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(A/N: Don't forget to give those power stones to Skyrim everyone!)
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"That is quite enough," Ying Yue scolded them gently, a warm smile playing on her lips. "I will not have the two most important men in my life standing in a drafty corridor at midnight, discussing the heavy burdens of statecraft and the philosophies of rule. We have just unified the earth, husband. It is the time of the holidays. Stop talking about serious matters."
Lie Fan looked at the fierce, beautiful reprimand in his wife's eyes, and the terrifying conqueror of the world immediately surrendered without a fight. He threw his head back and laughed, a rich, joyous sound that echoed off the stone walls.
"Of course, of course. I understand, Yue'er," Lie Fan smiled, wrapping a strong arm around her waist and pulling her close against his side, much to the quiet, giggling amusement of the other concubines behind them. "You are absolutely right. The ledgers are closed. The lessons are over. Now, let us simply go home and enjoy the holidays."
"Of course, of course. I understand, Yue'er," Lie Fan smiled, wrapping a strong arm around her waist and pulling her close against his side, much to the quiet, giggling amusement of the other concubines behind them. "You are absolutely right. The ledgers are closed. The lessons are over. Now, let us simply go home and enjoy the holidays."
With the heavy weight of the empire finally set down, the imperial family resumed their walk. The atmosphere transformed entirely, shifting from the rigid, intimidating aura of the ruling dynasty to the warm, chaotic, and incredibly loving dynamic of a regular family.
Lie Fan spent the rest of the night, and the entirety of the following day, completely sequestered within the luxurious, sprawling gardens of the Harem Palace. He played with his younger children, drank warm tea with Diao Chan and Cai Wenji, sparred lightly with Lu Lingqi in the private courtyards, and simply allowed his soul to rest in the company of Zhen Ji and Ying Yue.
As the Emperor rested, the festivities of the grand unification exploded outward from the epicenter of Xiapi, spreading like wildfire across the entire expanse of the land under the Hengyuan Dynasty. From the snowy peaks of the newly conquered Qinghai Plateau to the bustling, humid ports of the deep south, the three day holiday was observed with a fanatical, ecstatic joy.
The sky above the empire was constantly illuminated by fireworks, the streets were choked with parades, and for the first time in nearly a century, the common people went to sleep without a single shred of fear in their hearts.
The sun rose on the second day of the mandated holidays, casting a brilliant, warm light over the capital.
While the bureaucracy remained strictly shut down, the diplomatic and social obligations of the Emperor never truly ceased. However, the guests scheduled to arrive at the private quarters of the palace this morning were not foreign emissaries requiring stiff, formal protocol, they were family.
In the smaller, much more intimate main receiving hall of the inner palace, Emperor Lie Fan and Empress Ying Yue stood waiting, dressed in comfortable, incredibly fine, but unrestrictive everyday silks.
The heavy doors opened, and a booming, familiar laugh echoed into the hall before the guests even crossed the threshold.
Sun Jian, strode into the room. He wore a simple, unarmored tunic of deep crimson, looking relaxed and immensely happy. Walking right beside him was his eldest son, Sun Ce, his usual explosive ambition tempered by a genuine, relaxed joy.
Following closely behind the two Tigers of Jiangdong came Ma Chao, the fierce, brilliant cavalry commander of the west. But all eyes were immediately drawn to the woman walking carefully beside him, her arm looped securely through his.
Sun Shangxiang, the fiery, martial daughter of the Sun clan, stepped into the hall.
She was heavily, undeniably pregnant, her usually slim, athletic frame carrying the massive, beautiful weight of new life. Despite her condition, her eyes still possessed the sharp, fierce spark of a warrior, though she leaned gratefully against her husband.
The moment they entered, the strict, terrifying protocols of the Hengyuan court were completely abandoned.
Lie Fan stepped forward, a massive, genuine smile breaking across his face. He bypassed the formal bows entirely, reaching out and clasping forearms with the aging patriarch of the Sun clan.
"Brother Wentai!" Lie Fan greeted him loudly, pulling the Duke into a brief, fierce embrace that spoke of decades of shared history and mutual survival.
"Brother Lie Fan," Sun Jian laughed, clapping the Emperor hard on the shoulder, a gesture that would have gotten any other man in the empire executed on the spot. "Or should I say, Your Imperial Majesty? After all we are meeting in the imperial hall today and it is weird not calling here madam as usual "
"The map was large, Brother, but my appetite was larger," Lie Fan chuckled warmly.
Ying Yue immediately stepped past the men, her eyes locked on Sun Shangxiang. She hurried forward, gently taking the younger woman's hands, her face glowing with maternal delight.
"Shangxiang! Look at you!" Ying Yue beamed, carefully guiding the pregnant woman toward a plush, silk cushioned chair. "You are positively glowing. How far along are you now? You must not strain yourself walking these long corridors."
"I am fine, Empress, truly," Sun Shangxiang laughed, waving off the concern with her typical bravado, though she sank into the chair with an undeniable sigh of relief. "Ma Chao treats me as if I am made of spun glass. If I pick up a wooden training sword, he looks as though he is going to suffer a heart seizure."
Ma Chao, standing nearby, flushed slightly, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly as Lie Fan and Sun Ce laughed at his expense. "She tried to vault onto her warhorse last week, Your Majesty. I had to physically carry her back into the manor. The child is due in less than two months, she shouldn't be near a stable!"
The hall filled with the warm, joyous sounds of genuine friendship. Tea was brought out, alongside plates of delicate, sweet pastries.
For an hour, the conversation remained light, focused on the impending birth of Ma Chao and Sun Shangxiang's child, the localized celebrations happening down in Jiangdong, and the hilarious, exaggerated tales of Sun Ce's recent hunting expeditions in the southern jungles.
But eventually, as the tea cups were refilled and the women drifted to a sunlit corner of the hall to discuss the intricacies of childbirth and palace gossip, the men naturally gravitated toward the heavy, intricately carved wooden table near the center of the room.
The conversation shifted, as it always inevitably did among men who had forged the world, to the future of the Hengyuan Dynasty.
"The Qinghai Plateau is secured, and Liang Province is bleeding out its last ounces of rebellion," Sun Jian noted, his voice dropping into the low, serious cadence of a veteran commander. He looked across the table at Lie Fan. "You have achieved the absolute unification of the Han territories. The mandate is fulfilled. But knowing you, Brother... the sword does not stay in the scabbard for long. What is the grand design? Do we look to the northern steppes? Or do we push deeper into the southern jungles?"
Lie Fan took a slow sip of his tea, his dark eyes reflecting a vast, continent spanning vision.
"Outward expansion is inevitable, Wentai," Lie Fan confirmed, his voice calm but thrumming with visionary power. "The world does not end at our current borders. There are vast, wealthy kingdoms to the far west, beyond the deserts. There are island chains to the east, and untamed wealth in the deep south. The banners of Hengyuan will eventually fly over all of them."
Sun Ce leaned forward, his eyes instantly lighting up with the insatiable, burning hunger for conquest. "Give me the fleet, Your Majesty. Point me at the southern seas, and I will bring you the crowns of a dozen island kings."
Lie Fan smiled, raising a hand to temper the young Marquis's explosive ambition.
"Patience, Bofu. Your time will come," Lie Fan said smoothly. "But expansion cannot outpace integration. If we march our armies outward now, we leave the newly conquered territories, specifically the west and the north, vulnerable to internal rot. The next phase of this dynasty is not immediate conquest; it is absolute, unbreakable stability. We must integrate the tribes. We must build the wagonways to connect the provinces. We must ensure that a man in Liang Province views himself as a citizen of Hengyuan first, and a desert warrior second. The foundation must turn to solid iron before we build the next floor."
Sun Jian nodded his head in profound, veteran agreement. "It is the wisdom of a true sovereign. Consolidation prevents collapse. But how long will that take, Brother? A decade? Two? We are not getting any younger, and the fires of war still burn in the bellies of our generals."
Lie Fan set his teacup down on the wooden table. The clink of the porcelain against the wood sounded incredibly loud in the sudden, heavy silence that followed.
He looked over at the sunlit corner of the room, his eyes lingering on Ying Yue, whose bright, musical laughter floated across the hall. He looked at the walls of the palace he had built, and then he looked back at the three greatest warriors of the age sitting across from him.
"It will take a decade, perhaps slightly more, to achieve the absolute, unbreakable integration I desire," Lie Fan said, his voice dropping into a register of profound, shocking finality. "And when that decade passes... when the borders are solid iron and the wagonways connect the oceans to the deserts... when I am entering my fiftieth year..."
Lie Fan paused, holding the gaze of the Duke of Wu.
"I am going to step down from the Dragon Throne."
The silence that slammed into the room was absolute, deafening, and entirely paralyzing.
It was as if all the oxygen had been instantly violently sucked from the grand hall. At the far corner of the room, Ying Yue dropped her teacup. It shattered against the stone floor, the sharp sound making everyone flinch, but no one moved.
Sun Ce's mouth fell open, his eyes wide with an incomprehensible, staggering disbelief.
Ma Chao gripped the edge of the table so hard the wood groaned, his mind entirely unable to process the words he had just heard.
Sun Jian, a man who had stared down charging cavalry, assassination attempts, and the wrath of empires without blinking, sat frozen, his jaw literally dropping.
In the entire, bloody, thousands of years long history of the continent, Emperors did not retire. Emperors ruled until their dying breath. They clung to the absolute, god like power of the throne until they were physically placed in a tomb or they are being overthrown. The concept of voluntary abdication at the height of one's power was not just unprecedented, it was conceptually alien.
"Brother..." Sun Jian finally choked out, his voice a hoarse, trembling whisper, his eyes desperately searching Lie Fan's face for any sign of a joke. "You... you cannot be serious. Step down? You are the Mandate of Heaven! You are the Black Dragon! The empire exists because you breathe!"
Lie Fan did not smile, but his expression was incredibly serene, carrying the absolute, unshakeable peace of a man who knew exactly what his legacy would be.
"I am entirely serious, Wentai," Lie Fan replied, his voice steady and calm. "I have spent my entire youth, my entire adulthood, bathed in blood and politics. I have outmaneuvered every warlord, I have crushed every rebellion, and I have built an empire that will outlast the mountains."
He turned his gaze toward Ying Yue, who was staring at him, her beautiful eyes wide, her hands trembling over her shattered teacup. He offered her a look of pure, unadulterated devotion.
"But I do not wish to die on that golden chair," Lie Fan confessed, his voice softening into something incredibly intimate and profoundly human. "I do not wish to spend the twilight of my life reading tax ledgers and executing traitors. When the empire is completely stable, when the foundation is indestructible... I will formally abdicate. I will leave the empire to Muchen. He has the brilliance, he has the discipline, and he will have the greatest advisors in history guiding his hand."
Lie Fan looked back at the stunned faces of his generals.
"I will leave the dynasty to the new age," Lie Fan smiled, the true, ultimate dream of his two lifetimes finally spoken aloud. "And I will take my wives, I will leave the capital, and I will spend the rest of my days simply enjoying the life I fought so desperately to secure. I will watch the sun set without worrying about what army marches in the dark."
The absolute, earth shattering shock of the retirement plan paralyzed everyone present. Sun Ce looked at his father, Ma Chao looked at his pregnant wife. They had all sworn their lives to follow this man into the fires of hell, believing he would rule them until the end of time.
Lie Fan had never shared this matter with a single soul. Not with Jia Xu, not with Zhuge Liang, and not even with Ying Yue. As the staggering, unprecedented reality of the Emperor's true endgame washed over the room, they realized that the man sitting across from them was not just the greatest conqueror in history. He was the only man in history strong enough to build the world, and wise enough to know exactly when to let it go.
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Name: Lie Fan
Title: Founding Emperor Of Hengyuan Dynasty
Age: 36 (203 AD)
Level: 16
Next Level: 462,000
Renown: 2325
Cultivation: Yin Yang Separation (level 11)
SP: 1,121,700
ATTRIBUTE POINTS
STR: 1,010 (+20)
VIT: 659 (+20)
AGI: 653 (+10)
INT: 691
CHR: 98
WIS: 569
WILL: 436
ATR Points: 0