Young Master System: My Mother Is the Matriarch-Chapter 188: Envoy And Usurper

A veteran with a shaved head stepped forward. "Envoy, the northern barricade has fallen. We lost thirty men in the push, all of whom were forced into a trap."

Another spat angrily on the ground. "Li Wuji has not sent any reinforcements! For months he has ordered us to ’hold the line,’ but the detachment he sent retreated halfway through the fight!" 𝐟𝚛𝕖𝚎𝕨𝗲𝐛𝚗𝐨𝐯𝐞𝕝.𝐜𝗼𝗺

A younger soldier trembled. "He sent us there to die. Everyone knows it. He has lost a decisive battle against a foreign cultivator, who we have no knowledge of."

Everyone present watched the incredible that ensued just a few nights, where a powerful cultivator clashed with their leader. Although they were transported away from the scene, it was likely that the outcome had not gone in their favor

Yuan Yi listened carefully to their gruff voices, weighing grievances like an herbalist examines poison. When the tent fell silent, she finally spoke.

"Li Wuji no longer sees value in your lives." Yuan Yi continued. "The Blood Lotus is not an actual organization to him. It is a stepping stone. A beast he intends to ride into ascension."

A wounded soldier clenched his jaw. "We followed him to defy the empire..."

Yuan Yi met his gaze. "And look around you."

She gestured to the broken camp, the darkened tents, the thinning ranks. "Is this truly the liberation envisioned by your psyche?"The envoy turned to a cracked command table, laying out a map of the Qianlong border region. Half the markers were gone.

"Li Wuji is pushing every detachment in his reach towards offense. The dead feed the Blood Lotus apparition he communes with. The survivors are disposable."

Shivers ran through the room, this was certainly disturbing news.

"Envoy," whispered a young woman, "what can we do? We cannot confront him. A dozen of us would fall beneath a single strike." Yuan Yi’s eyes lowered.

She walked to the center of the room, her blood stained cloak brushing the dirt floor. "We do not need to confront him," she said softly.

Their eyes widened. "What do you mean? You want us to abandon the battlefield?" a soldier asked, incredulous.

Yuan Yi lifted her chin. "No," she said. "I want us to reshape it."

She continued

"The Blood Lotus held unity. A union forged from terrible destruction, but a collaboration nonetheless. What remains now are scattered embers. We cannot extinguish a burning fire, but we can gather our embers."

She pointed at the map again. "Look at the southern ridge and western cliffs. The ravine should be the location where the last survivors huddle."

She looked up. "You are not the only ones who feel abandoned, If we unite the remnants and squads he discarded. The soldiers he sent to die would serve us without question."

She clenched her fist. "I refuse to pass up that kind of leverage.

A deep hush fell, while Yuan Yi’s voice lowered. "I have walked through every camp. I have spoken to lieutenants barely holding their units together. I know which commanders have lost faith and their fears."

One soldier frowned. "But why would they trust you? You are Li Wuji’s envoy and his mouthpiece!"

Yuan Yi smiled bitterly. "You honestly think he treats me with dignity?"

No one had the gall answer, while she lifted her sleeve. Beneath it were bruises and marks of talisman burns. Leftovers of Blood Lotus rituals forced upon her. Yuan Yi pulled the sleeve back down. "Li Wuji does not spare even those that served closest to him."

Her eyes darkened. "I was bound to deliver his orders. But this cannot remain the status quo. I will not raise a blade against Li Wuji. But I will pull soldiers away from his jaws and also redirect doomed formations."

One man’s tyranny sustained by the cracks beneath him, those cracks were widening. A grizzled lieutenant stepped forward. "Envoy... if we do this... if we pull back our men and gather the remnants... what then?"

Yuan Yi turned toward the northern sky. "Then Li Wuji’s power will weaken. The apparition he feeds will grow desperate, i have no doubt in my mind that this will happen

"And when the storm finally comes?" a man asked quietly. Yuan Yi’s answer was soft and barely above breath. "When another force moves to crush him... we will not save him."

The tent shook with the weight of her words. Yuan Yi, who never openly defied Li Wuji, was offering the only path that could dethrone him without a suicidal revolt.

She turned, her gaze sharp as a blade’s edge. "Li Wuji’s madness has opened a wound. If we do not seal it with haste, we will die as insects beneath his heel."

The soldiers exchanged uncertain looks, despite their combat experience they still felt afraid. Slowly, like birds returning after a storm, they nodded one after another. Until nineteen pairs of eyes gleamed. Yuan Yi sat down before them, folding her legs, posture regal despite her exhaustion.

"We begin immediately."

She took out a set of blood-red jade tokens that only envoys carried. "Tonight, these will summon the captains who still breathe. From there, we will gather the remainig detachments. I cannot promise victory or survival."

Her gaze lowered. "But I can promise you this, no more men will die for Li Wuji’s delusions." Rong Bei, one of the cult’s veterans, knelt first. He bowed deeply, forehead touching the ground. "Envoy Yuan Yi... lead us."

The others followed and Yuan Yi closed her eyes briefly. She had never wanted to lead, but the Blood Lotus had become a crumbling temple. It needed someone to gather the stones before all were buried beneath them.

She stood. "We shall bide our time and deliberate our options.." Her eyes flicked toward the north ridge, "Li Wuji watches the heavens with his gaze fixated upwards. Ours must remain here, where the living still cling to hope of a better life." She extinguished the lantern with a wave of her sleeve.

As the tent darkened, her voice echoed. "As the Blood Lotus Cult collapses, is there any respite for those that are still alive." She opened the tent flap, stepping into the cold, haunted night.

The campfires burned low across the ruined valley where the Blood Lotus survivors had gathered—sullen flames, stuttering in the night breeze as if mimicking the hearts of the men around them. Tattered tents lay half-collapsed, and the scent of damp earth clung stubbornly to the air.

These were not the ranks that once marched under Li Wuji’s command. These were stragglers, wanderers, half-starved fighters who had watched their comrades fall in meaningless raids.

Now they looked to Yuan Yi. Who stood upon a raised slab of stone, arms folded behind her back, her worn cloak swaying slightly. Her face revealed nothing, only a quiet, steady clarity that the others found strangely disarming.

"The cult is scattered," Yuan Yi said, her voice carrying across the valley like frost sliding over glass. "But scattered does not mean broken. Not if you choose otherwise." A murmur swept through the survivors. A few men lowered their eyes. Others clenched their fists. Many still bore raw resentment for Li Wuji’s final orders

Yuan Yi watched their expressions closely. "You were used," she continued. "You were tools thrown at walls until they cracked or you did. That is the truth you don’t want to voice aloud."

A tall man in the crowd spat on the ground. "Easy for you to say, envoy. You never died in the mud beside us."

Yuan Yi looked him directly in the eye. "No," she answered, "I lived long enough to arrange their passing rites"

The man stiffened. Several heads bowed.

She let it sink into them like a needle through silk. "We can wander like dogs without a master," she said, "or we can carve something of our own. A haven for those who refuse the empire, refuse the merchants, refuse the nobles. A banner not tied to any tyrant’s whim."

No shouting and cheers. Only a slight shift in the air, like a tired beast stirring after a long sleep.

But Yuan Yi noticed the change and so did someone else.

From the rear flank of the crowd, Lieutenant Zheng Huang watched her intently. His jaw shifted, teeth grinding as if over some old bitterness wedged behind them. His hair hung loose around his shoulders, and several scars cut across his forearms—marks left from battles he should not have survived. Beside him stood five men who had been part of his unit before everything fell apart.

Zheng’s eyes did not leave Yuan Yi. Not even when the other fighters began to kneel, one after another, until nearly half the survivors were bowing their heads toward the stone slab.

But Shen kept standing. ’There she is,’ he thought. ’The envoy he protected. The envoy whose orders cost my brothers their lives.’

Yuan Yi’s every word tightened the knot in his chest. With each passing moment, it pulled tighter still.