64 Fulfilling the emperors wishes (1/2)
The grunting and groaning sounds that came from the two combatants on the floor continued for an excruciating several minutes. Yi Hai wanted to look away but couldn't, the sight was too graphic, too erotically stimulating for comfort. He wondered if he was going to be alright after this, whatever this is.
The guards had already been dismissed outside, so there were only five people in the room witnessing this diabolical act including the two palace guards, who were, however, more stoic than their commander. After a short glance at the twisting and gyrating bodies on the floor, the two guards averted their gazes and never once looked in that direction again even when the duke slumped on the cold floor and wept.
The empress dowager was stone cold detached.She didn't even turn a hair when Shu Se whimpered and sobbed as her brother forced her to do things only a husband would demand of his wife. For the duke, the torture of watching his son defiling his own sister was mind altering. He felt disgust, fury, and yes, jealousy.Jealousy of his own son for touching what was his; and fury at Shu Se for responding to her brother's advances. He didn't hear her screams.In his twisted mind, she was giving herself willingly to her brother just as she had given herself willingly to the emperor, Gu Fang.
The incestuous act lasted nearly half an hour but to the people watching and listening to it, it seemed like hours. Zhe Bai Lian finally gave a last loud grunt then his worn out, satiated body fell off his sister's as he lay on the ground panting.
Nobody moved. Nobody said anything. Then the empress dowager freed the duke from his handcuffs. The duke staggered to his feet like a drunken man. After a slight hesitation, he walked over to where the bodies of his children lay naked and exposed.
Shu Se was sobbing quietly, her legs pressed against her chest in a fetal position. Beside her, Zhe Bai Lian lay with his eyes closed, the sweat of sexual fulfillment dotting his moist forehead. The now flaccid brown penis lay quietly between his legs, still glistening ooze from his sister's juices.
The duke seemed to be fascinated by the sight of his son's dick. He eyes locked on it intently as he towered over his son's naked, heaving body. As if sensing his gaze, Zhe Bai Lian opened his eyes and stared straight into his father's cold and furious eyes. He scrambled to his feet, alarmed and scared, but it was already too late. It had already been too late for all of them the minute he touched Shu Se.
The empress dowager watched coldly as the maddened duke hacked viciously at his son then at his daughter with the sword she had conveniently placed beside him on the floor.
The screams were so loud and harrowing the guards scrambled inside to see what was going on. What they saw literally stretched their eyes wide open. The Duke of Zeyin, his white robe drenched in blood, was holding a long sword in his hand and was using it to viciously hack at his son's and daughter's dead bodies while laughing and crying maniacally.
This horrific sight was too much even for these hardened warriors. Their eyes swiveled to their superiors in search of guidance but Commander Yi Hai seemed unaware of their presence, his gaze on the empress dowager who was watching with inscrutable eyes as the duke vent his shame and anger on the defiled bodies of his children.
The duke's unhinged venting didn't take long. He finally stopped after exhausting himself. Then he straightened, staring woodenly at the carnage around him. His lifeless eyes made a half degree turn and landed on the empress dowager, who looked at him steadily and without pity. The duke stretched his mouth in a grotesque smile then both hands grasped the middle of the blade, plunging the blood-drenched tip deep into his own chest.
The duke then turned the blade once...twice, giving a last dying gasp before his lifeless body crumpled to the ground.
Nobody spoke but one could hear harsh breathing in the painful silence. It was the empress dowager who finally broke it. She looked at the carnage with veiled eyes then coldly ordered:
”Clean this garbage up,” she said, ”and search the entire place.Arrest everyone. I want guards placed around the compound. Don't let anybody in. If they do, kill them.”
Yi Hai and the guards nodded and fled, glad to get away from the stink of the room. They didn't want to stay there anymore. They didn't even want to remember where it was. All they want to do is forget, the blood, the hacked bodies, the final insanity the Duke of Zeyin inflicted on his daughter and son.
So it was true. The emperor of Yuqui didn't die a natural death. Poison. Somebody fed it to him minutes before he was about to share a bed with his new wife. The duke, the prime minister, perhaps the entire court was in on it. High treason, indeed. No wonder the empress dowager was pissed. The prime minister...did that mean?
Meanwhile, the empress dowager hurried outside to her carriage.She commanded the driver to go to the prime minister's house. The carriage had shot past the watching crowd and was pressing onwards when Yi Hai and ten palace guards exited the compound. They hurriedly got on their horses and frantically chased after her.
Yi Hai was alternately frightened for her majesty's safety and angry at her willfulness. She had shown how frighteningly capable she was of taking care of herself but still these were desperate men who would not even hesitate to sell their own mothers to escape the imperial wrath. What the heck was she thinking? Or was she thinking at all and was just following the spirit of vengeance anywhere it moved her?
The dwelling place of the prime minister was not as grand or as big as the duke's but it was still fortified like a fucking gold fort. The empress dowager looked at the chains on the doors and half-laughed, half-snorted. As if she would give them any chance to escape from her. Idiots.
She glanced at the ornate ring on the middle finger of her left hand. Who would have thought that when she traveled through time and landed on another dimension that she would still be wearing this ring? The ring was very old and was a wedding gift given by her grandfather to her grandmother. Hippolyta preferred to wear no ornaments on her hands but this ring was special. It was a giant space created by Li Cheung's magic, a space capable of storing anything, even an object as big as a mountain.
And the last person who was in charge of this ring was Enxuo, who gave her the ring before he left. Good old Enzuo who liked to buy things in bulk and whose hoarding habits were legendary.The vast space of the ring must have challenged him because he crammed an arsenal of weapons necessary to a warrior's fighting lifestyle: guns, swords, knives, chemicals, rounds and rounds of ammo including bullets and grenades, tents, dry food, blankets, medicine kits, batteries, and fuel. There were even several boxes of undetonated bombs inside and two trucks, two armored vehicles, and two tanks. Tanks.Hmnn....
The enormous tank terrified the citizens of Yuqui who heard its rumbling cry miles away. It scared the bejesus out of the rebel holdouts still hiding inside the prime minister's house. When the empress dowager rammed the vehicle's thick enormous body through the closed wooden doors, it not only splintered the wood like they were matchsticks the force literally shook and shuddered the ground like an earthquake.
People ran around like headless chickens, screaming that the end was near and praying to god for deliverance. When they caught sight of the tank, they literally froze. The empress dowager took aim and watched calmly as half of the house was torn apart by the force of the blast. Two more rounds and the prime minister's house was flattened like a pancake, dead bodies strewn around the devasation like limp noodles covered in blood.
The empress dowager opened the hatch and jumped to the ground. Under the soles of her shoes, blood flowed like a river, staining the helm of the red dress she was wearing. She didn't seem to notice though because her eyes had caught something slumped on a large piece of wood a little distance away. It was a fat young man, half of his head was blown away by shrapnel, his stomach opened like a gutted pig. A red bandana was loosely tied around his waist, the color now resembling a gray ashen dust.
”The prime minister's only son, your majesty,” Yi Hai quietly said beside her. ”The leader of the Scarlet Rebels.”
”I want you to immediately round up those treacherous ministers. I won't even give them a fair trial. Just hang them up high until their necks break.”
”It will be as you wish, your majesty,” Yi Hai bowed.
The empress dowager did not speak and the silence lengthened.
”Is it over?” she said in a low voice which Yi Hai could barely hear.
”Your majesty?” Yi Hai said with a concerned frown.
The empress dowager glanced at him.
”I was talking to myself,” she said.
The frown didn't leave Yi Hai's face. The empress dowager chuckled when she saw it.
”I believe everything will be alright now. We've broken the rebels' back and all the major players in this little drama are either dead or on the run. They'll most likely head to the nearest town, which is fifty miles from here. Have your men sweep that area first thing tomorrow morning.”
”Yes, your majesty,” Yi Hai said then hesitated.