True Feelings in the Silver Vault's Secret Chamber, a Patricidal Poison Plot Revealed Before the Dragon Throne

Murong Xue, who had rushed over from the side, swung her spear, the iron shaft sweeping across with a whistling sound.

With a crack, he shattered both of Shōni Sukemoto's kneecaps, and at the same time stomped out the tinder that had fallen to the ground.

A dozen Great Yan assassins swarmed forward, digging up the wet mud from the drainage ditch and sealing the fuses on the kerosene drums completely.

In no time at all, he tied up the unconscious Shōni Sukemoto like a dead dog.

The commander and the number one swordsman were both killed.

The remaining few hundred Japanese guards in the treasury hall didn't even dare to raise their swords, and knelt on the ground crying and shouting.

Half an hour later,

Those remaining soldiers in the middle level of the mine who hadn't been burned to death by the quicklime also came out through the blasted-open passage and surrendered.

The entire Iwami Silver Mine has completely changed hands, and the hall contains a full three million taels of official silver, not a single ingot is missing.

Gu Moran walked slowly into the depths of the treasury hall, stepping on the scattered pebbles and silver ingots.

Kim Seon-a was panting as she leaned against a tall stack of silver chests.

She had just withstood a strike from First Rank swordsman. Although her silk inner armor blocked the blade, the heavy force of the strike still caused a cut about an inch long to appear on her left shoulder.

Just as Tuoba Mang and several guards were about to move closer, Gu Moran gave them a cold look:

"Are you all blind? Get outside and help Pu Yunshan count the prisoners! Without my order, no one is allowed to look towards this platform!"

Tuoba Mang shrank back and quickly beckoned the assassins and Murong Xue in the hall to leave. Even Xie Linyuan, who had just pulled himself out from under the Dragon-Slaying Stone, wisely turned around and went outside to bandage his tiger's mouth.

In the blink of an eye, only Gu Moran and Kim Seon-a remained behind the mountain of silver boxes.

Gu Moran walked up to Kim Seon-a, took out a bottle of Shen Ling'er's specially made wound medicine from his pocket, and reached out to unfasten the soft armor buckle on her right shoulder, which was still intact.

"Your Highness, I can do it myself..."

Kim Seon-a shrank back, her back pressed against the cold box of official silver.

"You can't even lift your left hand, how can you do it yourself?"

Gu Moran slapped away her fidgeting right hand and quickly untied the straps of her silver-scaled soft armor.

With a clatter, the heavy soft armor slid to the ground. Then, Gu Moran grabbed the edge of the silk vest that had been cracked on the left shoulder and pulled it slightly, pulling the upper half of the vest down to the middle of her chest.

The whale oil lamps flickered in the underground silver vault. The wound on the Goryeo princess's left shoulder wasn't deep, but the surrounding skin had turned somewhat bluish, while the skin below was as white as a freshly peeled egg.

The silk vest sits on the fullest part of her chest, partially concealing and supporting her breasts.

Gu Moran pulled out the stopper from the porcelain bottle, poured the powder with a cool medicinal scent onto her fingertips, and pressed it directly around the wound on her left shoulder.

"Hiss... Hmm..."

Kim Seon-a winced in pain, but then, a wisp of Second Rank Pure Yang True Qi, transferred from Gu Moran's fingertips, pierced her flesh.

The bruising and pain inside were massaged away, and a tingling, warm sensation traveled up from the shoulder to the tailbone.

It made her unable to help but let out a soft, sweet sound from her nose.

She trembled, collapsing into Gu Moran's arms, her hands clutching weakly at the front of his python robe, her eyes glistening with a wet, pinkish hue, panting as she whispered a plea for mercy:

"Your Highness... this is inside the treasury, there are still people outside... no one is injured there..."

"That stab just now affected your heart meridian. What if I don't massage the blood and qi in your chest to clear away any lingering effects?"

Gu Moran talked nonsense with a straight face for a long time before slowly withdrawing his hand, tearing off a piece of clean white silk from his inner garment, bandaging her shoulder, and then pulling up his silk vest to cover her up.

Kim Seon-a leaned against the silver box for a while to calm her breathing, straightened her outer garment, and then followed Gu Moran up to the high platform in the center of the hall.

In the very center of the high platform stood a large black iron box, three feet square, with the Japanese script mark "Number One in Heaven" stamped on it. Nine black iron chains, as thick as a baby's arm, bound the box together like an iron barrel.

Take half a step back.

Gu Moran gestured for Kim Seon-a to step aside, then gripped the Sea-Calming Sword in his right hand, channeling his Second Rank pure Yang internal energy into the blade.

Ding! Ding! Ding!

Three sharp sword lights flashed, sparks flew, and the nine black iron chains snapped in two, falling onto the stone platform with a clatter.

Gu Moran reached out and grabbed the heavy lid of the box, then forcefully lifted it upwards.

The box has two layers. The upper layer is lined with a moisture-proof tarpaulin, and neatly stacked on it are more than a dozen ancient parchment scrolls bound with gold scroll ends.

Kim Seon-a stepped forward, picked up the top scroll, unfolded it, and her breath caught in her throat. Her fingers, holding the drawings, trembled slightly.

"This is the 'Map of the Dragon Veins of the Eight Provinces of Goryeo,' which was personally sealed away by Emperor Taejo, along with the master plan of the mechanisms of the royal tombs of past dynasties!"

She turned around, her eyes moist as she looked at Gu Moran, and bent her knees to kneel down:

"Your Highness's immense Seon-a and the entire Goryeo royal family!"

Gu Moran grabbed her arm to prevent her from kneeling, but his gaze went past the parchment in her hand and landed on a square groove at the bottom of the iron box.

When I opened the box, a highlighted notification automatically popped up on the system panel:

[Key story item detected: Top Secret Files of the Imperial Medical Bureau of the Great Yan Dynasty].

While Jin Kim Seon-a was looking down at the mausoleum's mechanism diagram, Gu Moran reached out and pressed the edge of the groove on the bottom of the iron box.

With a soft click, a three-inch-thick iron plate popped open, revealing a palm-length, sealed cylinder made of golden nanmu wood, a material unique to the Great Yan Palace.

These are items from the Great Yan Imperial Palace.

How could it be locked at the very bottom of the highest-ranking iron box in the Iwami Silver Mine in Wa?

Gu Moran his back, unscrewed the lacquered copper cap on the golden nanmu tube, and pulled out a roll of yellowed silk from the Imperial Medical Bureau medical record.

By the light of the whale oil lamp beside him, he glanced at the writing on the silk and the bright red official seal of the Imperial Medical Bureau.

The silk scroll was densely covered with records of the pulse of the Great Yan ( Gu Moran's grandfather) more than twenty years ago, six months before his death.

On the last page of the medical record, the then-director of the Imperial Medical Bureau left a few lines of small characters in his final blood letter:

"The late emperor did not die from an acute illness, but rather from long-term use of the longevity elixir presented by the fourth prince (the current emperor)."

I risked my life to examine the residue of the elixir and discovered that it was mixed with ' Chronic Mercury Meridian-Severing Powder for Severing Meridians,' a secret formula of the Wa Onmyōryō.

Your subject entrusted the Japanese envoy to carry this rare book across the sea to save your life...

Oh, I see...

Gu Moran tightened his grip on the silk handkerchief.

Everything matched!

He said that Great Yan possessed a million soldiers, so why had it allowed Japanese pirates to burn, kill, and plunder along the coast of Dengzhou and Qi and Lu for more than twenty years?

The imperial court always makes a lot of noise but accomplishes little.

The Ministry of War even dared to openly do business with the Japanese pirates!

So, the current emperor, who sits on the dragon throne, is inherently suspicious and near death...

He even used mercury poison, a tribute from Wa, to murder his father!

[I'll be posting more today, only two chapters tomorrow because I'm going to celebrate my birthday tomorrow afternoon, hehe, taking a short break in advance~!]