It wasn’t until Li Zizai left the capital that Zhu Hongcai finally appeared before Fang Zhiyi once more.
“Your Highness, Li Shanxiang has an urgent matter to report.”
“Speak.”
“He says... Wu Shizu has detected his moves and is sending men to investigate him. If we don’t act quickly, Your Highness may be exposed.”
Fang Zhiyi chuckled. “This eunuch dares to threaten me, does he?”
Zhu Hong hesitated for a moment. “Shall I, Your Highness...” He made a cutting gesture.
Fang Zhiyi shook his head. “That won’t do... This matter can’t be solved simply by killing. If we want to control the eunuch faction, we must work through their own people.”
“Go make preparations first. Tell Li Shanxiang he’ll soon sit in the seat of the Grand Director.”
“As you command.” Zhu Hong bowed and withdrew.
In the palace, Wu Shizu listened to his subordinate’s report with a dark expression.
“His Highness, our agents have discovered that the young eunuch beside Li Shanxiang has been in contact with people from Ruyi Workshop.”
“Ruyi Workshop? Isn’t that Prince Qi’s establishment?” Wu Shizu narrowed his eyes. “So Li Shanxiang’s backbone is this Prince Qi? He’s already lost his power—what else does he want?”
Though he had been occupied dealing with the harassment of the Ningxi Faction, Wu Shizu had also noticed Li Shanxiang’s suspicious movements. He had refrained from acting against Li Shanxiang for now, precisely to identify who was supporting him from the shadows. According to his intelligence, Li Shanxiang didn’t have enough money to grease palms at every level.
Wu Shizu was no fool. After a moment’s thought, he burst into laughter. “Prince Qi, Prince Qi... I didn’t expect your ambitions to run so deep. Thinking you can take me on? Do you really believe this Grand Director lacks the energy to deal with vermin like you?”
He rose to his feet. “Since it’s clear, we can move now.”
“Grand Director, you mean...”
“Arrest all these rebels from Li Shanxiang’s lot! Gather our men, and we’ll march to Prince Qi’s mansion!”
“Grand Director, Prince Qi is His Majesty’s own brother...”
“So what if he’s His Majesty’s brother?” Wu Shizu gave a sinister laugh. “Since ancient times, treason has been a grave crime. No one is spared execution except the Emperor himself. Besides, His Majesty has never gotten along with Prince Qi.”
If it came to it, not even Prince Qi was safe—if the current Emperor were too troublesome, swapping him out for another would be nothing more than a casual chat.
“Yes!” Wu Shizu’s trusted subordinate replied. He turned to leave, but paused at the doorway, shouting to the eunuch on guard. “Quickly muster the men! The Grand Director wants to—”
His words cut off abruptly.
A moment later, he looked down in shock at the small knife plunged into his chest. Then, disbelief filled his eyes as he stared at the ashen-faced, trembling young eunuch before him.
Wu Shizu turned and saw his trusted subordinate still standing frozen at the door. Annoyed, he snapped, “What are you gawking at? Waiting for me to do it myself, eh?”
Then he saw his subordinate collapse to the ground.
The young eunuch bolted, shouting as he fled, “Wu Shizu, you dog eunuch! You castrated mongrel!”
“Seize him!” Wu Shizu roared in fury. How dare someone kill his man right in front of him, and then rub salt in his wounds by mocking his very condition!
The guards inside the chamber immediately gave chase.
“Bastard! Even my own people have been bought off!” Wu Shizu seethed. “Li Shanxiang, you’ve got some nerve! Do you think money from Prince Qi can stand against me? Drag him back here—I’ll flay him alive myself!”
He turned to the few stunned eunuchs nearby. “What are you standing there for? Get the troops! If Li Shanxiang escapes, you’ll all lose your heads!”
“Grand Director...” One of the eunuchs suddenly looked up.
Wu Shizu saw him draw a short blade from his robe.
“What are you doing?” A bad feeling crept over him.
Another eunuch also produced a knife. “Grand Director, don’t blame us. They offered far more than you ever did.”
Only then did Wu Shizu realize he had fallen into a trap. In his rage, he had sent all his guards away, and now...
“Aren’t you afraid of losing your heads?”
One eunuch stepped forward to shield Wu Shizu. “Are you rebelling? Do you even know whom you serve?”
His answer came in the form of a dagger thrust into his stomach.
“Grand Director, if you don’t die, our families will. If you die, our families will receive a generous reward...”
The eunuch who had struck slowly pulled his blade free. Wu Shizu realized, to his horror, that the eunuch who had remained silent had also been stabbed to death by someone beside him.
“Help!” he cried, trying to run.
But the red-eyed eunuchs lunged at him, stabbing again and again into his back.
Elsewhere, Li Shanxiang fidgeted nervously. “Are you sure I shouldn’t be there?”
The man seated across from him shot him a cold look. “Stay calm, Eunuch Li. Our master instructed that you cannot be present at this moment. If you are, the Directorate of Ceremonial, the Surveillance Bureau, and the Capital Command will all point fingers at you.”
Li Shanxiang knew this well—if word got out that he had killed his own superior, who would ever respect him? But right now, anxiety gnawed at him. He had only meant to urge Prince Qi, yet Prince Qi had immediately arranged for action!
“Everyone knows we’re at odds. Once he’s dead, any fool will know I’m involved!”
The scout shook his head. “Don’t worry. We’ve arranged everything. Haven’t you forgotten, Eunuch Li? There are people who hate Wu Shizu even more than you do.”
Li Shanxiang looked at the composed scout with suspicion. He could no longer gauge the full extent of Prince Qi’s power.
“Wu Shizu had a spy planted by the Ningxi Faction in his midst. We’ve identified that person. Once Wu Shizu dies, the eunuchs who took our bribes will pin the blame on that spy. The Directorate of Ceremonial, the Surveillance Bureau, and the Capital Command will then turn their wrath against the Ningxi Faction.”
The scout remained calm. “As they tear each other apart, you can have the allies you’ve cultivated push you into power, Eunuch Li. All will go as planned.”
“Right, right,” Li Shanxiang said, nodding twice. He turned and went out to murmur orders to his men, who then left on his command.
Soon, a report came rushing in: Wu Shizu was dead!
The eunuch who had assassinated Wu Shizu was killed on the spot. According to other eunuchs, before his death, the killer claimed he was sent by the Ningxi Faction. The Directorate of Ceremonial moved swiftly—in just half an hour, they discovered letters exchanged with the Ningxi Faction hidden in the assassin’s room.
When the Ningxi Faction heard of Wu Shizu’s assassination, they were overjoyed and began planning to seize the opportunity to crush the eunuch clique. But their celebration was cut short by the shocking news that followed.
“What? We killed Wu Shizu? That’s a joke, isn’t it?”
ive and Ruthless] Before his transmigration, Ye Xuan was playing a game called "Severing Emotions to Attain the Dao." The game's core wasn't about leveling up by fighting monsters, but about conquering various "bad women" with wicked personalities and cold, fickle natures. There was only one method to conquer them: stay unwaveringly by their side, then die at a critical moment, driving them to madness after losing the protagonist. The higher their level of regret, the higher the player's score. To dominate the server, Ye Xuan conquered all the bad women. In the early stages, he showered them with boundless tenderness, only to choose to sacrifice himself for them later, making them weep bitterly and drown in regret. Among them were: Xia Lengyue, the unfaithful immortal wife who chased after powerful men and discarded her husband like trash. Ye Qingcheng, the Demonic Venerable of the Joyous Union Sect, who appeared pure and innocent but was, in reality, promiscuous. Wu Lingxiao, the Empress of the Great Xia Dynasty, who lusted after men and loved maintaining a harem. Bai Qiangu of the Endless Demonic Sect: a bloodthirsty mass murderer. However, when the protagonist transmigrated into the game world, he made a horrifying discovery. Eight hundred years had already passed. The bad women he had conquered had now each become deities and revered ancestors. Faced with the endless stream of toxic women coming for him, Ye Xuan could only rely on his god-tier acting skills to carve a path of survival through this world of treacherous women.
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."
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.
orn and Humiliation】【Forced Love】 In his past life, Lin Ran was betrayed and murdered by his girlfriend and family, while the yandere female aristocrat, who had treated him as a mere plaything, avenged him by doing in his enemies. Upon seeing the yandere female aristocrat lying in the same coffin, ready to die with him, Lin Ran realized how profoundly mistaken he had been. Reborn, he abandoned the fickle campus beauty and wholeheartedly embraced the yandere female aristocrat's arms. "Ran! If I dig out your eyes and turn them into a specimen, you'll only be able to look at me!" Lin Ran: "Darling, kiss me!" "Ran! If I break your legs, you won't run away anymore, right?" Lin Ran: "Love, hold me tight!" "Ran! If..." Lin Ran: "Hush now! Love me more!" Luo Yao: ... Seeing his scumbag dad: "Take him out!" Seeing his stepmother: "Get rid of her!" Seeing his brother: "Eliminate him!" Seeing his white moonlight: "Send that to Southeast Asia!"
