Chapter 202
Cao Liang looked at Ye Chutang, who was smiling brightly. He turned his stiff neck and shook his head.
"Impossible!"
He was the one who set the trap, not the one caught in it!
Ye Chutang looked at Cao Liang, who refused to believe the truth, and called out to the courtyard.
"Azhou, the plan to beat them at their own game has succeeded, come out."
Hearing this, Cao Liang immediately looked toward the entrance of the Qingya Courtyard.
Soon, Qi Yanzhou, who was supposed to be poisoned and unconscious, walked out of the courtyard.
His face was ruddy, and his bearing was dignified. He wasn't poisoned at all.
"Is Lord Cao surprised?"
Cao Liang stared blankly at the approaching Qi Yanzhou, his eyes full of fear.
To make the "body double plan" more realistic, more than half of the officials in the prefectural governor's manor had gone to chase "Qi Yanzhou."
Even if he called all his subordinates over, he wouldn't be able to turn defeat into victory!
He turned to Ye Chutang and asked, "Do you have a death wish?"
The Emperor had her life in his hands. How dared she betray the Emperor!
Ye Chutang kicked the back of Cao Liang's knee.
With a thud, Cao Liang fell to his knees.
Ye Chutang looked down at the pathetic Cao Liang, the corners of her mouth curling up in a mocking smile.
"Lord Cao has too little confidence in my medical skills."
"You weren't under the Emperor's control at all?"
"Naturally. My life is mine, not anyone else's. What is that dog Emperor to me!"
Cao Liang looked at Ye Chutang, who was insulting the Emperor, and slumped to the ground, his face pale as ashes.
"How did you know my plan?"
The smile on Ye Chutang's lips widened.
"Your brain is only slightly better than a pig's. How hard could it be to guess your plan?"
The insulting words fell into Cao Liang's ears, but they didn't elicit much of a reaction from him.
"You're telling me all this because you don't plan on letting me live, right?"
"Dying early means reincarnating early. I'm doing this for your own good."
As soon as she finished speaking, Qi Yanzhou's sword was pressed against Cao Liang's neck.
He looked at the prefectural governor's guards who were still fighting with the State Protection Army and spat out words as cold as ice.
"Stop!"
Cao Liang didn't say anything, so the guards naturally wouldn't stop.
Qi Yanzhou pressed the blood-stained sword down.
A cut was sliced open on Cao Liang's neck, and blood flowed freely.
The sword was poisoned, and the flowing blood quickly turned black, and his face turned blue.
But he was tough and didn't utter a sound.
Soon, his whole body turned cold, and he swayed on his feet.
The prefectural governor's guards were distracted by Cao Liang's injury, and two of them died in the blink of an eye.
Knowing that they couldn't win against the State Protection Army and that a desperate struggle would only result in more deaths, they voluntarily threw down their weapons and surrendered.
Listening to the clatter of weapons, Cao Liang closed his eyes and waited for death.
But the hand hanging by his side trembled.
Qi Yanzhou sensed Cao Liang's fear and reminded him, "Lord Cao, the poison on this sword is what you used to kill me."
These words transformed into a giant hand that choked Cao Liang's throat, making him feel the threat of death.
The instinct to survive made him shout.
"Physician Zhu!"
The poison was concocted by Physician Zhu, so he had the antidote!
Physician Zhu was in the front yard and couldn't hear Cao Liang's weak cries for help.
Seeing Cao Liang's emotional agitation and worrying that the poison would enter his heart meridians and kill him, Ye Chutang immediately used silver needles to seal several of his major acupoints.
This dog official was still useful and couldn't die just yet.
She twirled the silver needle in her hand and pushed it deeper. Cao Liang let out a piercing scream of pain.
"Let... let go!"
Ye Chutang looked at Cao Liang, whose facial features were contorted in pain, and asked, "Where is the secret decree?"
As long as the Qi family left Liangzhou City alive, the dog Emperor would know that she and Han Chong had rebelled.
A falling out was inevitable.
Therefore, she had to get something on him and strike first to expose the dog Emperor's shamelessness to the public!
Cao Liang felt as if a wooden stick was stirring in his chest, and all the meridians in his body were being pulled. He trembled in pain, drenched in cold sweat.
He shook his head with difficulty. "There is no secret decree."
Betraying the Emperor would result in the extermination of his nine familial relations. His death alone was enough!
Seeing Cao Liang's stubbornness, Qi Yanzhou swung his sword and chopped off one of his fingers.
"Are you going to speak?"
Cao Liang fainted from the pain.
Ye Chutang pierced his pain acupoints with a silver needle, and he immediately woke up.
Because he refused to confess, another finger was chopped off, and he fainted from the pain again.
Then he was repeatedly tossed between fainting from pain and waking up from pain.
Qi Yanzhou looked at Cao Liang's bare hands, his thin lips curling into a bloodthirsty arc.
"If you betray the Emperor, your nine familial relations will be exterminated. If you disobey me, your entire family will be wiped out. Which will you choose?"
Cao Liang wished he were dead, and his consciousness was dissipating.
But the life and death of his family made his consciousness immediately recover its clarity.
His scarlet eyes glared fiercely at Qi Yanzhou.
"You can't do this!"
His fierce words were spoken without confidence, hiding a humble plea.
"You wanted to kill my whole family, so it's only fair that an eye for an eye."
"It's my fault. The disaster shouldn't affect my family."
As soon as these words came out, everyone laughed so hard they bent over backward.
Ye Chutang aimed the tip of the silver needle at Cao Liang's eye.
"That sounds really nice. Say it again."
Cao Liang blinked in fear. His eyelid brushed past the tip of the needle, and the terrifying friction made his whole body tremble.
A gentle voice wrapped in vicious words fell by his ear.
"We are never kind to our enemies. Since you care about your family, then we'll use them as the sacrificial lambs."
Ye Chutang pierced several acupoints around Cao Liang's eyes, making him open his eyes wide uncontrollably.
"I want you to watch helplessly as the Cao family is exterminated."
After saying that, she stood up and said to Qi Yanzhou, "Have your men capture the entire Cao family."
Qi Yanzhou knew Ye Chutang was just forcing Cao Liang to speak and nodded.
"Okay, I'll have someone do it right away."
While Cao Liang was hesitating whether to compromise, Han Chong arrived.
He held his legitimate grandson, who had just turned half a year old, in one hand, and the head of his only son in the other.
The summer breeze brought the smell of blood and the weak cries of the child.
Roll, roll.
The head, with its messy hair and eyes wide open in death, rolled to Cao Liang's side.
He wailed in agony, "Feng'er, my Feng'er!"
As he spoke, he wanted to pick up the head, but realized he had no fingers, smearing his son's face with blood.
He howled as if he had broken down, expressing the feeling of losing his beloved son vividly.
But no one present was moved.
Ye Chutang quietly turned her back, not wanting the child to see the bloody scene.
Qi Yanzhou took the child from Han Chong's hands and placed him next to Cao Liang.
"If you don't speak, the next to die will be this child."
Cao Liang hurriedly lay on the ground and protected his grandson in his arms.
Listening to his grandson's hoarse cries, his heart was breaking.
"Beasts! You're all beasts!"
Hearing this, Ye Chutang smiled and said, "You only know the pain when the knife stabs into your own body. This is human nature!"
Han Chong echoed, "Lord Cao, family is a reverse scale for everyone. Whoever touches it dies. Now Young Master Qi is giving you a chance to live. Do you want it or not?"
If he wanted it, he would have to hand over the Emperor's secret decree and betray the Emperor.
If he didn't, his entire family would be wiped out!
Cao Liang spat out a mouthful of black blood, and his face withered at a visible rate.
His voice was as weak as a thread. "Dying early or dying late, there's no difference!"
Qi Yanzhou corrected him, "There is a difference. If you die early, you watch your entire family die. If you die late, you can leave an heir."
A child still in swaddling clothes would have no memories, so there was no need to worry about the future consequences of not pulling up the roots when cutting the weeds.
Cao Liang gazed at his grandson before him, his face brimming with affectionate warmth.
"The secret decree is hidden within the stitching of the very first book on the first bookshelf in the study."