NFBE Chapter 420 Reviewing the Entire Case
Chapter 420 Reviewing the Entire Case
This chapter will review the cases in the book.
The following chapters allow us to hold onto the hopeful expectation that "good people will be rewarded and bad people will be punished."
But in real life, I still have to complain a bit. Evil people never think they are evil; on the contrary, they are proud of it. Our bottom line as human beings is often their upper limit.
They are ungrateful, feel no guilt, and never reflect on their actions. They are not bound by morality and have no sense of shame.
Everything is based on self-interest.
I would call them modern Machiavellians.
They believe in only one principle: as long as the goal is right, any means are acceptable.
Enough with the small talk, let's review the case.
By now, all the plot holes mentioned earlier should have been filled.
There were four groups of people who caused the attack on the Xia Kingdom delegation.
Let's start with the first group: the bandits of Jigong Mountain led by Li Dali.
Due to the tyranny of the Chen Dynasty, Li Dali had no choice but to take his wife, children, and some other people who had suffered the same fate and hide in the deep mountains to escape the ravages of war.
In this way, they do not have to pay various taxes, nor do they have to perform military service or various corvée labor.
(Chapter 177: The Story of Little Fairy Doctor I; Chapter 178: The Story of Little Fairy Doctor II, detailed in Little Fairy Doctor's memories.)
In order to survive, when the winter was freezing cold, there were no wild fruits or vegetables, and it was rare to hunt wild animals, Li Dali would occasionally take his son and fellow villagers down the mountain to rob passing caravans.
On one occasion, they happened to encounter a caravan escorted by Zhao Xiaoman. Zhao Xiaoman had given them rice and some silver, and that was the end of it.
But Li Dali's son, holding a bow and arrow, accidentally shot an arrow out of nervousness and fear, which went straight at Zhao Xiaoman.
Zhao Xiaoman instinctively grabbed the arrow and shot it back, hitting Li Dali's son right between the eyebrows. The child died.
(Chapter 1: We Were All Adopted. At the beginning of this chapter, young Zhao Xuan tells her friends the story of her master escorting a caravan, which includes some of the plot points where Zhao Xiaoman and Li Dali became enemies.)
In order to avenge his son, Li Dali brought his wife and daughter (Li Xing'er, who later became known as Little Fairy Doctor) to Liyang to investigate the enemy.
Because Zhao Xiaoman was very famous in Xia Kingdom, Li Dali quickly learned about Zhao Xiaoman's identity and the existence of Zhao Xuan.
During the Mid-Autumn Festival lantern festival, by chance, Li Dali abducted Zhao Xuan, intending to use her to blackmail Zhao Xiaoman.
However, Zhao Xuan was saved by the kind-hearted Li Xing'er, and the two became acquainted as a result.
(Chapter 18: The Bizarre Kidnapping Case)
Li Dali was unwilling to give up, and then he learned that Zhao Xiaoman would lead a friendly delegation from Xia Kingdom to Yue Kingdom. This was something that the common people knew about and was not a secret.
So Li Dali led the other villagers to set up roadblocks on the route the mission would take, in the most suitable place to ambush and hide: the Tiankeng Canyon.
They didn't intend to do anything to the delegation; these refugees didn't have the ability. They just wanted to annoy Zhao Xiaoman and vent their resentment.
Their actions led to:
The delegation failed to traverse the sinkhole canyon quickly, instead lingering in the canyon to deal with roadblocks, giving the real assassins an opportunity.
The second group: assassins secretly sent by Tian Shang.
At that time, Tian Shang was the ninth prince of Yue, but he was ambitious. He not only pretended to be a lurker by the side of Crown Prince Tian Yuan, but also followed Tian Yuan's lead to gain the Crown Prince's trust and instigated the Crown Prince to deal with the other princes.
In secret, he was also fortifying his fiefdom, secretly manufacturing weapons and training troops, accumulating strength for his future seizure of the throne.
However, the secret forging of weapons and training of troops was discovered by spies sent by the Xia Kingdom to the Yue Kingdom, who promptly sent back a secret letter.
(Chapter 15: Helping Others Brings Home a Husband.)
This led the Xia Kingdom to ultimately decide to send a friendly delegation.
(Chapter 16: The Old Prime Minister's Schemes)
Meanwhile, Prince Tian Yuan of Yue also received a secret report, and he also wanted to find out who was secretly making these moves.
Tian Shang was worried that Tian Yuan would find out the truth, so he decided to use the Xia Kingdom's mission to Yue Kingdom to frame Tian Yuan and bring him down.
So he sent his men to Guze Town to secretly kill the border guards and take their identities. Then they went to the sinkhole, pretending to ambush the Xia Kingdom delegation, but actually deliberately left their identity tokens behind.
Tian Shang's reason for doing this was that Tian Yuan was in charge of the military and political power of Yue at the time, and the fact that people in the army attacked the Xia delegation was inseparable from Tian Yuan's involvement.
In addition, Emperor Tian Yi of Yue at the time was stubborn and suspicious, making life very difficult for Crown Prince Tian Yuan.
He would inevitably be blamed for failing to properly manage his subordinates.
But Tian Shangwan never expected that the fake assassination would turn into a real one. The matter escalated, which gave Tian Yuan a chance to get away with it. He personally went to Liyang in the Xia Kingdom to negotiate with Emperor Gu Li of Xia.
Tian Shang had no choice but to lie low again.
(Chapter 256: The Jade Hairpin Returns to Its Rightful Owner; Chapter 257: The Ferocious Beast Lurking in the Endless Darkness)
In these two chapters, when Tian Shang confronts Zhao Xuan and Gu Zhanghua, he explains in detail how his initial plans did not align with the actual tragedy that occurred.
The third group: Yang Liuming's Flame Army
Yang Liuming carries a deep-seated hatred for the Yue Kingdom and is determined to fight it to the death, which leads to political disagreements with Zhao Xiaoman.
As long as Zhao Xiaoman lives, she will influence Emperor Gu Li's decisions.
The relationship between Emperor Gu Li of Xia and Zhao Xiaoman and Qin Shao began at the start of the uprising, so their bond was naturally extraordinary.
Therefore, Yang Liuming had no choice but to kill Zhao Xiaoman.
It could be said that the Flame Army he sent were true killers.
However, when his master, the Elder Xuanji, who shared the same master as Zhao Xiaoman, learned that Yang Liuming was going to kill Zhao Xiaoman, he tried his best to dissuade him.
Yang Liuming obeyed his master's orders and had already given the order to stop the operation, but the messenger was killed by the refugees halfway there.
(Chapters 399-403, in which Yang Liuming provides a detailed account of all the details and processes of the crime.)
The Flame Army, therefore, did not receive orders to terminate the operation and proceeded with their original plan to assassinate Zhao Xiaoman. The arrows they fired were all coated with a deadly poison.
As the Flame Army charged toward the delegation, Tianyuan's men, who were also lying in ambush near the sinkhole, also rushed out.
One team is really killing, and the other is faking it, but when life and death are at stake, who can tell the difference?
Thus, the two groups and the mission guards, a total of three groups, fought each other.
The fourth group: Wu Yulan and Zheng Fanghua.
These two women were only trying to teach Zhao Xiaoman a lesson because of their emotional entanglement with Qin Shao, and they never intended to kill her.
However, because of their selfish desires, Zhao Xiaoman developed an allergy and had to exchange carriages with Crown Prince Gu Deming.
Therefore, the Flame Army sent by Yang Liuming to kill Zhao Xiaoman concentrated its firepower directly on Crown Prince Gu Deming, resulting in Gu Deming's immediate death.
(Chapters 412-416: Wu Yulan told Zhao Xuan all of this on her deathbed.)
In short, the emotional entanglements and political differences among these people can all be traced in the first volume.
The four groups of people did not know each other and had not communicated with each other beforehand.
But whether it was a momentary lapse of judgment or the belief that minor evils were permissible, the event ultimately took an unexpected turn, leading to a horrific and tragic end.
(Chapter 25: The Villain Who Fell From the Sky, Chapter 26: The Most Tragic Night)
Okay, that concludes the debriefing.
Li Dali and his accomplices were beheaded shortly after the incident; Yang Liuming ultimately chose to commit suicide; Wu Yulan, unable to bear the pangs of conscience, died of depression.
Now only Tian Shang is left. How will he die?
let us wait and see!