"You... when did it start?"
Zhu Hong grinned. "When Eunuch Li and that man surnamed Zhou were fighting for power, my master saw that you had no time to manage the lower ranks. He thought them pitiable, so he rewarded them with a meal."
His tone suddenly turned cold. "But there were those who refused to eat, so I had to force it down their throats."
"They receive their salaries from the emperor. How could they—"
Zhu Hong laughed again. "In this world, who hates having too much money? And lucky for them, my master has plenty."
Li Shanxiang hesitated. A figure he had overlooked suddenly surfaced in his mind.
"Prince Qi!" he gasped, staring at Zhu Hong in horror.
Zhu Hong looked mildly surprised. "Unexpected, Eunuch Li. Truly sharp-minded."
"B-but isn't he just running a business?" Li Shanxiang knew, of course—ever since Prince Qi had been cast out of the court, he had turned back to managing the shops Ye Chengtian had previously set up. No one bothered to stop him.
Zhu Hong nodded. "What we're discussing now is a business deal, too."
"You... let me think." Li Shanxiang's mind was in turmoil. The court was already unstable, and now this sudden appearance of Prince Qi made his head spin.
Unexpectedly, Zhu Hong simply turned and said, "Then please consider it carefully, Eunuch. Cooperate with Prince Qi, and your future will be free from worry."
With that, he walked straight out. The two burly men hoisted the now-cool corpse onto their shoulders and left without looking back.
Li Shanxiang watched the three disappear. They just... left like that?
Weren't they afraid he would expose this? If Prince Qi was scheming behind the scenes, what exactly was he after?
"Eunuch," a terrified young eunuch whispered cautiously.
Li Shanxiang shot him a glare. "You wait right here!" He strode off, his mind racing. This was too strange—he had to get back to the palace immediately.
All the way, Li Shanxiang felt someone was tailing him. Every time he turned around, there was no one.
A terrible feeling.
Only when he stepped through the palace gates did his heart finally settle.
Prince Qi, was it? So he dared to threaten him? A disgraced prince, daring to offend the Imperial Supervision Office?
Now that the danger had passed, rage surged within him. But as he walked a few steps, he came across several patrolling young eunuchs.
"Eunuch," the lead eunuch greeted with a bow. Li Shanxiang didn't even glance at him, his mind still churning over how to handle this.
Then, a faint voice came from behind.
"Eunuch, please consider it carefully."
He whirled around. "Halt!"
The eunuchs all stopped and turned to look at him.
"Who just spoke?"
The eunuchs exchanged glances.
"Eunuch must be tired. None of us spoke."
Li Shanxiang flew into a rage. He raised his hand and slapped the eunuch nearest to him, completely missing the flicker of resentment in the man's eyes.
"Get lost!" he barked, then stormed further into the palace.
The imperial guards at the inner courtyard gate nodded to him. Li Shanxiang didn't acknowledge them and strode straight through.
Only when he reached his own room did he finally let out a breath. But the next moment, his eyes landed on the silver banknotes and the rattle placed on his desk—and his blood ran cold.
He hadn't taken these things when he left!
How did they end up here, deep inside the palace, faster than he had returned?
He dashed out the door and headed straight for the imperial guards at the gate. The guards rotated every two hours—they must have seen who entered his room!
But just as he was about to ask, he stopped himself.
How had he not considered it? The only people who could have walked into his room, planted those items, and left right under the guards' noses... were the guards themselves.
Had Prince Qi gone this far? How many people did he control?
Everyone had underestimated this greedy prince!
While the eunuch faction and the Ningxi faction were locked in battle, he had quietly embedded his own pieces across the board.
Doubts flooded Li Shanxiang's mind. No ordinary guard would dare act so brazenly. If they had done this, it meant someone higher up was compromised, too.
And then he recalled the eunuchs he had met earlier. His heart began pounding again.
Staring at the rattle in his hand, he finally made up his mind.
Why not join whoever paid best? A fool turns down a good deal.
What if Prince Qi actually succeeded?
As Li Shanxiang retreated into his room, a pair of eyes watching from the shadows slowly shifted away.
——
Zhu Hong drummed his fingers on a wooden token, his face expressionless. Only when his subordinate entered and nodded did he finally let out a sigh of relief.
The prince had taken a huge gamble.
Thankfully, it had paid off.
"How do you plan to proceed?"
"Same method. Win over some low-rank eunuchs first, gather intelligence, then—"
"That won't work."
"Prince, why not?"
"The palace is different from the outside world. Those minor officials we've tied to us maintain contact and share common interests. But the court is different. The eunuch faction is even more treacherous. You can't guarantee that a eunuch who takes your silver won't report you."
Zhu Hong fell silent.
"My point is," Fang Zhiyi continued, "target the most likely defectors directly. I hear Liu Xian's trusted men have been suppressed."
"I understand."
"No, you don't. This can't be done openly. You have to break him psychologically first." Fang Zhiyi's gaze turned deep and calculating. "Let him know many have already joined us. Then... spend a little silver to have the right person say the right thing. Bribe an insider to deliver a 'gift' for us. After all, presenting gifts to a eunuch isn't unusual."
"Let Li Shanxiang's own imagination do the rest." Fang Zhiyi smiled. "His perception of our strength will be our greatest asset."
"But what if he doesn't play along?"
"Don't worry. Even if he doesn't take the bait, he won't sell us out. We've already warned him. Unless he wants a complete falling-out."
——
Zhu Hong stood up, muttering to himself, "Prince, Prince... you're truly a genius."
Li Shanxiang, once on the fringe, had suddenly become active again. He had discovered a key advantage: Prince Qi was genuinely wealthy. And in Li Shanxiang's book, money could solve almost anything—wooing officials, building camaraderie with overlooked eunuchs under Wu Shizu's command.
This was his specialty.
Zhu Hong finally understood. Where the Foreign Liaison Office had failed to penetrate, a breach now existed. In time, the entire eunuch faction would belong to the prince!
And by now, Li Shanxiang had gone too far to turn back.
The moment he let go, he would die without a grave.
nd fell into a coma while saving his younger sister from an out-of-control car. He became a vegetable. No one knew that his consciousness had crossed into a world of cultivation. Over the course of sixty years, he began as the lowest kind of mine slave, struggling to survive amid mountains of corpses and seas of blood. By sheer chance, he eventually obtained the complete memories of a fallen Immortal King. Alchemy, medicine, formations, feng shui, physiognomy, artifact forging… Every great inheritance of the cultivation world was now his. But when he opened his eyes again, he discovered that ten full years had passed in the modern world. To pay for his treatment, his father had sold the family’s shop and house, leaving himself covered in lasting injuries and illness. His mother had cared for him day and night, and more than half of her hair had already turned white. His younger sister, who had been only fifteen back then, was now twenty-five. To help repay the family’s debts, she had been forced to lower her head and put on a smiling face in places of glittering lights and endless revelry. Only then did Chen Xuan understand that what he had lost was not merely ten years. He had lost the life his entire family was meant to have. The good news was that he had brought back the memories of an Immortal King’s entire lifetime. The bad news was that his soul had returned alone—his cultivation had not come with him. Spiritual energy was scarce, resources were depleted, and the modern world still had firearms, surveillance, capital, and laws. If he wanted to protect his family, break free from everyone’s control, and become truly invincible beneath the heavens, he would have to start all over again.
y came from. The chests contained supplies, currency, class-change scrolls, skills, talents… and even godhood! The laws of the world were completely rewritten. This became a world where everyone gambled with their fate! Some people, despite having nothing, opened a divine artifact and rose to the top, eventually ruling the world. Others went bankrupt, opened nothing but worthless junk, and leaped from skyscrapers in despair. Lin Ye arrived in this world from another reality, utterly bewildered. “What is going on? Why is everyone a gambling addict?!” “Opening chests? No way. I refuse to gamble. I’ll start with myself!” Until— On his first chest, he obtained a Mythic Talent: Void Incarnation! He could become completely intangible, pass through all things, and reduce everything to nothingness! … On his fiftieth chest, he obtained a Mythic Weapon: Blade of Karma! With a single slash, karma shattered, twisting the universe and overturning the myriad phenomena of creation! … On his ninety-ninth chest, he obtained a Mythic Divine Treasure: Primordial Purple Energy! It could split open the heavens and earth, create all things, and evolve countless worlds with a single thought! Lin Ye: “Now that I think about it… shouldn’t someone have told me that every chest is guaranteed to contain something Mythic?!”
nto another world, I bought a slave for the first time, never expecting the silver wolf girl to be so cute... Lin Feng: I know it's cold, but you don't have to sneak into my bed! Yuna: Just sharing body warmth, if you dare do anything naughty, I'll definitely...
s the Eldest Princess, renowned for her cold and aloof detachment, became the most docile of lambs, obeying his every command without question. But when the final move was played on the chessboard, as Gu Chenghan seized everything and ascended on the verge of apotheosis, that very Princess suddenly embraced him from behind, her tone carrying a dependence never heard before: "Wait... you haven't yet... commanded me to love you forever." Gu Chenghan froze abruptly. She... hadn't been hypnotized?! ... [The Eldest Princess's Diary] [When my soul was extracted, becoming the sole spectator outside my own shell] [At first, there was overwhelming fury, until I saw] [How he used my sword to effortlessly shatter my inescapable doom] [How he wielded my authority to eradicate fatal conspiracies I had never even detected] [Like a deity, he rescued me from the deep mire I was trapped in] [If not for those annoying vixens, he and I would be a match made in heaven] [I think I am ill, gravely ill] [My deity should belong to me alone] ... "Hypnosis? Oh, it succeeded, my dear Master." "Only this time, it's my turn to hypnotize you."
