Reborn as the Crown Prince's Little Ancestor - Chapter 4

Stunned by the slap, Chu Yao cried, “Your Majesty, I’m the Divine Maiden!”

Qi revered its gods. Chu Yao’s office gave her considerable standing. The imperial family treated her courteously and even excused her from kneeling.

After enough of that, she had grown so full of herself that she dared challenge the empress in public.

“The Divine Maiden?” The empress sneered. “One word from me to His Majesty, and someone else can hold that title tomorrow!”

Chu Yao froze. She had finally remembered that most of her glory came from honors the imperial family had bestowed.

The emperor and empress had always been devoted to each other. If the empress truly lost her temper, she could tear Chu Yao straight off her pedestal.

In a panic, Chu Yao ran to the unconscious God of War for support. “Your Majesty, do you know who he is? Mingjue, God of War! Everything I’m doing is to save our god!”

“He fell from the sky into Jiangzhou and brought heavenly fire that burned our people to death. A god? He looks more like a monster to me!”

The empress glared. She knew her son better than anyone: abundant compassion, far too little edge.

Without her intervention today, Chu Yao might really have coaxed fifty years of life from him.

Fifty years of a mortal life!

She had only one son, more precious to her than her own eyes. No one was going to hurt him.

“How can Your Majesty slander the God of War? And the people revere me as their Divine Maiden. How dare you lay a hand on me?”

Chu Yao adored Mingjue. She dreamed of becoming his heavenly consort. Believing she had found a mighty protector, she scarcely troubled to respect a mortal imperial family.

Acting against her could indeed stir up trouble throughout the country. The empress hesitated. As mother of the nation, she had more than herself to consider.

From the prince’s arms, I called, “Isn’t that simple? Your Majesty, the imperial family trained her. If this Divine Maiden sides with outsiders, train someone else!

“As I just said, there’s only one crown prince. There can be any number of Divine Maidens!

“Don’t be afraid. Dismiss her!”

A child could speak without restraint, and I had said exactly what the empress wanted to hear.

She gave me an appreciative glance, then ordered sharply, “Guards! Throw Chu Yao and that man behind her into the imperial prison, whatever he is—immortal or monster!”

“Mother? But—”

The prince tried to plead for her. I pinched his lips together with my little hand.

That little mouth of yours—keep it shut.

“Wait.”

Before the guards could take the half-dead Mingjue away, I stopped them.

I patted the crown prince’s shoulder to tell him to set me down.

He did.

With my feet on the floor, he had to look down at me again.

I was just a child, still too young for a coming-of-age ceremony. No one would be on guard against me.

In full view of everyone, I walked forward.

The guards were holding Mingjue loosely upright. Lightning burns covered his body. I knew he had failed his tribulation and been struck down into the mortal world.

He looked near death, but the divine mark between his brows still flickered.

Until that mark went out completely, his divine bone remained.

For a high god, any wound that left the divine bone intact—even death itself—was merely a tribulation.

The bone would bring them back from the brink. Even if they died outright, they could revive two or three hundred years later.

Last time, fifty years of the prince’s life had immediately restored Mingjue’s terrifying divine power.

Before power like that, mortal lives were worth less than insects. A single thought from an immortal or god decided whether they lived or died.

To prevent Qi’s destruction and the extermination of its people, I had to remove Mingjue’s divine bone.

I laid a hand on his back. The empress thought I was scratching it for him.

My fingers traveled slowly upward to the middle of his spine.

Everyone assumed I was playing—until my hand sank through his flesh without resistance.

They watched me rummage inside his body. My eyes suddenly lit up.

“Found it!”

My fingers closed around a section of his spine. I yanked.

Divine light tore through flesh. I ripped out a gleaming golden divine bone, dripping with blood!

The unconscious Mingjue convulsed in agony. His eyes snapped open for an instant, then shut again. The mark between his brows went out completely.

His blood changed from divine gold to ordinary human red.

I held the shining bone. With sufficient cultivation, deboning a god was as smooth and effortless as a master butcher cutting up an ox.

Blood filled the gaps between my fingers. I turned, the red mole between my brows glowing eerily, and gave the crown prince an innocent smile.

Everyone gasped. They were almost ready to scream and scatter when they looked again.

I was only holding a skewer of candied hawthorn. Mingjue’s body was intact. There was no ghastly spatter of blood.

“Just a little magic trick. I didn’t scare anyone, did I?”

I bit into the candied fruit and smiled sweetly.

Only then did they decide they had imagined it all.

The Li Tang before them was clearly a pretty little brat, not some murderous demon child.

The guards who had fled hurried back into place, cold sweat still on their foreheads.

The empress barely managed to maintain her dignity.

Chu Yao started squawking again. “Your Highness, you’re so gifted! Why must you be so miserly about fifty years of your life?”

I stuck the skewer against his mouth. “Want some? It’s sweet.”

Distracted by me, he completely missed her nagging.

Chu Yao glared viciously. “Li Tang, once I revive the God of War, I’ll have him kill you, you wicked brat!”

“All right. I’ll wait.”

I bit my candied hawthorn.

Everyone present was mortal. Even the prince, with his cultivation and immortal bone, still had a mortal body.

None of them realized that ripping out the spine had been real. I had merely cast an illusion afterward.

Any high immortal present could have broken it at once and seen the golden section of spine in my hand. When I bit the fruit, I was really licking the God of War’s blood off his divine bone.

Without that bone, he would perish within forty-nine days. This time, there would be no resurrection.

My next step was to trick Chu Yao into staking everything she had on a god doomed to die.