Jia Xu looked at the man in front of him, feeling a deep sense of lament about the unpredictability of life.
In the thousands of scenarios he had deduced, Qin Xiao being summoned to the capital this time meant certain death with no chance of survival.
At that time, he and a group of generals had even knelt on the ground to persuade him otherwise.
However, Qin Xiao insisted on rushing to the capital alone.
They were all soldiers and generals under Qin Xiao's command, completely won over by his strength.
At such a young age, he had conquered the world, unmatched by anyone.
With this peerless and invincible power, who in the world could shake him?
It was just a pity that Qin Xiao's only weakness was his family.
He had dedicated his life and was willing to die for this family of ungrateful bloodsuckers.
But what no one expected was...
Not only did Qin Xiao not die on this trip to the capital, but he also ascended to the throne as Emperor with only eight hundred men.
What a shocking event this was!
When he heard the news, he was completely dumbfounded.
Was this still the Great General he knew?
If he hadn't seen it with his own eyes today, he would have thought the Great General had been possessed.
"It seems that all of us underestimated His Majesty..."
Jia Xu gazed at Qin Xiao's back, feeling more and more that he was unfathomable.
"Hahaha!"
A resonant, loud laugh rang out.
"I told you! My adoptive father has the bearing of a true dragon. How could he be bound by emotions? He was bound to ascend to the throne sooner or later!"
"Jia Xu, I won. You owe me a meal."
The tower-like burly man laughed heartily, his broad shoulders heaving up and down, the friction of his armor ringing endlessly.
At this moment, Qin Xiao's gaze fell on the iron tower-like burly man.
Standing over nine feet tall, he bore the weight of a thousand-jin beast-faced chainmail, with two red pheasant feathers standing tall on his feathered crown.
His face was chiseled, his eyebrows like sword edges, his features sharp and masculine, and his eyes incredibly arrogant, as if he looked down upon everyone in the world. Only when he saw Qin Xiao did his posture lower a bit.
"Lu Fengxian, do not call me adoptive father. I never took you as my adoptive son."
Qin Xiao's mouth twitched, his gaze falling on the Heaven-Piercing Painted Halberd.
Who didn't know that the Heaven-Piercing Painted Halberd specialized in backstabbing adoptive fathers?
Lu Fengxian grinned broadly. "Your Majesty, among all the heroes in this world, only you can defeat me. Logically speaking, you are my adoptive father!"
Back then, he boasted of being invincible in the world, taking the heads of enemy generals amidst armies of tens of thousands single-handedly, fighting across the world without meeting his match!
But when he encountered Qin Xiao, he finally understood what it truly meant that there is always someone better, a heaven beyond heaven!
Since then, he had followed under Qin Xiao's command, fighting battles for him in the south and north.
Seeing that the two were about to discuss the matter of taking an adoptive father, Jia Xu took a step forward and interrupted.
"Your Majesty, we can discuss this matter later. Right now, what we need to deal with is the five hundred thousand strong army under the Prince of Qi!"
Lu Fengxian shut his mouth and coldly snorted at Jia Xu, as if to say, You ruined my good moment.
Qin Xiao finally found a moment of respite.
However, his expression was not as solemn as the others; he even looked somewhat breezy and nonchalant.
"It's merely an army of five hundred thousand. I have already thought of how to deal with them."
Jia Xu's eyes carried a hint of surprise, along with a bit of confusion.
"Could it be that Your Majesty intends to mobilize the million-strong army of Northern Liang to come here?"
"But once this army is mobilized, those barbarians in the Northern Desert will definitely wage war again..."
"But this is fine too. As long as we can secure the throne, the people of Northern Liang will just have to suffer a bit."
The million-strong army garrisoning Northern Liang kept the Xiongnu and Mongol nomadic royal courts of the Northern Desert from daring to invade.
Once the million-strong army marched south to the capital to provide reinforcements, Northern Liang would absolutely fall and suffer endless flames of war.
By then, countless commoners would die tragically under the butchers' knives of the barbarians.
But Jia Xu did not care about any of this.
He was a strategist; human lives in his eyes were nothing more than cold numbers.
What he needed to do was figure out how to maximize their interests.
The rest of the generals frowned one after another.
They hesitated to speak.
To them, their roots were in Northern Liang, so naturally, they could not bear the thought of the people of Northern Liang being massacred.
But right now, they had to deal with the Prince of Qi's army of five hundred thousand, and for a moment, they could not come up with any good ideas.
Qin Xiao looked around, taking in everyone's expressions.
"Of course I will not mobilize the troops. I have my own way to deal with the Prince of Qi's five hundred thousand soldiers."
To Qin Xiao, Northern Liang was his base camp. The people all loved him, the Prince of Qin, calling him the guardian deity of Northern Liang.
When he first arrived in Northern Liang, the soldiers' pay had been in arrears for half a year, and they often went hungry, unable to eat their fill.
If it weren't for every citizen of Northern Liang saving a mouthful of rice, preferring to go without food themselves to feed the soldiers first, who knows how many more people would have starved to death.
In contrast, here in the capital, the scholars and aristocratic families all despised and loathed him, wishing for nothing more than to eliminate him quickly.
Northern Liang was Qin Xiao's true home.
If the people of Northern Liang had treated Qin Xiao like the people of the capital did, why the hell would he defend Northern Liang? He would have let them be slaughtered clean by the Xiongnu long ago!
He, Qin Xiao, had never been a magnanimous or kind-hearted person.
"Your Majesty has a way?"
Hearing this, everyone's eyes revealed a look of anticipation.
As for what that way was, Qin Xiao chose to keep it to himself for the time being.
Right at this moment.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
"Second Princess, what are you doing? This is His Majesty's sleeping quarters."
"Tell Qin Xiao to get the hell out here and see me! If you dare to stop me again, believe it or not, I will whip you to death!"
"Ah!"
The noisy commotion, accompanied by the screams of the palace maids, rang out, sounding exceptionally loud in the dark of the night.
Qin Xiao's face immediately darkened.
He could naturally hear exactly who was outside.
It was the Second Princess, Qin Rumeng.
"It seems the deterrence I gave them was not enough!"
Qin Xiao narrowed his eyes, and a sharp, murderous aura burst forth.
"Let's go take a look."
He strode out, with Jia Xu and Lu Fengxian following by his side.
Outside the main hall.
Qin Rumeng was arrogantly berating the palace maids kneeling on the ground.
"Get lost! I am going in to see Qin Xiao! If you dare to stop me again, believe it or not, I will whip you to death!"
The palace maids were scared pale, but they still knelt motionless in front of the main hall's doors.
"Second Princess, His Majesty is resting. Please do not disturb His Majesty."
"I want to see him, and he won't see me? What do you think you are? How dare you yell in front of me!"
Seeing that someone dared to disobey her, Qin Rumeng flew into a rage and swung the leather whip in her hand, viciously lashing at that palace maid.
Smack!
The leather whip left a long gash on the palace maid's body.
Bright red blood flowed down, staining her pure white clothes.
"Ah!"
The palace maid clutched her bleeding wound, letting out a heart-wrenching wail.
Seeing this, the rest of the palace maids were completely terrified, staring blankly at the scene before them.
"A bunch of ants! You dare to block my path? You don't know the meaning of death! Today, I will properly punish you disobedient slaves!"
After speaking, Qin Rumeng brandished her leather whip and continued to lash the palace maids.
Although they were afraid, they did not run away, merely gritting their teeth and enduring it.
Smack! Smack! Smack!
The leather whip struck the palace maids' tender skin, instantly causing blood to splatter and screams to echo continuously.
Qin Rumeng seemed to have gone mad, wielding her whip and constantly beating them.
It seemed that only by doing this could she dispel the gloom in her heart.
"We beg the Princess to spare us! We really can't take it anymore!"
A palace maid pleaded, her forehead seeping with blood, on the verge of death.
Another palace maid also looked like she was teetering on the edge, appearing as though she could faint at any moment.
Qin Rumeng paused. Looking at their pitiful state, a sinister smirk curled the corners of her lips.
"This is the price for daring to block this princess! Even if I beat you all to death, Qin Xiao would not dare say a word to me!"
Crack!
This time, she swung the whip with even more vicious force.
Like a venomous snake flicking its tongue, the purple whip tore through the air with a deafening snap, lashing mercilessly toward the group of palace maids!
If that strike landed on them, they would undoubtedly die!
A sickly flush crept over Qin Rumeng's beautiful face, twisting her features into an even more deranged expression.
She no longer cared about the consequences; her only desire was to vent the bitter resentment seething in her heart.
Crack!
The palace maids squeezed their eyes shut, bracing themselves for death.
Yet, after a long moment, the agonizing blow never came. Instead, there was only a sharp, crisp snap.
Everyone opened their eyes in bewilderment, only to see a slender, elegant hand gripping the leather whip in an iron hold.
Immediately after, they saw Qin Xiao standing there. His face was dark and menacing, and his entire being seethed with murderous intent.
"Qin Rumeng, who gave you the audacity to strike my people!"
e bizarre and supernatural had descended. The previous emperor was a thoroughgoing tyrant; no longer satisfied with human women, he had set his sights on a stunningly beautiful supernatural entity. He met his end in his bedchamber, drained of all his vital essence. As the legitimate eldest son and crown prince, Wang Hao was thus hastily enthroned, becoming the young emperor of the Great Zhou Dynasty. No sooner had he awakened the "Imperial Sign-In Intelligence System" than he was assassinated by a Son of Destiny—a classic villain's opening. The Great Zhou, ravaged by the former emperor's excesses, was in national decline. The great families within its borders harbored their own treacherous schemes, martial sects began to defy the imperial court's decrees, and border armies, their pay and provisions in arrears, grumbled incessantly against the central government. Fortunately, the central capital was still held secure by the half-million Imperial Guards and fifty thousand Imperial Forest Army who obeyed the court's orders, along with the royal family's hidden reserves of power, barely managing to suppress the realm. As the Great Zhou's finances worsened and supernatural activities grew ever more frequent, the court sat atop a volcano. Ambitious plotters everywhere dreamed of overthrowing the dynasty, and even some reclusive ancient powers emerged, attempting to sway the tides of the world. At the first grand court assembly, the civil and military officials nearly came to blows, fighting tooth and nail over the allocation of fifty million taels of silver from the summer tax revenues. The spectacle opened Wang Hao's eyes—the Great Zhou's bureaucracy was not only corrupt but also martially proficient, a cabinet of all-rounders. Some officials even had the audacity to suggest the emperor release funds from the imperial privy purse to address the emergency. Wang Hao suddenly felt weary. Let it all burn.
d intelligence to keep the plot moving, and sometimes even the protagonists are forced into absurdly dumb decisions. Why does the A-list celebrity heroine in urban romance novels ditch the top-tier movie star and become a lovestruck fool for a pockmarked male lead? Why do the leads in historical tragedy novels keep dancing between love and death, only for the blind healer to end up suffering the most? And Gu Wei never expected that after finally landing a villain role to stir up trouble, she’d pick the wrong gender! No choice now—she’ll just have to crush the protagonists as a girl!
young master of the Shen family—a figure of immense power and wealth beyond measure—and awakened the "Destined Ultimate Villain System"! His starting scenario? Running into his icy fiancée who shows up with a mountain-descending divine doctor to break off their engagement. The divine doctor arrogantly taunts: "What does your Shen family have besides a bit of stinking money? You're not even worthy of tying Qingxue's shoelaces!" Shen Fei just smiled. He completely defied the usual script: "Fine, I agree to break off the engagement. Also, notify the finance department to withdraw all investments from the Su family." Minutes later, with its capital chain severed, the Su Group teetered on the brink of bankruptcy! The once aloof and proud ice queen CEO was thrown into utter panic. That very night, she went to Shen Fei's villa, casting aside all dignity to beg and plead desperately... From then on, in this world teeming with Sons of Destiny, Shen Fei embarked on a path of extreme dimensional suppression! A mountain-descending divine doctor? Peerless medical skills? Shen Fei: "Reporting you for practicing medicine without a license! I'll gladly take your ancient medicinal cauldron and twin sister assassins." The Crooked-Smiling Dragon King? Commanding a hundred thousand soldiers with a single order? Shen Fei: "Illegal assembly and suspected treason! Let a fleet of attack helicopters sanitize the area and teach you what the state apparatus really means!" A reborn tycoon? Knows all the golden opportunities of the next decade? Shen Fei: "A trillion in capital to reverse and pump the stock market, making you blow your margin and jump on the very first day of your rebirth!" What Chosen Ones? What bearers of Heavenly Fortune? In Shen Fei's eyes, they're all just chives (i.e., suckers/marks) waiting to be harvested! Shen Fei: "Sorry, but as the Destined Ultimate Villain, I don't play by the rules of honor. I only play the game of dimensional suppression."
ap a wealthy young lady? Or else I'll be eliminated by the system? Ye Feng, who awakened the Kidnapper System, originally wanted to live a peaceful life but never imagined he would become a kidnapper of young women. However, after some time, he discovered that all the girls the system ordered him to kidnap were far from ordinary. "Big brother Ye Feng~ You've kidnapped my heart, and now you're not allowed to leave me ever again~" "Ye Feng~ You kidnapped me back then, now it's my turn to capture you♡" "Little Feng, you're mine! You can only be mine!" "Ye Feng, none of them deserve you. Only I love you the most♡" ... This is madness, they've all gone mad! Wait, what? Why are all the girls I kidnapped yanderes?!
