. Those who were still on the imperial road outside were either eunuchs or imperial guards. There were no palace maids. Xu Chong noticed something was wrong and immediately took a team to investigate. Shi Wenbin also reminded him to leave a survivor. This matter involved too many people. If there was no confession left, with the emperor's current suspicious look, who knows how many people would be implicated?
Xu Chong knew that he couldn't rush in and kill them all, so he took only seven or eight people to sneak to the Zuo Chengtian Xiangfu Gate. He just wanted to sneak forward and at least capture the palace maid.
They sneaked past the Chongzheng Hall and were not far from the Zuo Chengtian Xiangfu Gate. Xu Chong just poked his head out from the corner of the imperial road. Sure enough, he saw two figures swaying under the gate, and there seemed to be some sound.
The door faces east. Originally the moonlight was in the north, and there was a shadow at the base of the wall. Unfortunately, the guest star was flickering in the east, making the shadow on the imperial road flicker. He decided to take a risk and approach to a distance of 30 to 40 feet, throwing his waist knife to injure Wang Sheng. Then he would capture the palace maid and leave at least one person alive.
So he told the people behind him not to follow him, and crouched down to move forward. He saw the two men approaching and could clearly hear them arguing.
I only heard the woman say: "You were the one who said it was a secret, but it was exposed. What should we do now?"
"What do you think we should do? We have failed so badly that we have no choice but to do that. I will go up and awaken Chiwen, kill the dragon that is destined to be born, and destroy the destiny. After you and I die, we will meet again in the underworld. You give me the pen."
"If I give you that magic pen, there will be no turning back."
"What way can we turn back? We can only hope that the fate of the Song court will be over."
"However……"
The maid stopped talking before she finished. She didn't see Xu Chong, but heard a sound in the distance. It was Empress Cao, wearing military uniforms and leading dozens of people with lanterns.
"Hurry up and cast a spell to summon that thing to delay us for a while!" Wang Sheng shouted.
Xu Chong rushed out of the shadows and threw his sword at Wang Sheng, trying to cut off one of his hands. However, Wang Sheng knew Xu Chong's move and dodged, so the sword missed. Behind Xu Chong, Empress Cao and her troops had already turned around the imperial road and saw the situation.
"Give it to me quickly." Wang Sheng shouted.
When Xu Chong saw the palace maid taking something out of her bosom, he was about to rush forward to grab it, but was stopped by Wang Sheng with a single sword. He had no weapon in his hand and was at a loss for a moment.
In a flash, the maid stuffed something into Wang Sheng's hand. Xu Chong saw that it was the magic brush stolen from the prince consort's house. The maid stuffed something into her mouth, probably poison. Xu Chong tried to grab the knife, but Wang Sheng stabbed it in front of him. He could only dodge. A large group of people came from behind. The couple was surrounded in a half-moon shape.
The queen in military uniform stepped forward and pointed at the maid: "Lianxiu, I have been very kind to you, why did you betray me?"
Lianxiu didn't say anything, but suddenly knelt down and kowtowed to the queen. Everyone was about to go forward to take the live one, but saw a cloud of smoke rising from the wall and coming towards the city gate. Everyone thought it was a hat monster and quickly retreated. In a blink of an eye, the cloud of smoke rose to the top of Zuo Chengtian Xiangfu Gate, and Wang Sheng was already standing on it. Lianxiu was already foaming at the mouth and fell to the ground. It turned out that he had taken poison.
In a blink of an eye, the hat monster disappeared, and only Wang Sheng was standing under the moon, with the twinkling . He held the pen in his hand and laughed wildly.
"Back then, the Book of Heaven descended upon the Dragon Head of this sect. Today, I will appeal to the Heaven and take back the Mandate of Heaven."
"The rebel is leaving. Someone fetch a bow and arrow. Shoot him down with arrows." Empress Cao ordered. She was a descendant of a powerful family, yet she was able to command with confidence.
"Don't hurt his life!" Shi Wenbin shouted. He stopped the soldiers. In fact, these guards didn't carry bows and arrows.
Shen Kuo hid behind the crowd. He knew why Shi Yaban dared to speak rudely in front of the Queen, because no matter how you looked at it, the Queen suddenly barged in and was suspected of murder to silence her.
“Hahahaha…God will destroy the Song Dynasty.”
Wang Sheng smiled, took the pen in his hand, and walked to the dragon. The farce planned by the late emperor and Wang Qinruo began when the late emperor claimed that he had dreamed of an immortal telling him to hang the heavenly book on the dragon's head. Sure enough, the heavenly book was found there later. From then on, there was only the Right Chengtian Gate in the palace, and the Left Chengtian Gate was changed to the Left Chengtian Xiangfu Gate. In fact, there was more than that. Later, even the reign title was changed to the first year of Dazhong Xiangfu.
Shen Kuo suddenly found it funny. This was originally a stone dragon. It had been used as a prop for the government to forge a forgery. Now, what other conspiracy did they want to use it as?
He tried his best to squeeze to the front of the crowd, firstly to wait for a chance to save the palace maid, and secondly to wait to see Wang Sheng make a fool of himself.
The way Wang Sheng held the pen showed that he was not very good at writing, and no one knew what he was thinking.
In fact, the story of "painting the dragon's eyes" left by this pen does not mean that the Southern Dynasty painter Zhang Sengyou really had magic. It just means that he was an outstanding painter and had a magical power. He added eyes to the dragon on the temple mural, and the dragon seemed to come alive. As a result, people spread the story that the dragon was brought to life by the power of this pen, and the dragon flew away. It has become a popular story. If it was just about the outstanding skills of the painter, people probably would not like to spread it.
Wang Sheng ripped open his shirt and suddenly stabbed his chest with a knife. He then dipped the pen in his own blood and poked the dragon's eyes. The stone dragon was vivid, with a piece of yellow silk tied to its horn. The guards and Empress Cao could only worry because there were no bows and arrows to stop him. Just now, Wang Sheng took advantage of the hat monster to go up and bluffed many people. Only Xu Chong and Shen Kuo knew that he was just using his claw hook.
"Zhao received the mandate, rose from Song, lasted for 700 years, was settled for 99 years, a guest star appeared, the country's prosperity ended, the Chiwen was destroyed, and the fourth generation was extinct!"
Wang Sheng laughed loudly as he recited the nursery rhyme, his hands moving constantly as he tried to touch the dragon's eyes. He was very cruel to himself, and even with blood flowing from his chest, he could still laugh. The first four lines of this nursery rhyme were written on the yellow silk cloth that wrapped the heavenly book when it was descended. I don't know if the last four lines were made up by him, but they are in line with the usual routine of Maitreya. They always use nursery rhymes and miracles together to achieve the best effect of bewitching people, but now there are only nursery rhymes and no miracles have appeared yet. If the hat monster that just flashed by doesn't count.
Someone brought a ladder from nearby and placed it under the eaves of the Zuo Chengtian Xiangfu Gate, and the royal soldiers began to climb up.
Shen Kuo stared up at the top with wide eyes, but nothing happened. Wang Sheng committed suicide, his face was pale and he was about to die. What was going on?
But the dragon suddenly began to change, and its eyes began to turn red.
Shen Kuo knew that something was going to happen again.
The dragon began to tremble and sway from side to side, as if trying to break free from the eaves. The stone scales on its body broke apart, revealing translucent, slightly reddish scales.
Is it reviving?
Shen Kuo froze in place for a moment. He knew that something strange and inexplicable was about to happen.
The dragon struggled to jump up from the eaves, and its front half had already fallen off the roof.
Wang Sheng’s laughter became weaker and weaker, but the dragon beside him seemed to be about to fly up.
"The Song Dynasty, which was built on the dragon's throne, will be destroyed today."
He raised his knife and chopped at the dragon's head.
The dragon hit by the sword instantly started to burn and turned into a golden dragon bathed in fire in the blink of an eye.
Everyone watched as the dragon struggling in the fire was unable to fly and instead burned into a ball of fire.
As soon as the guards who climbed up from below showed their heads, they were stunned by the scene in front of them. Even though Wang Sheng was already lying on the eaves dying, they did not dare to go forward to catch him, only because of the dying dragon twisting behind him.
