Rebirth: The Journey of an Heiress

Bai Qingyan's gaze calmly observed Yun Poxing, who was set on dying, and heard his deliberate words meant to provoke Cheng Yuanzhi. Her heart was filled with hatred, screaming for her to use countless arrows to torture Yun Poxing to death, shouting to make her inflict upon Yun Tianao the pain his grandfather Yun Poxing had once inflicted on little Seventeen.

But Bai Qingyan was not Yun Poxing... she would not do such a thing.

Cheng Yuanzhi heard the names of the Commander and Vice Commander from Yun Poxing's mouth, and upon hearing Master Seventeen's experiences, his eyes were bloodshot, with hatred threatening to destroy all his reason. Like a Rakshasa returned from hell, filled with murderous aura, he raised his sharp blade and decisively severed Yun Poxing's neck.

Yun Poxing's bloodied head rolled away...

Though his head was severed, his sight remained; he saw the snowflakes drifting down from the dark sky, saw his blood spraying into the white snow, as if staining the soon-to-fall pristine white.

In the instant before the light in his pupils dispersed, Yun Poxing's thoughts seemed to replay his entire life.

He was born to the main branch of the Yun family, the head of Xiliang's Eight Great Families. If he hadn't joined the military back then... and accepted the arrangements to serve as an official, he would have inevitably inherited his father's mantle, becoming a leader who opposed the Emperor of Xiliang with the court officials.

Before the previous Emperor was even born, he was already a designated companion to the princes, which was to say, a companion to the future Emperor, even if he was older than any of the princes at that time.

The previous Emperor was the legitimate heir, born when Yun Poxing was ten. The previous Emperor was intelligent from a young age and adored by both the ministers and his father, seemingly the destined Crown Prince, favored by the heavens... Yet he was very attached to Yun Poxing, not in a way of trying to win him over or curry favor, but treating him like a family member and elder brother.

At that time, his father was extremely strict in teaching him, for he was the future of the Yun family. His father's expectations were often too high for him to meet, resulting in frequent beatings with a whip. He was proud and didn't want others to know, but the previous Emperor always noticed...

He remembers that it was one of those rare snowy days in Xiliang when he stole medicine from the Imperial Medical Bureau and secretly handed it to him upon entering the palace. With bright black eyes looking up, he said, "Brother, rest assured, I'm clever enough not to let anyone find out, secretly brought this for you! No one will know you were punished again!"

Then, the previous Emperor was three years old. The large snowflakes landed on his long lashes and turned into water droplets, making his eyes appear wet. Those eyes contained the purest place Yun Poxing had ever seen in the world...

At seventeen, the previous Emperor, ten years his junior, disregarded his own safety to shield him from a bear's paw at the hunting grounds, allowing Yun Poxing the chance to slay the bear, almost costing the previous Emperor his life...

The previous Emperor was unconscious for three days; Yun Poxing knelt at the palace gates for three days. When the previous Emperor awoke, the first thing he did was to plead with his father not to punish Yun Poxing.

Later, the previous Emperor's health never fully recovered, needing medicinal soups to sustain life despite being so young. Yet he never regretted saving Yun Poxing; in fact, he always held back his coughs in his presence, his face turning red, comforting Yun Poxing by saying he was fine.

Time passed quickly, and the previous Emperor reached the age of twenty, the coming-of-age ritual. But due to his health, he delayed consummating his marriage with the Crown Princess Consort, unable to father an heir, to propagate the imperial lineage. The ministers and families who once supported the legitimate branch of the previous Emperor shifted their allegiance to the Crown Prince and the Second Prince, thinking... given the current state of the previous Emperor's health, he could die at any time.

It seemed that the past praised mercy and kindness of the previous Emperor became unimportant. What mattered was having an Emperor with a sound body who could stabilize Xiliang's reign under the manipulation of the Eight Great Families and ministers.

Therefore, Yun Poxing resolved to protect the previous Emperor's ascent to the throne!

He relied on the power of the Yun family and his father-in-law's family to secure his position in the royal court, controlled Xiliang's military power, and vowed to elevate the Emperor, whom the Eight Great Families and ministers doubted, to the throne.

In the end, he succeeded. He lived up to expectations by securing control over Xiliang's political and military power, killing the Crown Prince and the Second Prince, and elevating the ignored legitimate heir of the imperial family to the throne.

He swore to protect his Emperor and Xiliang, pledging to be the Emperor's blade, executing all orders without question. He submitted to the former Emperor, suppressing the Eight Great Families to make the Emperor the true ruler of Xiliang, but his conflict with the Eight Great Families grew.

Thus, when the previous Emperor was assassinated, during his entanglement on the battlefield, with the previous Emperor having no legitimate sons—only a legitimate daughter—as the trigger, the Yunjing Turmoil occurred, and the Eight Great Families seized power.

Returning to Yunjing, he saw Li Tianjiao, who said her father had instructed her before his departure that if there was no one else in the world to trust, she could trust only Yun Poxing to protect Xiliang.

Upon hearing this, Yun Poxing couldn't help but shed tears. So he firmly supported Li Tianjiao's ascension, hoping to suppress the Eight Great Families with force as before, but this time he found the Eight Great Families were not as they once were. Fortunately, Li Tianjiao, the previous Emperor's progeny, was also capable, recruiting Han Shu to counter the Eight Great Families.

However, even with Li Tianjiao's talents and his desperate efforts, with internal strife from the Eight Great Families deeply rooted like a festering bone infection and exterior foes surrounding them, they had no means to save the situation.

He felt he failed the Emperor, unable to guard Xiliang as promised...

Amidst the falling snow, he seemed to see again the young Emperor's pure, bright eyes like black gemstones.

Yun Poxing's vision gradually blurred; finally, his body stiffened in convulsion, and everything ended.

"Grandfather!"

Yun Tianao's mournful cry echoed through the Ansan valley, but his grandfather could no longer hear him.

Yun Poxing, a renowned general of Xiliang, ultimately died at Ansan.

After severing Yun Poxing's head, Cheng Yuanzhi panted heavily...

Tears almost welled up in his eyes as if that one slash had exhausted all his strength. The blood-drenched sharp blade fell to the ground, and Cheng Yuanzhi staggered to retrieve Yun Poxing's head, then knelt and raised it high towards Wengshan, his old tears streaming down. He choked out in a loud voice, "Vice Commander... Old Cheng avenged you! Master Seventeen... brothers of the Bai family army! Old Cheng... Old Cheng avenged you!"